The Glass of Water That Looked Suspicious
“Following your advice, Lawyer Cha, I had double-eyelid surgery. And I had my eyebrows done like this, too.”
It was startling how the man seemed to have acquired a celebrity aura on sheer force of presence alone.
“What do you think? Do I look much different?”
“You look like a famous actor. You were handsome before, too, of course.”
At this rate, he probably got handed a lot of business cards just walking down the street.
“Ah, you’re funny.”
It wasn’t a joke. He really did look like the male lead from the drama the old lady used to watch.
I couldn’t remember the actor’s name, so I couldn’t say it out loud.
That was a little frustrating.
“Can I sit here?”
“Of course.”
Once he sat down at the consultation table, I asked how he’d been.
“After I got out of the detention center, I applied for a name change. These days, you can just submit the petition through the court’s electronic litigation site.”
“That’s right. The courts are much more likely to approve them now, instead of dismissing them just because they don’t like the meaning of the name.”
“I haven’t gotten the approval order yet, but I hope it comes soon.”
“It’ll be out before long.”
A name-change petition was a non-contentious matter, so the court would serve a certified copy of its decision within two months, if it wasn’t swamped.
We talked a bit about the case as well.
And then—
“Lawyer Cha. …I heard my mother made a terrible mistake.”
“You mean when Madam got angry even after being found not guilty of the charge?”
“Haha, no, not that.”
He laughed awkwardly.
“You know… about my younger brother and my mother. I’m really sorry, Lawyer Cha.”
As if it were his fault.
With Lee Seon-dong bowing his head so deeply, I couldn’t exactly say, “Your family was completely insane. They carefully set the whole thing up, so it’s hard to call it a mere mistake. You nearly ended up looking like some idiot who wore only the lawyer’s shame.”
Lee Seon-dong was a victim too, and “mistake” is too gentle a word. A terrible mistake, he says.
I sighed inwardly, then lifted my head—and met his eyes.
Maybe “terrible mistake” was the word he had chosen in an effort to preserve the thread of family he still had left.
Because he was someone who had cherished his family a great deal.
So instead of saying that if his wife had told the truth I would have worked to reduce Lee Hoo’s sentence, I put the emphasis elsewhere.
“That’s what defense counsel is for. You’re the last person who needs to apologize.”
When I told him I was the one grateful that he’d come to see me, he broke into a small smile.
“I knew you’d say that.”
“I do have a spine.”
He laughed harder than before.
“Ah, sorry—I wasn’t trying to laugh.”
“It’s fine.”
It was much better than that gloomy look he’d worn before.
“And the last day in the detention center, I heard you didn’t even need to come. You stopped by just because of me, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t any great trouble.”
I hadn’t been trying to hide it; I just hadn’t wanted to make a show of it to someone stuck in detention.
“Still. You told me that even when the judgment ends, it doesn’t really end, remember? It took me a while, but I finally understood.”
He scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish.
He, as he was, and I, as I was.
Family matters had a way of making your heart collapse without warning.
I could always embellish things however I wanted when it came to my late mother.
But Lee Seon-dong…
“Are you all right?”
“Of course. I got out like this because I met a good lawyer, didn’t I?”
Gratitude welled in his eyes.
Then that’s enough, I suppose.
“Oh, right—this is my success fee, as well as a gift.”
He held out a tasteful shopping bag.
“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I consulted with my mother and prepared this together with her. She said your office didn’t even have one object in it.”
Seeing how certain Lee Seon-dong was that I’d accept it, I forgot all about refusing.
I peeled away the wrapping paper and opened the box.
It was a balance scale modeled after the scales of Diké, the goddess of justice.
“……!”
“It’s one of Writer Page’s pieces, but the central support—this part—is the key point. It looks sharply split, but when you touch it, it isn’t like that at all. And it even has this luminous feel to it.”
It truly was radiating a bright light.
Along with a window that read [Scales of Diké, Goddess of Justice].
Like a whisper in my ear, it murmured, [Every action carries a fitting weight. Come now, weigh the burden of sin.]
Lee Seon-dong planted a hand on his hip and grinned with pride.
“How is it, Lawyer Cha? Do you like it?”
“Very much.”
There was no one who would dislike an artifact obtained by chance.
“Do you happen to like flowers? I wanted to do something to thank you.”
* * *
On the way home after dinner with the old lady, I remembered what had happened earlier.
“…Oh Ye-ji, you little brat!”
She sent a gifticon and then didn’t even check KakaoTalk.
I’d told the old lady, “Mom, Mr. Cat didn’t check KakaoTalk. Maybe I sent a gifticon worth too little,” and played it off as a joke.
So now she’s dissing him with a meme about how, if happiness can’t be bought with money, maybe the money just isn’t enough. Unbelievable.
“She kept singing about what a total cat uncle he was, and now that he’s signing contracts without hesitation and even doing a concert in Indonesia, she’s over the moon.”
All through dinner, the old lady had been laughing uproariously, saying she’d never realized Ye-ji could pull pranks like that.
At last, she was saying Ye-ji finally seemed her age.
I took the complaint that she should check KakaoTalk once in a while, then shot home.
Just wait until I see you next time. I’ll bleed you dry with snack money.
I turned the doorknob and stepped inside.
Even though it was night, the air was muggy and oppressive.
I took off my jacket and switched on the fan.
“Let’s start with the mission reward.”
Pop!
Mission complete.
Would you like to receive the reward? [Y/N]
I pressed YES and, as always, received a photograph.
The image showed white flames blooming in the pupil, instantly bringing to mind the Yeouido Fireworks Festival.
“If I look at the pattern in the photos I’ve gotten so far, it’s pretty obvious.”
Still, I decided to double-check and searched for images of fireworks festivals.
There was one image that looked especially similar to the photo I had.
“Right. It’s the Seoul International Fireworks Festival.”
The participating countries changed every year, but the finale fireworks were always somewhat similar.
Fireworks launched from barges burst into a riot of color, then gave way to gold and cascaded down in glittering sheets.
Even on video, it was a spectacular sight.
“But why is a fireworks festival trapped inside someone’s eye?”
It seemed like the sort of image that wouldn’t come out even with the most expensive camera in the world.
“Did someone composite the photo?”
Thinking it through like a brainstorming session, I searched for “scene reflected in an eye.”
“……?”
There was a photographer who shot weddings as reflected in the human eye.
Leiter, whose technique involved lighting both sides of the eye and using the curvature of its surface to take the photograph.
His work had caused a stir at the world-famous International Loep Awards, where it was judged not to be a composite.
I stared blankly at the mission photo in my hand.
“Did they make this photo the same way?”
I still couldn’t begin to guess why, but the plan was to use psychometry the moment midnight hit.
“I just have to wait an hour.”
My psychometry ability reset, and I could use it twice a day.
It would be later than usual, but leaving the unease hanging was worse, so it was fine.
The instant it turned twelve, I laid the photo on my palm.
“Hup!”
* * *
Shhhk.
It was a familiar space.
This looks like a hotel I’ve been to before.
It was a high-rise hotel penthouse I had hurriedly rented two years ago for a client who wanted a closed-door meeting at Continent Law Firm.
Then this is the perfect chance to check the date.
I looked at the alarm clock beside the bed.
2022-10-08 SAT.
PM 21:56
I had been planning to contact my private investigator and ask them to find out the date, and who had used the Mayment Hotel penthouse.
They were the sort of agency that dug up just about anything, so this shouldn’t be difficult for them either.
I moved toward the study, where an exclamation had just burst out.
Three people were admiring the fireworks going off outside the window.
“It’s spectacular again this year, Chairman.”
“Is that so.”
“I really like the moment when the red light changes into gold.”
The middle-aged man with a ponytail.
The one who gave a greeting with the same signature pose as Jo Ji-han smiled warmly.
The chairman too.
So both of them are people I’ve seen on video.
“Did you hear the revelation too, Chairman?”
“I’m base and unworthy, so it isn’t complete. I only speculate that something must be made for the new era. For example, a mark.”
“You heard it properly after all. You really are humble.”
They traded not-quite-blessings about wanting to repay grace, about how it was all thanks to divine favor.
Even as they spoke, I caught sight of a woman standing nearby with an expression of utter boredom.
Just like the photo I had been given as a reward.
Fireworks were bursting in her eyes.
I’ve seen this woman somewhere too. Where was it?
“Do you already have a pattern in mind?”
The chairman asked the ponytailed man cautiously.
“Well…”
As he spoke, he looked steadily at the woman.
“Shall we bestow holy water upon Miss Han-a and think it over?”
“…What!?”
“Chairman Jang, why are you so startled?”
“Because holy water isn’t infinite. It’s not as if anyone can receive it just because they want it.”
The ponytailed man wrapped his hand around the one that was refusing, as if asking how he could possibly turn down such a precious thing.
“Could I ignore Chairman Jang isolating himself because of Miss Han-a?”
“……!”
“At last, the time has come.”
He patted Chairman Jang’s shoulder, receiving thanks again and again, then took a bottle of water from the minibar.
“Honestly, we don’t even need the holy-water ladle used in the rituals at the church. All we need is clean water and a certain person’s devotion.”
It depended on trusting him, on craving it deeply.
He poured it into an opaque glass.
After muttering something in a strange language—
“It’s modest, but let’s settle for this much today.”
“Thank you so much.”
Chairman Jang received the glass carefully and brought it to his daughter Han-a’s lips.
“Go on, drink. Desire it desperately.”
“…….”
Her throat moved with obvious reluctance.
And then—
When the fireworks bloomed in full, her pupils constricted for an instant.
That reaction is a little strange.
The ecstatic look on her face vanished in an instant, but the expression that remained—that of someone who had let go of everything for one brief second—burned itself into my mind.
“Han-a.”
“Miss Han-a, how is it?”
They waited for the words that would emerge from a woman who had worn boredom like a mask the entire time.
“…Dad!”
She pointed excitedly at the window.
“Did you just see that? The fireworks bloomed white.”
“……!”
“Does that make any sense? Isn’t it normal for that not to be visible?”
Click.
* * *
In the final scene, they said a whale breaching out of a sea of bright yellow crescent moonlight looked like fireworks.
“It’s not a drug, and yet a person who shouldn’t be able to see it reacts like that?”
It was suspicious beyond suspicious.
I had no idea by what mechanism a single glass of water could turn someone into an entirely different person, but the circumstances left me no choice but to doubt the opaque glass.
And yet—
“It’s not like I can psychometrize the glass itself. Damn, that’s frustrating.”
Even if it was a penthouse room, they wouldn’t have been using the exact same glass over and over again.
And finding the one they’d used back in 2022 among all those glasses was a long shot, at best.
It’s not efficient enough to psychometrize every identical glass either.
“First I should find out whether Choi Jae-woo knows of any medicine that can temporarily restore vision.”
Then it wouldn’t be too late to decide whether to visit the hotel.