Yar! The Sex Lawyer Opens His Doors
All characters, names, incidents, and locations appearing in this novel are purely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
“Looks like Seo-yoon was two-timing him. She already had another guy she was seeing on the side since last Christmas.”
“No way…”
Suk Ho-pil felt like he’d been smashed over the head with a hammer. Even last Christmas he had pulled an all-nighter at the office, buried under overdue legal briefs. Once you became a senior attorney, you had to pour everything into client development, which left no choice but to throw himself even harder into the work.
“I saw that bitch fucking some guy in her room with my own two eyes.”
Han Seo-rin delivered the line with an adorable face while imitating an old historical-drama servant. It was the exact line spoken by the actor in that famous internet meme about Joseon-era CCTV.
“Fuck.”
Nothing but curses came out. He didn’t want to believe it.
“Boss… maybe that sexual-harassment video was fabricated like a deepfake. If we ask an expert, they might be able to verify it.”
“Of course I don’t have the video, Tae-gi. They kicked me out immediately, saying they’d show leniency.”
“Then let’s go find that Lee Chae-a woman and interrogate her.”
Park Tae-gi burned with rage as if the injustice had happened to him personally.
“Well… in a way it’s all in the past. Once our law firm Suk Pil gets properly established, we’ll clear my name step by step. Even I thought that case felt off.”
Even if he had been drunk, the fact that he remembered absolutely nothing was strange. Suk Ho-pil lifted his empty glass, and the quick-witted Han Seo-rin promptly filled it with beer.
“You really are as cold-blooded as the rumors say. I’m more convinced than ever that joining you was the right choice.”
“Cases are already trickling in—one or two so far. Starting tomorrow we’ll be drafting retainer agreements and meeting clients.”
“Yar?! As expected of the Rice Farmer!!”
Admiration shone behind Park Tae-gi’s thick glasses.
“What kind of cases?”
“It’s a sex-crime specialist office, so of course they’re sex cases.”
“Shouldn’t you say ‘sex-crime’ instead of ‘sex’?”
Han Seo-rin hadn’t been educated in classical Chinese characters, but calling it “sex specialist” apparently sounded too cheap to her.
“It’s called differentiation. These days every Tom, Dick, and Harry is a ‘sex-crime specialist.’ Doesn’t that get old? Saying ‘sex specialist’ sticks in people’s ears. That way the name Sex-phil—no, Suk Ho-pil—will be burned into the public consciousness.”
The reasoning sounded plausible enough that the other two nodded.
After finishing their meal and drinks at the first venue and renewing their resolve for the real work that would begin the next day, the three parted ways.
On his way home, Suk Ho-pil thought of Lee Chae-a.
Last autumn, the law firm Jung & Han threw a Halloween party.
The image of Lee Chae-a appearing in a shockingly revealing costume floated up in his mind. The rumor that she’d been recruited from a hostess bar hadn’t come from nowhere. Normally the firm hired people who had completed a government-funded legal secretary course or graduates of four-year university law departments—the type that still existed even after law schools were introduced.
People whispered that Chae-a was a complete novice who must have had connections to get hired.
He told himself that when he had time he should look into how she had been living since then, but after spending the entire first day of business organizing the office he was exhausted. The moment Suk Ho-pil stepped inside his house he fell straight into bed. And in his dream he saw her—not in a witch costume, but as an actual witch, laughing at him.
“Hee hee hee, you should have stopped living like a lecher long ago.”
“When have I ever lived like a lecher? I’m a man of upright conduct.”
“You mean the man who used to prowl the streets of Itaewon where half-naked men and women gathered like a river, hunting for girls near Sinsa-dong?”
“After I met Han Seo-yoon I restrained myself.”
Suk Ho-pil couldn’t claim he had given up a completely free sex life.
“Hee hee hee. You reap what you sow.”
“Hey! Where are you going?! You fabricated the evidence that I sexually harassed you, didn’t you!!!”
The witch who had become Lee Chae-a vanished before his eyes. Suk Ho-pil thrashed, trying to catch her, and woke up.
“That damn bitch!”
The clock read 4 a.m. It was an awkward hour to fall back asleep, so he decided to head to the office early and started by washing his hair.
Suk Ho-pil put on his suit with a look of firm determination, knotted his tie, and stepped out into the predawn streets.
###
“Whoa!!”
“You’re here already?”
The moment he entered the office by punching in the passcode, someone greeted him. It was still before sunrise.
“Park Tae-gi? Did you sleep here at the office? There shouldn’t have been any overtime work.”
“There was plenty. I had to create all the document templates in Hangul and set up the accounting books so we can calculate corporate and value-added taxes.”
“What did you do?”
“I printed out the retainer agreements in advance and was making the accounting ledger for tax calculations.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just link up with a tax accountant’s office? You’re jumping the gun.”
“Is that how it works?”
“That’s how it works. You just need to keep the receipts organized.”
“Ugh. Got it.”
“By the way, the office cleaning was a bit rough, but you decorated it with real attention to detail.”
When he looked around, the potted plants that had arrived the moment they opened and the paintings clients had given Suk Ho-pil along with his success fees were now hanging neatly on the walls in perfect order.
“For the man who is my lifelong benefactor, the Rice Farmer, I must devote myself with all my heart—bones broken, body crushed, like a loyal horse.”
“Stop talking like you’re writing a résumé and go get some more sleep.”
“Is that really okay?”
“Of course. It’s only six. Your working hours are from nine to six.”
“Come on, a legal secretary is a professional job. Who has fixed working hours?”
“In reality, yes. We’re not working in a factory. Still, assisting a professional attorney isn’t easy. Let’s follow labor laws as much as possible.”
“Which labor laws?”
“Thirty minutes of rest after four hours of work. In practice people pad the eight-hour day with a one-hour lunch, but let’s go out for lunch at eleven thirty and come back at one.”
“Every other office does it that way too.”
“Oh, they do?”
“Yes.”
He had thought he was offering some grand courtesy. Park Tae-gi looked slightly disappointed.
“We’ll have company dinners and bonuses too. I’ll give you more in place of overtime pay. Anyway, thanks for working hard.”
“Yes! Then I’ll go catch a little more sleep in bed.”
Watching him crawl back under the blanket, Suk Ho-pil suddenly wondered where exactly one would change clothes or wash up in this cramped office.
But he had to prepare for the client cases that needed to be handled immediately, so he decided to satisfy his curiosity later. Or rather, he realized there was no need to interfere with whatever arrangements Park Tae-gi had made for himself, and chose not to ask.
Ding-dong— Oh my!
At seven in the morning Han Seo-rin arrived for work. She was dressed like a proper attorney—black suit, white blouse, black dress shoes.
“You look like a real lawyer today, unlike yesterday.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah. Female attorneys usually don’t wear skirts.”
“Right, right. Skirts are clothes women wear to look good for men, after all.”
Is this some kind of radical feminism? This could be trouble.
Slightly suspicious, he asked indirectly.
“Han Seo-yoon was the very image of a woman. Are you the type who supports women’s identity and right to self-determination, Seo-rin?”
“That’s a pretty blunt question. You’re asking me straight to my face.”
“Ack! That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I graduated from a women’s university in Seoul and a women’s law school.”
He decided not to ask any further. Feminists weren’t exactly a social evil.
“Of the two cases we have, one has a female client, so we’ll need a female attorney’s touch. I’m glad you’re here.”
“I will assist the Rice Farmer with utmost sincerity.”
“Good, good. The computer Tae-gi set up is on the desk in the next room, so read the witness statements I sent you through the messenger carefully.”
“Yes! Rice Farmer!”
The nickname “Rice Farmer” is starting to catch on around the office.
It wasn’t unpleasant. On the contrary, it was fortunate that the three of them could interact without formality.
Suk Ho-pil calmly mapped out strategies for the two cases with his early-arriving staff and rookie attorney.
They weren’t difficult cases, but they were the kind an ordinary person would struggle to handle alone in litigation.
“Han, come to my office.”
He called her via messenger, then had her sit in the simple chair across from his desk.
Case file number one: a rape case.
The perpetrator was a university professor. The victim was a female graduate student.
“The defendant claims it was a consensual affair. Even if it was, the marriage appears to have already broken down.”
“Are you going to argue for acquittal?”
“No. We’re going for a settlement.”
“A set…tlement?”
“Exactly. It’s nearly impossible to win a not-guilty verdict in sex crimes. Practically impossible.”
“Isn’t that giving up too quickly?”
“It’s an open-and-shut rape. Here’s why.”
Suk Ho-pil first pointed out that at the winter workshop held at a ski resort, the university professor had ignored the female graduate student’s wishes.
He added that the KakaoTalk message he sent afterward saying “I’m sorry” was ironclad evidence, making a not-guilty plea extremely difficult.
Han Seo-rin pushed back.
“The victim, the female graduate student, never clearly expressed refusal to have sex.”
“Are you a feminist? The requirement for a clear expression of refusal in sex crimes ended thirty years ago.”
“But the two of them were in a relationship.”
“Even between husband and wife, rape can be established. Not to mention a married man having relations with a graduate student who is under his influence. It’s insane.”
“Love knows no age or borders.”
“Look at the photos.”
“Yes. …Huh!”
Han Seo-rin had been expecting a handsome middle-aged man and a naïve female grad student.
“He’s a pot-bellied old man with glasses. The fifty-something professor’s face is shiny with grease.”
“Yeah. This is definitely rape.”
“Still, it’s rude not to look at the woman’s photo too. Here, take a look.”
“Whoa! There’s actually room for argument here?”
Suk Ho-pil let out a small snort of laughter.
“Really? Then set aside case two for now and draft a not-guilty argument for this one first.”
“Yes!”
Suk Ho-pil was one hundred percent satisfied with Han Seo-rin’s fighting spirit. In truth, he had never considered a paid settlement resulting in a suspended sentence from the beginning.
He had only suggested “settlement” to see how she would react.