Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 20

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Friend (4)
Wi Jun-sang’s eyes snapped wide open.
With a prosecutor standing before him, the alcohol seemed to evaporate in an instant.
Moreover, that name—I’ve heard it before.
“…Seo Jin from the Dongnam District Prosecutors’ Office?”
“Yes.”
It was confirmed.
The young man standing before me was the prosecutor who had risen to stardom in Dongnam County by handling unsolved cases.
Wi Jun-sang’s eyes narrowed as he sank into thought.
‘What is this about?’
But I’ve done so many wrong things.
Starting with the sexual harassment remarks I’d spouted at the company dinner just moments ago, to dragging a young female employee to play golf, to soliciting prostitution from a tour guide during an overseas training trip, and so on.
‘Damn it.’
Since few citizens pay attention to local council members, one can live like nobility as long as they don’t cross certain lines.
So I’ve been living life to the fullest, and just thinking about it now brings all of this to mind.
Wi Jun-sang forced a smile and opened his mouth.
“Why are you here, prosecutor?”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“Please, go ahead.”
Wi Jun-sang answered as gently as possible, and Seo Jin opened his mouth with a dry tone.
“You’re aware that Hyungje Construction was selected as the priority negotiation partner for Marine Park District 1, right?”
“Ah, yes. But why are you asking me about that…?”
“Do you know Park Sang-young? I heard he’s a director at Hyungje Construction.”
Wi Jun-sang’s face flinched momentarily.
‘Director Park Sang-young?’
As Park Sang-young’s face flashed through my mind, memories of drinking together, singing karaoke, and even receiving bribes flickered past like a lantern show.
‘That crazy bastard Park Sang-young, what the hell did you get caught for? This is why I shouldn’t have gotten involved with construction site guys.’
Wi Jun-sang let out a sigh.
There’s no time to curse Park Sang-young now.
I need to find a way out of this.
His eyes began to observe Seo Jin urgently.
‘He looks naive.’
Moreover, he appears young and inexperienced.
If I play my cards right, I might be able to get through this somehow.
‘…And he came to the restroom? Alone, no less.’
I pondered for a long time why a prosecutor would come to the restroom alone.
But watching carefully, it became crystal clear.
‘Ambition.’
It’s something commonly found in young people.
He wants recognition, wants to gain more popularity, and so he appeared alone without the other prosecutors knowing.
Trying to handle everything alone.
Wi Jun-sang’s eyes shifted toward Seo Jin’s jacket.
‘There’s definitely a recorder or a voice memo app running inside that jacket.’
A transparent ploy—secretly recording to apply pressure, then using it to unearth evidence.
When I combined all these elements, Seo Jin’s appearance looked like a premeditated investigation with the outcome already decided.
‘Then regarding the bribe Park Sang-young gave me, I only have circumstantial evidence?’
Wi Jun-sang made his judgment.
It felt as though Seo Jin’s actions and thoughts were resting in the palm of my hand.
‘Prosecutor or not, he’s just a kid. Manipulating a child isn’t difficult at all.’
Wi Jun-sang clenched and unclenched his fist.
Whatever Seo Jin had seen, I just needed to get through today.
Then I could destroy the evidence and continue living as an aristocrat of Dongnam County.
Wi Jun-sang opened his mouth with an even more respectful demeanor than before.
“A department head at Hyungje Construction? I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Stop the act. There are circumstances showing bribes were exchanged.”
Wi Jun-sang’s face contorted.
“A b-bribe?”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying I accepted a bribe? Do you have evidence? Do you? This is maddening—I’ve lived a clean life my entire career, and now you’re saying what? A bribe? This is unjust! Unjust, I tell you!”
“Representative Wi Jun-sang?”
“Show me the evidence!”
Wi Jun-sang’s voice grew louder.
Everyone outside the restroom could hear it.
His aggrieved voice continued.
“Is this the Hanmin Party? Or the Minguk Party? Where are you? Who’s spreading these baseless rumors right now? Wait a minute. Are you a political prosecutor? Did you make a deal for a position? Your silence says it all! If you keep this up, I’ll have no choice but to contact my party! What kind of thug picks a fight in a restroom? Follow proper procedures! I am Wi Jun-sang of the Daehan Party!”
Wi Jun-sang brushed past Seo Jin roughly and grabbed the restroom door handle.
A chilling voice escaped his lips.
“Ha! A bribe? What kind of person do you take me for?”
That was the end of it.
Wi Jun-sang yanked the restroom door open with a bang and strode out.
Outside, the Orchestra members stood with worried expressions.
The Cultural Affairs Director among them struggled to open his mouth as he saw Wi Jun-sang.
“R-Representative….”
“Never mind. It’s nothing. Anyway, I’m in a foul mood, so I won’t be staying. Just finish eating and head out.”
Wi Jun-sang walked quickly toward the entrance, found his shoes, and left the establishment.
The Orchestra conductor, the Cultural Affairs Director, and the Arts Director—those in high positions—chased after him.
“Representative!”
The remaining fifty or so members stood frozen in place.
They couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
They could only feel the eerie silence left in the wake of a typhoon.
It was Seo Jin’s voice that broke the silence.
“Excuse me.”
The orchestra members’ eyes turned toward Seo Jin as he emerged from the restroom.
With a youthful face not yet thirty, this young man had made Wi Jun-sang, whom they revered like an emperor, falter.
Though the members said nothing, their eyes gleamed with satisfaction as they watched Seo Jin.
“Would you mind moving aside?”
The members shuffled backward, creating a path for Seo Jin to pass through.
But with roughly fifty people crowded in the entrance, he couldn’t help but brush against them slightly.
And he could hear the whispered voices of the people around him.
“Isn’t that the prosecutor? Rotten smile.”
“Rotten smile? What does that mean?”
Though it was a quiet voice, people always hear when they’re being talked about.
Seo Jin paused, then turned his gaze toward the source of the voice.
As their eyes met, two men wore awkward expressions.
“I’m really curious, so I have to ask. That strange term you used to refer to me—surely it’s not something like ‘rotten smile,’ is it?”
When I was Prosecutor Seo Jun-kyung, people often said I had a rough appearance and a masculine style, but Seo Jin is different.
Though not exceptionally handsome, I possessed fairly refined features.
So I was rather satisfied with my appearance….
“How could my smile possibly be rotten….”
That was when it happened.
The world in Seo Jin’s vision began to drain of color.
To black and white….
“Come on, oppa, try it. Don’t you like it? Oppa, oppa, and then it becomes appa. Puhahahaha!”
It was a karaoke room.
The table was filled with beer and soju, and Wi Jun-sang was laughing repulsively as he looked at the woman across from him.
She was the woman who had received Wi Jun-sang’s contact information at the company dinner and heard his nonsense: “If I don’t get a good morning message tomorrow, oppa will be upset. Puhahahaha!”
Wi Jun-sang touched her cheek lightly and continued speaking.
“I told everyone to leave, you know. I wanted it to be just us two. But even singing is exhausting. Should we rest now? Do you trust oppa?”
“Y-yes, Representative….”
“If you don’t like that, just go. Then I’ll cut off all the orchestra members! Ehehey! Just kidding, just kidding. Relax your face. If someone sees this, they’ll think I’m being coercive.”
The world regained its color, and Seo Jin’s gaze shifted to the side.
The woman whose shoulder he had just brushed against.
The woman he had seen through psychometry stood before him with a troubled expression and opened her mouth.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Seo Jin looked at her and narrowed his eyes.
Recalling what he had just witnessed, it wasn’t just a couple of instances of harassment.
She had been continuously exposed to sexual harassment.
‘Should I grab her and ask right now? Or…?’
After a moment’s hesitation, Seo Jin pretended not to notice and brushed past her, heading outside.
There were too many people around right now.
Sexual harassment requires a delicate approach.
As Seo Jin left, the male orchestra members wiped their chests and snickered.
“His ears are sharp. When we said ‘rotten,’ he really seemed to whisper it.”
“How many years in prison if you get caught cursing out a prosecutor? Hehehehe.”
“That’s not a curse—that’s a compliment.”
“Come on, let’s have another round while the higher-ups aren’t here. One more.”
*
*
*
“Yes, Investigator. They’ll probably try to dispose of the important evidence tonight. That’s right. When you clean things up, dust gets stirred and things get dropped.”
Seo Jin was on the phone with Investigator Lim Jung-taek.
Investigator Lim Jung-taek was currently tailing Assemblyman Wi Jun-sang.
“Yes, contact me immediately if anything unusual happens. Be careful, and ah, I promise to guarantee you a life with evenings off starting tomorrow.”
Seo Jin deliberately provoked and pressured Assemblyman Wi Jun-sang.
It was a small bribery case that occurred in the countryside.
Park Sang-young had gotten information from Prosecutor Ji Dong-min and begun covering his tracks.
Like what Chief Prosecutor Kim Gwan-yong had said—construction site dust that disappears with a splash of water.
So Seo Jin and Lee So-hee’s investigators were each tailing Assemblyman Wi Jun-sang and Park Sang-young, trying to stir up the dust once more.
Seo Jin pocketed his phone and turned his body.
The Grilled Pork Belly Restaurant where he had just encountered Assemblyman Wi Jun-sang came into view.
Seo Jin stood in the parking lot, waiting for their dinner gathering to end.
Soon after, people began trickling out one by one.
The woman Seo Jin had been waiting for also emerged from the restaurant.
She exchanged bows with the others, then turned her body to catch a bus.
Seo Jin followed her.
And when she was alone, he spoke.
“Just a moment.”
“Yes?”
The woman who turned her head was genuinely startled to see Seo Jin.
“You’re… a prosecutor?”
“Yes, I’m Prosecutor Kim Seo-jin from the Dongnam District Prosecutors’ Office. I’d like to ask you some difficult questions about Assemblyman Wi Jun-sang. Does he… engage in sexual harassment?”
“Yes?”
“If you’re uncomfortable with me, you can speak to the female prosecutor coming over there instead.”
She looked toward where Seo Jin was pointing.
Lee So-hee was walking toward them in the distance.
Seo Jin spoke quietly.
“I promise to protect the anonymity of whistleblowers—or rather, public interest informants.”
There were many cases where people became internal whistleblowers for the organization’s development, only to face cold stares and have to leave.
That was why he had waited for her to be alone.
“I promise you.”
At the gentleness in Seo Jin’s voice, the woman burst into tears.
Then Lee So-hee stepped forward beside the two of them.
“I’m Lee So-hee.”
Ordinarily, Lee So-hee’s expressions, gestures, and voice carried such an aloof quality that one might mistake it for rudeness.
But this moment was different.
Lee So-hee took the woman’s hand and opened her mouth with genuine kindness.
“It’s alright. I’ll help you.”
*
*
*
“Why were you standing outside instead of coming in?”
At the Coffee Shop, Seo Jin sat down in the seat where the woman had been moments before.
As I gazed at the coffee that had grown cold, untouched, and smiled bitterly, Lee So-hee spoke again.
“Isn’t it cold out there? Come inside.”
“There might be things she didn’t want to say in front of me.”
“Ah, that bastard Wi Jun-sang has been serially harassing young female members of the Orchestra. But that ends now. When I told her I’d help, she said she’d testify without hiding and gather the other members to file a complaint.”
“Really?”
I was thinking it was fortunate when Lee So-hee, sipping her coffee, glared at the exit where the woman had left.
“I can’t forgive those power-abusing sexual offenders—men who think they can do whatever they want to women just because they have a little authority.”
A chill ran through Lee So-hee’s voice.
But something felt off.
Ordinarily, Lee So-hee has an even temperament and doesn’t experience great emotional fluctuations.
Even when Shin Jong-seung moved to Seoul and acted so recklessly, she responded with dry indifference.
Yet now she was angry.
Genuinely so.
I wanted to ask the reason, but I held back.
Besides, asking Lee So-hee probably wouldn’t yield an answer anyway.
Seo Jin stopped thinking and opened his mouth.
“Let’s go then.”
“Where?”
“This place closes at eleven. How much longer were you planning to stay here?”
Right now, each investigator was pursuing Wi Jun-sang and Park Sang-young.
And once they found something, Seo Jin and Lee So-hee would need to move immediately.
“We don’t know when the call will come, do we? We should change locations.”
Lee So-hee nodded.
She clenched her small fist, burning with resolve.
“Right, we need to catch that bastard Wi Jun-sang quickly. I really hate guys like that.”
“Take it easy. It’ll take time. Those guys have their wits about them—they won’t move now. They’ll start slinking around after two in the morning.”
That’s what I thought, but….
Bzzzzzzt.
Seo Jin’s phone vibrated.
It was Lim Jung-taek.
-Sir, we’ve found something substantial. Ha ha ha!

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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