The Lawyer Who Reads Tomorrow - Chapter 117

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 117

“Hmm.”

When was it that 404 stopped contacting me?

I’d been so busy with Roh Tae-sung’s foundation establishment consultation that my recent memories had practically evaporated.

“…When was it again.”

Conversations with 404 always started from 404’s side.

Except for the chat window link that Hwan had first passed along, it had always been that way.

Perhaps due to being a hacker, 404 was extremely cautious about identity exposure.

Even the links sent at the start of each conversation were discarded once that day’s conversation ended.

“Is the homepage management being done properly?”

Well, that was mostly Manager Yoon Ha-young’s job anyway.

What 404 did was maintenance, and generally contacting 404, the administrator, was also Manager Yoon Ha-young’s responsibility.

‘I should ask about it later.’

It’s been a while since I had a day off.

Just like me, 404 probably needs days off too.

Besides.

‘They did say they were busy before.’

Since they’re someone who can’t resist when it comes to coins.

They might be doing some other work somewhere.

I turned off the computer and got up from my seat.

[You should at least give warm greetings to people around you…]

[…rather than regretting it later.]

There was a name that came to mind only at the very end of writing such sentences.

“Ho-shin Senior.”

Kim Ho-shin, who had been away saying he had urgent business.

Even when I reported about the work Roh Tae-sung had entrusted to me, he had only given brief responses.

[Let’s proceed as planned.]

After that, there was no response again.

He said he’d drop by the office frequently, but it seems something came up again.

“Can’t be helped.”

It was always like this around this time.

I don’t know how he manages to act sane at 【Law Firm Ilchul】.

Ever since Seon-ju Senior passed away, Kim Ho-shin had been like a ghost barely clinging to life.

[Let’s not be negligent.]

I picked up an umbrella from beside the entrance.

It was raining again, of all times.

* * *

I knew this would happen.

“Park Ji-hwan! Park Ji-hwan! Open the door-!”

It was raining.

It was raining heavily, unseasonably so.

His body was so soaked from the falling rain that even having an umbrella would have been meaningless.

It was the kind of weather where the asphalt would freeze and become slippery if the temperature dropped just a little.

Ho-shin Senior was there.

“Open the door, you bastard! How long are you going to keep running away-!”

How long had he been shouting at the top of his lungs?

Kim Ho-shin’s voice was completely hoarse.

He wasn’t even wearing an umbrella in the falling rain, so his hair was completely soaked.

No, actually Kim Ho-shin looked worse than a drowned rat, soaked from head to toe.

[Cheondong and Haeil who killed Lee Seon-ju, apologize!]

Old square protest signs that Kim Ho-shin had made himself were hanging in front of and behind his body.

[Park Ji-hwan must reveal the truth behind Lee Seon-ju’s death!]

The place I had come to was in front of Park Ji-hwan’s residence.

For Kim Ho-shin, who wouldn’t answer his phone, this was the only place he would unfailingly visit even on a rainy weekend.

“Apologize…!”

His voice cracked as if he were coughing up blood.

His voice spread through the heavily falling rain.

The rain was coming down so hard that Kim Ho-shin was enduring alone in the empty alley.

Beep-.

Park Ji-hwan’s house.

A cold voice echoed from the intercom attached next to the large iron gate.

-Stop it. Kim Ho-shin. This is already the third warning. There won’t be a next time.

It wasn’t a conversation, but a warning.

Even so, Kim Ho-shin brought his soaked and frozen body closer to the intercom.

His stiff hands desperately gripped the edges of the intercom.

“Park Ji-hwan! Come out right now, you bastard! How long are you going to keep running away!”

-I told you. If you come one more time, I’ll file a formal lawsuit.

“Do it! Sue me! You bastard! How long do you think you can bury it? The truth! Someday, definitely!”

While Kim Ho-shin was shouting, the intercom was cut off.

He shouted again and again and pounded on the iron gate, but no more responses came.

“Senior.”

“…!”

Finally, I carefully approached him.

Water dripped steadily from his thoroughly soaked overcoat.

It was now just a piece of cloth with no part left to get wet.

I came out in front of the iron gate and caught Kim Ho-shin’s body as he swayed as if about to collapse.

“Sung… Tae-hyun… law…”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The umbrella I was holding cast its shadow over his body.

He let out a long sigh and nodded his head.

“I guess that’s enough for today.”

He muttered while looking at the rain pouring down even harder.

Pure white breath escaped from his mouth.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“…Well. When was it…”

Something about truck protests and whatnot, he must have been shouting Park Ji-hwan’s name at the top of his lungs since morning.

When I looked at him with an unconsciously reproachful gaze, Kim Ho-shin smiled sheepishly with his face soaked in rainwater.

“Oh my, it’s cold. So cold. Sung Tae-hyun, why did you come all the way here?”

“Ho-shin Senior.”

“What! Listen here. People, you know? Sometimes you have to show this kind of human side to become more endearing.”

…I have no idea what he’s talking about.

Moreover, contrary to his grumbling mutters, I could sense a vague guilt in his expression about me coming all the way here.

“…Still, you know.”

“…Know what?”

“About our Seon-ju. You were the one who first mentioned Wook-han’s name.”

…That’s right.

That was true.

Living such a busy life, I had forgotten about it too.

I first met him at the Haeil Law Firm branch office in Sung Tae-hyun’s form.

Unlike what I remembered from when I was Kim Wook-han, he was in very shabby condition.

Even so, his eyes were still brilliantly alive.

“Yes. That’s right.”

I knew it wasn’t a question that expected an answer.

Even so, when I gave a brief reply, Ho-shin Senior chuckled despite his terrible appearance.

“It was the same back then. Even though I was meeting you for the first time.”

“….”

“Well, I don’t know what to say. It just felt like we’d known each other for a very long time.”

…Had it been like that.

Kim Ho-shin had been wary of me at first.

I didn’t realize that at the time since he was asking all those ridiculous interview-like questions.

Well, setting aside his legal circle career, Senior was an amazing person from the start, capable enough to embrace both me and Choi Yoon-ki.

So much so that the word “respect” once came from Choi Yoon-ki’s mouth.

“Still, I guess I’m blessed with good relationships.”

“….”

“After our Seon-ju left like that, I thought I’d never be able to live like a human being again.”

“….”

“But somehow I’m still living, aren’t I.”

Kim Ho-shin’s face was somehow flushed.

In this kind of weather, getting completely soaked in the rain and shouting that much. It was natural for him to have a fever.

I sighed and dragged him to my car.

“Let’s get in and talk.”

“Ah, no need. I can just take the subway from here, it’s quick.”

“Senior.”

“Your car seat will get wet. Just go ahead. I’m fine.”

Look at this. This is the kind of person he is.

Even though his face was already flushed with fever, he was worrying about someone else’s car seat.

Words that sounded angry came out without me realizing it.

Even though I wasn’t angry at all.

“Senior, do you really want to die or something?”

Kim Ho-shin’s eyes widened at my words.

Once the words came out, they couldn’t be taken back.

“Just look at yourself right now, Senior!”

Maybe that’s what the passage in Sung Tae-hyun’s Diary was about.

Around Sung Tae-hyun, there’s no one who remembers me as Kim Wook-han.

Who I really am.

What kind of person I really was.

Whether I was actually alive.

Whether I was someone who never existed from the beginning.

Meeting someone who knew and remembered Kim Wook-han, and having those people be by Sung Tae-hyun’s side—all of it was close to miraculous.

Even so, I had been neglectful of Kim Ho-shin, who didn’t betray me and remembered me.

Perhaps Sung Tae-hyun wanted to criticize me for that.

“Dying… well…”

A young junior.

Even though I, who was merely an employee of his law office, had arrogantly questioned him, Kim Ho-shin didn’t get angry.

His anger never once turned toward others.

Even after he became completely broken following Seon-ju Senior’s death, his anger was directed solely at Haeil and Cheondong.

Only toward those two pillars.

“That might be so.”

“Senior!”

Suddenly, the faces of Manager Yoon Ha-young and Noh Hae-min came to mind.

Ah, was this how they felt back then?

“Still, even if my life ends right now, I’ll grab onto those bastards’ lifelines and leave together with them.”

He was also resolute.

I grabbed Kim Ho-shin, who didn’t look like he would move a single step.

And pushed him into the car with the door open.

“If you want to grab onto those lifelines and leave together, don’t do things that’ll make you catch a cold and collapse beforehand.”

Bang.

The door slammed shut.

* * *

However, there wasn’t a suitable place to take Ho-shin Senior, who was soaked through with rainwater.

His home address only existed in the personnel files at the office.

And Kim Ho-shin, who had already started running a fever, was rambling nonsense.

“No hospital!”

What nonsense.

But if he went to the hospital all soaked like that, he’d freeze to death while waiting.

The place I had no choice but to bring him to was near the office. Sung Tae-hyun’s cramped studio apartment.

“Oh, pretty neat.”

I pushed Kim Ho-shin, who was shivering pathetically yet still making observations, into the bathroom.

Where did I put the cold medicine?

After returning to Sung Tae-hyun’s body, I hadn’t been particularly sick, so I hadn’t stocked up on first aid medicine.

Can’t be helped.

I quickly finished thinking and closed the drawer.

I’d just have to head to the hospital as soon as Kim Ho-shin finished washing up.

“Wow, young people these days use good shampoo.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This is a brand, isn’t it? A brand?”

What brand? Giving meaning to some random shampoo I picked up at the mart.

When I tossed some clothes to Ho-shin Senior, who came out vigorously toweling his hair, he chuckled and said,

“Well, it’s not easy spending weekends with your boss.”

“If you knew that, you should have considered this kind of weather before protesting.”

“There, there you go again.”

Kim Ho-shin chuckled as he changed into the new clothes.

Looking at him, it wasn’t the worst situation.

Well, Senior had always been sturdy since our Goshi Village days.

Neither Senior nor I knew he’d be going around protesting with that sturdy stamina at this age though.

“I always feel this way when year-end comes.”

The story began even though I hadn’t asked.

His face, which had been red with fever, had somehow regained its calm, original color.

Was he really okay?

I handed him one fever reducer that was left in the cupboard along with some water.

“Our Lawyer Sung really has such a kind heart.”

“Kind…? Senior, do you remember what year it is?”

“I know, I remember.”

Still, Senior swallowed the medicine without complaint and slumped down beside the bed with a thud.

“You said you were close with Wook-han.”

“Yes.”

It was a lie I’d used so many times that the answer now came out like an automatic reflex.

Kim Ho-shin let out a long sigh and spoke.

“That’s how I am. You probably already know… but I’m someone who lives just to resolve our Seon-ju’s one injustice.”

Without a drop of alcohol in him, a confession naturally flowed out.

I swallowed a sigh as I watched Kim Ho-shin speaking words that sounded like a confession.

“I’m still bitter, still resentful. Since you were close with Wook-han, you of all people must understand my feelings.”

There was strength in his voice.

It was a voice that carried the will to never give up until the end, even while harboring emotions filled with despair.

So if I could, I wanted to ask.

Since I’m still breathing even after my body has disappeared and burned, could I go to the end like Senior?

What could I finally obtain at that end, after crushing Cheondong underfoot?

“Don’t give up.”

Even though I hadn’t asked anything, an answer came.

“Let’s not give up. That’s what I’ve always thought.”

Ah, so this is.

Not my story, but Senior’s story.

“Because that’s the purpose of my existence. Until the very last moment. Even if someone tramples on me and the whole world turns their back on me and curses me, let’s not give up.”

Don’t give up… yes.

I voiced the question I had been keeping to myself all this time.

“Then what happens when that purpose is achieved?”

It was a question I wanted to ask myself as well.

“After you’ve achieved all your goals. What will you do then.”

When everything is over, if I’m still in Sung Tae-hyun’s body.

Even after revenge is complete, the flesh that has already turned to ash and disappeared won’t return.

Then, what should I do with my wandering soul.

“…Achieving my goals, well… After that-”

Senior slowly opened his mouth.

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