“Order another flounder sashimi, will you?”
“Did a beggar move into your stomach? Hey there. One small plate of flounder sashimi.”
“No, medium. And two more bottles of soju!”
“You’re really bleeding a poor civil servant dry.”
“Hey now. You can’t be so stingy to someone who did a civil servant’s job for them. You and Taeryoung have a complicated relationship. I deliberately told you first before it blew up.”
“As if you could handle the aftermath.”
The newspaper Daeyoung worked for was far too small to take on Taeryoung. One wrong move and it would disintegrate and then some. He’d want to drop a little bait but pass off the actual investigation to someone else. Of course, it would be even better if there was a personal connection that would allow him to occasionally feed off those tidbits.
“Let’s make it a win-win.”
“Hand over all the materials you have. You actually saved the video too, didn’t you?”
“You catch on quick.”
Daeyoung manipulated his phone and passed everything to Jaeha—screenshots, videos, and all the various materials those internet addicts had scraped together.
“I gave it to you, so from now on you tell me case information.”
“Investigation secrets are forbidden to disclose.”
“Don’t try to weasel out of it.”
Daeyoung didn’t believe him one bit. Then he looked at the fresh flounder sashimi the staff had just brought over with sparkling eyes.
After eating and drinking heartily, he loaded the drunk Daeyoung into a taxi and brought him home. It was fortunate he’d lost weight after getting married, otherwise Jaeha would have given up entirely on the idea of supporting him all the way to his apartment.
“My friend. I really loooove you.”
“Stop talking nonsense and stand up straight.”
“Huh. Look at this handsome prosecutor. This is my friend.”
In a good mood for some reason, Daeyoung clung to Jaeha with a silly grin. When he’d forcibly moved the guy to the apartment entrance, suddenly a strong light flew in from behind.
“What the?”
Vroom.
Reflexively turning around, a black sedan cut through the darkness and exited the ground-level parking lot at a speed far too fast for an apartment complex.
After spending a rowdy weekend, as soon as he got to work, he personally began verifying the information Daeyoung had given him. The basics of investigation would be to start with the car center, golf course, or PC bang, but Jaeha didn’t do that. It could potentially leak to Taeryoung’s side. Rather, finding the first poster based on IP was the priority.
When he passed the IP to the investigation department, they soon told him the address. It was on the city outskirts. Instead of leaving immediately, Jaeha handled his daily work while waiting for quitting time.
Quitting time had long passed, and he’d roughly finished the work he needed to do today, so he was about to get up. No matter how he looked at it, the address he’d received was a farmhouse address, so he didn’t want to go too late.
“Prosecutor, are you busy this evening?”
An employee asked while just turning off his computer.
“Ah… Yes. I have somewhere I need to go. Why do you ask?”
“Ah, an assemblyman I know asked if you could attend a gathering today.”
“Who?”
When he asked, it was that assemblyman who’d asked him to play golf before.
“Today’s difficult. I went hard with a friend over the weekend, so alcohol is… Let’s do it next time.”
When he smiled slightly and declined, the employee said, “Is that so? Understood,” and nodded. Then the employee sitting next to him asked, “Did he call again?”
“After having drinks once before, he wants to meet again.”
“He must be persistent. Is someone pushing him from the side?”
“It doesn’t seem to be the assemblyman himself.”
The employees whispered among themselves. Jaeha, who’d gathered his briefcase, put on his jacket he’d taken off and asked.
“There’s no problem, is there?”
“No. What’s the big deal about a drinking gathering? He probably just wants to show off his friendship with the newly appointed prosecutor.”
Both employees said this kind of thing happened often and not to worry about it. Jaeha said he’d see them tomorrow and left the office.
He got in his car and headed straight to the address. He thought about calling, but if he did that, they might coordinate their story in advance or play dumb, so even if it was rude, he judged it better to show his face right away.
As expected, the address was a farmhouse on the edge of a national highway cutting through farmland. He entered a typical rural village entrance that wasn’t too remote but not bustling either.
Even when an unfamiliar vehicle entered, the residents weren’t particularly interested. There was a large industrial city nearby, and small factories were scattered here and there near the farmhouses, so outsiders were common.
He found the address and parked his car in front of the house. When he got out of the car, a middle-aged man smoking a cigarette in the yard stared intently at Jaeha.
“Hello. I’m Prosecutor Seo Jaeha from the branch office.”
He greeted him while presenting his ID. Then the man quickly threw down and extinguished his cigarette that was still long, and extended his hand. He opened his eyes wide in surprise and stared at Jaeha’s ID.
“Oh my, what brings a prosecutor all the way here?”
No matter how he looked at it, he didn’t seem like someone who could freely use anonymous message boards.
“Do you have any children? A post went up on the internet from this house’s computer, and I came to look into that.”
At those words, the man’s face turned deathly pale. Then he immediately ran into the room and dragged out a boy who appeared to be a middle schooler.
“Did you download illegal porn again?! Or did you sell rocks on Used Market or Junk Heaven or whatever again? Huh?”
“What did I do?! Why all of a sudden?!”
The student, who appeared to have been dragged out while sleeping, belatedly saw Jaeha and blinked his eyes while lowering his voice.
“Student, I’m Prosecutor Seo Jaeha from the branch office. I have some things to ask, is that okay?”
At the word prosecutor, the male student’s face turned deathly pale. The man barked at his son who was making a tearful face, “Just apologize and say you did wrong no matter what!”
“No, it’s not like that, I really came to ask something. Guardian, please calm down.”
As he said that, Jaeha took out his phone and held it out to the student.
“You wrote this, right?”
The male student’s eyes widened as he bit his lip.
“I confirmed it before coming, so don’t lie. It’s just a reference investigation, so if you just tell the truth, I won’t arrest you.”
He smiled and spoke calmly. He’d meant it to be reassuring, but as if it sounded more like a threat instead, the student slowly nodded with a completely frozen face.
“I was going to exercise a little at night.”
The male student sitting across from him in the living room with the door open carefully began to speak.
“He suddenly starts having a fit about doing fitness. Eat your food properly first.”
The man chimed in from the side. His son had a very thin build. The male student rubbed his thin arms visible under his short sleeves while glancing at his dad.
“So you went out and ran at night?”
“Yes. Just. If I run during the day it’s hot and my skin gets tanned, and also people watch.”
Still, to run around on dark farm roads with barely any light. It was a very embarrassed-teenager idea.
“How did you film the video?”
“Well…”
He said he was running along the road at night when suddenly a friend sent him a message. So he stopped to reply, and in the middle of that, he heard a loud noise from far away.
“I thought it was street racers.”
Being a generation that films everything as videos first, he turned on his camera, and that car suddenly swayed and came to an abrupt stop with a thud.
“So I thought it was a jackpot and got as close as possible and zoomed in.”
There was a pedestrian on the dark road, but the car didn’t see them and hit the person. The person who got out of the car looked at the person who’d been hit, paced around, then loaded them into the car and disappeared.
“You filmed all that? But the video was only the first part?”
“I was scared so I cut out only the front part and uploaded it. The full video is on my phone.”
“Can you send it to me?”
“Just a moment.”
The student brought his phone from his room and sent it to Jaeha. Since it was filmed on a dark night it wasn’t perfect, but if he left it to an expert, it would be enough to roughly determine the car number and the vehicle owner’s personal details.
“When was this?”
He found and confirmed the date he’d been exchanging messages with his friend. It was a few months ago.
“I’m not in trouble, right?”
“You’ll remain an anonymous informant. No problem. It’s not your fault. But from now on, don’t run alone at night. There’s no CCTV and it’s a scary world these days.”
Jaeha reassured the student and then stood up. The man, knowing his son hadn’t committed a major wrongdoing, seemed relieved and tightly hugged his son’s shoulders with his arm.
“Sorry to intrude at night. Thank you for cooperating with the investigation. If any problems arise in the future, please contact me. If there’s anything I can help with, I’ll help.”
As he said that, Jaeha gave one of his business cards to the student. It soon passed to the man. Having received a prosecutor usage pass as a reward for the tip, only then did the faces of the two father and son relax.
“Rest well.”
“Yes, yes. Take care on your way.”
“Goodbye.”
After parting with good farewells, Jaeha got in his car. While slowly backing out, he immediately called Section Chief Joo.
—Prosecutor!
“Section Chief, are you well?”
—Of course. Are you alright too, Prosecutor?
“Yes, yes. But I have a favor to ask.”
—Just say the word.
“Please analyze the video I’m sending now. Focus on the vehicle number, driver’s appearance and clothing, and victim’s appearance and clothing. The equipment here isn’t that good. It’s also somewhat urgent.”
He’d contacted Section Chief Joo because he had no intention of informing the branch office in the first place. Fortunately, Section Chief Joo seemed to have no particular doubts.
—I’ll get it analyzed right away tomorrow and contact you when the results come out.
“Thank you. I’m indebted to you again like this.”
—Not at all. What debt is there?
“Thank you.”
After hanging up, Jaeha genuinely picked up speed. It was when he’d exited the village and was heading home on National Highway 26.
Vrooom.
Suddenly several cars appeared. A silver van that looked quite old was wearing a green license plate. It was a cannon car. That car suddenly overtook Jaeha and then came to an abrupt stop.
“Shi…!”
Jaeha, who’d barely stopped his car just before crashing, let out a double curse. He was furious all the way through, but instead of getting out of the car, he locked the doors. Getting out recklessly in a place like this was suicidal.
When he turned the headlights to high beam, he could see the faces of the guys getting out of the van. Every single one of them was tacky thugs.
The bastards who swaggered over surrounded Jaeha’s car. One of them knocked on the driver’s side window. He rolled down the window about 3 centimeters.
“What?”
“Prosecutor Seo Jaeha? You said you were busy today, so where have you been going around?”
“Who are you to know my name? And whether I went somewhere or not, what’s it to you?”
“That… Is it so difficult to just meet once and see each other’s faces? A city councilman wants to see you but you’ve already blown him off how many times.”
At those words, Jaeha remembered the city councilman who’d been insisting on meeting. Harbors, docks, and industrial complexes inevitably gathered rough guys. The councilman seemed to be related to these kinds of people in some way.
