Chapter 30
Slap! Muyoung’s head jerked sharply to the left. His right cheek, where he had been slapped, swelled up red.
“You…! How dare you come here!”
The one who had slapped Muyoung was Yoon Jun-young’s mother. As soon as Muyoung handed her his business card, her face flushed and she immediately raised her hand. The sharp sound of the slap echoed through the funeral hall, causing everyone present to close their mouths and hold their breath.
“My son died because of you! What did that young boy do so wrong! You’re a prosecutor, so what! What right do you have to kill my powerless son! Why!”
The woman in her 50s, dressed in mourning clothes, hurled abuse at Muyoung. Muyoung’s eyes remained unwavering as he looked at the woman. There was no sense of injustice or anger about being slapped.
“It might not have been suicide, Ma’am. I know it’s hard for you to decide. That’s why we need an autopsy even more. To ensure there’s nothing unfair about Yoon Jun-young’s death—”
“Shut that mouth! If you’re going to spout such nonsense, bring my son back to life! My poor son, bring him back to life!”
He could fully understand the feelings of the woman who was grabbing his collar and wailing in front of everyone. To her, Muyoung was no different from the enemy who had killed her son.
But he couldn’t just turn back like this. Muyoung was convinced that Yoon Jun-young had been murdered. Although he was a scumbag, he should have paid for his crimes through the law, not with his life. But he was already dead.
So if not now, he might really die unjustly. He tried to persuade her again that they needed to do an autopsy before cremation.
“After driving a nail into a parent’s heart, you want to put a knife to my son’s body again?! Isn’t that killing him twice?!”
“Yoon Jun-young-ssi is not the kind of person who would die like this. There are also issues with the suicide note—”
“Shut up and get out! Get out of here right now!”
The woman’s face was completely wet with tears as she shook Muyoung’s collar, staggering. But her eyes glaring at Muyoung were bloodshot, and her anger was boiling, refusing to listen to anything.
“Oh, Ma’am, please let go of him. What wrong has our prosecutor done to be treated like this?”
Unable to stand by any longer, Section Chief Cho stepped forward to try and stop Yoon Jun-young’s mother.
“Why hasn’t he done anything wrong? Didn’t my son say he didn’t do it? That he was innocent! He said that! What kind of words did you use to corner him so much that that weak-hearted child died!”
There was no way such words could reach a mother who had lost her child.
“Bring my son back to life…! My son, bring my son back to life!”
The chief mourner, who had been watching the situation from afar, approached with a dazed look and grabbed his wife.
“That’s enough, dear. Let go.”
The man who separated his wife from Muyoung spoke to Muyoung in a hoarse voice.
“We have no intention of having an autopsy. Please leave.”
“Sir…”
“Please go. Even without you doing this, it’s already turbulent inside. I don’t want my son’s story to become news anymore.”
The husband, wearing a hemp armband with a black line, turned his back to the funeral hall, supporting his collapsing wife, without even a word of farewell.
🍓
Outside the funeral home, it was packed with reporters covering Yoon Jun-young’s death. Muyoung and Cho Kyung-soo moved to the side of the building to avoid the reporters.
Section Chief Cho, who had gotten two canned coffees from the vending machine, handed one to Muyoung.
“Are you okay, Prosecutor?”
“I have to be.”
This much is nothing. They’ve lost their child.
Muyoung’s brow furrowed as he pretended to be fine, running his tongue over the inside of his cheek. The taste of iron in his mouth suggested he might have bitten it when he was slapped.
“Hah…”
Section Chief Cho, observing Muyoung’s face, frowned along with him. The flushed skin and nail marks were particularly noticeable. It was because lately, more and more injuries were appearing on Muyoung’s smooth face.
“You should put this on it. Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Of course, it hurts. Why ask if you’re not going to take the hit for me?”
“Her hand was quite fierce, oh dear… Your handsome face is scratched.”
Muyoung pulled out a cigarette pack from his suit’s inner pocket and put one between his lips. He looked up at the sky once with the filter in his mouth, then lit it with a self-deprecating snicker.
Damn. Getting slapped by the parents because of that junkie rapist bastard, what a great thing to do. It seems like this is the first time things have gotten this twisted since he became a prosecutor.
The new year has started, but my luck is terrible. Is this my unlucky year? He keeps letting out cynical chuckles.
“This is why perseverance is scary.”
“What? Suddenly?”
“When things keep going wrong, you can’t help but get stubborn. If we stop here, it feels like we’re running away, doesn’t it?”
“No one would blame you if you stopped here.”
“Come on. I can’t do that. I’m the official troublemaker of the prosecutor’s office. I have my pride.”
“So what are you going to do? The bereaved family is dead set against an autopsy. We’d be lucky not to get salt thrown at us, let alone persuade them.”
Muyoung flicked his index finger to tap the ash onto the ground and stroked his chin. If an autopsy isn’t possible, we should at least do an on-site investigation.
“Let’s search Yoon Jun-young’s house.”
“His house??”
“I noticed there was another woman in mourning clothes earlier.”
She was a young woman who looked smarter than Yoon Jun-young. Probably his sister. She couldn’t bring herself to approach Muyoung directly, but there was a sense of uneasiness in the way she glanced at him.
“The sister seemed to think differently from the parents…”
“How about we go back in and try to meet with the sister separately?”
Muyoung took a deep drag on his cigarette, hollowing his cheeks. The scarlet ember turned to ash as it burned down. A hazy smoke dispersed through his slightly parted lips. His dark eyes, hidden behind the murky smoke, held a distinct gleam.
“Let’s try to persuade her to let us check tonight, right away.”
So we can find something and push for an autopsy, or at least bring it up again.
🍓
Cho Kyung-soo, the section chief, obtained Yoon Jun-young’s house door passcode from his sister, Yoon Sang-hee. Muyoung, just in case, stopped by the forensics department at the prosecutor’s office to pick up some luminol reagent.
“Do I need to come along?”
“No, it’s fine. You can go home for today.”
“But still…”
“It’s easier to do this kind of thing alone.”
Externally, they hadn’t yet announced the closure of Yoon Jun-young’s case due to a lack of prosecutorial rights. However, internally, it had already been decided that Muyoung would step away from the case.
In this situation, it wouldn’t be a good choice to involve Jo Kyung-soo in his work. Muyoung sent away the section chief who wanted to follow and headed to Cheongdam alone.
On the way to Yoon Jun-young’s residence, he received a call from Lee Do-hyung.
“Speak.”
-“I found the truck driver.”
The voice over the speaker didn’t sound good.
“Seems he had a pre-existing condition. He’s in the hospital with a stroke, currently unconscious.”
“A stroke…”
-“It looks like it’ll be difficult to find out anything more about the incident for now.”
“I see. I’ll start by questioning people around the victim.”
He was about to hang up, but Lee Do-hyung’s lukewarm silence lingered. Muyoung didn’t press the end call button and listened quietly.
-“About Deputy Chief Gu…”
Muyoung hadn’t expected Gu Young-gwang to come up in the conversation. His hand gripped the steering wheel tighter, veins protruding on the back of his hand.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure which side Lee Do-hyung would take. He too seemed to be still contemplating, as his next words didn’t come easily.
-“He doesn’t seem to be directly involved in this case, but he looks like he knows something.”
“…..”
-“I don’t particularly want to dig that deep.”
If they were to accidentally fall out of Deputy Gu’s favor, they might end up walking on eggshells in the entire organization.
Lee Do-hyung wasn’t as thick-skinned as Muyoung, and as someone aiming to be an elite prosecutor, he indeed needed Deputy Gu’s help.
There was no reason to blame him for taking a different path.
“Whatever you choose, I won’t criticize you. However, if you know what use they intend to make of you, I hope you’d play harder to get.”
-“Thanks for the advice.”
Muyoung ended the call with Lee Do-hyung and relaxed his grip on the steering wheel.
The night streets were overflowing with people and cars. As the speed gradually decreased, he rested his foot on the brake and stared blankly at the rear of the car in front.
The lit red taillights somehow felt like a warning signal directed at him.
Stop here, they seemed to say.
And if he stopped?
Park So-ra, Lee Jung-hye, and now Yoon Jun-young. The deaths of at least these three people would become meaningless, truly dying like dogs.
Even so, Muyoung didn’t need to feel guilty about them. But despite that, it shouldn’t end like this, leaving behind only injustice.
And he didn’t become a prosecutor just to cower and look after himself in the face of a ruthless person who treats others’ lives like toys.
“That would be truly unsightly.”
It was already too late to back out anyway.
As he turned on his blinker to slip into an alley to avoid the congested cars, his phone rang again.
This time, it was Jae-in.
It was the first time she had called him first. No, maybe the second time. The first call was to cancel their meeting, so he decided not to count that one.
“Yes, this is Seo Muyoung.”
-“It’s me. Jung Jae-in.”
“I know. No need to be so formal.”
-“Do you have time today? I have something to talk about in person.”
For her to suggest meeting first, Muyoung’s lips, which had been pressed into a straight line, curved into a gentle curve.
🍓
Thank you for reading! ♡
