As Tae-gu turned away from the man who was still standing blankly with that fierce expression, he turned back to add one more thing:
“And don’t let Geun-yeong drink more than one bottle of soju in the future. The kid spilled everything like he was about to empty his insides too.”
Information as explosive as nuclear bombs for the people involved had detonated on one side and been thrown to the other. It was a chaotic and boisterous night. But from the perspective of someone watching the fire from afar, it was a night brighter, more illuminated, and warmer than any ordinary winter night.
Leaving the soul-drained man in the alley, Tae-gu’s steps were light as he returned the way he came. He was able to shake off some of the guilt he felt for finding amusement in the two people’s mutual secret love.
He smiled broadly, a smile that would make even onlookers feel refreshed.
Track 16. End of the Night
Two in the morning. Kyung Jiho, with his somehow savage expression, and Lee Hyeonho, who was more fired up than usual in response, followed two men and two women leaving a club.
It was a boutique hotel near the club.
After confirming that the four had gone up to a room, they approached the hotel lobby manager and presented their IDs. They asked the manager, who stepped back half a step in confusion, to report that screams had been heard from the room. Although their expressions and voices were threatening, what the two did was strictly a request for cooperation with the investigation.
The manager, who clearly couldn’t refuse this “request” even though it was supposedly optional, made the report as asked. After confirming the report had been received, Kyung Jiho and Lee Hyeonho immediately raided the room where the four had entered.
Inside the room, where two men who were already out of their minds before even drinking and two heavily intoxicated women had entered together, a party was about to begin with everything nicely set up. In this critical situation where the women could have been in danger if they had been even a little late, they succeeded in catching the men who had been distributing drugs centered around the club.
Lee Hyeonho took charge of escorting home the women who seemed too disoriented to write statements. He verified their identities and began checking their guardian contact information and residences. Meanwhile, Kyung Jiho shook awake the men who were high and disoriented, wrote up reports, put them in holding cells, and then proceeded with the procedures for transferring them to the prosecutor’s office. Both men were moving according to procedures ingrained in their bodies, but one of their minds was elsewhere.
Kyung Jiho kept checking the time. He started by checking every ten minutes, then as dawn approached, every five minutes, and now he had placed his phone on the desk and was just sitting there staring at it.
Seeing him like this when he arrived at work, the team leader, feeling uncomfortable, urged him not to worry about filling his work hours and to go home if he had urgent business.
But Kyung Jiho, who couldn’t go home right now, ignored the team leader who was practically shouting in his ear and continued to just stare at his phone. Meanwhile, the internal line on Kyung Jiho’s desk rang.
Focused only on his phone, the sudden ringing from elsewhere startled Kyung Jiho, whose leg reflexively jumped up and kicked the desk with a bang, causing Lee Dongjae, who had been dozing at the desk in front, to stand up abruptly and then sit back down. The team leader, who had been watching Kyung Jiho closely all along, was also startled and clutched his chest.
Since Bong Tae-gu wouldn’t call on the internal line, Kyung Jiho picked up the receiver with annoyance all over his face and spat out his name and rank as carelessly as spitting gum into a drain.
“Violent Crimes Unit 1, Team 1, Detective Kyung Jiho speaking.”
[This is the front desk. Some college students are here looking for the detective in charge of the Ji Geun-yeong case?]
The Ji Geun-yeong case?
There is no such case name that doesn’t protect the victim. One of Kyung Jiho’s eyebrows rose sharply. The eyebrows of Lee Dongjae and the team leader, who were watching Kyung Jiho, also rose in tandem.
When told that college students using the term “Ji Geun-yeong case” had arrived, he thought “surely not,” but as expected, it was a familiar face. Jiho was about to approach and raise a hand to the guy called Woo Dong-something, who had heroically managed to deliver a phone to Ji Geun-yeong, but then stopped.
“Oh, Detective!”
Led by Woo Donghwa, who called out to him and bowed politely, what looked like at least thirty guys were all bowing at once.
What on earth… who are all these guys…
Despite being severely intimidated by the detective whose face looked scary even when surprised, Park Sanghun, with his characteristically loud voice, explained their purpose for coming.
“Dr. Song Byeongchan, the psychiatrist who appeared on the 9 o’clock news a few days ago, said that testimonies from people close to the patient are important when diagnosing Munchausen syndrome. So, as Geun-yeong’s closest friends, we’ve written down why we believe Geun-yeong doesn’t have Munchausen syndrome. We’ve also included how Geun-yeong has helped us over the years, and summarized the third-year medical school curriculum to explain how even medical students can be deceived by diabetes specialists, in a way that the general public can understand.”
Along with the talkative explanation that made his ears ring, what was being handed to Kyung Jiho was thick enough to easily exceed a notebook’s worth of content. At the top of the first page it said [Position and Petition Regarding the Ji Geun-yeong Case], with the date written at the bottom, and below that, the school name and student numbers of the guys. It was in the perfect report format. Woo Donghwa, who was watching the expression of the man whose face looked scary even when dumbfounded, said:
“We all signed on the very last page. The reason we all came together is—”
Yes, Kyung Jiho was curious about that too. It wouldn’t be because it was too heavy for just one or two guys to carry.
“We’re going to record the process of delivering this to you and upload it to social media. Just in case it gets buried somewhere. The news keeps reporting only things unfavorable to Geun-yeong. We all know that’s because Ji Seokhun has powerful connections.”
By the time Woo Donghwa was saying this, the guys who had somehow formed a circle around Kyung Jiho were all nodding their heads in agreement.
Kyung Jiho’s face flushed, noticeably so if one looked closely. It wasn’t just because he was standing there with his head sticking out among the guys who were bobbing their heads like solar-powered car dashboard dogs, drawing all sorts of glances from people visiting the government building. It was because he was deeply moved, enough to completely shatter his prejudice that all medical students except Ji Geun-yeong were just a bunch of study-obsessed nerds.
Even the professors at the school had testified against Ji Geun-yeong. In this situation, signing a petition would have required considerable courage. But as if signatures alone weren’t enough, they were putting their faces, their grades, and potential future employment disadvantages on the line to protect their peer, Ji Geun-yeong.
He had wondered how Ji Geun-yeong had endured all those long years. Now it seemed he hadn’t foolishly endured it alone.
Kyung Jiho smiled. He smiled so comfortably that all the guys, who were naturally very tense on their first visit to a police station, relaxed.
Though he was scary when surprised and scary when dumbfounded, he wasn’t scary at all when he smiled. Seeing the detective who looked like a completely different person when smiling, they all laughed together with a “hehe.”
Jiho tapped the thick papers with his index finger and said:
“If this matter is resolved well, it will be entirely thanks to you all.”
Although he knew the situation had already changed since dawn past midnight, Jiho said it anyway.
* * *
The dried pollack in the pollack soup were swimming in the red broth. The news signal song that matched well with the sound of the stew boiling passed, and the anchor who bowed politely delivered the first piece of news.
[According to part of the disclosed results report, after three hours of diagnostic tests, the victim Mr. Ji showed mild depression symptoms common in cases of long-term abuse, but no signs suggesting Munchausen syndrome. With this, the truth battle over whether the victim has a mental illness, which was a major point of contention in the first trial, appears to have effectively ended.]
Bong Tae-gu, who had come out to the living room in the middle of making hangover soup, was watching the morning news with a ladle in hand. They were showing multi-angle footage of a man with a mask and hat, head bowed low, being moved with his handcuffed arms restrained. But the funny thing was that in the top right corner of the screen was a circular photo of a man that anyone interested in health knowledge would recognize, smiling intellectually. It was a common type of footage seen after major cases involving celebrities. However, until now, this common footage had never been shown.
[The prosecution in charge of this case dismissed the need for a mental evaluation of the defendant, Ji Seokhun, who has already made false statements once, saying that Munchausen syndrome is not limited to cases of lying about one’s own illness.]
Baek Moonjong, who despite drinking the night before had no early morning sleep and was sitting up from early morning, was also blankly watching the news without even thinking of fixing his hair that was sticking up to the sky. Thinking that he might have just heard the full name pass by, wondering if he had misheard, because until now, the person had always been referred to as “Dr. Ji,” “suspect Ji,” “defendant Ji,” and so on.
The TV news screen had changed to old footage, and it was introducing a case that actually occurred in Atlanta, USA in 2005. A woman had falsely fabricated feeding disorders in her 6-week-old infant to have a gastric tube inserted, and then for 14 years afterward, she injected lethal amounts of salt water into the child’s stomach. She became a star by posting about the child’s illness and her caregiving on social media, until a hospital ward nurse who found the woman’s behavior suspicious caught the trail of her crime.
Bong Tae-gu and Baek Moonjong were watching the news with mesmerized expressions, as it nonchalantly delivered a completely opposite story from yesterday’s, as if they had just flipped a well-cooked hotteok. Their faces read exactly like, “Is this a dream or reality?”
[The prosecution in charge cited this woman’s case, diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome, and added that they would formally request a psychiatric evaluation of the defendant, Ji Seokhun. Next news. The prosecution, having formally received the public accusation by Representative Han Gukmin, the floor leader of the People’s Democratic Party, announced that they will form a joint police-prosecution investigation headquarters and officially reopen the investigation into who was behind the instigation of Representative Nam Seongju’s murder 18 years ago.]
Though the news moved on to the next hot topic, it was quite some time before Tae-gu closed his gaping mouth. It was as if the Earth had made a full rotation overnight. Ah, the Earth rotates every day. Anyway, it was strange. The media, which had been frustratingly obstinate, had somehow completely flipped its stance.
“What happened overnight?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
