Chapter Text
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CHAPTER ONE :: OVERHEATED
I can’t die like this.
There was a strange numbness in his body as he inhaled, a tightness in his chest mixed with a horrific burning sensation that he could not compare to any typical heat. It was the pressure, the crack, the searing pain all happening at once that had sparked the beginning of the end when only moments ago, he’d felt an otherworldly sense of serenity. A suspension, the gap between two trapezes as he floated without the weight of gravity, recalling what it felt like to be alive in a rush of nanoseconds. But now every breath was excruciating.
I can’t die like this. Not now. Not yet. Not this way.
The only thing he had was adrenaline and a stubborn will to show up in a courtroom, but were either of those things enough motivation to survive? He had never trained for this or studied for this across innumerous sleepless nights a decade ago, yet now it was his own blood smeared all over the smooth cement of the parking garage and his own blood all over his hands as he rolled his head to the right, clutching his left side but barely able to maintain enough pressure. Blood was seeping through his fingers, staining his dress shirt and suit jacket, and tunnel vision was setting in. But just off to his right, only an arm’s length from his position slouched against the rear tire of his own car, he could see his phone.
I can’t die like this.
He slowly fell over sideways, landing on his right elbow. The pain that exploded throughout his entire body was agonizing. The burning, the heat, the adrenaline, the way that his next breath was unbearable. Was the knife still beneath his skin? No, it couldn’t be. There were two bodies to his left and one of them, a living and breathing man only two minutes ago, had wielded the knife.
Not now.
Not yet.
Not this way.
He dragged himself with pathetic whimpers and unfiltered noises that didn’t sound human, blood still trickling from his side. It took every ounce of willpower in him to reach out for his phone, but the phone slipped from his grasp several times because of the blood, smearing across the screen and the speaker. He couldn’t pick it up. Couldn’t bring it to his face to unlock it.
I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying.
“H… H-Hey…” He swallowed laboriously. “Hey Siri,” he practically whispered, but by some miraculous force of goodness, his phone responded. “Call… Seokjin.”
“Calling Kim Seokjin,” Siri agreed, divine intervention for a dying man. It rang and rang, not on speaker but loud enough to hear in the silent echo of a parking garage when only a few floors above, Kim Seokjin was in his office.
Seokjin answered. “I thought you went home.”
“H-Help… Help me.”
“Jimin? Jimin. Hey, where are you? Jimin. Help you? Jimin—”
“Help… m… me…”
“Jimin? Jimin!”
⚖️
8 months ago…
The barista looked mystified.
“Sorry, but the name on the cup is Jimin,” she said, her eyes flicking to the name written in Sharpie on the to-go cup.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m Jimin. But I ordered an Americano. This is a latte.” Park Jimin popped the black lid off the to-go coffee cup carefully to show the caramel-colored liquid inside, complete with a misshapen white heart design on top. “Was there another Jimin?”
“Ah.” The barista offered a breathy laugh, cheeks tinged pink as she took the cup from Jimin with both hands and punctuated the realization of her error with an apologetic bow. As she stepped back, she checked the receipts that were lying on the countertop speckled with water and coffee and heaven-only-knew what else. “That’s… yes. There was. I’m sorry about that. I’ll make your Americano.”
“Thank you very much. I appreciate it,” Jimin replied with a practiced smile, slipping one hand into the pocket of his suit pants and backing up, his black Prada messenger bag bumping the outside of his thigh. He could wait for another Americano. He needed to wait for another Americano or he wouldn't make it through his Monday morning. He had to be in court at ten o’clock sharp, though it was just a quick procedural hearing to determine if a case went to trial or not. Nothing special. He only needed the caffeine because the paperwork he had received on Friday at half past nine in the evening from a client of his was going to be painful to slog through later in the afternoon.
There was an instant coffee machine at the office that only needed a pod and a dexterous button-pressing finger to produce the nectar upon which most of the overwhelmed Korean workforce survived, but coffee always tasted better from somewhere else. We have coffee at home! Well, it didn’t taste as good as the coffee that wasn’t at home. That was the feeling Jimin got on the wretched mornings when he trudged into a café for the elixir of life.
“Jimin-ssi? Sorry again. This is an Americano,” the barista said, leaning over the counter to give Jimin his coffee.
“No problem. Thank you,” Jimin said as he accepted the coffee. A case of mistaken identity was an easy fix. There were do-overs with coffee and very few laws that applied. One needed only to refer to social media where people produced the most outrageous and sugary at-home coffee concoctions known to mankind—the Wild West of coffee, a lawless hellscape.
Jimin left the café and used his free hand to fix the button on his black overcoat, because early February in Seoul was unforgiving with very few exceptions in the forecast. He found the crossing and waited for the signal, sipping the coffee and shivering from the contrast of hot and cold. Already tired, he crossed the street when the lights embedded into the sidewalk flashed green instead of red and headed for a massive twelve-story office building in the heart of Seocho-gu in Seoul, pushing through the revolving door as a blast of heat wafted over him.
“It’s almost eight o’clock.”
“And my bed was warm this morning.” Jimin didn’t even glance over his shoulder as he pressed the button for the elevator. Another gloved hand reached past him just to press the button a dozen more times. Jimin raised one eyebrow. “Good. That’ll make the elevator come faster.”
“Exactly why I did it.” Kim Taehyung flicked his own dark eyebrows up with a hint of a smile on his handsome face, wrapped in his own black overcoat with a plaid scarf draped around his neck, black hair styled off of his forehead and seemingly immune to the winter winds. “You’re fashionably late today.”
“Doesn’t that make you late almost every day?” Jimin asked as the elevator arrived.
“No, it just makes you an overachieving asshole,” Taehyung flippantly replied, holding his arm out to keep the doors from closing as Jimin stepped into the elevator first. He performed a rather dramatic pirouette and reached for the button, but Jimin beat him to it and pressed ‘7.’ Up they went.
“I have to go to court today. Be nice to me,” Jimin requested, sipping his Americano.
“I just got a birthday card from my parents on Saturday with twenty thousand won taped to the inside, so you be nice to me,” Taehyung replied, but his tone was casual. His thirty-fourth birthday had been well over a month ago. “I have to spend today trying to talk that asshole over at Shin, Song, and Kwon out of a hwesik that I know will go horribly fucking wrong.”
“Why the hell would he want a hwesik when you’re literally trying to nail his client’s balls to the nearest wall for embezzlement and bribery?” Jimin asked with a snicker, shaking his head. “Does he really think that forcing you to drink is going to give him a leg up?”
“Honestly, I’d rather he have his legs open so I can fuck him up the ass with the law,” Taehyung answered, and Jimin snorted with laughter as the elevator doors opened. “Not a single comment on my negligent parents either, huh? You call yourself a friend?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Jimin said jovially, patting Taehyung’s shoulder as they both entered the lobby of Kim & Kim, where two receptionists were fielding phone calls and answering emails and the Monday morning bustle had already begun. He heard Taehyung’s amused laughter as they parted ways for their respective offices. Jimin’s friendship with Taehyung was going on its fifteenth year. They had the freedom to say whatever they wanted to each other at this point.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Jimin leaned against the surface of the round legal secretary's desk right outside of his office, where Huh Yunjin was seated with her eyes glued to the computer screen, black-framed glasses on, wearing a white top with a navy pantsuit. She grabbed her iced coffee, rattled the ice, and glanced up at Jimin.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked.
“Mail?” Jimin asked, raising one eyebrow.
“For you? No one loves you nearly enough to send you mail,” Yunjin answered, but she handed Jimin a sealed brown envelope anyway. “That was it. I'm sure the lunchtime mail delivery will be more exciting.”
“If this is a subpoena, I'll be pissed,” Jimin said, accepting the envelope and holding it up for Yunjin to see.
“I did an energy reading on it. Feels subpoena-ish, but it could just be signed paperwork,” she teased. “Anything else?”
“Move Yang Jongdeok to Friday morning,” Jimin requested, tapping the envelope against the desk. “Ask me why.”
“Why?”
“Because I want him directly after his hearing,” Jimin replied, holding up one hand as he pretended to squeeze something invisible.
“Are you grabbing his imaginary balls or his throat?” Yunjin wondered. “I mean, it doesn’t matter to me as long as you bury him. I was pissed that I was going to have to see his face tomorrow morning first thing. I'll just tell him it's an unavoidable scheduling conflict.”
“He won’t believe it.”
“I'm your legal secretary for a reason, Park byeonhosa-nim,” Yunjin reminded him sagely. “Yang Jongdeok could call me an insufferable cunt to my face and I'd still tell him to have a nice day. He either takes Friday or he's fucked.”
“Knew I liked you,” Jimin said as he patted the desktop and turned to his office. Park Jimin, Senior Partner, the glass door inscription said. He had worked himself to the bone for that title. Twenty-seven-years-old and far less green than a lot of fresh law school graduates, Jimin had strolled out of Seoul National University as an elitist with top marks and a thirst to prove himself. That thirst had been quenched by Kim Seokjin, a cutthroat nepotistic senior partner (now name partner) who had taken Jimin as his associate. He had lobbed Jimin over to Kim Namjoon a year later, and Jimin had scaled the hierarchy ruthlessly without caring who suffered along the way or whose back he left footprints on as he climbed. Now, seven years later, he was a senior partner with a stake in Kim & Kim to match his winning streak as one of the most fabled litigation attorneys in Seoul.
Jimin loved an underdog. He loved the little guy. He loved going to bat for the nobodies whenever the arrogant somebodies spat out their accusations, and he was methodical and smart about his caseload; he never took the case of a client who wasn’t likable enough to defend or a client he knew would destroy his image or reputation. Defending clients who had fallen victim to the trappings of the Korean entertainment industry was his specialty, though he also dealt with classic criminal cases like murder, rape, bribery, embezzlement, and the likes. He was a prosecutor’s worst nightmare, and he was proud of it. Creating reasonable doubt and watching the prosecution's case shatter before his eyes was an ego boost comparable to nothing else, just as hearing “not guilty” in court was like a high. Right now, Jimin was neck-deep in proving that his client hadn’t pulled off a grandiose con.
She totally had. Admitted it when she hired Jimin and paid the retainer fee in cash. But that was neither here nor there.
“What's your capacity for another major client?”
“Good morning to you, too,” Jimin said the moment he sat down at his desk. Kim Namjoon walked through his office door in a freshly pressed slate grey suit, texting on his phone distractedly as he plopped down on Jimin's leather couch.
“Mhm, great day for it,” Namjoon said, but the dimples indenting his cheeks told Jimin that Namjoon knew he was being annoying. “So?”
“So get fucked,” Jimin answered, and that forced Namjoon to look up. Jimin purposely smiled, teeth and all, and Namjoon snickered.
“What, you don't want to represent JangJang Foods?” he asked with a touch of sarcasm.
“JangJang Foods has been shoveling money into your bank account for two years,” Jimin said, and Namjoon rolled his eyes, kicking his feet up onto Jimin’s coffee table. He used one expensive dress shoe to nudge some magazines aside, his pointer finger on his phone screen to scroll like he was sixty-five-years-old, not thirty-five.
“And I grandfathered them in,” Namjoon replied. “They did something slightly criminal and gave me all their fucking money to go into a courtroom and say that their employee cutting off his finger with that damn machine was his own fault.”
“Okay, well, I still don't want them unless they're back to committing felonies. It’s no fun otherwise,” Jimin said, watching his computer fire up against its will. It seemed tired. Jimin could relate.
“Fucking hell,” Namjoon cursed. “Can't pawn these motherfuckers off to anyone. My days of showing up in court are supposed to be fucking over.”
“It’s called building rapport,” Jimin replied as if Namjoon didn’t know the way the legal world worked. “Just keep them. What harm is it doing you?”
“The harm is that Taehyung could have taken them, but instead, he got two juicy new clients in the last week worth a combined billion won, and one of them was handed to him on a goddamn silver platter by—yup. You guessed it,” Namjoon griped. He should have sounded angrier than he was. This was business, after all. But whenever it was about Kim Seokjin, Namjoon struggled to be mad. Namjoon and Seokjin lived together and had two cats named Olivia and Elliot and they’d been dating for four years. Up to the present moment, neither of them had ever once confirmed their relationship as anything more than roommates.
“So just drop them or send them elsewhere,” Jimin suggested, opening his email. “If they’re just giving you one hundred million won twice a year to keep them out of prison, then who gives a shit?”
“Christ, exactly. I could do way fucking better than one hundred million won,” Namjoon complained, which was true. He was worth quadruple that. Jimin had seen it when he was an associate. Kim Namjoon had the uncanny ability to talk circles around other lawyers and find loopholes that were in the fine print of the fine print. He was no-leniency-no-nonsense and didn’t like manipulating the law to bend in his favor. He just so happened to always have the law in his favor.
Jimin was the Libra, but Namjoon kind of masked as one.
“Are you going to court today?” Namjoon asked, changing the subject as he pitched forward and adjusted the magazines that he had shifted.
“Yeah. You?”
“Nope. I have two meetings I don’t give a damn about and an interview for a potential new associate,” Namjoon replied, and Jimin frowned.
“Oh, you get to sit in on an interview for a new associate.”
“Of course I do.” Namjoon walked over and gently patted Jimin’s desktop with his fingertips in a sympathetic fashion. “Maybe take it up the ass from the boss every once in a while and you, too, can sit in on the interviews for new associates and have your name on the wall.”
“Tell your boyfriend to open a brothel and I will,” Jimin responded as Namjoon headed for the door. “Dinner on Wednesday night still?”
“Sure. My treat,” Namjoon said with a fond smile over his shoulder in Jimin’s direction before he exited the office. He and Jimin had been thick as thieves as a partner and associate duo years ago, and the friendship remained to this day. There was no one Jimin trusted more blindly than Kim Namjoon.
Yunjin fielded phone calls for Jimin as Jimin scrolled through his emails and opened up the envelope Yunjin gave him. Signed paperwork, simple and low stress. The last thing Jimin needed was another subpoena. He’d made it three months without being served one—a new record. His highest score, according to Yunjin, was four subpoenas in one month when he was in the middle of defending an illustrious veteran idol who had been accused of a breach of trust and contract fraud. He hadn’t done a damn thing wrong other than badmouthing his company. Jimin had proven that.
It wasn’t far to Seoul High Court from Kim & Kim. Seokjin had purposely shifted them from one building in Gangnam-gu to another just across from Gyodae Station a few years ago just so they could be closer to the courthouses. Taehyung’s request. We need to move locations. I’m always late to court, he had complained. And why is that? Seokjin had asked. That’s between me and God, Taehyung had answered. But Seokjin had moved them to their current building anyway.
So Jimin dragged himself to court, and he tried not to strangle or roundhouse kick the prosecutor in front of the one judge who was overseeing the procedural hearing.
“We’re requesting a seven-day extension, because the opposing counsel has decided to admit new evidence at the eleventh hour that I haven’t been able to properly take a look at,” the prosecutor, Ryu Seungwoo, griped, taking a stab at Jimin. The stab was more like being tickled, though, because Jimin laughed.
“There are two days that come before Monday, in case you didn’t know,” he replied. “One is called Saturday, and the other is Sunday.”
“Yes, and I have a wife and two kids,” Seungwoo fired back, but Jimin saw the regret in his eyes immediately, because a personal matter such as having a family wasn’t a good enough reason to ask for an extension to review evidence. This dickhead is just unprepared. Jimin glanced over at the judge.
“The evidence is phone records,” Jimin divulged. “I can’t imagine he would need seven days to look over those and make a decision on behalf of his client. This case needs to move forward so we can get it the hell over with.”
“Control yourself, byeonhoin,” the judge requested exasperatedly, because he and Jimin were not strangers to one another. He usually sided with Jimin on most matters because Jimin had a few brain cells to rub together and always came prepared. “Geomsa-nim, unless you have a more compelling reason that merits an extension, the hearing will go ahead for Thursday at eight o’clock in the morning as scheduled. Enough stalling—”
“There’s new evidence,” Seungwoo interjected instantly. “Did byeonhoin just pull these phone records out of thin air? Where were these a month ago when we started this? I need to review them to confirm their authenticity.”
“It’ll take you an hour,” Jimin said, still standing with his fingertips bridged on the table in front of him. He made eye contact with the judge. “Jaepanjang-nim, can we please…?”
“I’ve seen the new evidence admitted,” the judge said. “It doesn’t call for a seven-day extension. If this is the sole reason for the hearing, then you’ve wasted our time. The hearing will go ahead at eight AM on Thursday.”
“Jaepanjang-nim, respectfully, that’s—”
“My decision is final.” The judge rose to his feet, leather chair creaking. “Dismissed.”
Jimin yawned. Picked at his fingernails. Swiped his messenger bag off the table and threw the strap over his head to secure it across his chest. As the judge headed to his chambers, Seungwoo cursed under his breath, snatching up his belongings in frustration, another loss under his belt. Small and insignificant in the grand scheme, but still enough to sting, especially because Jimin was a decade younger than him. That irked Seungwoo, but it didn’t matter to Jimin. He’d destroy anyone without discrimination.
“You fucking know that that evidence can’t be reviewed properly before Thursday,” Seungwoo cursed, blocking Jimin from leaving the courtroom. Jimin set one hand on the swinging half-door between the gallery and where counsel sat.
“Oh, I know that. But I don’t really care,” Jimin said, patting the breast pocket of Seungwoo’s suit. “See you Thursday, big guy.”
Seungwoo huffed and said something under his breath that sounded insulting, but Jimin had been a lawyer long enough to not give a fuck. He’d been called a bastard by more prosecutors than he could name. It didn’t really matter at this point.
On his way out of the courthouse, Jimin stopped and grabbed some gimbap to eat while he worked through the afternoon and made up for lost time, since the hearing had wasted about an hour of it. He made a point of grabbing an iced coffee because he knew Yunjin would need another, and she was easily the best legal secretary in South Korea. Jimin used to share Yunjin with Namjoon, but Namjoon had Sakura all to himself now, so Jimin had lucked out.
“Aw, you do love me,” Yunjin said when Jimin just plopped the iced coffee onto her desk and snapped his fingers a few times. She was over by the printer, but she popped her foot behind her playfully in a display of thanks, and Jimin returned to his office while unbuttoning his suit jacket. He shrugged the jacket off altogether and draped it over his chair, sighing and loosening his tie slightly as he sat down.
With his heels planted into the ground, he idly wiggled his chair and stared at his computer screen. Thirty-four new emails. The day that people stopped needing Jimin for stupid shit couldn’t come soon enough. He wasn’t jaded or bitter about his career path or life choices or what he did on a daily basis. Jimin knew he was one of the best in his field, and he didn’t feign ignorance. He just didn’t have the time or patience anymore for tedious or redundant tasks that others could easily do, nor did he have the time or patience for questions that could be answered by someone other than him.
The gimbap disappeared quickly. Jimin would probably have to look for an excuse to have a second lunch, because he would be hungry by two o’clock. Maybe he could drag Taehyung out with him, but it would have to wait while he drowned in paperwork. It was mildly annoying that paper was still so prominent in the legal world, but Jimin couldn’t deny that it was much easier to highlight key points on actual paper and not on a digital copy.
Yunjin knocked on the doorframe about an hour later. “Afternoon mail call,” she announced.
“Thanks,” Jimin said absentmindedly, still twirling the highlighter between his fingers with his eyes fixed on the paperwork in hopes that a loophole would magically appear.
Yunjin peered over Jimin’s desk while setting down the mail. “You almost missed it.” She flicked her finger towards the paper. With precision and speed, Jimin uncapped the highlighter, but then he clicked his tongue. Stared at Yunjin. Reached forward and drew a messy line of yellow highlighter on the top of her hand before she could escape.
“Satan would turn you away at the gates of Hell,” Jimin said, snapping the cap back on as Yunjin laughed, pivoting with a flick of her hair and returning to her desk in clear line of sight from Jimin’s desk. She sipped her iced coffee with a smug look on her face because she had caught Jimin slipping. When she caught Jimin’s eye again, Yunjin leaned back in her chair and held up the small whiteboard, adding a tally mark beneath her name as she kept track of the number of times they had tricked one another this year. She had sixteen points now. Jimin had nine, and it was only February. Yunjin was never going to let him live.
The loophole probably wouldn’t appear. Jimin would just have to see if he could swindle another affidavit out of the assholes who wanted his client locked up. All he needed was to stir up enough reasonable doubt so that his client could avoid charges. Had this woman conned her physically, emotionally, and verbally abusive husband out of millions of won? Absolutely. And Jimin’s only job was to make sure she walked free.
The highlighter went back into its holder. Jimin picked up the small pile of mail from the afternoon delivery, heaving a sigh. Three envelopes. One of them was from Seoul National University, which held very little interest to Jimin. The other was from one of his clients, and it was some signed paperwork he had requested—it was early. Pays to have parents who will do just about anything for their child, Jimin thought as he set the paperwork aside. Despite being suited more for criminal law, being a senior partner meant being neck deep in litigation, so Jimin had taken on a wrongful death case to support the family of a twenty-one-year-old chronically ill woman against some assholes from Samsung who had overworked her. Was she chronically ill before taking the job? No. Was her family poor and had they sold almost all of their worldly possessions to afford Jimin for this case? Yes. So Jimin was going to make sure he won for them.
The third envelope was pretty plain, but then Jimin saw a familiar stamp on the corner for the return address—Gangnam-gu Maximum Security Prison. Odd. He’d worked with incarcerated clients before, including at GMSP. Receiving letters from prison was not an uncommon thing for him. It was just that in this case, Jimin had no idea who would be sending him a letter from prison, since none of his clients were behind bars right now. So he slid his finger beneath the envelope flap and ripped it open.
Inside, there was a single handwritten letter on plain paper with a GMSP logo in one corner. It was written in dull pencil, which was typical for a prisoner. They didn’t get nice pens or fancy stationery for letters at GMSP. Pencil lead wasn’t the greatest for correspondence when Jimin was trying to get information from prisoners, but it would have to do, as it always did.
Jimin leaned back and read:
To Park Jimin byeonhosa-nim,
I hope this letter reaches you. I had to beg the guards daily for about six weeks to give me the address for Kim & Kim, but they finally provided it. There are plenty of newspapers and magazines in the prison library, and six months ago, I saw a lot of news articles about a successful exoneration you took part in for a convicted rapist after a rare retrial. You proved his complete and total innocence beyond a reasonable doubt and helped to put the right man behind bars. I was impressed by your work.
With that said, I would like to meet you in person to discuss my case. I’ve put your name on my list of approved visitors. You’re the only one on there, and my schedule is clear for the next 15 years of my sentence, and the next 20 years after they likely uphold my sentence. Or however long I decide to live.
Sincerely,
Jeon Jeongguk
Prisoner #1310
Gangnam-gu Maximum Security Prison
Jimin had been surprised by prisoner letters before. He’d chuckled upon reading the signatures of many bravado-fueled letters he had received asking for his assistance. But this time, he dropped the letter onto his desk like it was contaminated and slowly pushed his chair back, staring unblinkingly down at the words written on paper.
Jeon Jeongguk.
Jeon Jeongguk.
An absolute entertainment juggernaut. The idol of K-Pop idols. The most prolific solo artist in South Korea who sold out a national stadium only three years into his career. Handsome, multi-talented, sweet as sugar, ambitious and confident but with a gentle nature, contagious sense of humor, fanboy of his own fans.
Convicted murderer.
Just over five years ago, South Korea had been rocked to its core by easily the most infamous and notorious crime the country had ever seen among celebrities, maybe even among private citizens. Jeon Jeongguk, an idol from 9T9 Entertainment at the peak of his career at the tender age of twenty-seven, had a comeback and was going to be going on a year-long world tour, probably his last go-round before he enlisted in the military as planned. He had been doing the music show rounds before hitting the road and had performed perfectly on Music Bank and won first place that fateful night.
And the next morning, the headlines had screamed out that he had been arrested for a gruesome, vicious, unthinkable triple homicide.
Three eighteen-year-old boys. Promising idol trainees from Jupiter Entertainment, one of the largest and most successful entertainment companies in the country. All three boys had attended Music Bank to “study,” as idol trainees often did. They had looked up to Jeongguk and had revered him as a role model, only to end up murdered—stabbed to death and worse, the scene too horrific to describe with words, and the authorities had found Jeon Jeongguk kneeling over one of them with the murder weapon in his hand, dazed and confused, covered in blood and scratches and other injuries to show that his victims had fought back.
It hadn’t taken long for a motive to surface, because netizens were eagle-eyed and out for blood. The boys had waited outside of the Music Bank venue with the media to greet Jeongguk, which was uncharacteristic but not unheard of. They had screamed in excitement at him as fans normally did. The video of Jeongguk hearing the screaming and mouthing, “What the fuck?” in English still haunted Jimin to this day because it had been circulated so many times, and Jeongguk’s facial expressions had been analyzed to a point of exhaustion.
The prosecution had had a slam dunk case. The mountain of evidence against Jeongguk had been overwhelming, so much so that Jimin was sure Jeongguk’s own defense team had just rolled over and given up. The country had screamed for the death penalty, for the South Korean legal system to bring it back in full swing, for Jeongguk to be the first person killed since the moratorium in 1998. Kill him! Hang him! He deserves it! KILL HIM! But by the skin of his teeth, Jeongguk had narrowly avoided the death penalty. He was now incarcerated for life at Gangnam-gu Maximum Security Prison, and when he was offered parole in the next few decades, it was unlikely he’d receive it. Death by incarceration, they called it.
Except now Jeongguk was sending letters to Jimin.
He had been locked up, the key practically thrown away, five years ago. Not a peep had been heard from him since then, and public sentiment was that his silence was for the better. Most people were waiting for him to die in his solitary jail cell. Every year, the nation mourned with Jupiter Entertainment and the families of the deceased over the loss of three bright and beautiful lights in the world. They didn’t deserve it. They were just fans, just promising trainees. They were so young. They had hopes and dreams!
But Jeon Jeongguk, convicted of triple homicide and left to rot in prison, wanted to meet Jimin in person.
Jimin reached out and snatched up the letter, folding it with haste and sliding it back into the envelope. He opened one of his desk drawers and dropped the envelope on top of other paperwork, closed the drawer halfway, but yanked it open again. Concealing the evidence was of the utmost importance. He shuffled a few papers and covered the prison stamp on the front of the envelope and slid the drawer shut, promptly turning in his chair so he could kick his feet up on the window ledge behind his desk and stare out onto the city.
He didn’t dare.
He couldn’t dare. Entertaining Jeon Jeongguk would be career suicide and surely the death of Jimin’s life as he knew it. There was already enough contention in legal circles when it came to how Jimin operated in the face of entertainment companies; most CEOs and CFOs and employees at such companies despised him because he refused to go soft and refused to conform to the deeply rooted corruption and the “protect your own” mindset that ran rampant. With Jeongguk, the majority upheld their adamant conviction that he was a monster and that fans never really knew their idols. Jimin was certain it had to be ninety-nine and a half percent of the entire population who believed that. Anyone who knew about Jeongguk’s case declared that he was guilty.
“Park byeonhosa-nim?”
Jimin dropped his feet and spun around. Yunjin was standing in the doorway.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Kim Taehyung byeonhosa-nim walked by your office and wanted to come in and chat, but he said you were brooding.”
“Brooding,” Jimin said under his breath. “No, I’m fine. I was just taking a break.”
“Okay. I was just checking,” Yunjin replied, taking a step back. “I thought maybe the afternoon mail call caused the apparent brooding. There was a letter from Gangnam-gu Max in there.”
Jimin let out a soft laugh as a cover-up, pulling his chair back in towards his desk. “You know how it goes. It’s always just a prisoner unwilling to serve his time, so he sends me a letter to get him off the hook just so he can go out and reoffend.”
“Well, would you like me to toss anything in the trash?” Yunjin offered. “Or if you’re in more of a paper shredding mood, ours is industrial strength, don’t forget.”
Jimin raised his eyebrows, scraping his front teeth along his bottom lip. “It’s already been disposed of,” he lied. “Thanks, though.”
Yunjin returned to her desk. Jimin pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek and cracked open his desk drawer like the letter he had received was possessed by demons. He half-expected it to grow a hand and reach out to grab his throat. But it remained inanimate beneath a few other forgotten letters and documents, naming Jimin as the only person on a list of authorized visitors.
“Fuck,” Jimin muttered to himself, returning to his paperwork as he picked up his highlighter again, tapping it rapidly on his desktop by wiggling it between his pointer and middle fingers, his mind bogged down even heavier than before, the words on the page swimming in the most unhelpful manner possible.
Six weeks of begging for Kim & Kim’s mailing address. Six weeks.
A guilty man attempting to pull a fast one on the justice system of South Korea five years after a sound conviction and sentencing would never spend six weeks pleading for a mailing address. But perhaps a guilty man with nothing but time on his hands would. And Jimin had no way of knowing which label best suited Jeon Jeongguk.
⚖️
The contents of the pan were still steaming when Jimin set it onto a hot plate on his living room coffee table. Budae jjigae. The quickest and easiest meal to make at half past nine in the evening, since he hadn’t walked through the door until close to nine o’clock and had beelined for the shower to wash off the stench of misplaced guilt sticking to his skin. His routine rarely varied—home by eight or nine o’clock, wash up, dinner, scrolling in bed until he passed out. Then it was wake up when his alarm went off at six o’clock, gym session or outdoor run, wash up, suit and tie, and off to the office to fuck up corporate bigwigs’ lives.
Predictable.
Tonight, Jimin sat cross-legged on the floor with his back to the couch while clicking a pair of chopsticks together, his free hand itching to grab the remote so he could navigate straight to YouTube. He lived alone, after all, so no one needed to know what he watched while eating.
Jimin grabbed the remote, held down the button, and brought the remote to his mouth. “Jeon Jeongguk… court case and trial,” he said, watching his spoken words appear in the search box. The results were plentiful. All of South Korea’s top news agencies and media companies had covered it, but Jimin scrolled past and homed in on an hour-long video titled, “K-Pop Idol to Murderer: Jeon Jeongguk’s Case From Start to Sentencing.”
Seemed legit.
It was from a Korean creator who usually ate Korean snacks or banchan while talking and had millions of subscribers, so surely she could be trusted. Jimin clicked on the video and used his chopsticks to break apart the square of cheese he had smacked onto the top of his budae jjigae so he could reach the ramyeon, steam billowing up towards his face.
Jimin slurped up some ramyeon as the introduction played, but the longer the video went, the less he ate. His chopsticks hovered over the pan as an uncomfortable twisting sensation in his stomach overrode his hunger, because the pictures and videos in this creator’s video were gutwrenching.
“After only twenty-four hours of what was supposedly intense interrogation, Jeongguk was escorted out of the Seoul Gangnam Police Station in handcuffs. Unfortunately, at that point in time, the media had caught wind of what had happened and word had spread fast. Jeongguk’s name was provided almost immediately to the media and the public, so when he was escorted out of the station to head to his warrant hearing only one day after his initial arrest, the media frenzy was one of the largest South Korea had ever seen.”
“Motherfucker,” Jimin muttered, chopsticks in his hand as he pressed his fist against his mouth. The video was awful. It was at nighttime. The camera flashes looked like strobe lights, relentless and blinding. Most suspects received the courtesy of a jacket over their handcuffs wrists, but not Jeongguk. The handcuffs were in plain sight, his head was down, and the officers escorting him weren’t being gentle, nor did they seem to be making a valiant effort to protect the suspect. Almost six years ago, when Jeongguk had been arrested, Jimin had seen some of the scenes, but he hadn’t given it much attention back then. Watching it now, the only thing he felt was a sick, sinking feeling of dread with no proper origin.
“The media demanded that Jeongguk make some kind of statement, heckling him and asking for a motive. Jeongguk chose not to speak despite being put on a photo line in front of dozens of reporters, and he was subsequently escorted away. The detention warrant was secured within one day, and he was transferred to a detention center.”
Jimin missed his mouth when he attempted to take another bite as the creator began to speak about the trial. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency had swooped in at light speed to take the case from the police station. The lead prosecutor and his associates had put together their case in record timing. Defense attorneys from Yulchon, of all places, had been assigned to handle Jeongguk’s side of things. And the trial had begun.
“What?” Jimin whispered to himself, brow furrowing when the YouTube creator explained that Jeongguk’s trial had only taken four months in total from start to finish with hearings every two weeks on Monday mornings. Given that the three judges had everything they needed before them without the need for extensive witness testimony like in other countries, Jimin could vaguely see the possibility of the trial taking four months. But that was only eight hearings before a verdict and sentencing. Jeongguk had murdered three eighteen-year-old idol trainees from Jupiter Entertainment, of all places. The evidence could have wallpapered every home in South Korea five times over, surely. So how in heaven’s name had they gotten through all of the evidence and witness testimonies that quickly? Had Jeongguk’s attorneys just rolled over and died in the middle of the trial process?
But it was open and shut. Clear as day. The three judges had written their justification and their statement of the guilty verdict and the life imprisonment decision across hundreds of pages that this YouTuber had access to, though she didn’t show much of it. Jimin walked into his kitchen backwards, bumping into his barstools as he grabbed a tumbler and popped open a bottle of whiskey, fixated on his television.
“According to the media, at the start of the trial in the first hearing, Jeongguk had appeared in the courtroom looking anxious and rather sickly in appearance, a stark contrast to how he usually looked as an idol,” the creator said, and she showed a rare photo of the courtroom, of Jeongguk seated with his defense attorneys. “The photo on screen is from the very first hearing and is one of the only known photos of the entire trial, as South Korea has strict laws prohibiting filming in the courtroom and most photography in the courtroom. However, those lucky enough to be in the gallery during the hearings detailed Jeongguk’s appearance to the general public. One journalist noted that with each hearing, Jeongguk appeared more and more despondent, often unresponsive and expressionless. The same journalist noted that when the judges found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison, he had absolutely no reaction and seemed to have completely dissociated from the trial and from what he had done to three innocent teenage boys.”
The footage of Jeongguk being escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs nearly made Jimin stumble over his own feet as he made his way back to his couch with his whiskey. Transfixed, he sat down on the couch and watched as Jeon Jeongguk, former superstar K-Pop idol, was led out of the courthouse and into a vehicle by correctional officers. The difference was shocking. The footage of his initial arrest and detention was the Jeongguk that Jimin could remember from TV shows and music videos. The footage of Jeongguk after the trial on his way to Gangnam-gu Maximum Security Prison was horrific. He was pale, his hair was a bit longer, he had dark circles under his eyes, and he had visibly lost a fair amount of weight. A four-month trial had turned him into a shell of what he once was.
“Good,” Jimin murmured senselessly in response to his own musings. A murderer didn’t deserve comfort or a decent meal. And that was exactly what Jeongguk was—a murderer. A convicted criminal of the highest degree. No matter how stomach churning or sensationalized, no matter how high profile or illustrious the case, at the end of the day, a murderer had sent a letter to Jimin asking for a meeting. How had Jeongguk even found the unadulterated gall to write that letter in the first place without feeling an ounce of shame?
The same letter that Jimin pulled out of his desk drawer to read again first thing in the morning when he arrived at the office.
He hadn’t slept much after watching the recap of Jeongguk’s entire case. His gym session a few hours ago had been subpar. But he still found the energy to spend his workday arguing with Taehyung about Yang Jongdeok while agreeing that Jongdeok was an absolute son of a bitch, and then he sat with Namjoon to figure out how they were going to poach two associates from Kim & Chang. He wrapped his day up with a nice little bow by finding one tiny and barely sustainable loophole for his con woman client before submitting another chunk of necessary paperwork for his client’s case against Samsung.
By Thursday’s first hearing opposite of Ryu Seungwoo, Jimin had almost forgotten that he was the sole name on a murderer’s prison visitation list. He showed up to the courthouse with his client, a father and businessman accused of tax evasion, and spent his entire morning scrutinizing Seungwoo’s case to make it appear flimsy as hell. His client hadn’t purposely evaded taxes; he was just a moron with no financial knowledge, but he’d made an attempt to recover. Phone records proved it. Jimin made sure to highlight that so his client wasn’t made out to be a seasoned white collar criminal.
On Friday, after smugly grinning at fifty-one-year-old Yang Jongdeok across a meeting room table because Jongdeok had been forced by his high-profile chaebol client to consult with Jimin for a second opinion, Jimin found himself back at his desk with his hand on the handle of the drawer once more.
“Career suicide,” he whispered to himself as a reminder, but he took out the letter anyway and read it again, Jeongguk’s gaunt appearance post-trial five years ago seared into his brain.
He’s not worth it.
He murdered three teenagers in cold blood for heckling him.
He got drunk, let his anger motivate him, and slaughtered three people.
Who cares if there’s more to his story?
Who cares if the trial seemed expedited?
He’s not worth it.
“Fuck my fucking life,” Jimin said as he flicked the letter onto his desk with a flourish, rubbing his face with both hands. He should have just thrown out the letter or burned it. Namjoon and Taehyung were both smokers. Jimin could have asked for a lighter and gotten rid of the evidence in under a minute. Instead, he had left it to burn a hole in his desk like a fool, and now he was shoving the letter back into the envelope and slipping it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket with pursed lips.
Reality was harsh because there was only one person to whom Jimin could show this letter and seek an opinion.
He shoved his chair back and stood, buttoning his suit jacket with a small shred of dignity as he left his office to walk down the hallway, passing by the glass wall of Taehyung’s office and holding up his middle finger as Taehyung did the exact same while on the phone. Best friends and rival senior partners promoted at the same time usually communicated in silence. Unspoken laws and all that.
Jimin paused in front of a door with the inscription Kim Seokjin, Name Partner embellished on the glass at eye level. He used his knuckles to knock.
“Hyung-nim.”
“Mm.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“For you, Jimin, I have at least two and a half minutes,” Kim Seokjin said with a flick of his hand, pulling his glasses off and shoving them up into his short black hair. “Come in.”
“Are you busy?” Jimin stepped into Seokjin’s cushy corner office with its vast windows and various bookshelves and a beanbag chair off to the left perched in front of a television, because whenever the stress became too consuming, he plopped down and played a few video games. Other law firm name and managing partners liked to use Seokjin’s stress management techniques as ammunition to discredit him and tarnish his reputation in such a cutthroat legal world where the fight for clients was a bloodbath. Seokjin typically turned it into a conversation about the best Nintendo games with his clients that always ended favorably.
“I’ve got Shinhan Bank up my ass acting like they’re going to leave me for some other law firm and CJ Group trying to finagle their way into my good graces, so no. I’m not busy,” Seokjin replied, which could have been sarcasm, but Jimin had known Seokjin long enough to know that in fact, he actually was not that busy. Being thirty-seven-years-old and a name partner with his own firm was considered criminal in South Korea; Seokjin was a solid fifteen years ahead of his counterparts at Kim & Chang or Yulchon. But when Kim & Kim, formerly Kim LLC, had been set to go up in flames after the corrupt former name partner, Kim Sungsoo, had been sentenced to twenty years in prison for unspeakable financial crimes, the board had snatched up Sungsoo’s then-thirty-three-year-old nephew, Kim Seokjin, in a last-ditch effort to save the firm.
He’s too young and inexperienced!
He’ll destroy the firm! Abandon ship!
No one will trust him!
But Kim Seokjin could acquire clients like no one else. Jimin had never seen anything like it. Seokjin was shitting all over societal expectations and limitations with a smile on his handsome face, and he was doing things like appointing Namjoon as his joint name partner at the diabolically young age of thirty-four, and then doing stupid shit like making Jimin a senior partner ten years ahead of his peers alongside Taehyung. And against all odds, against the very fabric of Korean norms, clients flocked to Kim & Kim specifically because of the young blood.
And Jimin had been loyal to Kim & Kim since his first day on the job at age twenty-seven, young and fresh. Seven years of pouring his life force into this job while speedrunning it—one year as an associate. Two years as a senior associate. Three years as a junior partner. And now he was thirty-four and finishing out his first year as a senior partner, and the entire cesspool of practicing lawyers in South Korea loathed him.
Jimin loved it.
He’d seen Kim Sungsoo’s fall from grace. Jimin had packed up his entire desk and had prepared his résumé for Kim & Chang only to be told at the eleventh hour that he still had a job and oops, he was actually a junior partner now! At age thirty. There were jokes, and then there were jokes, and Jimin had assumed it was the latter when Seokjin had summoned him for the promotion. These days, Jimin just figured he was existing in a simulation of a law firm, because any other firm he walked into just felt stale and lifeless, and their name partner didn’t play Mario Party to blow off steam after handling billions of won from contemptuous clients.
“I’m sorry, did you say Shinhan Bank wants to leave you?” Jimin emphasized as he plopped down into one of the heavy wooden chairs lined with plush leather across from Seokjin’s desk. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and crossed one leg over the other, Jeon Jeongguk’s letter burning a hole in his suit jacket’s inner pocket.
Seokjin snickered. “Shinhan Bank is a naughty child throwing a temper tantrum, but Daddy’s losing his patience, so I think I’ll have Namjoon discipline them, since I’ve already paraded Taehyung around in front of CJ Group’s face like he’s a show pony.”
“There’s a BDSM joke in there somewhere.”
“Isn’t there always?” Seokjin leaned back in his chair, snatching up his phone to check the lock screen for messages. Likely seeing nothing, he slid the phone back onto his desk. “You have something to tell me.”
“Are you saying that or asking?” Jimin inquired.
“Saying.” Seokjin mirrored Jimin and crossed one leg over the other, forever sharp and astute and every other synonym escaping Jimin’s mind in the absence of a thesaurus. “You know, in the courtroom, you’re a bit of a frigid bitch, but in my office, you’re like a children’s book about emotions. This is ‘I just heard something juicy and I need to tell my boss,’” Seokjin teased, waving both hands around his own face with a sparkle in his eyes. “So?”
Jimin rolled his eyes, shaking his foot as he decided whether or not this was worth it. Probably not. Nevertheless, he reached into his inner jacket pocket, removed the envelope, and tossed it onto Seokjin’s desk without a word. No prefacing, no explanation. Seokjin didn’t ask questions. He just flicked his glasses down onto the bridge of his nose and took out the letter. His eyes scanned rapidly, and then he let out a laugh.
“They’re getting braver these days, aren’t they? Criminals,” he said, his glasses going back up onto the top of his head as he set the letter down. “This piece of shit begged for our address for six weeks and targeted you because you got Kwon Hyunsik off the hook for a rape he didn’t commit. Unbelievable.”
“You don’t think it’s at least a little bit interesting?” Jimin asked, one elbow propped on the armrest of the chair. In response, Seokjin let out a blatant and obvious yawn, stretching his arms like he was an infant released from a swaddle.
“No,” he sighed out, clapping his hands once before lacing his fingers together and pressing his palms to his abdomen. “Let him rot. That shit was the messiest trial and circus I’ve ever seen in my goddamn life. Yulchon looked like a bunch of clowns found braindead with their dicks in their hands, and they have Jeon Jeongguk to thank for that. I don’t give a fuck if he’s impressed by your work and has you on his visitation list. Good for him. Shred the letter.”
Jimin hummed noncommittally, pinching his bottom lip between his thumb and pointer finger as he stared at the letter.
“Yah, Park Jimin,” Seokjin said, sharp and clear, forcing Jimin to lift his gaze. “I didn’t offer you a senior partner position just for you to be an idiot. Jeon Jeongguk’s case is over. It’s been over. He’s nothing more than a desperate man who probably misses being in the spotlight because everyone’s forgotten about him in favor of memorializing his victims. Leave it alone. He’s exactly where he belongs.”
“Do you know how long his trial lasted?”
“I don’t give a shit how long his trial lasted.”
“Four months,” Jimin said anyway. “A trial with a high-profile celebrity who killed three people only lasted for four months with hearings every other week. Have you ever heard of something like that?”
“Do I need to send you back to elementary school so you can learn how to read what I’m spelling out for you?” Seokjin asked, raising his eyebrows. “I. Do. Not. Care. Jeon Jeongguk is a permanent stain on Yulchon’s reputation, which is fantastic for Kim & Kim. I don’t want him anywhere near this firm or my lawyers. The answer is no. Is your caseload really that dried up? Aren’t you fighting Samsung right now? Christ.”
“My caseload is fine, hyung-nim,” Jimin replied, his tone measured. “I just thought it was interesting that I got a letter, so I watched a long summary of his case on YouTube the other night.”
Seokjin leaned back in his chair. “When exactly did you get this letter?”
“Monday afternoon mail call.”
“And you waited until Friday to bring it to me?”
“I was going to shred or burn it, but I figured I’d provide you the courtesy of reading it first,” Jimin answered. Seokjin clicked his tongue and let out a soft pft with his mouth.
“You’ve got what, four active cases right now?”
“Con woman.” Jimin ticked them off on his fingers. “Samsung. Tax evasion case. Almost done with the final paperwork for the idol sexual assault case.”
“So all of your attention and energy should be on making the plaintiffs look like a bunch of dumb fucks for daring to state Samsung’s case,” Seokjin replied. “Do you want CJ Group instead? Shit, I’ll give them to you if you’re stooping as low as Jeon Jeongguk’s open-and-shut case. You know what you could also do? A bit of pro bono work. It’s been years since you took on a case out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I don’t work for free,” Jimin snapped, though a smile crept onto his face. “My reputation is sparkling.”
“Your reputation is being known as a goddamn nightmare.”
“Sparkling,” Jimin emphasized. “Pro bono work is for associates. I don’t need the power or the ego boost.”
“Oh, and entertaining a homicidal former K-Pop idol isn’t an ego boost?”
“It’s curiosity, hyung-nim,” Jimin said as he uncrossed his legs. “Would you not want to sit your ass down across from Jeon Jeongguk in a prison and ask him what the fuck he was thinking writing you a letter like that? Give me a break.”
“Well, no, Jimin, because I’m not a cat when it comes to curiosity,” Seokjin fired back without missing a beat. “Burn that damn letter and focus on your other clients who actually need your help and attention and who are paying you hundreds of millions to win for them.”
“Yes, hyung-nim,” Jimin said politely as he stood up, buttoning his suit jacket again and bowing. He paused, gauged the energy in the office space, and added, “Did you see the Law & Order sweater I found for Olivia to wear?”
Seokjin pinched the bridge of his nose with a dragged out khh sound from the back of his throat as if he was touched. “I ordered it right away. She’s the cutest cat I’ve ever seen in my life. Her brother will try to rip the sweater to shreds, but I digress.”
With his silent quest to ensure that Seokjin still liked him outside of work parameters completed, Jimin quickly snatched the letter from Jeongguk off of his boss’s desk and tucked it into his suit jacket pocket again before Seokjin could claim ownership of it. Once he was back in his office and the letter was back in the desk beneath layers of other documents where it belonged, Jimin woke his computer up and hovered his fingers over the keyboard with his search engine ready to do its worst.
Jeon Jeongguk is a permanent stain on Yulchon’s reputation.
Jimin searched for Yulchon with Jeongguk’s name beside it. It took him less than ten seconds to find the names of the two lawyers who had taken on Jeongguk’s case—Son Seungbaek and Lim Seonbin. Son had been a former prosecutor turned criminal defense attorney. Lim had thirty years of experience under his belt. Together, they should have been able to negotiate on Jeongguk’s behalf and salvage a small shred of his reputation, but from the comprehensive overview Jimin had watched, it seemed like neither one of them had put forth much effort and had believed that their celebrity client was not only guilty, but a monstrosity. And all it took was one more quick search for Jimin to figure out that neither Son nor Lim were employed with Yulcheon anymore and hadn’t been for five years.
“Why are they not there?” Jimin muttered to himself, seeing that Son had gone back to being a prosecutor and Lim had a private practice of his own now and had handled over two dozen civil cases on Jupiter Entertainment’s behalf. The next thing Jimin did was close his browser, clenching his jaw in self-inflicted disappointment.
“Afternoon mail call!”
“Oh, good, a distraction,” Jimin said when Yunjin strolled into his office and offered up two envelopes. Nothing from Gangnam-gu Maximum Security Prison. “Thanks. How’s the filing going?”
“It’s painful,” Yunjin answered. “You try filing shit against Samsung. Also, just letting you know that I have extra receipts confirming the filing of those phone records for your tax evasion case, in case Ryu Seungwoo wants to play ball. He’s called twice this morning already and I know he wants to throttle me because I won’t let him get through to you.”
“You’re the best goddamn legal secretary in South Korea,” Jimin praised, sliding one of the dark blue folders from the corner of his desk and holding it up. “Add that to Bang Yeoleum’s binder.”
“Did you find a loophole?” Yunjin accepted the folder.
“Eh. I found a tiny crack that I can exploit,” Jimin replied. “Thank you, biseo-nim. Oh, wait.”
Yunjin turned back around just short of the door.
“I, uh… on Monday. Do I have anything on Monday morning?” Jimin asked, his heart skipping. Yunjin hummed with a furrowed brow, pulled out her phone, and opened what was probably Jimin’s calendar. After one quick glance, she looked up.
“Nothing important. I have the morning blocked out for you as a prep day because we have a hell of a motion to file by close of business on Tuesday,” she explained. “Why?”
Jimin crooked his pointer finger to motion for Yunjin to come closer, so she did, ensuring the office door was closed, the folder pressed to her chest as she pocketed her phone.
“There’s something I’m going to ask you to do for me,” Jimin said, his heart climbing into his throat as he spoke. “And I need you to do it with the utmost discretion possible. Not a single word to anyone else, especially our name partners. What I’m asking is between you and me only, and you’re going to block it out as a coffee meetup with a client.”
“Whatever you need,” Yunjin agreed.
“Biseo-nim.”
“Whatever you need,” Yunjin repeated with a more pointed look at him. Jimin rubbed his lips together and reached into his desk drawer, pinching the envelope and passing it to Yunjin. Yunjin had been with Jimin long enough to know that she had full access to whatever Jimin handed her, so she pulled the letter out and read it in silence. To her credit, she didn’t gasp or overreact or pull a face. In fact, she barely reacted at all. Her eyes flicked off to the side briefly. She read the letter again. Then she folded it back up, slid it into the envelope, and handed it back to Jimin.
“I’ll contact the prison and file urgent paperwork for approval of a one-hour visit on Monday morning at nine o’clock when visiting hours begin,” Yunjin said quietly. “And by your second visit, if there is one, then you’ll be able to secure a private room for the sake of attorney-client privilege. Is there anything else?”
“No, biseo-nim. That’s all. Just your discretion, as I said,” Jimin replied. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Yunjin closed the office door and left Jimin in silence. The glass walls of all offices at Kim & Kim made privacy borderline impossible, so Jimin slowly exhaled and hid the letter again, propping his elbow on the desk and curling his hand into a fist so he could press his lips against it and stare at his computer screen.
The thing about Jimin as a litigation attorney was that he had never dabbled in anything else. He’d never been a prosecutor. He’d never explored other options besides defending victims because his knack for turning stones over that people tended to neglect was second to none. He was brash and brazen in the face of any prosecutor in the courtroom because he was the one who asked the uncomfortable questions while shining a blinding spotlight on anything that required scrutiny.
And something about Jeon Jeongguk’s short letter had triggered Jimin to formulate several uncomfortable questions.
He never took a case that he couldn’t win. He never took a case that would harm his reputation. He never even considered such cases because he fiercely protected his precious time. Visiting Jeon Jeongguk in prison threatened all three of those things. A potential retrial was like playing Russian Roulette with the courts. Jimin’s reputation would surely be ripped apart, and his precious time would be encumbered by his thirst to prove… something. Whatever it was that Jeongguk wanted. Hell, maybe he had nothing but smoke to blow up Jimin’s ass and Jimin was just going to visit him for nothing.
But he was going to visit. If not for Jeongguk, then to satisfy his own burning, crippling curiosity.
⚖️
The approval for Jimin’s visit came through at five past six in the morning on Monday, just as he was crawling out of bed, because Yunjin was persistent and often mirrored Jimin’s obstinate mannerism when it came to getting things done. Jimin’s executive decision to skip the office in the morning altogether had the potential to bite him in the ass later, but it was a risk he was willing to take.
Gangnam-gu Maximum Security Prison was located a good ten blocks from Kim & Kim. The more distance, the better. The last thing Jimin needed was for Seokjin to recognize his car driving in the opposite direction of the office and pulling into the heavily guarded visitor parking lot of the prison, particularly when Jimin had received a very enthusiastic and hearty “no” from his boss regarding what he was about to do.
Seokjin said he wasn’t a cat. Unfortunately, Jimin was.
Jimin had been inside prisons before. He’d even been inside Gangnam-gu Max on several occasions. It wasn’t a new environment for him by any means, as evident by the clinical way in which he signed in and breezed through security. He split his time between the office, other law firms, and prisons.
And in his free time, he liked long walks on the beach!
“Right this way,” the prison guard loitering near the security checkpoint said as Jimin scooped up his keys and wallet and phone from the grey plastic bin. He nodded, pocketed his belongings, and looped his belt back through his pants, fastening it as he swiped up his messenger bag and began to follow the guard.
“How’s your day been so far?” Jimin asked conversationally. He didn’t actually care, but he was rewarded with a response regardless.
“It’s been hectic,” the guard griped, shaking his head. “This is just the cherry on top. This psychopath hasn’t had a single visitor in five years. Dare I ask what you’re doing here?”
“That’s between me and the supposed psychopath,” Jimin replied, and the weak chuckle he and the guard exchanged was basically like setting a silent boundary. But Jimin liked to poke around, so he added, “Are you keeping track of his visitors? Or lack thereof?”
“No. Everyone’s leaving him alone to rot, as they should,” the guard responded, and Jimin tried not to react. “The first year he was here was the worst year of my career.”
“Why’s that?”
The guard huffed. “The fans. These hysterical women would try to fight their way into the prison like they could get a conjugal visit out of their favorite pop star. And then the motherfucker decided he didn’t want to receive any letters.”
“No letters?” Jimin turned the corner with the guard by his side. “Not a single one? Not even fan letters? Letters from admirers and supporters? Nothing?”
“They came in droves.” The guard snorted, unimpressed. “We had to shred them all or toss them. Waste of damn paper, if you ask me. He could’ve had hundreds of letters from women writing erotica about him so he could jerk off to pass the time, but he said no. Damn fool.”
“You certainly seem to have an opinion on Jeon Jeongguk,” Jimin calmly said as the guard paused before letting Jimin through the next door.
“My daughter used to be his fan,” the guard replied. “It could have happened to her if she’d gotten too close. You never know with madmen like this guy. So yeah. I have an opinion.”
Jimin flicked his eyebrows up and pursed his lips with a nod, gesturing to the door with one hand. The guard’s flimsy trust in Jimin as a human being seemed to be wearing thin, so he just allowed Jimin access to the next room of the prison. Jimin watched as the digital clock on the wall, with its ominous red numbers, flicked over to 9:00:00 AM.
“Have a seat,” the guard said. “Someone will go get the monster to bring him to you. Be grateful for the glass. He might bite.”
Jimin smiled weakly. “I’ve dealt with monsters before. Thank you, though.”
The guard grumbled under his breath and Jimin took a seat, amused at how much of a grudge the poor man seemed to be harboring. Jimin half-expected the guards to bring out a shackled, muzzled, feral beast who banged on the glass and roared at his visitor. But Jimin had looked into the eyes of monsters before. Jeon Jeongguk would be no different than the others.
The booth where Jimin was sitting consisted of a brown quartz benchtop that he set his bag onto with a sigh. At least the leather chair was comfortable. He was always amused by the bars on the window separating him from the prisoner. All prisoners were guarded closely during visitation, anyway, so the bars seemed like they were just for show. Unlike most television and movie depictions, Gangnam-gu Max didn’t use telephones. Instead, there were holes in the glass that looked like honeycombs, enough for sound to escape and for conversation to happen. Each prison was different. Jimin always found it interesting that a maximum security prison allowed for such leniency in some areas, but no leniency in others. If Jimin met with Jeongguk again, he would be awarded a room without glass, without bars, without recording, and with a prisoner in the room with him and guards on the outside for the sake of confidentiality.
If.
A loud buzzing forced Jimin to lift his head up from the contents of his bag. He found himself staring as two guards escorted the prisoner into the visitation area. He couldn’t help it. Jeon Jeongguk’s existence in and of itself called for staring.
He was wearing the typical blue prison jumpsuit with a white t-shirt underneath. On the left side was a yellow patch with GMSP-1310 written on it. On the right side was a patch with his cellblock and room number: B하2. Everything was standard except for his physical appearance. His black hair was well-kept, parted a bit more to one side and soft, hanging down towards long eyelashes with part of his forehead visible. His eyebrows were a defining feature that framed his face—perfect bone structure, round eyes, a baby face if he turned one direction and the face of a jaded man if he turned the other way. Two sleeves of tattoos, a scandal once upon a time in the K-Pop industry, an homage to his old life. He had handcuffs around his wrists only, and as he sat down across from Jimin, he set his hands on the table.
“Keep your hands where we can see them,” the guard barked at Jeongguk in a voice that made Jimin bristle. Jeongguk didn’t even blink. He just let the guard remove his handcuffs, but even when they were off, he kept his hands folded on the countertop before him. He twiddled his thumbs as he stared at Jimin, something Jimin had never actually seen someone do in real life.
The guards left the room. Jimin knew that one of them would remain at the door, ready and waiting to pounce, while the other monitored the cameras. There was no peace or privacy in a prison like this. Jimin kept his own hands in his lap so that Jeongguk wouldn't see the tremble in them. He usually had nerves of steel when meeting potential clients, convicted criminals, innocent prisoners, or anyone else, really. But right now, he was at a loss for words.
Jeongguk had been the biggest star in South Korea, possibly the world. And now he was here.
“You got my letter.” Jeongguk’s thumbs stilled as he spoke. “That’s a relief. Mailing that out was a crapshoot.”
Jimin nodded. He nodded. Where were his words? Why weren’t they coming out of his mouth?
“You have to reply to my comments for a conversation to happen,” Jeongguk said matter-of-factly, and the fog abruptly cleared from Jimin’s mind.
“I’m aware of that,” he answered tersely.
“I’m Jeon Jeongguk. It’s nice to meet you,” Jeongguk said with a slight bow of his head. Polite. Of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be?
“Attorney Park Jimin,” Jimin replied. “I see you were able to clear your schedule for this.”
“It was tedious and time consuming, but I managed to shift my naptime to a later hour,” Jeongguk said with a straight face. Jimin couldn’t tell if he was serious or being an asshole and trying to make a joke. His poker face was too good. “I didn’t think you’d come. I was ready to send you another letter begging. Glad I didn’t have to do that. I would’ve looked desperate.”
Jimin felt the corners of his mouth twitch in a smirk that he couldn’t suppress. “What I’d really like to know is why you sent me a letter in the first place.”
“I thought I explained that in the contents of the letter,” Jeongguk said. He was eerily calm. Jimin was trying to picture the man before him viciously and brutally slaughtering three trainees in a moment of vengeful rage post-music show win, drunk and high off of victory. The images weren’t forming properly in his head yet.
“You read about Kwon Hyunsik’s exoneration and admired my work in freeing him. Yes. I took note of that,” Jimin replied, trying to maintain the same level of composure. “But that doesn’t explain why you summoned me here to speak about your case, which, for all intents and purposes, is extremely closed.”
“You’re a prolific litigation attorney who seems to have a talent for examining complex cases and bringing them to the court for possible retrial. You’re likely a graduate of Seoul National University or some other American Ivy League university, well-educated and well-spoken and thorough. So I asked you to visit me so we could discuss my case,” Jeongguk explained, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. Jimin could see holes from where piercings used to exist from his idol days. One day, they would permanently close up. Right now, they were just a reminder of who he had once been.
“I’m not really sure what there is to discuss,” Jimin admitted. “I took the liberty of glossing over the basics of your trial. You were convicted of a particularly cruel triple homicide. You escaped the death penalty by the skin of your teeth, and the judges unanimously agreed on a guilty verdict. The prosecution had a slam dunk case against you with a mountain of evidence. There was no appeal angle that could have possibly worked. And now you want me to look at your case for… what?”
“Entertainment.” Jeongguk blinked. “I figured that maybe you were bored and wanted to do something new and exciting this year.”
That was sarcasm. It had to be. Jeongguk indeed had an excellent poker face, but after he spoke those words, his lips formed a thinner line than normal, and a single dimple indented in his left cheek.
“Did you invite me to this hellhole of a prison to shoot the breeze and crack jokes, or are you serious about wanting your case looked at a second time?” Jimin asked, wondering if he could find the patience within him to converse with a socially starved prisoner, particularly one as voluntarily isolated as Jeongguk.
“I was convicted of a triple homicide that I had nothing to do with, and at this point, I find myself wishing that they would let the death penalty have a comeback just to put me out of my misery. I had three judges look me in the eye and tell me, while I was sobbing and on the verge of fainting and vomiting out of grief, that I was basically a monster who never deserved to see the light of day again. That mountain of evidence you mentioned a minute ago is a smoke screen. It looks damn good, and it’s convincing, but anyone with a lick of patience could probably pick it all apart,” Jeongguk said with hardly a breath between sentences. “And I’ve had well over five years to sit in solitude and shame I shouldn’t even have and think about every painstaking minute of those few days before the murders and the events of that night. All I have are memories. So no.”
“No?” Jimin raised one eyebrow.
“No, I didn’t invite you here to shoot the breeze and crack jokes,” Jeongguk confirmed. “Quite frankly, I didn’t even think you would show up. They banged on my cell door this morning and told me I would have a visitor and I damn near shat myself in shock.”
Jimin snorted with laughter before he could stop himself, his professionalism wavering. Jeongguk clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes.
“Great, I’m glad you found that funny,” he grumbled under his breath, but Jimin heard it, and suddenly, the starstruck sensation mixed with nerves that he’d been feeling a moment ago began to fade. “Look, byeonhosa-nim… I could have filed an appeal immediately if my lawyers five years ago had been any kind of competent. I could have contacted a lawyer from any law firm at any given time and begged for someone to reexamine my case. But it just felt hopeless until recently when I decided to snap out of it. I used all of my power and pull in the library to look for lawyers, and no one stood out to me until I came across you.”
“Jeongguk-ssi…”
“I saw,” Jeongguk interrupted, an apologetic look in his eyes as he continued when he saw Jimin give him a tiny nod, “a news article a few months ago. Because, you know, I found your name from that retrial case over a year ago. But then I saw a news article with your name again as the legal representative for that idol who was accused of sexual assault. And you won. Again, you proved that he didn’t do it. You deal with prosecutors who work as puppets for powerful companies and I’d like to think you have a good track record. I don’t know how you’re doing all of this when you look like you’re maybe twenty-years-old at most, but… yeah.”
“I’m thirty-four,” Jimin stated.
“I wouldn’t have bet money on that,” Jeongguk said without missing a beat. “Listen, any other lawyer would have laughed in my face and called me insane, especially since my story is batshit crazy. It’s way easier to lock me up for life and pretend that those three innocent kids died because of me. And honestly, I blame myself. My actions set everything in motion, and… well, anyway. I just need someone to listen. My first team of lawyers didn’t listen to me at all. So… maybe you…”
“Tell you what.” Jimin shifted in his chair. “I’ll give you five minutes.”
“Five minutes.” Jeongguk blinked, brow furrowing as his eyes narrowed.
“Five minutes,” Jimin repeated. “Like I said, I took the liberty of looking into your case before coming to see you, and by looking into it, I mean I watched a true crime YouTube video and read some news articles that provided decent summaries of the facts.”
“Then you came here with a bias,” Jeongguk said.
“I did,” Jimin agreed; he saw a small flicker of surprise on Jeongguk’s face. “But you’re not presenting yourself as the psychopath that the guards say you are, and I like a good ultimatum when a client has nothing to lose. So I’ll give you five minutes to convince me to stay for the rest of the hour I have with you and hear more about your case. If you can’t convince me, then I’ll leave, and you’ll have to find another lawyer to sweet talk. Sound fair?”
The corner of Jeongguk’s mouth twitched in a smirk. “It’s a hell of a lot fairer than the last five years of my life.”
“Surely you’ve concocted an elevator pitch over the eighteen hundred or so days you’ve been locked up,” Jimin reasoned.
“I have. I won’t need five minutes.”
“I can time you if that passes for entertainment around here,” Jimin offered, pressing a tiny button on the side of his old school Casio digital watch he always wore during prison visits, feeling a strange buzzing sensation beneath his skin and a tingling in the back of his head as Jeongguk laced his fingers together and pushed his palms towards the glass like he was stretching in preparation.
This was the reason why Jimin was a lawyer.
There were typical adrenaline rushes, and then there was the incomparable high that came with holding someone’s livelihood in his hands laced with good banter and instant chemistry. Jimin sought out a spark with every client he vetted regardless of their situation, looking for a connection and a gut feeling that made him want to defend them and take their money. Whatever Jimin was feeling right now, albeit indescribable, had to be that high. Guilty as sin or not, he was intrigued by Jeongguk’s impending story and fragile confidence.
“Feel free,” Jeongguk agreed. “I’ll start.”
“Go ahead.”
“I was framed.”
Jimin started his timer with a snort of laughter, but when he looked up, he saw that Jeongguk was deadly serious. He glanced down at the timer on his watch and then back up at Jeongguk, a silent indication for him to continue.
“Sex trafficking ring and illegal substances exchanged in group chats arranged by Jupiter Entertainment,” he provided as a follow-up, and that raised Jimin’s eyebrows. Jeongguk’s expression would have been placid to anyone else, but Jimin saw the glimmer of smugness in his eyes. “A week before my comeback stage on Music Bank, Choi Hosan called me and told me to come to Jupiter Entertainment. You know Hosan, I’m sure.”
Jimin nodded. He did. Choi Hosan was a former member of the legendary, wildly successful eight-member (seven now) Jupiter Entertainment boy group SK8, and he’d had a reputation for being one of Jeongguk’s best friends despite their different companies because they were the same age and born one day apart and had trained together as teenagers. But just days after Jeongguk’s arrest, Hosan had left the group, citing irreconcilable mental health issues, and hadn’t been heard from since. Not a peep. Everyone had blamed Jeongguk for it, naturally. Jimin could still remember the news headlines faulting Jeongguk for the ripple effects in the industry like Hosan leaving his group.
“So I went over to Jupiter Entertainment and met him like I always did, and he pulled me into his little studio and was like, ‘I have a proposition for you to get involved in something great, and it’s a big deal.’ And then he started showing me things,” Jeongguk continued. “Telegram group chats, photos and videos, names of other idols including his entire group SK8, all created by Moon Gihyun. The CEO. I saw text messages about sexually assaulting women, drugging women, photos of unconscious women, conversations about finding men to drug and assault to satisfy queer desires, messages about hard substances and things like GHB and rohypnol being funneled in and out of the country thanks to Gihyun. All for a bit of fun and entertainment. And Hosan looked me in the goddamn eye and said that Gihyun wanted me to be a part of it all and that he was going to add me to the group chats so I could reap the benefits while I was touring overseas. So obviously, I called him a son of a bitch and ended the friendship on the spot.”
“Did you?” Jimin cocked his head in interest.
“I’m sorry, would you have stood there another second to bear witness to that shit?” Jeongguk asked. “He showed me all that and instantly made me liable and guilty by association against my will because he knew I trusted him blindly. That’s the murder I should have committed, to be honest. Anyway, he tried to trap me there, but I managed to get out, and I went straight to the Seoul Gangnam Police Station that night to file a report and do my part. You would’ve thought I was filing a report about an alien invasion with the fucking way the officers who took my statement acted. But I went right back to preparing for my comeback, and nine days later, I was drugged at a bar called Viper that I went to after my Music Bank performance and hauled to that damn Jupiter Entertainment auxiliary practice room and framed for a triple homicide. I thought I had the best legal team in the country, but they just took my money and sat there dumbfounded with their thumbs up their asses at the trial while the prosecution dogpiled and buried me, and now I’m here. Completely innocent.”
Jeongguk sat back. His arms still stretched to the surface of the table, hands folded so the guards could see them, but he said nothing further. His eyes flicked down to Jimin’s wrist, so Jimin stopped the timer. 2:04. Not even close to five minutes.
“Didn’t even need five minutes, did I?” Jeongguk stated. “I’ve done it faster than that before, but I must have been nervous. I guess that’ll do.”
Jimin pursed his lips with a pained expression on his face that he could feel as he turned his head, heart racing. He had so many questions. Too many questions. The story Jeongguk had just told was absolutely fucking ridiculous and so farfetched that in Jimin’s opinion, he couldn’t have possibly made up all of it, even with five years behind bars to weave a tale. So Jimin couldn’t just get up and walk out of the prison and leave Jeongguk to make another attempt with a different lawyer. His pride wouldn’t let him, nor would his curiosity. He needed to know more.
“Damn you,” he muttered; Jeongguk heard and let out a humorless breath of laughter. Jimin faced him again. “Alright. Fine. I know when to admit defeat. We have…” He checked the clock on the wall. “Forty-eight minutes. I’m going to ask you enough questions for a lifetime, not in any particular order and with no real rhyme or reason, just to suss things out, and I need you to answer every single one of them truthfully and with detail if you want to maintain my interest.”
“Deal.”
“Had Choi Hosan ever made any mention of this group chat stuff before that night?” Jimin asked. “Any hints of it, any slip-ups?”
“Nope.”
“Did he seem eager to tell you or afraid, like he was being coerced into recruiting you for this?”
“Both.”
“Were you visible to all the security cameras at Jupiter Entertainment when you went there that night?” Jimin wondered. “This is crucial. What footage did they use as evidence at your trial?”
“I have no idea,” Jeongguk replied, “because my legal team didn’t submit any security footage from Jupiter Entertainment at my trial.”
Jimin almost flinched in surprise. “Sorry, what?”
“They didn’t… submit… any security footage from Jupiter Entertainment,” he repeated slowly. “Because my lawyers told me that my safest bet was to claim emotional instability and hope that I would be paroled in twenty years, and that discussing the sex trafficking and drug peddling and assault and money laundering and all the other bullshit I saw would be pointless and irrelevant to three murder charges, given that apparently there was no real evidence of any of it and I was clearly just filled with rage over becoming irrelevant and having to enlist in the military the following year.”
Jimin blinked. “Say that again.”
“I’m assuming you don’t mean that.”
“I don’t,” Jimin agreed. “I heard you. I just—Who—Okay.” He cleared his throat and ran one hand over his mouth. “Okay, then the police station where you made a statement. The same one where they brought you after arresting you. Security footage from the night you made your statement. Phone records with your location. The police report that you filed. All of that. Where’s all of that?”
“Hell if I know,” Jeongguk replied. “I’m telling you that they outright refused to allow me to bring up anything about the group chats and what I had seen, and that included my police report. The security footage is probably long gone. The police report was likely shredded. I’ve had enough time to sit in solitude and think about how Moon Gihyun probably has all of these people on a tight leash and that they probably didn’t even have to collaborate like a bunch of evil villains to frame me. Me being guilty and getting locked away benefitted everyone because I refused to join in and I threatened their fun.”
“You realize that that sounds absolutely batshit crazy,” Jimin said. Jeongguk snickered.
“Yeah. That’s what the other lawyers said. You’re not special.”
“Who were your witnesses?”
“My best friend who was with me at the bar that night,” Jeongguk said. Jimin waited for more, but Jeongguk said nothing further. “I think that was it.”
“I’m sorry, you had one witness?” Jimin raised his eyebrows. “Not your company’s CEO or anyone around you on a daily basis who could attest to your mental and emotional state? Not anyone else at the bar? Did they at least get a statement from Hosan in any form?”
Jeongguk smirked. “You really think they’d open that can of worms when they refused to believe my story in the first place? No. The prosecution had dozens of people testifying and providing statements to the judges. I had one person, and the prosecution called him a drunk and a liar who was protecting a murderer. He barely escaped my trial with his dignity and reputation intact.”
“Who was the witness?”
“Jung Hoseok,” Jeongguk said, a visible hint of sadness flashing across his face before he clenched his jaw. Back to resolute. No emotions. Jimin couldn’t blame him. “He was my choreographer and my lead backup dancer. He performed with me that night on Music Bank. He was with me at the bar. He lost sight of me at some point when I apparently fucked off across the city to go murder three teenage boys.”
Jimin cocked his head. “Where’s Viper?”
“Hongdae. Closest idol-friendly bar to the KBS Hall where Music Bank happens.”
“And where did the murders take place?”
“The Jupiter Entertainment auxiliary practice room,” Jeongguk said. “In Gangnam.”
“How the hell did you get from Viper to the scene of the crime?” Jimin wondered. “With construction and traffic, that’s at least a thirty-minute drive.”
“Apparently I took a taxi.”
Jimin snorted gracelessly. “I’m sorry, you took a taxi? You hopped in a taxi to go kill three people?”
“They had a receipt,” Jeongguk said dully. “And I have no memory of any of this.”
“What do you remember?”
“I remember being at the bar. I remember drinking. And then I remember coming to my senses and checking for a pulse on one of the kids, and I was covered in blood,” Jeongguk said, averting his eyes for the first time in the conversation. “And then the police showed up and arrested me.”
Jimin cocked his head. “Did you call them?”
“No.”
Quietly, Jimin pressed his palms together and set his elbows on the countertop, fingertips against his lips as he stared down at his bag. He felt Jeongguk’s eyes on him and wondered if the guards were hearing any snippets of the conversation unfolding in bewildered horror, or if they were laughing at Jeongguk’s expense. Either way, Jimin’s plan to make his trip to visit Jeongguk in prison a one-off side quest was crumbling before his eyes.
Jeongguk’s case wasn’t supposed to be interesting.
It wasn’t supposed to be this appalling. Jimin practiced law in South Korea because he had misplaced trust in the fragile systems created to protect human beings from harm. He knew there were bad seeds everywhere. He knew that the legal system thrived because of those bad seeds. But the horror in this situation was that it seemed that some other kind of system, equally as fragile but far more dangerous, had decided Jeongguk’s fate. And all of that made Jeon Jeongguk, the most hated man in South Korea, trustworthy to an extent.
“Fuck,” Jimin whispered, knowing Jeongguk could hear him. He looked up. “Are you smiling?”
Jeongguk abruptly dropped the smile on his face, twisting his lips in a brief moment of guilt. The first guilty expression Jimin had seen in the time he’d been staring at Jeongguk through the glass.
“Sorry,” Jeongguk apologized. “I’ve been sitting on this for over five years and no one’s ever listened to me or given a shit. With any luck, most people have forgotten about me. And here you are, an outsider with no skin in the game, so I can just tell you my story without high stakes.”
“You haven’t talked to your family and friends about it?” Jimin wondered. “Why didn’t you ever file an appeal? Why didn’t you do this sooner?”
Jeongguk’s eyes took on a more distant and detached look. “My parents disavowed me the moment I was arrested. They said they were too ashamed of me and didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I don’t have any siblings. I have my grandmother and my aunt, both on my mom’s side, but they were too scared to attend my trial or visit me in prison, and I told them to protect themselves first. I had plenty of friends, but they all cut me off.”
“Even the backup dancer? Jung Hoseok?”
“No. He believed me. But I cut him off,” Jeongguk admitted. “Hoseok and my producer. I cut them both off so that they could continue to live normal lives. You weren’t there, byeonhosa-nim. You don’t know what the media circus was like. Hoseok had death threats against him. My company, 9T9 Entertainment? They had to cancel my tour and retract my new album and wipe me off of streaming platforms. They’re probably in debt up to their eyeballs.”
“So you’ve been silent for five years because you didn’t want to burden anyone,” Jimin stated, and Jeongguk shrugged with one shoulder.
“I signed away control of my finances to my producer and told him to use it to pay off my debts,” he replied. “I’m not going to ask anyone for money.”
“Then how do you plan to afford a lawyer?” Jimin raised one eyebrow. “Do you know what my rates are?”
Jeongguk let out a soft sigh. “No. Tell me.”
“For a case like yours and a person like you? Two hundred million won up front as a retainer fee,” Jimin said as Jeongguk pursed his lips with a small nod.
“Well, it was lovely to speak with you,” Jeongguk said, tacking a short laugh onto the end. “Thank you for your time. I can’t afford a lawyer like you in my current predicament and I’m not about to ask my producer for the money when I gave it all to him for a reason. I might be able to afford this conversation if you track him down and ask to be paid, but that’s about as far as I can go.”
“I don’t do pro bono work.”
“I understand—”
“But,” Jimin said. Jeongguk snapped his mouth shut. Jimin should have done the same, given what was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t help it. The words came out smoothly and easily. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“Another one?” Jeongguk raised his eyebrows. “Is this some kind of trick?”
“I’m going to take two weeks to dig a little deeper into this,” Jimin said. “I’ll pull the court transcripts and whatever evidence was submitted, the entire available dossier. And if I think that it’s worth my time, I’ll come back in two weeks on Monday, nine AM, and explain to you how this will work. I’ll take your case pro bono if I think it’s winnable.”
Jeongguk fell quiet, cracking his knuckles in slow motion as his eyes searched the countertop, the tip of his tongue darting out to the right bottom corner of his mouth. Jimin saw a small mark there, a piercing hole. He’d probably had a lip ring once upon a time to fiddle with for a distraction.
“So… if you come back in two weeks… then that means you think there’s a chance I could…”
“Be granted a retrial and potentially be acquitted and your criminal record expunged? Yes,” Jimin said. He saw Jeongguk’s jaw shift and his eyes narrow in what Jimin deduced was a successful attempt to bite back an emotional response to being offered a tiny, transitory shred of hope.
“And if you don’t come back in two weeks?”
“Then it’s a lost cause and you’ll have to contact another lawyer,” Jimin replied. “I’d advise you against wishing for too much. There’s no emotion more dangerous than hope in cases like this. Assume that I won’t return in two weeks and that you’ll be locked up for the rest of your life. I promise you, Jeongguk-ssi, it’ll do wonders for your mental state.”
“Okay. Well, you have my story, and I have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, so… maybe I’ll see you in two weeks,” Jeongguk said, calm and controlled. “Otherwise, it was nice to meet you.”
Jimin surprised himself by saying, “Likewise.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. 9:52:35 AM. “You don’t need to pay for this conversation, by the way. This was just to satisfy my own curiosity.”
Jeongguk gave him a tilted, close-lipped smile. “Thanks for coming.”
Jimin rose to his feet. “Guards?”
The guards entered the room and swarmed Jeongguk, handcuffing him and holding him by the shoulders to guide him away as Jimin threaded his head through the strap of his bag to secure it across his chest. Jimin stepped back and pushed his chair in, but then he heard Jeongguk call out, “Byeonhosa-nim,” so he looked through the glass again. With his wrists handcuffed and two guards still grabbing him, Jeongguk bowed ninety degrees while being pulled backwards. When he straightened up, for a fleeting moment, Jimin swore he saw the vibrant, charismatic aura of a beloved idol before it was replaced by the dull glow of an ordinary and jaded man who had lost everything.
Jeongguk disappeared. Jimin stood rooted to the spot, clutching the strap of his bag with one hand, the gravity of what he had just done and what he had just promised sinking down onto his shoulders like Atlas had shrugged over the world for him to hold. Yet even with the heaviness, even with the strange pulse that his eyes seemed to have and the headache that was blooming around his temples, Jimin still felt that familiar buzz. He felt the butterflies in his stomach, sparks of excitement lighting up his veins, the thrill of having to dig into Jeongguk’s case in secret, the impending doom that came with knowing that Seokjin would find out eventually. And like most moments when he was in front of a panel of judges with a wildly strung together case or defendant to champion as if attending a tea party in Wonderland, he remembered the words he lived by when he was in the courtroom.
We’re all mad here.
⚖️