Chapter 9
“Ah! You fucking—!”
The man was startled by the pain of having his tightly gripped wrist twisted. He grabbed his wrist and stepped backward.
“It’s not the 1980s anymore. Do you realize that the fact that a bunch of gangsters barged into someone else’s store and are still here means every one of you could be arrested?”
“Us? We came here to eat. To eat.”
“Oh, I see. Then sit quietly, have some tteokbokki, and leave. I see there are ten of you, so you’re quite a large group. In that case, I’d appreciate it if you ordered a little extra.”
The MZ gangsters, who had been so aggressive just moments ago, were strangely thrown off by Kim Si-min’s calm voice and oddly subdued demeanor.
“Who the hell are you to suddenly step in? We have a creditor-debtor relationship with this woman.”
“Well, I’m not anyone particularly important, but in this day and age, you can’t threaten a debtor like that. Just in case, I recorded some of your conversation earlier.”
At his words, all the thugs’ faces stiffened.
“I don’t know if you realize this, but verbal abuse, threats, insults, and illegal debt collection through visits like this can all lead to criminal charges. These days, even collection calls have to be made at appropriate times to avoid being illegal. Yet you came to someone else’s place of business, threatened them, and even made sexually harassing remarks. Are you prepared to deal with the consequences?”
“…”
The MZ gangster’s face turned red when he realized the situation wasn’t going the way he wanted. He started to say something, but then turned around.
Having noticed that their conversation was being recorded, he couldn’t openly start shouting there.
“…Ah, damn it… Ugh… Let’s go!”
Watching him herd his lackeys out of the store, Kim Si-min let out a deep sigh.
Come to think of it, it really is strange.
Even though he had a record of professional fighting matches and possessed skills close to those of a professional fighter, he wasn’t someone who could casually take on ten physically fit thugs.
And yet, he hadn’t felt particularly tense.
That was definitely strange.
In the past, he would never have been able to remain this calm.
But something about him had subtly changed.
He didn’t know when it had happened or how.
“Are you okay?”
“…I’m… okay….”
Kim Si-min turned around and looked at Park Min-young, who was saying she was fine with eyes that looked as though she were about to cry.
“You don’t look okay.”
“I’m… fine….”
Perhaps because she had grown up in difficult circumstances, she seemed unused to showing when she was having a hard time.
Even now, she was desperately holding back her tears.
Her hands and feet were still trembling, and she was barely standing with her teeth clenched.
Si-min handed her a handkerchief.
“You don’t always have to pretend you’re okay. Whether you have a father or not, whether your family is having a hard time or not—when you’re hurting, you’re simply hurting.”
Perhaps it was because of what he said.
She quickly turned toward the kitchen with the handkerchief he had given her.
Watching her, Lee Seon-hye sank into a chair with tears welling in her eyes.
“I only heard the basics, but what was that about the contract?”
“Well…”
Just as he had expected, it seemed that Park Mun-seong, who didn’t have the money, had drawn up the loan document using his wife’s name.
“I’ll ask a lawyer about it. I think there’s a chance the contract could be invalidated as an unfair agreement.”
“Is that really possible?”
“Yes, I think it should be.”
“My children’s father… He also told those men before that it was an illegal contract, but in the end, he couldn’t do anything about it…”
“This case should be somewhat different from what happened back then.”
At his words, the woman’s expression became slightly more relieved.
“But if it’s a lawyer… wouldn’t there be a retainer fee or something? I’ve heard lawyers are expensive…”
“Please don’t worry. I know a lawyer, so I’ll just ask him about it. I’m sure he’ll give me an answer.”
“Oh my… It’s already more than enough that you’re helping at the shop, and now you’re helping us with this too. Thank you. Truly…”
Seeing the tears welling in the corners of the woman’s eyes, Kim Si-min cleared his throat, stood up, and walked outside.
[Attorney Hwang Su-ho]
Outside the shop, he immediately took out his phone and called.
“Hey, rookie brother. Seems like you’ve been calling me pretty often lately?”
“Ah, Attorney. Somehow, I’ve ended up contacting you quite often. It’s just that…”
Kim Si-min told him what had happened at the shop.
“I’ll need to look into it in detail, but I understand. I’ll check it out for you. It’s not completely unrelated to the company’s work anyway. In exchange, though, you owe me a drink with some good food.”
“I’ll buy you whatever you want—premium Korean beef, sashimi, anything.”
“Okay! I’ll give you a call.”
After finishing his conversation with Hwang Su-ho, Kim Si-min returned to the shop and silently cleaned up the mess the thugs had left behind.
“Our Min-young has a man?”
“Yes, well…”
“Are you sure you saw correctly? Are you absolutely sure our Min-young has really gotten herself a man?”
The group of ten who had entered the MZ gangsters’ office bowed their heads before a man seated at the head of the room, who looked to be in his late thirties.
The MZ gangsters were all fairly well-built, apparently having done some exercise as well, and they maintained a strict hierarchy among themselves.
Their leader, Kang Chan-su, had a sharp appearance, with narrow, slit-like eyes and an intensely cold gaze.
He wasn’t particularly large, but there was something about him that gave off the strange impression of a killing machine.
As he stared at the face of the man in the photograph, his expression twisted with displeasure.
“What kind of stray mutt is this bastard, popping up beside my Min-young? We were almost there. We just had to push a little harder… What the hell kind of bastard is he?”
“He wasn’t an ordinary guy. The way he grabbed my wrist, for one thing. And he seemed to know a bit about the law, too. He threatened us with it.”
“The police? No. There’s no way a mere cop could have stood there without being intimidated by ten of our guys. A prosecutor?”
Kang Chan-su knew that there were some prosecutors these days who were making a big fuss about cracking down on MZ gangsters.
If the man in the photograph happened to be a young prosecutor, then it was certainly possible.
“First, dig up everything you can about this bastard. Check his social media and tail him for a while. We should be able to figure out who he is pretty quickly.”
“Yes, hyung. We’ll do that.”
Kang Chan-su glared at Kim Si-min in the photograph before turning his attention to Park Min-young beside him, staring intently at her face on the screen.
“What are you people?! Why are you doing this to my dad?!”
The day Kang Chan-su had happened to visit Park Mun-seong, he had seen his daughter, Park Min-young, boldly shouting at him for the first time—and had fallen for her at first sight.
Regardless of his feelings for Park Min-young, he had pushed Park Mun-seong even harder.
Because money wasn’t the only reason he had targeted Park Mun-seong.
Kang Chan-su gazed at Park Min-young’s face before opening his notebook.
He read through the ledger written inside, his eyes stopping at one particular name.
[Taesung Chemical — Pending]
He stared at the entry for a moment, then closed the notebook and turned his gaze back to Park Min-young.
No matter how much you struggle, you’ll eventually end up in my hands. That’s what I mean when I say it’s only a matter of time.
He gave a sinister smile, his eyes gleaming like a snake’s.
“Damn… This is good. As they say, alcohol always tastes best when someone else is buying.”
“Don’t lawyers make a lot of money?”
“Lawyers make a lot of money. Just not me.”
“Doesn’t our company pay its legal advisers well?”
“No, not really.”
“Then why do you work?”
“Because I’ve got a lot of debt.”
As Hwang Su-ho tilted his glass back, the playful light in his eyes suddenly sank into unfathomable depths, like the bottom of a deep ocean.
“Do you know what the unwritten rule of our company is?”
“What is it?”
“We don’t ask about the past. We don’t ask why, how, or what someone was doing before they came here.”
“I think you asked me about mine before, though.”
“You’re different, kid. You’re different from the rest of us.”
His eyes once again took on that strangely profound look.
“Anyway, there’s no need to know the details. And even though I’m a lawyer, I don’t have much money. So you buy.”
“Yes, well… I do make a decent amount, so I’ll pay.”
“Damn… Nice. Having a little brother who makes good money.”
He drained his glass again.
Then he stuffed a generous piece of well-cooked Korean beef into his mouth and spoke while chewing.
“From what I found out… those thugs… munch, munch… they’re the kind of MZ gangsters people talk about these days. They lend money to young women, then bring them in and make them do things like streaming or adult broadcasts to make money, and blackmail them. They also set up illegal gambling sites and illegal sports-betting sites to make money. Anyway, they’re a bunch of filthy bastards.”
However he had managed to investigate them so quickly, Hwang Su-ho had come armed with surprisingly detailed information about the MZ thugs.
“That contract isn’t legally valid, is it?”
“From the circumstances you’ve described, it does seem that way. But the problem is how we’re going to prove it.”
He swallowed a few more pieces of beef and sips of soju, then spread out his hand and folded down one finger.
“First, there’s entering into a contract through deception. If one party fails to disclose important information or provides false information in order to induce the other party to enter into a contract, then under Article 110 of the Civil Act, the declaration of intent may be canceled on the grounds of fraud.”
After finishing, Hwang Su-ho folded down another finger.
“Second, information asymmetry and an unfair contract. If a private-finance agreement was made without adequately explaining things like the interest rate, repayment conditions, or fees, that could constitute a violation of the duty to explain. We could also look into violations of the Fair Trade Act or the Loan Business Act.”
Finally, he folded down a third finger.
“Third, a violation of the Loan Business Act. If an unregistered illegal private lender entered into a loan agreement, the contract could potentially be invalidated for violating the Loan Business Act, and they could face criminal punishment.”
“The problem is evidence.”
“Exactly. Evidence that what they did was illegal. They were registered as a lending business, so that particular point doesn’t apply. But judging by the way they operate, they should have been dragged into trouble several times by now. The fact that they’re still operating normally means they must have connections.”
Connections.
That meant there was a powerful force backing those thugs.
“If they didn’t have someone higher up backing them, they’d have been shut down a long time ago if they operated the way they do.”
Kim Si-min frowned at his explanation.
Until now, he had lived an ordinary life as a bank employee.
He had never been involved in anything like this.
“Park Mun-seong committed suicide, you said?”
“Yes.”
“And there’s a possibility those guys were involved?”
“Yes.”
“Then that means these bastards are capable of killing someone, too. This probably goes deeper than we think.”
“…Then is there no way to get rid of the contract?”
“No, the contract can certainly be challenged. The problem is…”
His eyes gleamed a vivid blue.
For a moment, it almost seemed as though blue flames were burning within them.
“We don’t know how those bastards will act afterward.”
“For now, they’re already causing trouble anyway. We should deal with this first and think about the rest afterward.”
“True. You’re right. Which means this older brother of yours has to help our rookie again.”
“I feel like I’m always getting help from you. But ultimately, this won’t be a bad thing for you either.”
“Ha… You’re more shameless than I expected, rookie. I’m actually one of the more senior people at this company, so most people find me intimidating. Where do you get the confidence to talk like that?”
“You’ll find out little by little.”
“Look at this guy. Acting cocky despite being a rookie. Here, have a drink!”
Ruffling his shaggy hair, Attorney Hwang Su-ho draped an arm around Si-min’s shoulders.
“Let’s have a drink. To the downfall of those thugs!”
“To their downfall…”
Kim Si-min clinked glasses with him and quietly echoed the toast.
