IMCT 09

Chapter 9

“Ah! You fucking—!”

The man was startled by the pain as his tightly gripped wrist was twisted, so he grabbed it and stepped back.

“This isn’t the 1980s. Do you guys realize that just barging into someone else’s store in a group like this is enough to get everyone here arrested?”

“Us? We just came here to eat. To eat.”

“Oh, is that so? Then why don’t you sit down quietly, have some tteokbokki, and leave? I see there are ten of you, so I’d appreciate it if you ordered a little more than usual.”

Kim Si-min’s calm voice and strangely subdued, almost eerie atmosphere made the MZ gangsters, who had been so aggressive just moments ago, strangely lose their momentum.

“Um… what exactly do you do that you suddenly stepped in like this? We have a debt-related matter with this lady.”

“I’m nothing special, but you can’t go around threatening debtors these days. Just in case, I recorded part of your conversation earlier.”

The gangsters’ faces immediately hardened.

“I don’t know if you realize this, but verbal abuse, threats, insults, and illegal debt collection at someone’s place of business can all lead to criminal charges. These days, even collection calls have to be made at appropriate hours to avoid being illegal. Yet you came to someone’s business, threatened them, and even made sexually harassing remarks. Do you think you can handle the consequences?”

“…”

The MZ gangster’s face turned red when he realized that things were not going the way he wanted. He started to say something, then turned around.

Having noticed that their conversation was being recorded, he could not openly start shouting.

“…Ah, fuck… Damn it… Let’s go!”

Kim Si-min sighed deeply as he watched the man lead his lackeys out of the store.

Come to think of it, this really is strange.

Even though he had a record of professional fights and skills close to those of a trained fighter, he was not strong enough to take on ten fully grown thugs.

And yet, he had barely felt any tension at all.

If this had happened before, there was no way he would have remained this calm. But somehow, something about him had changed.

He did not know when or how it had happened.

“Are you okay?”

“…I’m… okay…”

Kim Si-min turned around and looked at Park Min-young, who said she was fine with eyes that looked as if she might burst into tears at any moment.

“You don’t look okay.”

“I’m… okay…”

Perhaps because she had grown up in difficult circumstances, she seemed unused to showing when she was having a hard time.

She was even forcing herself not to cry.

Her hands and feet were still trembling, and she was barely able to stand with her teeth clenched tightly. Si-min handed her a handkerchief.

“You don’t always have to pretend that you’re okay. Whether you have a father or not, whether your family is struggling or not, when you’re having a hard time, it’s okay to admit that you’re having a hard time.”

Maybe it was because of his words.

Park Min-young quickly turned toward the kitchen with the handkerchief he had given her.

Watching her, Lee Sun-hye collapsed into a chair with tears in her eyes.

“I heard some of it, but what did they mean by a contract?”

“It’s…”

Just as he had expected, it seemed that when Park Moon-seong had borrowed money and signed a promissory note, the loan had been written under his wife’s name.

“I’ll ask a lawyer about it. It seems possible that the contract could be declared invalid if it was unfair.”

“Is that really possible?”

“Yes, I think it should be.”

“My husband… He said back then that it was an illegal contract too, but in the end, he couldn’t do anything about it…”

“The circumstances this time are a little different.”

At his words, the worry on the woman’s face eased a little.

“But if you mean a lawyer… wouldn’t we have to pay a retainer? I heard lawyers are expensive…”

“You don’t have to worry. I know a lawyer. I can ask him about it, and he’ll probably give me an answer.”

“Oh, my. I’m already grateful that you’re helping me at the store, and now you’re helping me with this too. Thank you. Really…”

Seeing the moisture gather in the woman’s eyes, Kim Si-min cleared his throat, stood up, and walked outside.

[Attorney Hwang Su-ho]

He immediately took out his phone and called.

“Hey, our new guy. Feels like you’ve been calling pretty often lately.”

“Ah, Attorney Hwang. Somehow, I keep ending up calling you. The thing is…”

Kim Si-min told him everything that had happened at the store.

“Hmm. I’ll need to look into it carefully, but I understand. I’ll check it out. It’s not completely unrelated to company business, anyway. But you owe me a drink with some good food.”

“I’ll buy you whatever you want. Prime Korean beef, sashimi, anything.”

“Okay! I’ll call you.”

After finishing his conversation with Hwang Su-ho, Kim Si-min went back into the store and quietly cleaned up the mess the gangsters had left behind.

“You’re saying our Min-young has a man?”

“Yes, well…”

“Are you sure you saw it right? Are you really sure you saw our Min-young with a man?”

The group of ten men who had entered the MZ gangsters’ office bowed their heads before a man sitting in the most prominent seat. He looked to be in his late thirties.

The MZ gangsters were all fairly large and well-built, probably because they worked out regularly. Even among themselves, they maintained a strict hierarchy.

After hearing the entire story, their leader, Kang Chan-su, looked like a sharp man with narrow, cold eyes.

He was not particularly large, but there was something strange about him, almost like a killing machine.

As he looked at the face of the man in the photograph, his expression twisted with irritation.

“What kind of stray dog’s son is this bastard, suddenly showing up beside my Min-young? We were just about to push them a little harder, and then this guy shows up. What the hell kind of bastard is he?”

“He wasn’t an ordinary guy. He grabbed my wrist like it was nothing, and he seemed to know a thing or two about the law. He threatened us with it, too.”

“A cop? No. There’s no way ten of our guys would have been able to intimidate him if he were just a cop. A prosecutor?”

These days, there were some prosecutors making a big fuss about cracking down on MZ gangsters.

If the man in the photograph was a young prosecutor, then it would make sense.

“First, find out who this bastard is. Dig through his social media, follow him around a bit. We should be able to figure it out 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.

“What are you people doing?! Why are you doing this to my dad?!”

The first time Kang Chan-su had met Park Min-young was when he had gone to see Park Moon-seong one day by chance.

The moment he saw his daughter boldly shouting at him, he fell for her.

But regardless of his feelings for Park Min-young, Kang Chan-su had continued pressuring Park Moon-seong even harder.

His reason for targeting Park Moon-seong was not simply money.

He stared at Park Min-young’s face before opening his notebook.

He slowly read through the ledger written inside, and his eyes stopped at a particular name.

[Taeseong Chemical, Unresolved]

He stared at the list for a moment, then closed the notebook and looked back at Park Min-young’s face.

No matter how hard you struggle, you’ll eventually end up in my hands. It won’t be long now.

He gave a sinister smile, and his eyes gleamed like a snake’s.

“Whew… This is good. Like I always say, drinks taste best when someone else is paying.”

“Don’t lawyers make a lot of money?”

“Lawyers make good money. I don’t.”

“Doesn’t our company pay its legal advisers well?”

“No. Not really.”

“Then why do you work?”

“Because I have a lot of debt to pay off.”

As he tilted his glass, the playful look in Hwang Su-ho’s eyes suddenly sank into an unfathomably deep sea.

“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.”

“But you asked me about it before, didn’t you?”

“You’re different, kid. You’re not like the rest of us.”

His eyes grew strangely deep again.

“Anyway, you don’t need to know the details. And even though I’m a lawyer, I don’t have much money. So you’re paying.”

“Yes, well… I do make a decent amount, so I’ll pay.”

“Heh… Nice. It’s good having a younger brother who makes money.”

He emptied his glass again.

After stuffing his mouth with well-cooked Korean beef, he chewed and continued.

“From what I found out… these punks… munch… are those MZ gangsters you hear about these days. They borrow money to girls, then take those girls and force them to make adult broadcasts or work as internet streamers, making money off them and threatening them. They also make illegal gambling sites and illegal betting sites to make money. Anyway, they’re a bunch of filthy bastards.”

Somehow, Hwang Su-ho had already gathered quite a lot of information about the MZ gangsters.

“Isn’t that contract legally invalid?”

“From what you’ve told me, it seems like it could be. But the problem is proving it.”

He stuffed a few more pieces of Korean beef and drank some more soju before spreading out his hand and folding down one finger.

“First, there’s fraud. If a party enters into a contract because important information was deliberately withheld or false information was provided, then under Article 110 of the Civil Act, the declaration of intent can be canceled as one made through fraud.”

After finishing, Hwang Su-ho folded down another finger.

“Second, there’s information asymmetry and an unfair contract. If a private lending agreement was made without properly explaining the interest rate, repayment terms, fees, and so on, it 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 his third finger.

“Lastly, there’s a violation of the Loan Business Act. If an unregistered illegal private lender entered into a loan agreement, the contract could be invalidated, and they could face criminal punishment.”

“So the problem is the evidence.”

“Exactly. We need evidence that what they did was illegal. They were registered as a lending business, so that part doesn’t apply. But judging by the way they operate, they should have been dragged into court several times by now. The fact that they’re still operating means they must have some kind of connection.”

A connection.

That meant there was someone powerful backing those thugs.

“Without some connection to someone higher up, they would have been shut down a long time ago if they operated like that.”

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 Moon-seong took his own life, right?”

“Yes.”

“And there’s a possibility those bastards were involved?”

“Yes.”

“Then that means these bastards are capable of killing someone. This probably goes deeper than we think.”

“…Then there’s no way to get rid of the contract?”

“No. We can definitely have the contract canceled. The problem is…”

His eyes gleamed a vivid blue. For a moment, it almost seemed as though blue flames were burning inside them.

“We don’t know how those bastards will act afterward.”

“They’re already causing trouble even now. We should solve this problem first and think about the rest afterward.”

“Fair enough. You’re right. So that means this hyung has to help our new guy again.”

“I feel like I’m always getting your help. But in the end, this won’t be a bad thing for you, either.”

“Ha… You’re more shameless than I thought, new guy. I’ve been here a long time, and I’m one of the people everyone finds difficult to deal with. Where do you get the confidence to talk like that?”

“You’ll find out little by little.”

“Look at this guy. Acting cocky even though he’s still a new guy. Here, pour me another drink!”

Hwang Su-ho messed up his already messy hair and threw an arm around Si-min’s shoulder.

“Let’s have a drink. To the downfall of those punks!”

“To the downfall…”

Kim Si-min clinked his glass against Hwang Su-ho’s and quietly joined in.