ᴀʙᴅɪᴛᴏʀʏ || baek kyung

"No, I Didn't Sleep With My Receptionist" - Kang Hwan, c. 2020

"No, I Didn't Sleep With My Receptionist" - Kang Hwan, c. 2020

"Stop shaking your leg," Sena whispered furiously, digging her elbow into Kyung's ribs.

He jolted in pain and whispered back irritably, "I'm injured."

They had been waiting for the past thirty minutes for Director Baek to arrive. The courtroom had grown restless, the secretive mumblings turning into loud, impatient conversations. It was a private hearing but the gallery was almost full. Once or twice, a clerk had hurried up the judge's bench to murmur in the judge's ear. The judge, thoroughly unimpressed, had then announced that the defendant was running late. Below the judge's bench, the transcriber typed away frantically, recording each word the man uttered.

Sitting between Sena and Joonhyun, Kyung couldn't help but feel anxious. This was just like the last time. He couldn't help the nagging feeling that suspected Jia to be behind this. She had to be. There was no way his father, the pedantic wretch that he was, would be late for something of this magnitude.

Beside him, Joonhyun was clutching his mother's hand. Both of them were reassuring each other. It's okay. Everything's going to be okay.

"With any luck," the middle-aged prosecutor (close-cropped hair, wearing red and black prosecutor robes) sitting on Sena's left said almost inaudibly, "Director Baek might show up late again and get arrested this time."

Perhaps if he hadn't uttered those words, he wouldn't have jinxed it.

Kyung heard the doors get thrown open followed by hasty footsteps—he couldn't make out how many had entered, just that the sudden explosion of dread in his chest hindered him from turning around. The screen placed in between prevented him from seeing the latecomers.

He heard Joonhyun inhale sharply when their father started to speak, "I apologize for—"

"We have a long trial ahead of us," The old judge cut him off, displeased and irritated, "I'd like to begin without listening to any excuses."

Oh, Kyung bet his father didn't like that.

We're here today as the defendant stands accused of domestic battery—Kyung kept his head down, palms pressed together in his lap as the prosecutor got up from his seat to begin his opening statement. He was distinctly aware of Hwan sitting in the spectators' gallery behind him, observing him and nobody else.

The defense was obvious. Your Honour, my client is innocent—

Yeah, fucking right.

☘☘☘

Namju was called to the stand first—a wooden stand placed between the screen and the defendant's table with a black chair in its middle. Kyung couldn't see him but he knew for sure that Namju wasn't as nervous as he was.

They asked him to narrate what he had seen, word to word, and he did not disappoint. He told the judge and the jury about how he had seen Kyung come to school with bruises for years, how he had been called saying that Baek Daesung would probably kill his son for what he was going to do, and what he and Dohwa had stumbled upon.

Kyung could picture him as he spoke—an erect posture as he sat, maintaining eye contact with the judge, sentences flowing out of his mouth with confidence, using terms and phrases that would put more than half of the room to shame. Unafraid.

It was times like these that Kyung remembered that Oh Namju was made to be looked up to. He had been the main character once. Their world had been built for him and Yeo Juda to rule over.