Chapter 19: The Prosecutor's Chamber
The interview room wasn’t in a police station. Park Ji-won had explained that over the phone, her voice clipped and efficient. “Too many eyes, too many loyalties that aren’t to the law. We use a secure annex to the family court. Less traffic. Different kind of ghost.”
The car ride over was silent. Yuna stared out the window, one thumb rubbing absently at a small, faded tattoo on her wrist—a tiny star she’d gotten in Hongdae during her trainee days, a rebellion hidden in plain sight. Aidan drove, his knuckles white on the wheel, checking mirrors every seven seconds on instinct. The city outside was just Tuesday morning now, oblivious.
The annex was a bland, beige-brick building from the nineties, squatting between a dental supplier and a parking garage. A single uniformed officer at a scarred wooden desk nodded them through without a word, his eyes lingering a beat too long on Yuna’s face before flicking away in practiced indifference.
The hallway was a tube of linoleum and flickering light. Park Ji-won waited outside a plain metal door, holding two paper cups of coffee. She was younger than Aidan expected—maybe late thirties—with a severe, intelligent face and hair pulled into a ruthless ponytail. She wore a grey turtleneck and black slacks, no insignia, nothing official.
“Miss Kim.” Park offered a cup. Yuna took it automatically. “Mr. Reid. Madam Choi is in observation.” She gestured with her chin to a mirrored panel on the far wall of the interview room, visible through the open door. “She will not interrupt. This is my process.”
“Okay,” Yuna said. Her voice was small.
“The rules are simple. I will ask questions. You will answer. If you need a break, you say ‘break’. There is no judgment here for pauses, for tears, for anger. The only unacceptable thing is a lie.” Park’s eyes were dark and direct. “Do you understand?”
Yuna nodded. She took a sip of the coffee, grimaced, and put it on the table. “Let’s just do it.”
Aidan moved to follow her in. Park’s hand, flat and firm, pressed against his chest. It wasn’t aggressive, just absolute. “You wait out here.”
“She needs—”
“What she needs is to do this alone. Your presence, however well-intentioned, will influence her testimony. It becomes a performance for you. I need her words, not her performance.” Park’s gaze didn’t waver. “You can watch from observation if you wish. But you are silent.”
Aidan looked past her to Yuna. She was already sitting in the hard plastic chair, her back very straight, staring at the empty space opposite her. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head. Don’t fight this.
“Fine,” he said, the word ash in his mouth.
The observation room was a closet, smelling of dust and old electronics. Madam Choi stood before the one-way glass, a silhouette in a navy suit. She didn’t turn as he entered. On a console, two audio feeds hissed softly.
Inside the room, Park took her seat. She placed a small, high-quality recorder on the table, pressed a button. A red light glowed. She stated the date, time, and Yuna’s formal name. Then she began.
It started clinically. Dates.Locations. Names of companies, of agencies, of events. Yuna’s answers were monotone, rehearsed almost, the same cadence she used for media training. Park let it flow, occasionally prompting for a specific detail.
Then the shift.
“At the Daeyang Holdings gathering on November twelfth of last year. Who approached you first?”
Yuna’s thumb went back to the star on her wrist. “Manager Kwon. He said Chairman Kang wanted to congratulate me on our chart position. He led me to a private suite on the third floor.”
“What was in the suite?”
“A bar. Low lights. The chairman. Three other men. I didn’t know their names then. I do now.” She listed them. A publishing magnate. A director from the public broadcaster. A third, a man whose face was famous for finance shows.
“What was said?”
“Nothing was said.” A faint, bitter twist on her lips. “They looked. Manager Kwon told me to pour the drinks. Then he left. The door locked.”
Park’s voice remained level. “What happened next?”
The clinical recitation cracked. Yuna’s breath hitched, just once. “The director… he told me the music video for our comeback was too tame. He said I should show him how I really moved. How I earned my position.”
“What did you do?”
“I tried to demur. To laugh. To make it a joke.” Yuna’s eyes were fixed on a point on the table. “The chairman said he’d invested a lot in our ‘potential’. He said it was time for a dividend. He… he put his hand on my hip. To guide me, he said.”
Aidan’s own hands were fists at his sides. He could feel the ghost of the knuckledusters in his palm, the give of a jawbone.
“Did you try to leave?” Park asked.
“I said I wasn’t feeling well. The finance guy, he blocked the door. He said feeling unwell was a sign of stress. That they could help me relax.” Yuna’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They said it would be easier if I was cooperative. That they could make things very difficult for the other members if I was difficult.”
The room wasn’t cold, but Aidan saw the goosebumps rise on Yuna’s arms.
“Did you become cooperative?”
“No.” The word was a punch. “I froze. I just… stood there. The director called me a stuck-up bitch. Said I needed to learn respect. The chairman told him to be patient. That I was a thoroughbred, and thoroughbreds need a firm hand.”
Park let the silence swell, heavy and toxic. “What does that mean, ‘a firm hand’?”
Yuna closed her eyes. “He backhanded me. Not hard enough to leave a mark that makeup wouldn’t cover. Just… to stun me. To show me he could. Then he told the others they could have the first dance.”
The testimony unspooled after that, a nightmare in sterile detail. The specific brand of soju on the bar. The pattern of the carpet, swirls of blue and grey, as she was forced to her knees. The feeling of a zipper against her cheek. The smell of cigar smoke and expensive cologne, cloying and suffocating. She didn’t cry. She just reported, her voice flattening further with each degrading fact, as if she were describing something that had happened to someone else.
She talked about the aftermath. The manager waiting outside with a “vitamin” shot to calm her down. The company-approved doctor two days later, a discreet pelvic exam and a silent prescription for antibiotics. The meeting with Madam Choi, who had looked at her bruised soul and simply said, “You will not speak of this. You will perform on Saturday. You will smile.”
When Yuna finally finished, the only sound was the faint hum of the fluorescent light. Park reached over and stopped the recorder. The red light died.
“Thank you, Miss Kim. That was exceptionally brave.”
Yuna didn’t respond. She just sat, hollowed out.
Park stood, gathering her papers. “This, combined with the digital evidence, will be before a judge by three this afternoon. We expect the warrants for arrest to be issued by evening. You will be under protective custody until then.” She paused at the door. “You have done a good thing today. For yourself, and for others.”
She left. The door clicked shut.
For a full minute, Yuna didn’t move. She stared at the empty chair where Park had been. Then, slowly, she lowered her forehead to the scarred tabletop. Her shoulders stayed rigid, refusing the collapse.
Aidan was out of the observation room and into the hallway before he’d made a decision. Madam Choi said nothing as he passed.
He opened the interview room door. The smell hit him—stale coffee, fear-sweat, that faint trace of floral perfume from some long-ago woman. He walked to the table.
“Yuna.”
She didn’t lift her head.
He pulled the other chair close and sat. He didn’t touch her. He just waited, the hum of the light the only sound.
“They kept calling me a good girl,” she whispered, her voice muffled by the table. “At the end. When I stopped fighting. ‘Finally, she’s a good girl.’” A shudder ran through her. “I hate that part the most. That I finally gave them what they wanted. That I made it easier for them.”
“You survived them,” Aidan said, his own voice rough. “That’s not making it easy. That’s winning.”
She lifted her head then. Her face was dry, but her eyes were shattered things. The tough, sarcastic dancer was gone. In her place was just a young woman, terribly alone. “It doesn’t feel like winning. It feels like I’m covered in them. Like I’ll never be clean.”
That’s when the tremors started. A fine, violent shaking that began in her hands and radiated outward. The delayed shock of having torn open her own scars and poured the infection out for a stranger with a recorder.
“I can’t stop shaking,” she gasped, clutching her own arms.
“Come here.”
It wasn’t a command. It was an offer. She looked at him, her defenses in rubble, and the need in her eyes was so vast it was terrifying. She stood, her legs unsteady, and took the single step that separated them.
He pulled her into his chest. The moment he wrapped his arms around her, the rigid control shattered. A ragged, wounded sound tore from her throat, and then the sobs came, deep and shuddering, soaking into his shirt. She fisted her hands in the fabric, holding on as if he were the only solid thing in a world that had turned to liquid horror.
He held her tighter, one hand cradling the back of her head, his chin resting on her hair. He said nothing. There were no words that could touch this. He just held her as she wept, her body convulsing with the weight of every smile she’d ever forced, every touch she’d ever endured, every silent scream she’d swallowed.
“I’m so scared,” she choked out between sobs, the admission raw and childlike. “I’m so scared of what happens now.”
“I know.” He rocked her slightly, a gentle, rhythm. “It’s okay to be scared.”
“But you’ll stay?”
The question was whispered against his collarbone, so fragile it might break.
He thought of his contract, of London, of the moral quagmire he was standing in. None of it mattered. Not right now.
“Yeah,” he murmured into her hair, the promise settling in his bones. “I’ll stay.”
Outside in the hall, through the wired glass window in the door, Madam Choi watched them. Her expression was unreadable, a mask of polished stone. But her hand, resting at her side, slowly unclenched.