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Before Han Joon Hwi was South Korea’s hotshot prosecutor, he was once a little boy born to two very ordinary people, who surprisingly, had nothing to do with the law. Contrary to the urban legends surrounding his birth, Han Joon Hwi was once just a chubby baby that did not have South Korea’s laws memorized from cover to cover. Most of his life revolved around his uncle, former Chief Prosecutor Seo Byung Ju, who took Joon Hwi under his wing and raised him as his own after his parents passed.

Now, Seo Byung Ju at the time was the most respected prosecutor in South Korea, and he coined this really amazing phrase that Joon Hwi would remember for the rest of his life: “judge fairly and make sure no one suffers unjustly”. The very first thing Joon Hwi would learn from his uncle, as his uncle bounced him on his knee, was that the law in itself is not fair, but prosecutors, attorneys and judges all have the obligation to deliver perfect justice with these imperfect laws.

Joon Hwi with his little mind, conjured a very valid question, “Then why do some bad people go free?”

Seo Byung Ju took a moment to ponder this question, “Well Joon-ah, it’s a lot of things. Sometimes, there’s just not enough proof for a bad guy to go away for a long time. Other times, there are some bad people that practice law that want the bad people to go free because they have something to gain from it.”

Joon Hwi frowned, “Well, then justice will always be imperfect, right?”

His uncle nodded. “Yes, but Joon-ah,” he paused, adjusting the child on his lap to sit closer to him, “if I let that discourage me, then there’s no point in me being a prosecutor. I must do my best to deliver justice for every case that comes to me, and as Chief, I have the responsibility to train my juniors to always be fair and just by example.”

Picking up the miniature Lady Justice statue on the coffee table and holding it in front of Joon Hwi, Seo Byung Ju let the scales rest into their natural position. Noticing a small dip on the right scale, he chuckled, using a finger to tip the left scale ever so slightly that the scales balance. “I hope by the time I retire,” he mused to himself, “that I would have created a new generation of fair and just prosecutors who would deliver better justice than me.”

Han Joon Hwi was enamoured by his uncle, even when he noticed his aunt and cousins have slowly distanced themselves from them. He never paid them any mind, though. As long his uncle was there, taking him out for ice creams and long drives to nowhere, everything was right in the world.

Having Seo Byung Ju as the centre of his life involved having law in his orbit as well. Joon Hwi would walk over to the home office and tiptoe to grab the nearest book he can from the shelves. Opening to a random page, little Joon Hwi, who had not started elementary school yet, would frown and struggle at the jargon but would still sit on the floor, squinting as if that would help in comprehending. His uncle had laughed, taking the book away from him.

“When you’re older, and actually able to understand these words, you can read them. For now, why not I tell you about all the laws I had to use for every case I get?”

So that was how bedtime stories were for Joon Hwi. His uncle would tuck him into bed, and recount a condensed and child-friendly version of a case that he had to work on that day. He would mention different codes every night, what they stand for and how he used it to win the case in court. Seo Byung Ju thought it was dreary enough to put the child to sleep, but to his surprise, he would find Joon Hwi bursting through his home office, reciting the codes mentioned the night before.

By the time he reached middle school, he could recite every code and its provisions by heart, and by high school, he was assisting his uncle in finding precedents for his Harvard Law dissertation.

Despite his reputation in Hankuk Law School and the Prosecutor’s Office, and what this story may seem to imply, Han Joon Hwi was not a lawciopath. He would never tell anyone this, but Han Joon Hwi loved the law because he loved his uncle. His values, principles and ambitions are all centred around how he wanted to make his uncle’s dream come true; to be part of a future where law practitioners would be just and fair.

Throughout his adolescent life, Joon Hwi had never witnessed Seo Byung Ju compromise his beliefs for any circumstance. The nation praised how he prosecuted cases and his unshakable ethics. Many believed that he would be the greatest of all prosecutors and will go down in history as such. But more importantly, because of his uncle, he never knew a lonely day in his life, even when his aunt and cousins had scorned him and left for the US. Despite them calling him a freeloader and a good-for-nothing orphan, his uncle had never once made him feel that way.

Of course, Han Joon Hwi would soon learn what loneliness felt like. But before then, the only thing that concerned him was what to do with all this law knowledge in his massive brain. His uncle had once said that only the best and brightest get to be judges, and so he applied for the judicial exams. It was his greatest pride to have passed the first, and then the second round.

That was around the time that his world fell apart.

He had stormed into his childhood home, into the home office he spent so much time in with his uncle reading law textbooks and discussing all sorts of cases. The room felt hollow now and Han Joon Hwi felt his brain going into overdrive trying to reconcile the image of his uncle to the one he saw in the news. A prosecutor fallen from grace after his bribery was revealed to the nation. Joon Hwi had seen and read about humanity’s ugliness when he reads precedents, case studies and watched the news. He thought his uncle was above it all, untainted, but alas — he learnt that day — justice was always imperfect.

“I’ll show you, Uncle,” he screamed in between sobs, “I’ll show you what a prosecutor should be.”

And that is how Han Joon Hwi ended up in Hangkuk Law School, wary and broken. There were more betrayals and messy situations he would have to encounter; situations that would have broken anyone’s spirit and faith in the law. But strangely enough, he persisted. As a Judicial Exam Second Round Passer and with all of his law knowledge accumulated over the years, academics were barely a struggle to him. His turmoil was mostly internal, but he did a good job of hiding that behind a friendly and caring exterior.

This earned him some notoriety in the school, and for the first few years of it he could not quite shake off the whispers that followed him. It became even worse when it was soon revealed that he was the controversial former Chief Prosecutor’s nephew. No one ever dared say it to his face, though. Just as he was keeping up the guise of friendliness, they too kept feigning indifference.

But, someone did see through it. Or at least, she never even perceived the facade and saw his feelings and nature as it were, as if she had some special eyesight. That was his future wife, Kang Sol.

Now, Kang Sol is really important to this story, and her story is far more inspirational but it deserves a space of its own. She struck a very definitive first impression on Joon Hwi, who at the time, treated everyone clinically like everyone else treated each other in law school. She was singled out in their first Criminal Code lecture, grilled by none other than Professor Yang or Yangcrates as the students fearfully dubbed him. He did not know why he chose to save her and answer Yangcrates’s questions on her behalf, but watching her squirm and fluster under the pressure did not sit right with him, especially when he had the ability to end her suffering. Even as he answered, Sol still interjected, stating how a ruling for a precedent seemed unfair. Joon Hwi had blinked at that, smiling amusedly to himself. Here was a girl that could not even recite the case but had the nerve to talk and draw the attention back to her.

That would not be the last of their interactions. Immediately after she had stormed out retching, she had approached him, clinging on to his arms with both hands, as if for dear life and asked him to tutor her. While wheezing, she still met Joon Hwi’s eyes with a sort of earnestness that was hard to look away from. Joon Hwi immediately thought that this woman is crazy, and loud. No one in law school, despite the argumentative nature of the profession, was loud. They liked to maintain an air of silence that Joon Hwi supposed is a proxy for some feeling of superiority. Empty pots make the loudest noises, after all. But somehow, Kang Sol did not strike him as empty-headed. On the contrary, she looked and still looks like she could burst with the amount of things she had to say.

Also, Kang Sol had proven herself to be much more intelligent than anyone, even herself, credited her for. In an uncharacteristically petty manner, Han Joon Hwi had set up a petition against his uncle’s professorship with the university and offered a position in his study group in exchange for signatures. That of course did not sit well with the school and a mock trial of this incident was held in Yangcrates’s class to determine his expulsion. Before that, Joon Hwi had asked Sol to be his defense attorney and she had whined rather loudly about it.

“I’m entrusting my life to you.”

Funnily enough, he would find himself doing that more than once.

Kang Sol had read up on every defamation precedent in order to come up with a iron-tight defense, on top of her school work, her part-time job with the school’s copy room and her volunteer work with the school’s Legal Clinic. And she had won. Even at this announcement, he had eyed his uncle carefully, who sat in one of the theatre seats, giving him a look that says “I’ll make sure you will repent and be punished according to the law.”

Joon Hwi wondered if he ever got it.

That did not happen in time. Seo Byung Ju was murdered months later in the university, a few doors away from Han Joon Hwi. Around this time, all of his uncle’s rotten past: a hit-and-run he was responsible for, his deal with a rapist and murderer Lee Man Ho, who was the only witness to the crime, to give him a substantially shorter sentence in exchange for his silence, reared its ugly head. If his world came crashing down a few years ago, Han Joon Hwi found himself in an endless pit of darkness and gasping for breath. But he hid it perfectly, maintaining his composure even when Professor Yang was falsely accused of his murder, and when he himself was falsely accused after that.

He tried to dismiss how his study group friends, the very people he helped pass exams, had talked behind his back, sure of his guilt from the public grudge he had against his uncle. Even after he was acquitted and had received apologies from them, he never once broke the friendly and warm facade. No one was worth trusting after all, not after what his uncle had done.

Only one person had called out the nasty whispers, and believed in his innocence publicly and privately. Of course it was Kang Sol yet again, at his defense.

“If you have anything to say to Joon Hwi, say it to his face.”

Suddenly, there was a floor beneath him and the air stopped thinning around him. He could breathe again in this pitch darkness. Kang Sol had found a discrepancy in the autopsy report based on her hunch alone which immediately cleared Joon Hwi of suspicion.

“Judge fairly and make sure that no one suffers unjustly.” He remembered this as he regarded Kang Sol with a new freshness. His heart ached at the memory of a simpler time when his uncle had said this like a moral of a fable. But here it was, in person he saw someone that did exactly that when she had nothing to gain from it.

“If you go to jail, who would tutor me?” she had said teasingly some time after the incident, but he had a feeling she did not quite mean that. After all, this came from someone who felt like the law owed her an apology for the injustices in her own life. But that’s for another story.

Joon Hwi found himself following her around, almost like a lost puppy. He enjoyed teasing her, riling her up only for her to rebuke him affectionately. He stayed up late nights even though he never needed to study, took on Legal Clinic cases to help her out and made sure she was eating proper meals in the midst of her cramming. Joon Hwi was not blind to her struggle to keep up academically in the cutthroat environment and his uncle’s case did not help. As the murder trials went on, more cases surrounding their study group unearthed themselves. Kang Sol’s best friend Ye Seul found herself embroiled in a grievous injury case defending herself from her abusive boyfriend. Lee Man Ho had moved in opposite her house, endangering the lives of her mother and her little sister. Joon Hwi found himself sending Kang Sol home late at night, setting up a CCTV in her alley for her safety, and staying up even later with her in the library and copy room trying to find precedents that would help Ye Seul win a self-defense plea.

While in retrospect Joon Hwi could not help but feel that the universe was out to get him and his study group that year, these experiences have illuminated his view of Kang Sol even more. Behind her tough and brash exterior is a gentle and caring person who is determined to protect others. Kang Sol for her lack of affinity with the law made up for it by studying much harder than the rest to keep up, while never once compromising justice in order to solve her Legal Clinic cases or to pass her exams. With all the energy she had left, she spent it looking after her family and friends, while sparing only 10 minutes in a day for sleep.

Being on the receiving end of that care felt foreign and disarming. As much as his gut instinct told him to run away and close her off, seeing her collapse from overexertion during their finals, drunk past curfew beneath the statue of Lady Justice lamenting her grades and her joy when figuring out the perfect defense for her Legal Clinic client drew him back almost immediately. Within him was a sense of protectiveness he never knew he had and an affection he only held for his uncle, though he knew in his heart of hearts that his affection is of a different breed from that of familial love.

For the first time since his uncle’s bribery case, Joon Hwi felt like there was someone else in his life that he wanted to trust. He, and the rest of the study group who had underestimated her initially, could not help but want to root for her, the earnest underdog. Somehow, he suspected what he felt was more than just sympathy, but could not quite put a name to it yet. That would come much later.

As the final hearing for the real culprit of the murder approached, former Assemblyman Ko was to be held, he unconsciously walked into the university pantry, lost in thought. His uncle’s lessons were still fresh in his head and his love raw in his heart. He now knew that his uncle has made a bad choice that he was not entirely at fault for that led to a series of bad choices and ultimately led to his death. What does he do with all these memories, which he was so sure he could throw away once the dust settles?

“Ah Joon Hwi, want an egg?” he heard a voice call out. He looks up and of course, Kang Sol faces him, like a deity of crossroads in her university hoodie. He chuckled to himself, realizing that she was there through every major turning point in his life ever since his uncle’s betrayal.

Noticing the silence and his pensive look, Kang Sol asked softly, “are you thinking about your uncle?”

Ah, he had given himself away again. Though, he doubted that there was nothing he could quite hide from her. How could he really, when her sincerity illuminates?

“I know this will never compare or will be the same, but I’ll root for you in your uncle’s place.”

His eyes widened as he regarded her carefully. Joon Hwi wondered if she quite understood what she was saying, and one look into her earnest eyes is clear. She did not. But she will try her darnest to. And suddenly, the answer to his earlier query was just as clear.

All the years by his uncle’s side momentarily flashed by, his determination, his sense of justice, his lessons and his love. Han Joon Hwi loved the law because he loved his uncle. Now, in front of him is someone who struggled to understand it but embraces it with her whole mind. Perhaps, that was what he should do, struggle to take this love and pain and move forward, learning to trust someone else.

“I’ll root for you too,” he said, smiling shyly. He also did not quite know what it meant, but knew nothing between would be the same after that conversation.

And so that was how the pair became almost inseparable. Deep into their 2L year, it became evident to their study group that Han Joon Hwi and Kang Sol came as a matching set. Side by side in lecture halls, in the copy room, library and Legal Clinic together, always. There was a joke, which he found out about much later, that they could literally see hearts in his eyes every time his gaze fell upon Kang Sol. He wanted to tell them he knew exactly what he looked like, but wanted the only person that mattered to see. Only she didn’t. For all her ability to see right through him, his feelings for her were the one thing she never quite saw.

Kang Sol was passing the year with flying colors. Joon Hwi suspects that the added pressure of a literal murder trial and everything that came with it adjusted her well to the stresses of law school. It was obvious now that schoolwork became manageable, she no longer really needed Joon Hwi to tutor her as frequently. But he still called her out for food, shared his ramen even though he never shares ramen, and still spends time studying with her when he really never needed to.

Kang Sol seemed to also have no intention of decreasing the time they spent together. The extra time she now had not having to study as much was spent entering random court rooms and listening in idly to trials with Joon Hwi. On occasion, they would offer legal help to a struggling plaintiff or defendant to help them win an unjust case. If their fingers brushed when they reached out for the law notes in between them, they did not say anything about it. Or if as Joon Hwi walked Sol back to the dorms and his pinky hooked hers as she talked animatedly about her day, they did not acknowledge it either.

Then, there were ungodly hours that no one but them knew about. Joon Hwi had picked up a habit of running around the school track anytime his emotions got too overwhelming. In the dark of night, no one can see him trembling, or his tears or his easygoing facade fraying at the seams.

Sol caught on to this habit quite quickly when he would sometimes duck out of late night study sessions with the study group early, or even in their individual study sessions in the copy room. Closer to his uncle’s death anniversary, his sudden disappearances became more frequent and she followed him out once without him knowing. The second time she did, Joon Hwi could hear Sol call out his name from the bleachers, waving soju bottles in both hands and beckoning him to her.

“I have one soju bottle with your name on it, Mr Second Round Passer!”

He slowed his run into a jog, huffing but unable to contain his smile, “Only one? I see you brought four bottles with you.”

“Then you better get here quickly before I drink all of them,” she grinned cheekily.

And so on these nights as they watched the first rays of sunlight beam through the clouds, Sol let Joon Hwi talk about anything and everything. It was one of the few moments that Sol took the role of the listening ear, attentively nodding to whatever he was saying and careful not to over-drink in order to maintain her focus. On the day of his uncle’s death anniversary, they had gone to the columbarium together, standing in silence as Joon Hwi took the time to process his conflicted emotions.

He wanted to tell his uncle that he still wanted to be a fair and just prosecutor. That he learnt to trust more people and care for them. And, that there was someone else that looked out for him in his uncle’s place. Anytime he had felt lonely, that person was there, as if sent by his uncle to keep Joon Hwi company.

That night, he was out running again but this time he knew Sol was waiting patiently for him at the bleachers. He walked towards her, ragged and panting, and sat beside her without a word. There was no need for soju that night. As he laid his head on Sol’s shoulders, he let out a sob that grew louder and louder as he let the grief take over. Her arm reached behind him to stroke his hair silently, letting him ride out the emotions.

Joon Hwi thought how fortunate he was that he met Sol, who unfailingly came to his defense and took his side no matter what. It felt so natural and easy how his feelings for her evolved up until he felt safe enough to cry in front of her. He did not dare to call it what it was, for fear of losing what was in front of him, but admittedly, Sol was making it extremely difficult for him to play the part of the teasing best friend any longer.

“Just confess to Sol noona already,” his roommate Seo Ji Ho whined, all but slamming his pen onto the desk. Seo Ji Ho is Joon Hwi’s tsundere best friend, who also deserves a story of his own some other time. He knew his groaning and whining came from a place of care, after you pull through the layers of actual annoyance.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joon Hwi said casually from his bed. Annoying Ji Ho was his second favorite pastime.

“Perjuring yourself right now? I thought Han Joon Hwi never lies,” he tsked.

“I am not under oath.”

“Oh for God’s sake, your sighs are so loud and it’s so distracting. If you want to be subtle, I suggest you stop staring at her while we are all right there. You owe me a pair of new eyes from all that trauma.”

Ji Ho did have a point though. Joon Hwi did not like ambiguity and he supposed neither did Sol. It felt rather cowardly to hold on to these moments where neither dared say anything. Han Joon Hwi never wore his heart on his sleeve ever since his uncle’s betrayal, but time has passed since then, and there was someone else that he cherished and has entrusted his life multiple times to. She more than deserved some honesty from him this time round.

“What did you have to tell me?” Sol had asked. They were in the lobby, right in front of the giant statue of Lady Justice.

“I…” he began, trailing off when he felt shyness bubbling within him.

“Ah, Han Joon Hwi at a loss for words?” she teased. “You don’t see that every day.”

Sensing an opening, he replied with a soft smile. “And whose fault is that?”

She stilled, but her expression remained neutral. For the first time, he did not know what she was thinking. This was, after all, a rare occurrence that Joon Hwi had met Sol’s teasing with a genuine reply. “Ah, lucky me, I guess,” she stammered.

Taking a deep breath, he tried again. “I don’t want anyone else to see right through me like you. But you do it anyway because I’m pretty sure you have magic eyes or something. I feel like with you,” he took a step forward, until they are inches apart, “I don’t have to hide anymore. And I don’t want to hide anymore, either.”

He took a breath and met her straight in the eyes. “I’m in love with you, Kang Sol.” Verbalizing it felt strange, as if he didn’t realize what he had felt before he said it. But hearing those words back, he felt like it rang true.

Kang Sol took a small breath and as she was about to reply, Joon Hwi’s hand immediately went to her lips, shutting them. He could not explain the thundering in his heart, that he had a feeling that she was going to reject him. He had to try again.

“You don’t have to say anything or say you feel the same way,” he prefaced, though it hurt to say, “but you’re the only person in the world I trust with my whole mind and heart and I want to keep caring for you, and I just wanted you to know that. If you want us to be friends, I’m totally alright with it and we will never speak of this again.”

He was not going to be alright with it, but with Sol, he would not mind hiding his feelings for the rest of his life if she never felt the same way. Han Joon Hwi never lies, but he is starting to see that Kang Sol was an exception to a lot of things.

Sol considered his words carefully, not once breaking his gaze. In her eyes, he could see a thousand emotions play through her mind. Now, you may think that Joon Hwi was overreacting because the tension between the two of them is clear as day but bear in mind that you know how this story ends. This was the most nerve-wracking day of his life. Taking the bar exam, his first case as prosecutor, all those events dulled in comparison. Was he wrong? Did he misread that was going on between them?

He shut his eyes, preparing for the fallout but instead felt her gentle hand on his, lowering it from her lips. Silently, she took a step forward, not letting go of his hand, and leaned in to kiss him.

He stilled as his eyes flung open. There was the girl he loved kissing him. Tentatively, his eyes fluttered shut and he used his free hand to caress her jaw, tipping it ever so slightly so that he could kiss her deeper. When they finally broke apart and their eyes fluttered open, Joon Hwi could not describe the gush of warmth in his heart he felt seeing her shy smile.

“I saw you do some mental gymnastics for a while and that got me a bit worried,” he teased, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.

“I was wondering if you really loved me, so you had a right to be a bit scared,” she retorted.

He frowned. “Why would I not mean it?”

She pursed her lips. “Back in our 1L, I was the lowest scoring student and my family life was a mess. I was struggling to even hold on to my scholarship and I really had nothing to offer you. I still don’t, by the way,” she mumbled at the end.

Of course, Sol would have such trivial reasons that never even once crossed Joon Hwi’s mind. But one look in Sol’s eyes and he could see the hesitance; that for all her intelligence and tenacity, she still did not believe she was enough.

“Okay, first of all that will never hold in court because they don’t even count as evidence,” he retorted cheekily. “Secondly, you were the lowest scorer because of all the stuff happening around us plus you started with a natural disadvantage compared to me and our study group. And look at you now! Financially, I treat you to a lot of food anyway and you don’t see me minding,” he jibed, and Sol couldn’t help but slap his arm. “And plus, I love your family. Your little sister is adorable. And, even if you have I quote ‘nothing to offer’, I’d like you to refer to Exhibit A, all the times you saved my ass from incarceration.”

“Pfft, I’d do that for any of my friends,” she scoffed half-heartedly.

“I know,” he said simply, startling Sol. “But,” he countered softly, intertwining his fingers with Sol’s, “when I had nothing, you defended me, even when you were struggling with your grades and everything happening to your family. And,” he smiled, “after what my uncle did, and everything that happened because of his murder, I told myself I wouldn’t trust anyone anymore. But you make me want to entrust my whole life to you. And after the dust settled, I can still hold on to the happy memories of my uncle even with the pain.”

“Because of me?”

He nodded, leaning his forehead against hers. “I love the law because I loved my uncle. It was how we connected and from it, I saw the world he wanted to build and I wanted to build it with him. After he betrayed me, I thought that world could never exist, and then you showed me it can. You, with your gutsy sense of justice. I just wanted to follow you all of my life.”

Sol let out a breath she did not realize she was holding. Joon Hwi could see her eyes glisten and he chuckled, wiping the stray tears away with his free hand. She seemed to contemplate what to say next, but her brows furrowed as if she could not find the right words. Joon Hwi waited patiently, gently swaying their interlocked hands.

Kang Sol for all her impulsiveness and ferociousness, was careful and soft in moments that really mattered.

A new expression crossed her face, and Joon Hwi remembered seeing a similar one when she had finally memorized a code and its provisions correctly, or figured out the answer to the problem herself. Releasing their interlocked hands, she tiptoed to encircle her arms around his neck and engulf him in a hug. Resting her chin on the crook of his neck, he heard her soft and muffled voice say “thank you”.

—

“Are you going to do this every day?” Sol laughed.

Joon Hwi turned to face his wife, then looked down to caress the baby bump softly.

“I just wanted our child to know my origin story. I don’t want them to think I was just this really amazing and unattainable prosecutor.”

“I hope our child will grow to be humble,” she sighed playfully. “Also, you really skipped a lot of the parts like how you became as you put it a “hotshot” prosecutor,” she said while gesturing air quotes. “And why was I like in 50% of that story? Ji Ho could have had more screen-time.”

“That’s not a fun story, and Ji Ho can have his own screen-time in his own story. Plus we haven’t even told your origin story yet. The legendary Attorney at Law Kang Sol, who no prosecutor dares to cross.”

“Except you,” she poked his ribs with her elbow.

“Of course,” he replied simply, kissing her on the cheek. “I’d be a shameful husband if I was not at least on par with the incredible intelligence of my wife. She’s 50% the reason why I am where I am now.”

“Liar, Second Round Judicial Exam Passer,” she muttered.

“You could probably pass it now if it still exists,” he retorted.

“Not as well as you, and gosh the idea of studying again brings about a trauma response,” she shivered. She got up, taking her husband’s hand and leading them back to bed.

Once both had laid down and switched off the lights, Joon Hwi reached out to stroke Sol’s hair softly, “I hope our child will grow up to be more like you. Someone strong and earnest, who gives someone like me, who had nothing, hope in the future.”

There was silence, until he heard Sol reply softly. “With all the stories you’re telling them, they’ll end up growing up to be just like you.”