The Top Student Hides Her Regression
Chapter 34
For Kim Gaeun of Class 2 of 2nd Grade, this was her second time at a police station.
Already her second time this month in a place she had never imagined setting foot in her entire life.
As she sat there dazed, her friend beside her spoke up.
She was someone Gaeun had only started talking to after starting their second year. At first, she had seemed a bit arrogant just because she did well in school, but now she was the person Gaeun trusted more than anyone else.
Kang Da-hye.
“What do you want to do? Your opinion matters the most, Gaeun.”
“……I want to ruin that middle-aged bastard.”
“Got it.”
After seeming to think for a moment, Dahye spoke.
“Back when Seo Jae-gyeom came by, you still have the Kotalk messages you sent me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Later, when the police ask, tell them everything: every single time that creep showed up, what he said, what he did, and how uncomfortable you felt each time. If you have a diary or anything like that, show it to them. If you can’t remember clearly, tell them you want to check your notes before speaking.”
Dahye’s warm hand firmly squeezed Gaeun’s.
“Once you finish giving your statement, they’ll show it to you at the end so you can verify it. It doesn’t matter if it takes a long time, so read every word carefully and ask them to fix anything that isn’t right. That’s your right.”
“…Okay.”
“Don’t be nervous.”
“Yeah.”
“…Well, getting them to take the statement in the first place might be the tricky part.”
Don’t worry. I came prepared.
Dahye said.
Gaeun could only nod like she was in a trance.
“Look, students, let’s just resolve this amicably.”
“Right. Things like this happen all the time in life. Are you going to call the police every single time?”
“We’ll give him a stern talking-to and make sure he never loiters around you girls again. How does that sound?”
“Ha.”
If that’s all you’re going to say, why don’t you just quit being cops?
There are plenty of good police officers in the world, but the ones in our neighborhood definitely aren’t among them.
It pisses me off that even though I knew the police would act like this, they were still the first people I thought of in an emergency—and that they were the only ones I could turn to for help.
It infuriates me every time, yet every time, calling the police is the only thing I can do.
And it pisses me off that things like this happen often enough to be called ‘every time’!
If I’ve had to swallow this much frustration, isn’t it about time for some relief? Is a cold soda that expensive? You can buy one at a convenience store for two thousand won! Somebody pour one out here already! Gush it all out!
“Those girls are extortionists! The way they immediately called the cops—this clearly isn’t their first rodeo! They’re pros, I tell you, pros!”
I don’t even want to call him a middle-aged man. We had been temporarily separated from the bald dwarf, but from inside a room that looked like a conference space, the dwarf’s indignant shrieks could be heard loud and clear.
Every time a loud noise broke out, Gaeun, sitting next to me, flinched and pulled her shoulders in.
“She glared right at me and hurled all kinds of curses, but the moment the cops showed up, look at her pretending to be scared! You ought to be investigating them, damn it!”
Cops, perpetrators—did they all go to the same academy? How are their words an exact match for everything I studied beforehand?
Seo Jae-gyeom had scared the dwarf off last time, but just in case, I had done some research of my own after that.
About the kind of nonsense certain police officers and perpetrators spout in cases like this.
And right now, I was amazed by how it hadn’t deviated a single inch from my predictions.
’Actually, it’s a relief. It means they’ll act entirely within the range of what I anticipated.’
I’m fully prepared to counter every single point.
Bring it on!
“If we file this case and start an investigation, you students will have to be dragged around here and there. You might have to give supplementary statements, and you might even have to appear in court. Are you still sure you want to go through with this?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I said yes, we’re sure. We strongly wish to press charges, so please file it.”
“…….”
“And as far as I know, victims have no obligation to appear in court unless subpoenaed as a witness. Would a case of this scale really require going to court?”
Honestly, almost never, right? Next.
“That gentleman is very angry. He’s adamantly denying that he ever did such a thing. If an investigation concludes there’s no offense, he could countersue you girls for false accusation.”
“(Gaeun’s face turned pale)”
“In fact, the word ‘false accusation’ already came out of his mouth……. We’re just worried you students might end up in a difficult spot. We’re telling you this because we have an obligation to inform you of all possibilities.”
There it is. False accusation.
‘If you file a report and it goes to trial, and he’s found innocent, he could countersue the victim for false accusation.’
‘If you leave now without filing, it’s as if the report never happened, so he won’t be able to sue you for false accusation either.’
They say that when cops intimidate ordinary, naive people like this, most of them find it too troublesome and frightening, so they just say, ‘Ah, then please just act like nothing happened,’ and leave.
But we all know better now, don’t we?
A false accusation charge only holds up if someone knowingly files a bogus report despite knowing the accused is innocent.
“Excuse me, Officer. Even if that man goes to trial and is acquitted, we reported him because we genuinely believed he was a sexual harasser. How could he countersue us for false accusation? The legal requirements aren’t even met in the first place.”
Getting a non-indictment or an acquittal doesn’t automatically mean you can countersue for false accusation, does it? Next.
“Student Kim Gaeun cursed at him earlier, right? Don’t you know that swearing at someone in front of other people constitutes criminal insult? If so, you’re at fault too, student. Are you still sure you want to file?”
“Gaeun didn’t insult him. She was cursing at herself.”
“(Jung Eun-sung suddenly butting in) Excuse me, Officer. That sexual harasser is shouting so loudly that the whole station can hear him calling them extortionists. If anything qualifies as criminal insult, isn’t it that?”
“(Gaeun clapping her hands) Exactly! Sexual harassment, assault, and criminal insult.”
“(The officer gritting his teeth) Students these days sure are bold…….”
Not bold—smart.
Listen here, you cop bastard… If I hadn’t regressed, I’d have college juniors your age, got it? Next.
The officer looked flustered.
Normally, victims would have backed down by this point. When the police—the only pillar of support in such a bewildering situation—start trying to scare them, they usually cave.
If they added, ‘We’ll make sure to give him a strict warning so he never does it again,’ that would have been game over.
’Too bad for you, we won’t fall for it.’
Now then, let’s write the written statement…….
“Students, we just heard his side of the story…… and he says he was heavily intoxicated. He was out of his mind drunk, and when a student he usually considered himself close with treated him like a pervert, he just felt hurt.”
They’re still not letting us write it.
An officer coming out of the conference room exchanged a glance with the one handling us, and they swapped seats.
The new officer continued in a soothing tone.
“To be honest, he says he doesn’t remember much right now… but either way, it wasn’t intentional. He made a mistake because he was drunk. So can’t you students just let it slide this once?”
There it is, Part 2.
The textbook excuse of sex offenders.
I was drunk. I didn’t mean to. Honestly, I don’t even remember.
You’re not wriggling out of it that easily.
“He wasn’t drunk.”
I held up the phone in my hand.
“He was standing entirely on his own two feet the whole time, and he carried on a conversation with us. About an hour ago, he even called our academy to make a scene. The entire phone call where he spoke completely sober is recorded.”
“Make a scene?”
“Yes. I just sent a Kotalk message to our academy director, and he told me all academy calls are recorded and that he’d send over the file right away.”
“Haah…….”
“He might have had a drink, but this was absolutely not something committed in an incapacitated state. Gaeun, show him the Kotalk messages from before too.”
“Kotalk?”
“The day Seo Jae-gyeom came.”
“Ah, right.”
Gaeun hurriedly pulled her phone out of her pocket.
“You see this right here, don’t you? The dates of the incidents, what happened, the perpetrator’s actions, and the feelings caused are all recorded. Including the fact that my friend clearly expressed her refusal.”
“…….”
“We came here before, too, asking for patrols because we were scared of that man. Then, that day, and today. That’s at least three times, isn’t it?”
Consistently, repeatedly, and despite the victim’s clear refusal.
Let’s say today was an exception. Was he drunk then and that other time too?
“Calls to 112 are automatically recorded, right? His voice speaking with clear pronunciation behind us was definitely recorded earlier, so go ahead and listen to it.”
“Ha.”
With a sharp clatter, the officer tossed his pen onto the desk and leaned back in his chair.
Whether he liked it or not, I said what I needed to say.
“Last time, you told us this: he only talked to a passing student and didn’t lay a hand on her or try to abduct her, so it didn’t constitute a case.”
“…….”
“So we couldn’t file a report back then, but this time, something actually happened. He laid a hand on her, and if I hadn’t stepped in, who knows what would have happened.”
“Student.”
“Fortunately, nothing worse happened and we survived safely, so here we are to report it.”
“…….”
“Please file the case.”
This work is fiction, and the police reporting and investigation procedures depicted in this episode do not reflect real-world processes.