Chapter Text
Park v Sim [2021] 69 QR 420
SUNGHOON PARK
(Appellant)
v
JAKE SIM
(Respondent)
Order
Leave for appeal is granted.
Summary
Three years on, where they’re a little more mature and a little less defensive, exes Jake and Sunghoon are forced to deal with whatever residual feelings they have for each other.
Call Jake cynical—jaded even—especially after years of falling into the demanding routine of law school and being forced out of his positive demeanour in exchange for caffeine addiction and eye bags, but when things are suspiciously going too well in life, there’s that lingering feeling at the back of his mind that something bad is going to happen sooner or later.
And today is just one of those days.
Jake brings a hand up to adjust the AirPods in his ears when he reaches the crossing, and says, “do you think he’ll be there?”
“Priorities, Jake,” Sunoo reminds him on the other end of the line. “I don’t think it’s the right time to be worrying about running into your ex, you know, considering that it’s quite concerning that your partner hasn’t replied to your messages all week. The mock trial is today.”
“Right,” Jake huffs, hands tightening around the legal submissions he’s currently holding. The plastic folder crunches under his grasp. “I’m kind of fucked, aren’t I?”
“No, you’ll do great. You always do,” Sunoo answers, and Jake can picture his friend reassuring him with a smile. “Also, like, there’s so many people on campus so I doubt you’ll run into Sunghoon any time soon. I wouldn’t worry about it too much because you’ve been doing fine for the past three years.”
Sunoo was in fact, very very wrong.
But as a lawyer in the making, Jake knows not to be rash and blame people for his misfortunes. Instead, the right direction is to think rationally and assess both sides of the argument free from external influences.
(There’s no argument.)
And that’s because on the evening of Jake’s graded mock trial, his senior counsel is still nowhere to be found and his only witness for the case goes hostile halfway through the proceeding.
“You got this. Remember you have the power of God—Kirby J—and anime on your side,” Riki passes a bottle of water as an attempt to hype Jake up like the older is about to step into a boxing ring. Jake feels like he’s going to get an uppercut from the judge instead, honestly speaking. The younger adds, before slipping away to the public gallery, “everything will be fine!”
Except that, no, everything is not fine—because the dread in his gut intensifies further when counsel for the appellant strides in with an all too familiar face and Jake’s not too sure how he feels about that.
“Hey, Jake,” Sunghoon says, a smile tugging at his lips. He proceeds to take a seat while his partner sets their submissions onto the bar table, the heavy stack of paper dropping down with a loud thud. “I didn’t think I would see you here of all places especially after how you ghosted me for three years.”
There’s a mop of silver hair beside Sunghoon that Jake catches—which belongs to a certain Taehyun Kang. Jake keeps the thoughts to himself because really, can this day get any worse?
“I didn’t ghost you for three years,” Jake replies in disbelief, pointing to himself. “Why were you counting in the first place?” but his voice is drowned out by the wooden doors flinging open at this exact moment, prompting him to rise up along with everyone else in the courtroom to bow to the judge.
Sunghoon and Taehyun begin with their appearances and it’s no surprise that Jake completely misses out on the court formalities from the other side, fingers frantically messaging his partner under the table. Jake does tear his gaze away from his phone a little later in defeat, hands still clammy, lifting his head up to see where the appellants are up to but is only met with silence.
“Appearances, counsel,” the judge says towards Jake’s direction, dryly.
“Right,” Jake mumbles before getting up. He clears his throat and collects himself with a firm grip on the lectern. He continues, speaking into the mic, “may it please the court, my name is Sim, initial J, appearing on behalf of the respondent as junior counsel. I will be speaking for eighteen minutes and will reserve two minutes for rebuttal.”
“Where’s the other counsel, Mr Sim?”
“Senior counsel is not present, your honour.”
From the look on the judge’s face who does not seem amused at the slightest, Jake can feel his grade plummet before the mock trial has barely even begun.
The revered older presses his palm on his forehead on the bench, heaving a disappointed sigh, “as a fifth year, Mr Sim, I expect a little more adherence to basic courtroom decorum. Backlog aside, no court nor your learned friends will stop and wait for you in the real world. In other words, please do better.”
Jake thinks he hears a snicker from the other side which is mostly likely coming from Taehyun because Sunghoon smacks his friend on the back. “Uh, yes, sorry,” Jake replies. “Counsel can proceed, as your honour pleases.”
The case is in shambles, but it’s something Jake expects because he can only do so much as junior counsel. But Jake’s not someone who backs down a challenge even though it means that he can only argue and rebuke the latter half of the appellant’s submissions based on what he had prepared for tonight. After all, when faced with a seemingly insuperable situation, Jake is the type to power on through sheer determination and gritted teeth.
“We submit that one of the limbs of the test for defamation is not made out,” Jake states, pacing himself with a calm rhythm. He’s a skilled oral advocate once he gets into the swing of things, no longer on panic mode akin to the way he was earlier. “The communication on the Instagram post is not defamatory. It’s the respondent’s honest opinion of the reality TV star based on their persona as portrayed in the show and is therefore not a statement of fact, as argued by my learned friends on the other side. Thus, the defence of honest opinion is available as well as the common law defence of fair comment.”
The witness for the respondent gets called in, and Jake thinks he can finish the night with a potential mic drop. It goes smoothly for the most part with the student actor replying to Jake’s questioning based on what they have rehearsed before in preparation for the mock trial. However, halfway through her testimony, she completely backtracks via a spiel on how her friend disclosed to her that the statement was intentional to ruin the star’s career out of jealousy, which effectively derails the trajectory to salvaging this case.
“Is that so?” Jake tells her while she fixates on the courtroom’s wooden panels in the witness stand, patience growing thin due to her acting out impertinently out of the blue. He places a piece of paper in front of her as he tries to keep himself together before impeaching the credit of his only witness. “Do you remember what you said in the contrary in your initial statement? No? Well, it’s in front of you now, why don’t you read it out loud?”
“Mr Sim,” the judge states in a patronising tone which sounds like he’s berating Jake instead. “No leading questions are permitted during direct examination.”
“If the court pleases, counsel requests to seek leave to cross-examine the witness on their prior inconsistent statement,” Jake replies.
“On what grounds?”
Riki buries his face into his hands in frustration at the back of the courtroom. Which honestly, is a big mood.
“Grounds?” Jake deadpans. The witness is obviously acting in a way that’s adverse to my case? Your common law power to declare hostility at unfavourable witnesses? But he bites back his tongue out of deference to the sacredness of the court and answers, “on the grounds of hostility, your honour.”
“Yeah, nah,” the older says, to which giggles erupt in the courtroom as a response. “I don’t think so, Mr Sim.”
(Jake spends the rest of the evening crouching down in front of the recycling bin after his mock trial. The sheets of paper scattered across the concrete threatens to fly away as a gust of wind blow towards him as he rips the staples off, moving it to a separate pile so he can throw his hard work away which has gone down the drain.)
“That was a massive shit show. How humiliating,” Jake groans. “But still, the judge was so obviously biased towards the appellants’ case. He was so snarky to me and pretended that my witness wasn’t hostile for no reason, like, did he get up on the wrong side of bed this morning? Did he forget to eat dinner before the trial?”
“You did your best,” Riki replies with as much encouragement he can muster in those four words. “Also, that’s very legal realist of you—spare me the jurisprudential thoughts before I relive the trauma of legal philosophy again, please.”
A laugh escapes from Jake’s lips. It goes silent between them for a moment when they dig into their shared snack pack in the parking lot.
Riki brings it up a little later, cautiously, “it’s Sunghoon that’s bothering you, right?”
“Of course not,” says Jake, but his voice cracks. He pokes a soggy French fry and a piece of lamb in one go with his plastic fork, sweeping the garlic sauce in the corner of the takeaway box. “Why would he bother me?”
“Um,” Riki furrows his eyebrows, voice very much judging. He continues, albeit his attention is still glued to the dinner placed on the hood of his car, “because you still like him?”
“I don’t,” Jake deadpans. There’s that weird feeling bubbling in his stomach again.
Riki hums. “Anyway, I’ll give you a ride home after we finish dinner, yeah?”
The temperature tanks significantly on the way back to the parking lot after disposing the rubbish and waving goodbye to the shop owners. Jake is a regular and probably frequents the food joint way too often for it to be considered healthy, but it is what it is he supposes, especially because the shop is just a short walk from the law school. Rubbing his hands together in a sad attempt to keep warm as the chill of the wind bites against his skin, seeping through the thinness of his blazer, Jake speeds up his pace towards Riki’s car. The streetlight above him flickers in an eerie manner.
He takes refuge in the passenger seat; the heater on full blast in the dark, wrapping him cosily like a blanket. However, there’s an unsettling presence behind Jake’s seat and even though horror isn’t his forte at all, he decides to turn around. Jake ends up falling backwards with a yelp when he can’t exactly make out what the strange and omnipresent dark figure at the back seat is.
Riki turns on the lights then, and Jake suddenly feels like a clown. The younger has placed a gigantic monstera plant in the middle, the three seatbelts strapped across the pot.
“It’s for Jungwon,” Riki tells him as he ignites the engine. The heart-shaped leaves sway for a bit. “I was playing soccer inside his flat a week ago with Heeseung and accidentally knocked over Injang. Jungwon has stopped talking to me ever since that day, which is completely understandable.”
“Injang? Isn’t that a gift from his mentor, Namjoon? The hotshot lawyer who’s most likely going to be one of the youngest members from the Bar Association to take silk very soon?”
“Yeah,” huffs Riki. “I unintentionally decided to wake up and choose homicide at a cactus from a soon to be QC.”
“Bro,” Jake grimaces, with feeling. “That was Jungwon’s baby.”
(“Uh, how can I help you?” Jungwon says when he opens the door, eyebrows knitted in confusion. His voice is croaky having just woken up from his sleep earlier.
“Hi,” Riki peeks out from the leaves with a shit-eating grin. The monstera plant is hugged tightly against his chest, the handles of the Macca’s takeaway bag hanging on his wrist. He notes that Jungwon’s wearing a matching set of bear print fleece pyjamas which make him look like a human teddy bear. “I, Riki Nishimura, come with an offering of peace and breakfast. I hope you like hotcakes.”
“After you murdered Injang right in front of my eyes in cold blood?” Jungwon accuses with a light-hearted chuckle. “And yes, I do like hotcakes.”
“It was manslaughter, Jungwon. I don’t have the requisite mens rea for murder as I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear,” Riki protests with a whine. “Hash browns too because I bought ten of them by accident.”
“Manslaughter, sure,” Jungwon repeats with a roll of his eyes, taking the plant away from Riki’s hands. He laughs, unsurprised, “ten? That’s very on brand for you.”
“So, we’re good?” Riki asks with hesitation, but his eyes are hopeful.
“Well, yeah,” Jungwon nods, nonchalant. Stepping backwards to make space for his friend to come in, he says, “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”)
Jake doesn’t remember the last time he had attended an event organised by the KSA.
The only thing stopping him, really, is the fact that every year the students are younger, the parties get more rowdy which is further exacerbated by unnecessary gossip and drama, and that Jake doesn’t have the capacity to stomach as much alcohol as he used to. However, he craves a proper meal especially after eating terribly for a month in preparation for his mock trial, so he finds himself going to a get-together on a Friday evening.
It’s a big mistake, Jake realises far too late in the middle of the Korean-Chinese restaurant, because the food is beginning to come out and it’s probably too rude to make the escape now. Sunghoon has also showed up tonight for some reason and is seated across the table right in front of Jake in plain view. And to rub salt into the wound, Jake’s partner for the mock trial—hereinafter “senior counsel”, “classmate” and “colleague” because Jake is still angry and refuses to grant first-name basis privilege—has decided to make his appearance today after going MIA with no explanation, right next to Sunghoon.
At one point the senior counsel chats up Sunghoon who returns with one-word answers only. Sunghoon has that blank expression which is uncannily similar to the way he looked at Jake during their arguments towards the end of the relationship, sans the defeat in his eyes. As of right now, Sunghoon isn’t angry at the slightest—Jake knows he’s just not bothered in engaging in the conversation, akin to the way Sunghoon stopped fighting with him because somewhere along the way Jake didn’t matter anymore and there’s no use in wasting energy in justifying anything.
There’s a flirtatious hand placed on his shoulder to which Sunghoon strategically shrugs off by leaning forward to grab a piece of mandu, chewing with irritation because his classmate seemingly can’t read the room.
“You good? We can swap seats if you want to,” Jake asks once his colleague excuses himself to the bathroom.
Sunghoon waves his hands. And for the first time tonight, there’s a small smile forming on his lips, albeit fleeting, the expression disappearing when he opens a bottle of soju. “I’m okay.”
“Sunbae,” the first-year next to Jake says, the faint rosy flush on her cheeks darkening. She presents her phone to him with both hands and asks, “is it okay if I get your number? I heard you were top of the class for torts and was wondering if you could help me study some time.”
Her friends squeal excitedly beside her at her bold move, which puts Jake in an awkward position because he doesn’t really want to give out his contact details to anyone. The first thing he finds himself doing is to look away from her, gaze flittering across the table to Sunghoon who downs a shot of soju, their eyes meeting during the exchange. Jake doesn’t attach any meaning to it.
“I don’t text,” Jake tells her with an apologetic look. But because Jake’s not an asshole and he doesn’t plan on humiliating her in front of everyone where all eyes are set on them, he cracks a lopsided smile for formalities sake and says, “why don’t you add me on KakaoTalk instead?”
She beams automatically at Jake with a wide grin that she can’t contain, but the opportunity is taken away before she can even try to do anything. The aunty squeezes between them, causing Jake to back away as a bowl of jjamppong and a plate of tangsuyuk is placed on the table.
Without asking anyone beforehand, Jake’s classmate pours an entire bowl of sauce onto the fried pork and Sunghoon visibly cringes in his seat at the way the once crispy meat becomes limp. The dipper-pourer discourse, which is probably borderline political, is all too real.
When his colleague realises that Sunghoon isn’t giving what he wants during dinner, he does a U-turn and diverts his attention to the group of first-years instead. He announces as obnoxiously a beneficiary of nepotism can, “my dad’s a partner of a big corporate law firm and I’m going to take over it one day. We throw amazing Friday night drinks—what do you think about heading over there together after dinner?”
The group of girls next to Jake freeze in their spots and don’t make eye contact, eyes glancing between themselves.
“No one asked,” Sunghoon replies. However, his classmate refuses to relent on ruining the vibe, and continues to wait for an answer.
“You should go home,” Jake says. He adds, sternly, “you’re making everyone uncomfortable.”
It goes dead silent.
Sunghoon was never the one to think that Jake would call people out on the spot. Granted, Jake’s nice about it, despite the smile that was on his face a second ago dropping. Jake’s kind—everyone knows that—but the snappy nature of the words that roll out of his tongue is almost like Jake’s berating him in conjunction with the stoic expression he’s currently wearing. It’s unsettling.
Relationships ebb and flow throughout the course of one’s life and it’s not a novel phenomenon. It’s normal for people to drift together and apart, and for people to change and grow. However, there’s an incongruence here because during the interval of time between post-break up and now, Jake has changed—or maybe he hasn’t changed at all—Sunghoon realises that the inability to reconcile the gap between first-year Jake and fifth-year Jake is probably because he didn’t really know Jake in the first place.
The air is still tense and suffocating, until the executive members of the KSA committee rush in to remove the inebriated classmate.
“I think we’ll have to revoke his membership because this isn’t the first time,” Wonyoung comments with a long and exhausted sigh, while Jayun steps outside to call for a taxi.
She hauls him up by the arms together with Hyunwoo who nods, “sounds good, pres.”
When it registers to Sunghoon that he’s been sipping on his soju as if it’s water while everything was unfolding, he bends forward with his hand on his stomach, forehead crashing onto the table. It feels like someone had punched him in the abdomen unsolicited, to put it simply. Sunghoon curses at the fact that soju is just so easy to down but hard to stomach, especially because it all hits at one go.
A cup is pushed towards him and Sunghoon thinks he hears Jake faintly telling him to drink some water as the students around him begin to make their leave, the metal chairs screeching against the floor. He doesn’t have the time to brace himself for the late-night chill charging in from the restaurant’s open doors. Sunghoon doesn’t take it, opting to shiver in his spot instead because he had only shown up in a short-sleeved shirt. “I’m fine. My stomach just hurts. I’ll leave soon so don’t worry about me, Jake.”
“Can you even stand up though?” Jake asks, removing his jacket. He drapes the denim over Sunghoon as he mumbles a weak no, and says, “I’ll take you home.”
Law school has not taught Sunghoon the appropriate lawyering tools needed to utilise when things go awry—and more specifically, the morning after and whatever that entails.
Sunghoon wakes up with a hangover like his head has been split into two. The throbbing pain doesn’t seem like it’ll subside any time soon, which isn’t very conducive to the situation Sunghoon’s mired in right now because he has to simultaneously deal with the fact that he's sleeping on a bed in a room that isn’t his and the hoodie he’s currently clad in is undoubtedly Jake’s.
It’s familiar—Jake’s room, that is—but the layout of the furniture has changed. It’s minimal, indicating to Sunghoon that Jake’s grown, matured, moved on. The wall is devoid of the polaroids Jake had once stuck all over as a keepsake of their dates and anniversaries, now nowhere to be found against the light grey paint.
However, some things have stayed the same. Sunghoon finds himself chuckling at how Jake has a pile of clothes on his chair, to which Sunghoon assumes the mountain of fabric migrate to the bed whenever Jake needs to work at his desk and vice-versa when it’s time to sleep. He remembers nagging at Jake for this but never actually got annoyed because Jake reacts with the most adorable rueful smile directed to Sunghoon exclusively.
“Jake,” Sunghoon calls out from the top of the stairs, hands wrapping around the rail securely when he begins his descent. “Have you seen my phone? I can’t find it.”
“I haven’t either,” Jake replies from the couch. “That’s fine, I’ll just call it.”
Layla greets Sunghoon excitedly when he enters the living room, feet steady when she jumps at him, her tail wagging. Jake on the other hand is silent, a blank expression etched on his face as he stares into his phone.
“You don’t have my number?” Sunghoon frowns, but it inadvertently comes off as disappointment.
There’s a sheepish grin Jake returns at him as he clarifies awkwardly, “I deleted it after we broke up.”
“Oh,” Sunghoon tells him. He laughs easily, “that’s understandable.”
“Here’s your key card by the way,” Jake passes a white plastic card to Sunghoon. Their fingers touch for a brief moment. “I asked for your address last night to take you home, but you gave me this saying you live alone now. You knocked out before you could tell me where you lived.”
Sunghoon blinks, tongue-tied, and finds himself repeating again, “oh.” He sticks out his hand to let Jake give his phone to him.
“Where do you live now?” Jake asks for the sake of small talk as Sunghoon dials his own number. He regrets it a second later when the words leave his mouth and perhaps, it’s probably too intruding because of their status as exes. After all, Sunghoon doesn’t owe him anything.
There’s no time to backpedal on his question because Sunghoon answers with a gentle smile, “just a few blocks away from uni.”
They sit in front of the washer-dryer later after rescuing Sunghoon’s missing phone from under Jake’s bed, watching Sunghoon’s shirt tumble around in a circle. Layla sits beside them, eyes following the machine in curiosity while Sunghoon scratches the place behind her ears.
“I am so sorry you had to clean up after me,” Sunghoon exclaims. He briefly remembers spilling soju on himself and probably some tangsuyuk sauce or jjamppong broth in the mix as well, based on the faint reddish-orange splotches on his cream-coloured shirt that’s spinning in the machine.
“It’s fine. Riki makes a mess whenever we go out drinking, so I’m used to it,” Jake reassures him. He ends up saying, “you cleaned up after me too during first year at Student Health, so I guess we’re even now.”
(The story on how Jake and Sunghoon met in first year is far from the traditional meet-cute romantic comedies try to sell and market to the world.
It begins something like this in the university’s student health clinic.
Jake is down with the flu, but that is nothing unusual when hundreds of students in his physics class are enclosed in a poorly ventilated lecture hall during the middle of winter where germs travel in a speed quicker than the professor changes to the next slide before anyone can scribble down something discernible.
He pays for his appointment and thanks the lady at the reception, before scooping up a handful of condoms from the container on the table situated by the pamphlets on display. She looks at him with wide eyes, clearly taken aback, and passes him a brochure on the university’s free sexual health clinic without a word.
“Thanks,” Jake replies, his face heating up to a bright red. He then proceeds to drop everything mid-stroll towards the exit after attempting to balance the packets and the pamphlet in one hand, and the world comes crashing and burning down.
Kai cackles loudly, the laugh vibrating across the room as he continues to film his friend’s imminent demise by the sliding doors. Jake ponders for a good moment on dropping out of his degree and giving up his dreams of becoming a lawyer. The option of changing his legal name to the Korean name his grandparents had given him and moving to another state seems incredibly attractive now.
The end of the world, however, comes to a halt when an angel helps Jake to pick up the condoms scattered across the ground. He’s quick in shoving the packets into Jake’s hands and the leftovers into his own bag so they’re out of sight. Jake is about to thank the student because Jake now owes him his life for saving the day, but is cut off with a, “—hey, aren’t you in my contracts class? Jack, was it? Wait, no, Jake?”
“Yes, I’m Jake,” the chuckle comes off more of a cry. The Socratic method is truly the bane of Jake’s existence (along with the demon that is the AGLC, but he digresses) because this is definitely not what he wanted to be known for in his law school career.
“Cool, I’m Sunghoon,” the angel—no—Sunghoon, introduces himself, the corners of his lips curling upwards.
“This is so embarrassing. I’m only doing this because I lost a game, I swear. This is not an acceptance of an offer but an invitation to treat,” Jake manages to say. It dawns on him that the niche contract law jokes in his head do not translate well in real life because not only does it give off weird vibes, it’s also very nerdy and uncool.
But Sunghoon laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world, his eyes sparkling as they press into crescent moons. “That was a good joke. I think I might have to steal that one from you.”
Jake returns Sunghoon’s words with a hearty laugh, mirroring the expression on his classmate’s face.
And maybe, that’s an achievement in itself on this godforsaken day.)
The front door closes shut then, which snaps Jake out of his nostalgic reminiscence of the past. He’s not sure if it’s a territory he should be delving into, but he doesn’t let himself think too much about it because Layla barks at the noise, ears perking up.
Jake’s brother greets the two after returning from his morning jog, “hey, Sunghoon. I haven’t seen you in a while.” He then turns to Jake with a look that basically tells him that he won’t let Jake live solely because of privileges bestowed to older siblings. “Ah, is that why you were sleeping on the couch last night, Jakey.”
Drop it, Jake mouths at his brother with pleading eyes. Layla follows the older sibling, the sound of her paws padding along the wooden floor drowning out into a decrescendo when the pair is out of sight.
“I think I’ll take the bus back home now,” Sunghoon announces when the washer-dryer beeps.
“Do you need me to show you where the bus stop is?” Jake takes out the shirt from the machine.
“It’s fine. I remember where it is,” Sunghoon waves him off. He fishes for his wallet in his pocket and opens it, makes a face, and closes it. “I do not have a bus card.”
“That’s probably because you live by uni,” Jake laughs, digging through his bag for his own wallet. “Here, you can take mine.”
“Thanks, and for last night as well,” Sunghoon grins. “I’ll return this to you tomorrow.”
“Anytime,” Jake tells him, like there will be a second time. “Sure, just text me.”
“You still have that?” Sunghoon points at the wallet in Jake’s hands in surprise, mouth forming into a shape of an o. “I thought you would’ve thrown that away by now, considering that you were really good at cutting me off so quickly.”
Jake knows it’s not a dig at him. He looks down at the wallet Sunghoon had gifted him back in first-year. The faux leather material on the outside is peeling and it’s kind of falling apart, but it works.
It’s not like he’s a hoarder by any means, Jake just has a special place in heart for sentimental things he values—like the pouch his mum had curated for him on the first day of university, the scribbled messages folded between the care packages his friends had sent to him when he fell sick and missed a whole week of lectures, and birthday cards collected over the years.
(Jake wonders if his heart has an extra place for Sunghoon too. Or maybe he did all along, thanks to his inability to remove all the traces of Sunghoon in his life after their breakup. Again, he doesn’t want to think about this. What Jake makes of it is between God and himself only.)
“It does its job. It would be a waste if I threw it away,” Jake answers, his throat drying up. “I should get a new one, huh.”
Sunghoon hums, evasive. “That’s up to you.”
Sunghoon eventually makes his leave out of Jake’s family home with a small wave. Jake doesn’t walk Sunghoon to the bus stop, closing the door once he disappears from the driveway onto the main road.