Never Be Apart

CHAPTER 27

The lawyer was already there when we arrived. He was outside the house, waiting in his car. We spotted him right away because Haruki knew him.

Haruki got out of the car first, and we quickly followed. He greeted the lawyer and respectfully bowed to him. I just smiled and gave a small nod in acknowledgment, and the lawyer did the same.

"Condolences," he said to me as we entered the house. I just replied with a small smile. 

Since no one else lived in the house except for our driver, who was outside, we decided to talk in the living room. "I can't promise that I'll win this case, but I'll do everything I can," the lawyer said as soon as we sat down. I nodded in response. "Can I see the evidence?" he asked while shuffling through his papers.

I quickly stood up, went to my room, and searched for the flash drive. I ran back downstairs, a bit out of breath, and handed it to the lawyer. "Is this the only copy?" he asked. I was about to answer when Haruki spoke up first. "Yes, Attorney," she said, which made me glance at her in confusion. She just nodded, so I let it go.

The lawyer plugged in the flash drive and watched the footage one by one. He kept nodding as he went through everything.

"Tomorrow will be the first and last trial for your father's case—"

"First and last? Isn't there supposed to be more than one?" Aki asked. The lawyer cleared his throat, and we all fell silent again.

"The judge requested that there be only one trial because of the lack of evidence. But now that we have this, maybe we can turn things around," he explained in detail. We all furrowed our brows but eventually nodded in agreement. "I want you all to just be in the audience. Kids aren't allowed to testify because the judge requested it," he added, which made us protest.

"That doesn't seem fair, Attorney! Why does it feel like the judge gets to do whatever he wants?" I asked, frustrated. The lawyer sighed and adjusted his position.

"Even if the judge allowed kids to testify, how would you do it? You weren't at the crime scene, after all," he replied bluntly. I just sank back into my seat and sighed. "Besides, Mr. Santos is pointing fingers at someone as the suspect. In fact, he has a lot of fabricated evidence," he continued. We all frowned again and asked who these suspects were.

The lawyer showed us everyone Mr. Santos was accusing. We didn't recognize a single one of them, especially me, so it was impossible that they were responsible for my dad's death.