Second Overtime | JENSOO & CHAELISA

Chapter LXIII

Chaerin sat at the defense table in black. 

Not the charcoal wool she had worn to courtrooms for thirty years, or the silk-lined blazer that had once made junior associates lower their voices when she entered. The court had denied her request for her own clothing. She had filled out the form in her cell, her handwriting cramped and unfamiliar on the cheap paper, and a week later a bailiff had informed her that personal attire was not permitted for defendants in custody. 

The suit she wore now was plain and inexpensive, the fabric rough against her skin, the cut loose across her shoulders where once everything had been tailored to fit. Her hair had grown past the precise line she had maintained for decades, and gray showed clearly at the roots, a soft, creeping silver she had not seen in years because her stylist had always caught it first. 

The bruise beneath her left eye had faded to a muddy, yellowed brown, but a faint swelling still lingered along the cheekbone, a reminder of the laundry room and the folding table and the knuckles that had connected with her face. The split at the corner of her mouth had crusted over with a dark scab that pulled whenever she spoke. Four crescent-shaped marks scarred one wrist where another inmate's nails had dug in and held.

Jennie noticed them. Her eyes paused there, just for a fraction of a second, long enough for Chaerin to see the flicker of recognition before it was gone. Something almost like shame moved through Chaerin's face, a brief, involuntary softening around the mouth, and then Jennie looked away. Not with disgust. Not with satisfaction. Simply away, as if the bruises on her mother's skin were no more remarkable than the courtroom's fluorescent lights or the worn carpet beneath her feet.

When Jennie entered, Chaerin's spine straightened. It was an instinctive motion, the body remembering a posture it had held for decades, the mother waiting for her daughter to come home, to come back, to return to her. 

Her mouth parted, and for one suspended second, she became the woman from the old photographs. The woman kneeling beside a birthday cake with one arm wrapped around her daughter's small waist, her face turned toward the camera with an expression of uncomplicated joy, as if nothing existed beyond the child she held. "Jennie," she said, and the name came out hoarse and desperate, stripped of every layer of authority she had once worn like armor.

The judge looked over. Chaerin's attorney touched her sleeve and she fell silent. Jennie did not turn toward her. She walked past the defense table without slowing, without glancing sideways, without acknowledging that her mother existed at all. She took her seat beside the prosecutor, her back straight and her hands folded in her lap, and Chaerin watched her with the hollow, helpless gaze of someone who had only just begun to understand what she had lost.

Jisoo sat in the first row behind her, flanked by Irene and Jiyong. Jisoo's grandmother occupied the aisle seat, her cane planted firmly between her feet, her sharp, weathered face unreadable. 

Lisa, Rosé, Nayeon, Seulgi, Moonbyul, Jeongyeon, Tzuyu, Coach Minzy, Miss Lee, Irene and Jin filled the remaining benches behind them, a wall of silent, steadfast presence that Chaerin could feel pressing against her back. She saw them all. Every person she had dismissed as temporary. Corrupting. Unworthy of her daughter's attention. Every friend she had tried to separate Jennie from. Every adult she had attempted to discredit or intimidate. They had come. Not for her. Not to witness her humiliation. They had come because Jennie had asked them to be here, and they had not hesitated.

The verdict had been delivered two days earlier. Guilty on all counts. Aggravated kidnapping. Attempted murder. Bribery of a public official. Obstruction of justice. Conspiracy to commit international abduction. Unlawful surveillance of a minor. Misuse of client funds. The list had gone on, charge after charge, each one a small, precise blow.