The Bedshare Agreement

Chapter 12: What am I to you, Tine?

Tine's POV
"I wouldn't have mind if you just stayed the night, Sarawat." Saying it out to myself while looking at the post-it Sarawat left for me felt a bit weird, but I did mean it.

He could have just asked me or he could have just stayed — It was his house anyway. It would have been nice to wake up next to Sarawat, and share breakfast with him. It would have definitely been very, very bad for my heart, but I would have still been happy.

I took out the post-its from the bedside table and kept them in our post-it drawer. There had been so many post-its around the house that I couldn't even understand which ones were new and which ones were old. So, I decided to put all the old ones in a drawer. Soon enough, Sarawat found the drawer too, and he started putting old post-its inside it as well.

I dragged myself out of bed with Phukong's letter still in my hand and headed straight towards the kitchen to brew some coffee. Sitting down on the kitchen table with my coffee and several days old tea cake, I finally opened the letter.

One hour later, I had read Phukong's 5-page letter at least thrice and memorized everything he had written in it. Phukong was in a shady area of the town at around midnight with his boyfriend when a man in the same bar as them got attacked by a knife. The perpetrator was wearing a black hoodie and so was Phukong — That was the only piece of evidence the police used against him.

There were no CCTVs around and Phukong's only alibi, his boyfriend who seems like a selfish  ass, flee the scene as soon as commotion started. Phukong was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and he was paying a hefty price for it. 

I took out all the court documents and transcripts that I got from the district court for a better understanding of the Phukong's case and compared it with the letter.

One by one, I went through every page. With every line, my anger only got worse.

Phukong's own lawyer didn't care about him. He agreed with everything the district lawyer said and didn't even try to fight the jail sentencing.  The lawyer didn't even try to argue for Phukong to prove his innocence.

The district lawyer actually seemed sympathetic towards Phukong in the court transcripts. Why didn't Phukong's lawyer just try to cut a deal?

"FUCK THIS" I slammed the papers on the table in sheer anger.

Phukong could have so easily gotten out of this whole sham if he just had a better lawyer. He didn't even have to go to jail.

The first thing I did was call Fong. I needed more information on this useless lawyer that Sarawat had hired.

"Hey Fong, are you free right now? I needed a couple of minutes to talk about a case"

"Yeah. Sure. Tell me"

"Do you know Push Thanon of Dependable Law Firm?"

"I have met him a few times. Our offices are close by. What about him?"

"Doesn't Dependable Law Firm majorly handle big corporate cases? A friend hired Thanon to handle his brother's criminal case and to say he has done a shitty job would be an understatement"

"They took up one high profile criminal case a few years ago which gave them a lot of PR. So now, they take up criminal cases once in a while. But they don't really care about those cases. They know where the money is — They only care for corporate. This isn't the right law firm for them — They will never get anywhere.

By the way, who is this friend?"

"Just — you don't need to know. By the way, do you have the contact number of District Lawyer Mil Laedeke?"