It has always been a burden to divide and measure the lives printed in records and to label them appropriately.
Moreover, making a living from it as a profession is bound to be difficult and scary.
It was only after I became a true moss that I vaguely realized that the prosecutor's job was to translate the passionate and poignant knots of life into the indictment in the world's most concise style, and that no matter how indifferent and chic the handwriting was, the life of a prosecutor was bound to always be somewhat turbulent.
--- p.8

The old prosecutor's office building has security windows on every window.
It's literally like the bars of the prosecutor's office.
While security windows are usually installed to prevent intrusion from the outside, the fact that the prosecutor's office's windows are installed for the opposite purpose, that is, to prevent someone from jumping out from the inside, makes our workplaces even more chilling.
When I turn my back to the heavily barred window and bury my head in the records brought from the world, I suddenly look up and wonder if the world is trapped or if I am trapped. A distant thought comes to me.
--- p.9

I haven't been able to confirm how many innocent sacrifices there were in the third grass, which was neither this grass nor this grass to begin with.
However, looking at them under the early summer sunlight, I felt a little scared.
I remember looking around the neatly manicured lawn, thinking that perhaps the fact that lawyers, who are fundamentally equipped with determination and sincerity, have firm standards for something could lead to some tragedy without us even knowing it. That could be a scary thought.
Anyway, the lawn was all cleared.
--- p.23

In the courtroom every day, we meet a truly diverse range of people.
When we receive a summons and enter the courtroom, we often hit a wall as we face the various stories they pour out.
In the face of the world with its thousand and ten thousand twists and turns, how poor is the understanding and imagination of humanity that a lawyer can have? I remember the look on Judge Woo Bae-seok's face when he heard the statement of a quasi-rape victim who said that she drank five bottles of soju alone that day because she was in a good mood and couldn't remember anything after that, even though her drinking limit was one bottle of soju. "You drank five bottles alone?"
--- pp.30-31

There are days when I hesitate in the face of compelling evidence, even though I can recreate and measure the passage of time more accurately.
I feel an inexplicable sense of discomfort in the face of facts that seem to have been clearly reconstructed by evidence that is beyond doubt.
It is a different kind of hesitation than when groping for faint evidence.
Could it be the long-standing inertia of someone who has been striving to reach the closest thing to the truth by groping for distant and hazy things?
At the point of fact-finding where imagination is excluded, you will definitely swallow dry saliva at least once.
--- pp.50-51

It is difficult to see youth as carrying any condemnatory meaning in itself, but it is especially often used in conjunction with women to convey a sense of contempt and belittlement.
This can be seen in comparison to the young male prosecutor, who is often portrayed as being impulsive, even if he is reckless.
There was a time when I too was a young female prosecutor.
The advice a senior female prosecutor gave to me, who looked like a freshman to everyone, was, 'Don't look like a young female prosecutor.
The words, the clothes, the actions… were all…
It was a painfully relatable reality that my youth and femininity could potentially be a flaw in my professional identity.
--- p.72

Public prosecutors go to court in the name of the victim or in the name of the public interest, but the courtroom is mostly filled with people who are hostile to prosecutors.
The prosecutor, sitting alone in the courtroom filled with the audience, including the seemingly kind-hearted defendant, who is desperately complaining about the prosecutor's unfair indictment, the lawyers who are escorting him, and the family and acquaintances who are cheering the defendant on and glaring at the trial prosecutor with hostile eyes, has only his robe as a shield.
As long as a prosecutor wears a robe and is present, he is not a lonely individual, but an unwavering representative of the public interest.
--- pp.88-89

I have tried countless trials over the years, but I have never had a defendant disappear during a trial.
There were often defendants who did not appear from the beginning, but there were no cases where they appeared and then disappeared.
If you think about it, it was entirely possible for a defendant who was not in custody to eat a bowl of noodles during the lunch break given in the middle of the trial, think, 'This place's kimchi is a bit weak...' and then think, 'Ugh, I shouldn't go to the afternoon trial.'
Yet, we (judges, prosecutors, lawyers) never once imagined that such a situation could arise.
--- p.95

Even after that, the woman would have had no choice but to take the subway to work.
Maybe I changed my daily commute time and the subway car I used.
But we cannot be sure that there will not be fingers pointing at different faces anywhere.
In today's subway, where leveled criminals and leveled victims move together, shaking, every time I try to distance myself from thoughts like, 'The origin of crime begins with objectifying people' or 'The damage caused by crime doesn't stop at the moment a hand brushes against your butt,' I picture her shoulders hunched over.
--- p.166

If what the woman said that day was 'love', I would have doubted her words to the end.
It's not a question of whether I believe in the existence of love or not.
However, what the woman said to me that day was not love, but 'what is left behind when love leaves.'
There is something that exists only by being turned off, by being empty, by being gone.
What is left behind in the empty space after love has left is much more beautiful than love itself.
From the white thing left behind where the flame had gone out, I felt I could understand without a doubt the heart of the woman who had gazed at me with sorrow and firmness.
--- p.189

But sometimes, there are days when I dream of romance in a corner of such things.
Since it is a human matter, isn't there something like a texture to the crime that we measure, weigh, and measure, or perhaps a scent or subtle vibration that constitutes something negative that has nothing to do with the quantification of the sin?
They are often not easily detected in the course of the work of the prosecutors, but perhaps they can be revealed, subtly yet clearly, like the sound of a bell ringing in the distance, on a sunny afternoon, by a petition with particularly good handwriting.
--- p.201

The colors of the bojagi vary from red, blue, gold, and pink.
There is also a wrapping cloth with the logo of ○○ Fruit and Vegetables on it, which is probably what was used to carry a gift set of some kind of holiday fruit.
One day, when the prosecutors got together and talked, they each found out that their preferred color of wrapping cloth was different.
Some said that the prosecution was blue, while others said that it pursued the luxury image of gold.
Among the various tastes, there is a prosecutor who insists on wearing red on the day of sentencing. When asked why, the answer was simple.
'Red of Victory!'
--- p.225

Just as I did not know the dove, how many lives are there that I still do not know?
In a world where lawyers grope and measure in the name of law, how many beings exist outside of our awareness?
Whether it's the cleaning worker we encounter every day at the bathroom entrance, the delivery rider we greet with the front door half-open, or the old farmer on TV who raises the sheaves of rice that were toppled by the typhoon, we can't say we truly know them until we get to know them as individuals.
We cannot say that we know the dangers of their habitat, which would inevitably lead to the loss of their toes, not their wings.
--- p.283

However, if I have a dream, it is that the legal services I have decided to offer to the world instead of noodles may occasionally bring comfort to someone.
It may not be the kind of nutritious food that can instantly lift you out of a difficult and tiring life, but I hope it will be a meal to have on a hungry evening when you don't even have the energy to go out and find something to cheer you up.
I wish I could have something that could fill my mouth and empty stomach without too much effort, something that would be a minimal source of energy to move on from that brief moment of comfort to something else, even if not every time.

--- p.289