As they stepped out of the café, a sleek black car was already waiting at the entrance.
After saying something to the chauffeur who had gotten out of the driver’s seat, Cha Sejin opened the front passenger door for Eunwon.
Eunwon gave a small bow of thanks and got into the car.
He was about to close the door himself, but Sejin closed it for him, then walked around the front of the car and headed for the driver’s seat.
“Address?”
“Oh… address? Um… I’m sorry. I know it when I see it, but I don’t really know the address….”
“I think it was near my place. I’ll head roughly that way, so tell me when you recognize it.”
“Yes….”
Eunwon rested his hands on top of his bag and fidgeted with it for no real reason as he looked out the window.
He had thought it would be nice if they could make even a little small talk on the way home, but now that they were together in a space even smaller than the café, he had no idea what to say.
It was worse because, until now, Sejin had always been the one to open the conversation.
Starting first felt too awkward and too difficult.
“Oh, send me your class schedule.”
“My schedule?”
“Yeah. I need to know when you finish so I can plan when to meet you.”
Eunwon fell into thought, wondering why they had to go so far as to coordinate schedules just to meet. Watching him, Sejin tapped the steering wheel lightly with his fingertips.
“We have to prepare for the wedding.”
“Oh… yes. I’ll send it now.”
Eunwon opened his timetable app, took a screenshot of the color-coded schedule, and switched to his messaging app.
At the top of his not-very-long friends list was the name [Husband].
Eunwon opened the chat and sent the image of his schedule.
“I sent it.”
“Good boy.”
Sejin reached toward the passenger seat and stroked Eunwon’s hair.
Even the way the soft strands slipped between his fingers was exactly to his taste.
“Sweetheart.”
“Yes?”
“You didn’t change the name I saved myself under, did you?”
Remembering the saved name [Husband] that he had seen just moments ago, Eunwon let out a small breath.
“No… I haven’t changed it yet.”
“Yet? So you were planning to change it?”
“…Yes.”
At Eunwon’s docile admission, Sejin laughed under his breath.
Then he wiped the smile away and spoke in a deliberately serious voice.
“No.”
“……”
“We’re getting married anyway, so why change it? I am your husband.”
“…It just feels awkward every time I see it….”
“Then look at it more often until it stops feeling awkward.”
“…Yes.”
Realizing further argument would be useless, Eunwon gave up easily and nodded.
“You don’t get stubborn over pointless things. I like that. Being stubborn about things like that only wears you out.”
“Um… but why have you been calling me sweetheart since earlier…?”
“You don’t like being called sweetheart?”
“It’s not that I dislike it…. I’ve just never heard anyone call me that before….”
“You’ll get used to it if you hear it enough. Oh, what are you going to call me? Sweetheart? Honey?”
“…What?”
Eunwon looked at Sejin as though the suggestion made no sense, then turned his gaze back out the window.
Even hearing the word sweetheart felt strange enough, and now honey was another step beyond that.
Just imagining himself calling Sejin that made him want to die of embarrassment.
“…I’ll think about that too.”
“Our sweetheart has a lot to think about.”
Sejin’s unrestrained remarks continued all the way to the house, leaving Eunwon flustered and startled again and again until they arrived.
He shouldn’t feel this way, but over the past few days, the sight of the gate alone had made it hard to breathe.
Eunwon got out of the car.
“Thank you for driving me home….”
The passenger-side window slid down, and Eunwon bent slightly to match its height as he thanked Sejin in the driver’s seat.
“You already cried everything you needed to cry earlier, so don’t cry once you go inside. Watching you cry turns me on, so I realized you really shouldn’t cry just anywhere.”
“Yes…. Please drive safely….”
“Yeah. I’ll call you.”
Sejin smiled broadly in farewell and drove away.
Eunwon watched the back of the disappearing car, then turned toward the closed gate again and took a deep breath.
“……”
When he had left the house that morning, his chest had been packed full of emotions he couldn’t explain, so tight and hopeless that he could hardly stand it.
Now, at least, it wasn’t that bad.
Maybe all of it had been swept out of him when he had stupidly cried earlier.
At least he could breathe now, and his vision was clear.
After taking another deep breath, Eunwon returned the greeting of the employee at the entrance.
The employee offered to call a car for him, but Eunwon declined.
He simply wanted to walk to the house and sort through his thoughts.
After passing the second entrance leading toward the house, he crossed the carefully maintained garden and called his father one more time.
The same automated message told him the phone was still powered off.
He searched the news again too, but no new articles had appeared.
Relieved, Eunwon entered the house, and Housekeeper Kang came to greet him.
“Welcome home, Young Master Eunwon. You’re earlier than usual today.”
“Yes…. Um, how is Madam Seo? Did she eat?”
“Yes. She had a little rice porridge, and perhaps because her mind is troubled, she meditated for a while before returning to her room a little while ago.”
“I see….”
Eunwon passed Housekeeper Kang, set his bag down on the living-room sofa, and stood in front of Madam Seo’s room.
The coldness he had faced when he entered this room that morning was still vivid, so he was afraid.
Still, he knew the news he had to deliver would be good news to Madam Seo.
Gathering his courage, he knocked.
When he heard permission to enter, he opened the door.
Madam Seo was sitting against the bed, reading a book.
Eunwon steadied his breath quietly, walked toward her, and stopped at a slight distance.
“If you’re home, why not go upstairs? Why come here?”
“…The person I met last time… I met him again and told him I would marry him.”
“What?”
“…I’ll get married. I think that would be best….”
Before Eunwon could finish, Madam Seo rose and pulled him tightly into her arms.
Hearing her cry against him, Eunwon felt a complicated heaviness settle inside him as he quietly looked down at the crown of her head, lower than his own.
“Eunwon, thank you…. Thank you so much. I knew you would do this. You’re kind, and you think of your father more than anyone, so I knew you would eventually agree. Thank you, and I’m sorry. You must have suffered so much….”
“…No. You and Father suffered more because of me….”
“Thank you so much. You saved your father. I was so upset that I said such harsh things…. I’m so sorry, my son. You know I didn’t mean them, don’t you? I was so terrified something might happen to your father that I wasn’t in my right mind. You understand, don’t you?”
“…Yes.”
Madam Seo kept thanking him as she stroked down his back.
Then she pulled away and wiped at the tears soaking her face with her hand.
“This won’t do. We have to find your father quickly. I should tell the secretaries to check the villa. The caretaker says he hasn’t come, but your father may have told him not to say anything. When he hears this news, your father will be so happy. Oh, right. You said you met Executive Director Cha? Were you the one who contacted him?”
“Yes….”
“My goodness, Eunwon. How did you think of doing something so admirable? What did Executive Director Cha say? He agreed, didn’t he?”
“Yes…. We didn’t discuss the details. I only told him first that I would marry him….”
“Yes, that’s enough. The adults will take care of everything now. You don’t have to worry about a thing. You did so well. You’ll go to a house much better than this one and live comfortably, doing everything you want to do. And Executive Director Cha will change once he gets married too. You did so well. I’m so proud of you, our son.”
A house much better than this one.
A life where he could do everything he wanted.
Those were not the reasons Eunwon had made this decision.
Not once.
Truly, not once had such things entered into his decision.
He had only wanted to stop causing more pain to the father and Madam Seo who had accepted him as family.
That was why none of the things Madam Seo now listed while praising him reached his heart at all.
“Oh dear, you’ve gotten so thin in just a few days. You were already thin, and now you’re even thinner. This won’t do. Mom will make you something delicious. Go upstairs and rest for a while.”
“But you’re tired….”
“No, Mom is fine. Our son made such a big decision for his mother and father. How could something like this be hard?”
Her manner was so different from the morning that it felt unfamiliar.
Still, Eunwon was relieved that he no longer had to see that cold reaction.
Led out by Madam Seo, Eunwon climbed the stairs, leaving behind her affectionate, smiling voice telling him she would send up a snack first, so he should rest.
Perhaps because he had done something enormous and cried so much, Eunwon fell asleep the moment he reached his room.
He woke to the sound of a gentle voice coaxing him awake.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Madam Seo stroking his hair.
Startled, Eunwon quickly sat up.
“You must have been exhausted to sleep so deeply, completely dead to the world. I came to bring you a snack, but you were already asleep, so I left you to rest. But I don’t think you should sleep without eating dinner. It’s already almost eight.”
His tension must have loosened, because he seemed to have slept for hours.
Eunwon tried to shake off the daze in his head and got out of bed.
“Let’s go downstairs and have dinner.”
“Yes….”
He was about to leave the room with Madam Seo when hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs.
When the door opened, Housekeeper Kang appeared, looking both overjoyed and shocked, and cried out in an excited voice.