“Madam Seo! Chairman Seo is back!”
“What? Junhyuk is?”
Startled, Eunwon hurried after Madam Seo as she rushed down the stairs. In the living room stood his father, who had been unreachable for several days, supported by one of his secretaries.
Madam Seo burst into tears and ran to embrace him. Chairman Seo patted her back and apologized, then caught sight of Eunwon standing behind her. Tears filled his eyes.
“Eunwon….”
Madam Seo stepped aside at the sound of his voice, and Chairman Seo approached Eunwon and pulled him into a tight embrace.
“Thank you so much…. I know it couldn’t have been an easy decision. I’m so grateful, and I’m so sorry. You saved not only the company but the three of us as a family.”
Being told that he had protected their family should have been enough. He was relieved that his father had returned safely, and he was deeply relieved that the company his father cherished so much could be saved.
And yet… something inside him felt strange.
Alongside the relief spread a bitter, chilling sensation he couldn’t put into words. It was much like what he had felt while facing Madam Seo as she held him and cried.
“Everything will be all right now. Our family will become even stronger. It’s all thanks to you.”
“…I’m glad you came back safely.”
Even as Eunwon returned his father’s tight embrace, his gaze kept wavering.
Would he ever be able to feel that exact same warmth again—the warmth he had known for that one fleeting moment?
His father’s body was warm against his own, yet the answer refused to come.
***
Cha Sejin returned home before the workday had even ended and leisurely enjoyed an afternoon swim.
As he swam, he kept thinking about Eunwon contacting him first and asking him to marry him. After a while, even the water surrounding him began to feel like the tears Eunwon had shed while sobbing in front of him.
Anyone else would probably call him insane, but it wasn’t exactly inaccurate, so Sejin didn’t give it much thought. After showering, he crossed over to the main house.
“Oh? You were home? You skipped work today, didn’t you?”
“I just left a little early. Why are you home already?”
“I was going to work on an assignment at school, but I decided to do it here instead. Mom and Dad cried because they wanted me to have dinner with them.”
Even though they lived under the same roof, the house was so enormous, everyone had their own separate part of it, and their schedules were so irregular that there were plenty of days when Sejin didn’t see his younger sister even once.
Seeing Cha Sena now, he strode toward her and started teasing her.
“They weren’t crying.”
“They said they cried the whole time you weren’t looking. Segyu said he’d come home early too, so don’t wander off somewhere. Stay home.”
“Hey, what kind of way is that to talk to your brother? ‘Don’t wander off’? Is my sister-in-law coming too?”
“Yeah. And stop that.”
When Sejin mussed her long, carefully arranged hair, Sena irritably shoved his hand away. Laughing, he pinched her cheek as though she were adorable, then went over to the sofa and sprawled across it.
“Segyu’s pushing himself too hard. He’s been fucking busy lately.”
“That’s because you don’t work.”
“Hey, what do you mean I don’t work? I go in every day, attend meetings, sit through appointments, and even restrain myself from beating the shit out of every asshole who gets on my nerves.”
Shaking her head at his shameless answer, Sena warned him one more time not to leave the house, then headed upstairs.
“You’ve gained weight. What are you going to do now, pig?”
“Ugh, Cha Sejin, I seriously hate you.”
“Look at you mouthing off again.”
Sena spun around and glared down at him. Grinning up at her, Sejin kissed his fingertips and blew the kiss in her direction. She answered by pretending to vomit, then hurried upstairs and disappeared.
Cha Sena was six years younger than Sejin. She was already twenty-two, but in his eyes, she still looked like the little girl who had loved wearing enormous ribbon barrettes and dressing in princess clothes.
And Eunwon was two years younger even than Sena.
Thinking about that made Sejin wonder whether he might be going a little overboard, but it was still better to snatch Eunwon up quickly than drag his feet and let some other bastard discover him first.
No matter how many times he considered it, that was clearly the right choice.
He had already planned to tell his parents that Eunwon had agreed to the marriage once they came home today. Since the whole family happened to be eating together, he could tell everyone at once instead of repeating himself several times.
The only downside was that announcing it in front of everyone meant he was likely to receive a lecture from every single one of them.
Whatever. I’m the one getting married.
Sejin sank deeper into the back of the sofa and closed his eyes as the long afternoon sunlight streamed through the house.
It had been a long time since the entire family had gathered in the dining room, and conversation flowed freely around the table.
It was an occasion for the blunt, exceptionally sharp tongues that every member of the family had inherited in equal measure to shine.
“Segyu, aren’t you pushing yourself too hard lately? I appreciate how much effort you’re putting into the resort, but your health comes first. Take care of yourself while you work.”
“Yes, Father. I’m not starving myself or anything. You know I make sure to eat properly. I have an important meeting next week, and once that’s over, I’m planning to take a few days off too.”
Listening to his father and older brother discuss work, Sejin leisurely cut off a large piece of steak and put it into his mouth.
Noticing Sena still shooting him occasional resentful looks, apparently not over his teasing, he grinned.
“Eat plenty. You need a lot of protein if you’re trying to bulk up.”
“Oh, seriously!”
Laughing at her reaction, Sejin set down his knife and took a sip of wine. Then, as though he had been waiting for everyone’s attention to gather on him, he finally shared the news he had been holding back throughout the meal.
“I got proposed to today.”
At the abrupt announcement, both Cha Sena and his sister-in-law, Yoo Taera, froze with their forks suspended in midair. Cha Segyu stopped halfway through reaching for his wineglass.
Their parents also fell silent, evidently taking a moment to process what Sejin had just said.
“A proposal? From who? Oh my God, that guy from Baum?”
Sena’s question broke the silence, and Sejin nodded.
Segyu finally managed to take a sip of wine before asking again in disbelief, “They contacted you first?”
“Yeah. I told you—I got proposed to today.”
“You’re seriously going through with an arranged marriage? This isn’t something you can decide as a joke.”
“I’m not joking.”
Segyu knew everything about Sejin’s usual conduct and found it impossible to trust this sudden declaration that he would obediently enter an arranged marriage and see it through.
There was a very real possibility that after all the preparations had been completed, Sejin would suddenly announce that he was bored with the idea and refuse to marry after all.
Their parents shared Segyu’s concerns.
Of course, if the arranged marriage came together, they had intended to make Sejin go through with it. But he had repeatedly insisted that he needed more time, and the meeting a few days earlier had ended inconclusively without any meaningful progress. They had effectively concluded that the arrangement was unlikely to succeed.
And now, only a few days later, he was claiming that he had received a proposal.
It was inevitably difficult to believe.
“Sejin, aren’t you rushing this too much? With your personality, an arranged marriage won’t be easy.”
“What exactly is wrong with my personality?”
“You’re not someone who would give up every part of his private life for the sake of business.”
“Even my sister-in-law knows my personality too well. Everyone in this family does.”
“Still, you might be better than Segyu. At least you express what you’re feeling.”
Despite the edge beneath Yoo Taera’s words, Cha Segyu continued eating in silence.
Sejin glanced at his older brother, then grinned at his sister-in-law before meeting his mother’s still-disbelieving gaze.
“Is it really true, Sejin?”
“Yeah, it’s true, Mom. He came to see me today and asked me to marry him, so I said yes. We were already planning to do it anyway. It looks like everything on their side has finally been settled.”
Sejin spoke as though none of it mattered, as though it were hardly worth mentioning.
His father watched him, took a sip of water, and set down his fork.
“Sejin, do you genuinely intend to marry that boy from Baum?”
“Yes. We already agreed that I would.”
“This isn’t one of the relationships or games you’ve always conducted however you pleased. This is marriage. Of course, there are substantial benefits to be gained if our families are joined, but those benefits are strictly business. That marriage may not benefit your life as well.”
At his father’s grave, serious words, Sejin nodded.
From the beginning, his parents must have proposed an arranged marriage as an extreme measure intended to correct his behavior. They clearly hadn’t expected him to accept it this readily.
Now that matters had come this far, it was only natural that they were even more worried than he was.
They knew he wasn’t normal, but even they couldn’t have imagined he was deranged enough to keep insisting that someone’s face was exactly his type while marching willingly into an arranged marriage for that reason alone.
“This isn’t something you should decide for a shallow reason like simply finding his face attractive. He’s also considerably younger than you, and I don’t know whether that boy will be able to handle you. A reckless decision on your part could make him miserable.”
At his father’s words, Sejin stabbed his fork firmly into a piece of steak and remembered Eunwon crying in front of him.
Would that kid really become even more miserable if he married me? Wouldn’t he be happier living with someone as handsome as I am than staying in that den of lunatics while they gaslight him?
No matter how he considered it, he couldn’t imagine Eunwon becoming more unhappy by living with him.