Chapter 3

“You.”

Jun-hyeok cut her off in a single stroke.

“That offer. Were you going to make it even if Han Jun-tae had come instead of me?”

Seo-ha nodded, puzzled not by the question itself but by the way he tossed his older brother’s name around as he pleased.

“Haa…”

Too late, she regretted not finding some chance earlier to rinse out her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to draw her adoptive mother’s suspicion, but she was curious what expression Han Jun-hyeok was wearing right now. Was he like this because the marriage wasn’t to his taste, or because he took her for a girl with something wrong in her head?

Right now, more than anyone, he was the one she had to convince that she was perfectly sound.

“Neither of us has any room to choose when it comes to this marriage. If you’d meant to refuse, you wouldn’t have come here at all.”

For everyone’s sake, the marriage had to come off. Her one worry was a rumor she had half-heard once, that both of H Bio’s sons were ‘peculiar’. With nothing at all to go on about them, she had to be ready for the chance that her prospective husband might refuse.

“It isn’t that I’m some sick person — ah… I suppose I am a sick person, but anyway, what I’m saying is let’s talk about the practical side. If it’s a marriage we have to make either way, wouldn’t it be better to have an unspoken agreement where the two of us weigh what we each gain, without our parents knowing?”

That was how she put it, but Seo-ha knew as well as anyone that no matter how hard the two houses pushed, a match that wasn’t meant to work simply wouldn’t. Yun Jeong-hwan and Cha Mi-yeon knew it too, which was surely why they had warned her that no mistake would be permitted.

“And this unspoken agreement of yours is: I’ll do you the favor of dying, so please marry me?”
“Hoo— I did tell you beforehand. That way you, Han Jun-hyeok-ssi, come out of it cleanest¹, without a single blemish…”

Jun-hyeok cut her off at once and muttered, half to himself.

“What are you even supposed to call this.”
“Call what…”
“Can’t tell if your luck is fucking good or filthy rotten.”
“If I’m being honest with you… dreadfully good?”

Seo-ha blinked her tired eyes and answered slowly. The partner he didn’t want would quietly disappear, and what remained would be the hard profit of the match, wrapped up as a pure and devoted love. The picture was dreadfully perfect, just as she’d said.

But instead of the answer she expected, a flat sigh of disbelief came back at once.

“I wasn’t talking about myself. I said it because I’ve got a feeling your life is going to get properly tangled from here on.”

To Seo-ha, the blunt tone sounded almost like concern.

“I don’t think so. This much counts as good luck. You’re even hearing me out. May I take it that you’re interested in my proposal?”

When she wouldn’t bend, Jun-hyeok’s voice sank low.

“Let me ask one thing. Do you have some fatal illness on top of what’s publicly known?”

At the point-blank question, Seo-ha shook her head.

“Ah, I didn’t expect that to be the part you’d worry about…”

Then again, once he had heard that she would die, Han Jun-hyeok could hardly have thought of anything else first. Thinking he had misunderstood, Seo-ha explained, enunciating each word.

“The widowhood I spoke of isn’t the kind that puts Han Jun-hyeok-ssi through a long sickbed. It’s short — over in one stroke…”

She never got to finish. A crisp citrus scent swept over her, and a large hand clamped over her mouth.

“There are an awful lot of people today I’d like to see shut their mouths.”

Jun-hyeok’s voice was a low mutter. Oddly, Dodam, who should have been startled by a stranger’s move, had only risen to his feet and stayed quiet.

He’d have barked, normally.

The oddness held her only for a moment. Though she couldn’t see, she could feel Han Jun-hyeok looking quietly at her, and little by little her breathing quickened. His big, callused hand felt nothing but cool against her skin, and yet, strangely, heat rose through her whole body.

Just as it seemed to her that time itself had stopped, Jun-hyeok’s voice broke the stillness.

“Remember this. Today you got caught by the bait you threw out yourself.”

His rough breath fell straight onto her sensitive skin, and Seo-ha closed her big eyes. His words no longer reached her.

Seo-ha’s eyes flew open.

Everything around her lay so still that it could only be the small hours. Through the window she had left slightly open, a cool wind drifted in, carrying the first hint of autumn.

“Funny, being hungry at a time like this…”

Seo-ha laughed at herself. She must have been wound so tight that she’d brought up everything in her stomach before falling asleep. Instinct was a frightening thing. Then again, that same animal instinct was what she had leaned on to read a room and survive, so she couldn’t wholly blame it.

For a moment she wondered whether yesterday had been a dream, so little of it felt real.

“Dodam.”

Her voice was barely above a breath, yet Dodam’s feet came padding softly across the floor toward her, until all at once the approaching footsteps stopped dead.

Without meaning to, Seo-ha shut her eyes.

“…Hoo, what a fright. Doesn’t this one ever sleep at night? Why’s he up wandering around?”

She hadn’t even heard the door open, yet Cha Mi-yeon’s low mutter sounded in the room. Keeping her eyelids squeezed tight, Seo-ha let the strength drain out of her whole body.

The bed dipped a little, as though a hand had been planted on the mattress. Through the slight gap between her eyelids, a cool liquid slid into her eyes. It had no smell at all, and that was the terror of it.

“Your owner ate everything she was given for once, such a good girl, and sure enough, she’s dead to the world. You get some sleep too.”

She knew the door had closed not by any sound but by the brush of the air.

I definitely locked it.

She’d figured a lock was no use anyway, but going through it all again still left her hollow.

A little later, once everything had gone quiet, Seo-ha shot upright and hurriedly rinsed her eyes with the water bottle she kept beside her. Water streamed down her face and soaked her pajamas until her pale skin showed through. The blanket over her got damp too, but that didn’t matter.

There had been none of this lately, so she had let her guard down. Something at dinner must have been dosed with a drug to put her deep under. Throwing it all up before it could take effect had been, if anything, her one piece of heaven-sent luck.

A whimper came from beside her, and Seo-ha groped weakly through the air for Dodam.

“Thanks to you, I caught on quickly.”

She whispered it, stroking the crown of his head. When she slowly opened her eyes, his silhouette swam before her.

“I’m all right. Really.”

She wasn’t all right in the slightest, but reassuring Dodam out loud at least steadied her own heart.

Just then, Han Jun-hyeok’s needling voice echoed in her ears. With Cha Mi-yeon coming at her like this again, getting out of this house as fast as she possibly could was the first priority. As long as she stayed beside her adoptive mother, she couldn’t even attempt what she had set her mind on.

“You did say you’d give me half a prize at least…”

Anxiety got there first. Surely that reaction yesterday had been ‘hesitation’, not dismissal. Or had she read him wrong?

Once more, desperately, Seo-ha wished that her proposal would rouse that man’s interest.

When Seo-ha stopped by the kitchen, Cha Mi-yeon’s honeyed voice greeted her.

“Oh my, you’re up early. You looked so tired yesterday that I left you on purpose so you could sleep in.”
“I slept deeply without a single dream, so I feel refreshed.”
“Good, you have a healthy color. Your father’s still here this morning, so say good morning.”
“Ah… Good morning, Father.”
“Mm. Sit down.”

Greetings done, Seo-ha took her usual seat with Dodam’s help.

“Ahjumma, make up a soft silken-tofu egg custard² for Seo-ha.”
“It’s all right. I can just eat what’s already made…”
“No. With your father here, everything on the table today is awkward for you to eat. Have something you can spoon up easily.”

Cha Mi-yeon gave her orders without missing a beat, like someone who already knew Seo-ha’s eyes had gotten worse.

“By the way, why were the police at the venue yesterday…”

Before she could finish, Assemblyman Yun answered, displeased.

“Some punk was taken in on the spot for possession of a hallucinogen.”
“Whoever it was that reported it — on such a good day, what a disgraceful business. Ecstasy, of all things. The things that happen, honestly.”

Cha Mi-yeon added, sharp with anger. Seo-ha, who had only been listening quietly, recalled someone’s voice.

‘Say, do you like star candy?’

The thought was cut short when Assemblyman Yun, ordinarily stingy with praise, spoke up.

“You did well yesterday.”

Seo-ha’s hand, about to take a spoonful of the silken-tofu egg custard in front of her, stopped short.

“I hear the second son of that house has taken an interest in you.”

She moved her stiffened hand and put the egg custard in her mouth. It was hot enough to scald the roof of her mouth, but she tasted nothing and felt no heat.

“And how was it for you?”

She had never expected her adoptive father to ask what she thought. Inwardly it threw her, but she answered without letting it show.

“Does that matter?”

A light silence, and then Yun Jeong-hwan laughed.

“No. Not at all.”

The boiling-hot tofu must have scalded her throat too, because it stung. But that heat lit a fire in Seo-ha’s chest.

Half of it is done.

Han Jun-hyeok had kept his promise.