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They sat facing each other in a fancy restaurant, ate a meal, and enjoyed coffee with a sweet cake for dessert. If it weren’t for the fact that this was an arranged marriage, it wouldn’t have been a bad date with a pretty decent person.
“How was your day?”
“Just, it went by so-so.”
Sena couldn’t think of any other words to say, so she had no choice but to answer like that.
“I’m sorry. Patient information is confidential.”
“You must have a lot of secrets, Sena.”
Joo-hyuk said with a smile.
The light blue shirt he was wearing made his fair skin look even clearer.
“How was your day, Joo-hyuk?”
“I had the same usual day. I’m preparing a special feature article, as usual.”
“What kind of special feature?”
“What a pity. That’s also a secret.”
He smiled playfully, and Sena gave him an awkward smile in return.
Whether he intended to get back at her or simply wanted to tease her, he succeeded.
Apart from everything else, she was amazed by how his smile affected her, and she smiled again.
“You look good when you smile.”
He tilted his head slightly to one side and said. His long eyelashes fluttered slowly as he blinked.
“Is that so?”
“I can tell you don’t smile often, but try to smile more. You look pretty when you smile.”
Sena quickly picked up her coffee cup to hide her face, which was flushing at the word “pretty.”
“I’ve been thinking about where we should start with the wedding preparations,” Joo-hyuk continued.
“Let’s proceed step by step, like other people.”
“Step by step?”
“Let’s greet our parents and introduce each other to our friends.”
“Is that… necessary?”
Sena asked with a troubled expression.
“Necessary?”
“Since this isn’t a marriage we’re doing out of our own will, I don’t think it’s necessary to introduce each other to our friends.”
Joo-hyuk shifted from his straight posture, crossing his long legs, and asked back.
Was he upset?
But there was no unpleasant emotion visible on his face.
“If we can’t avoid it, let’s enjoy it. Until this marriage ends, we’re in a relationship where we can’t escape each other anyway.”
“The end of this marriage…?”
“I guess you haven’t thought about that?”
At Joo-hyuk’s question, Sena closed her mouth.
It was natural. She hadn’t even thought about the end of this marriage, which hadn’t even started yet.
“An arranged marriage can be dissolved at any time depending on the circumstances of both companies. When necessary, they easily marry off their children to create a family, and when its utility decreases, they get a divorce.”
That was right.
She had been too complacent about the simple meaning of an arranged marriage.
“Both you and I have social standing, so we can’t get married without anyone knowing, right? So let’s think of it as cooperating with each other.”
Social standing. In conclusion, what he wanted was to put on a performance of a perfectly normal couple for others to see.
He should have just asked her to act like his fiancée to save his face. Since she had no choice but to do whatever he wanted anyway.
“Keep the end of this marriage in mind too. Many things will have changed by then.”
At his added words, Sena felt the small amount of liking she had for him turn cold.
An awkward atmosphere lingered in Joo-hyuk’s car on the way back home. It was because Sena, whose favorable impression of him had diminished, kept her mouth shut.
Whether it was his original personality or not, he didn’t seem to care about her or this awkward situation.
Well, he wasn’t in a position to be mindful of her feelings.
“When should we have our next date?”
He asked as they arrived in front of Sena’s house.
“Anytime is fine.”
“Then I’ll contact you beforehand like today.”
“Yes. Thank you for the ride.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled, revealing his neat teeth.
“By the way, you said this is your aunt’s house?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
He lowered his head and observed the house more closely. It was just a small two-story house at the edge of Incheon.
“Go inside.”
“Yes. Drive carefully.”
As Sena got out of the car, Joo-hyuk briefly made eye contact with her. And then he drove off, disappearing down the narrow alley.
Wasn’t he curious about anything else? For example, why she lived at her aunt’s house instead of with her father.
The questions that a normal person would ask never came out of Joo-hyuk’s mouth. Perhaps because of that, Sena felt as if her mouth was full of grit as she watched his retreating figure.
“Is it going well?”
At the familiar male voice, Sena flinched and turned around.
One of the people she hated most in the world revealed his face under the streetlight.
“You look good.”
Sena frowned at Ji-cheol’s sneering face.
What would it be like to punch that face hard? Her fist would probably hurt a lot, but wouldn’t the emotional wounds she had suffered be healed?
It was something she had imagined countless times.
“What brings you here?”
Unable to turn her imagination into reality, her voice was as cold as if it didn’t belong to this world.
“Just.”
Ji-cheol threw the cigarette he was holding onto the ground and crushed it with his shoe.
“Just?”
“I had something to tell you after meeting you last time.”
“You should have said it when we met last time.”
At Sena’s words, Ji-cheol closed his mouth and then smiled, pulling one corner of his lips up.
“You’ve grown a lot. You couldn’t even speak properly when you were young.”
Sena still couldn’t believe that she was half-siblings with that face wearing a strange smile. Or that Ji-cheol was three years older than her, who was the legitimate wife’s child.
The day her father brought Ji-cheol and his mother home, Sena’s mother took Sena and left the house.
Even though the mother and daughter had lived well together for almost five years, her mother took her own life, feeling betrayed by what must have been a deep and painful love. It was when Sena had just entered high school.
“I was young back then.”
Sena could never forget the day she returned to her father’s house, where Ji-cheol and his mother lived, after five years. Every moment of having to live with the people who had driven her mother to death was painful.
Her mother, who had left the house with her daughter the day the other woman and her son came into their lives, had even taken her own life due to the injustice, yet they were living very well without a shred of remorse.
“Sena?”
Just as Ji-cheol was about to say something, her aunt’s voice came from behind.
“Sena, what are you doing?”
“Oh, Aunt.”
Turning around, she saw her aunt’s face, looking at Sena and Ji-cheol with a puzzled expression.
Since Sena had run away from her father’s house, her aunt had been like a mother to her.
“It’s nothing.”
“Who is that person?”
At her aunt’s question, Sena glanced at Ji-cheol.
‘If you want to live, you should just leave.’
As if he read her intention in her gaze, his face hardened fiercely.
“Who is he?”
“Kang Ji-cheol.”
“Kang Ji-cheol? Who’s that…? That Kang Ji-cheol?”
Before her aunt’s eyes could widen any further, Ji-cheol turned around.
As he started his car, Sena barely managed to stop her aunt from blocking it.
“Let go of me.”
“Aunt, please don’t.”
“Don’t? What do you mean don’t? Let go, do you think I’ll let this go?”
“It’s all in the past.”
Only after the car had driven far away and was out of sight did Sena release her aunt.
Her aunt’s chest heaved as she breathed heavily. Her aunt was completely different from Sena’s gentle and fragile mother, from her appearance to her personality.
“Why did he show up here after not looking for you for over 10 years? How dare he come here.”
“Let’s go inside. I’ll explain inside.”
“Did you meet your father too? He made your mother die and chased you out of that house, what does he think he’s doing coming to find you?”
Sena had never accurately explained why she had left her father’s house. She didn’t want to talk about it, and she felt she shouldn’t. It was a wrong choice she made at a young age, but it was already irreversible.
So, her aunt had always believed that Sena had been kicked out of the house by Kang Ji-cheol’s mother. Which was absolutely absurd.
That woman was only interested in money and had no interest in Sena whatsoever.
“Let’s go inside and talk. This isn’t something to talk about here.”
She had wanted to tell her more slowly, after getting to know more about Joo-hyuk.
Nothing went as Sena intended.
Fortunately, her aunt went into the house, still breathing heavily.
Her uncle, who had come home early, taken a shower, and was watching TV, was startled and turned off the TV.
“What’s wrong again? Why is she so angry?”
As always when her aunt was angry, her uncle furrowed his brow and whispered to Sena.
Unlike her fiery aunt, her uncle was a calm person like water.
“I have something to tell you both.”
“To me too? What is it?”
Perhaps sensing that something big had happened, her uncle sat awkwardly on the sofa with a worried face. Her aunt crossed her arms and plopped down on the floor.
“Tell me. Why did your father and that guy who’s supposed to be your brother come to find you?”
“Sena’s father and brother came to find her?”
“That Kang Ji-cheol kid was in front of the house. How dare he come here so shamelessly.”
Sena sighed briefly. She could clearly imagine the repercussions of the words she was about to speak, so she had no choice.
“I’m getting married.”
She clearly spoke the words, but neither her aunt nor her uncle reacted.
“...What?”
After a long pause, a voice that sounded like a yawn escaped from her aunt’s mouth.
“What are you doing? Honey, did you hear what she said? What is she saying she’s going to do?”
“She said she’s getting married? To whom?”
Her uncle’s second question was directed at Sena, not her aunt.
“My father…”
The word ‘father’ felt gritty in her mouth.
“Introduced me to a good person.”
“Your father introduced you to a good person?”
“Yes.”
“Ha.”
Her aunt let out a short exclamation that was neither a sigh nor anger, and then stared intently at Sena for a moment.
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