……
……Pardon?
“You want to do what?”
I must have heard wrong. What kind of lunatic just walks up to a complete stranger and proposes marriage out of nowhere. And on top of that, there was no way a man who looked this flawlessly put-together would randomly ask someone to marry him.
“Sounds like your ears aren’t working. I said, let’s get married.”
Apparently he would.
I spent a moment wondering what on earth kind of world this was. Was this a world where being a Superior Omega meant people would come running to propose even if you were just lying in the middle of the street? No, but this is still Korea, right?
“Huh?! Who the hell are those guys?”
The loan sharks, having successfully shoved my parents aside, stuffed their hands into their pockets and swaggered over. The one who seemed to have the most authority—sunglasses pushed up on his forehead—gave the man a crooked look.
“This Superior’s ours. Just who the hell do you think you are, sticking your nose in, you lowlife scum!”
“Hey, boss, doesn’t that guy look familiar?”
“Familiar? You think I haven’t run into punks like that once or twice before……?”
The loan shark who’d been talking big while staring at the man behind me suddenly went wide-eyed. His expression cycled through five or six different colors in the span of a second before draining completely white, and he yanked his hands out of his pockets.
“B-Baek Yihyeok……?”
“What? Baek Yihyeok……did you say?”
“I knew I’d seen him somewhere—it really is Baek Yihyeok.”
The loan sharks, who’d been ready to lunge at us a moment ago, huddled together whispering like they were holding an emergency meeting. They looked exactly like foxes that had stumbled upon a tiger.
“Are we not completely screwed right now……?”
“Hey, did we touch him? Did we do anything to him? Let’s just go, just go.”
The meeting apparently concluded, and they cleared their throats in a sorry attempt to save face before quietly inching backwards. Embarrassed grins plastered across their faces.
“Ha ha ha, something suddenly came up for us. That’s all.”
They directed that at no one in particular, then turned and bolted like they were running for their lives.
“……”
The alley, emptied out in an instant, filled with nothing but the sound of rain hammering down. From inside a few houses came the sounds of windows being shut and curtains being drawn—neighbors who clearly wanted no part of the commotion.
My head was still spinning at how fast everything had resolved itself. My parents didn’t seem seriously hurt; they were checking each other’s scraped arms.
I got up from the wet ground, brushed off my backside, and bowed my head toward the man who was still standing there.
“Thank you for your help.”
No matter how I thought about it, the whole marriage thing he’d said earlier—he must have just blurted it out as an excuse to step in and help. Since he had no real reason to get involved, it seemed like he’d grabbed for that ridiculous justification called marriage.
And if the loan sharks had run at just the sight of his face, he was probably some kind of mob boss who ran this area.
Either way, thanks to this perfectly handsome man, I’d survived today.
I raised my head and met his eyes. He was staring at me with an intensity that made it seem like he’d never once looked away, so I let my gaze drift sideways for a moment, then offered a small smile of gratitude and turned to head home.
“How rude.”
But then a low voice came from behind me.
“An omega daring to ignore an alpha?”
“……What?”
I turned around without thinking, and the man pulled the cigarette from his mouth. He gave a small flick of the hand holding the cigarette, and the man who had wiped his shoes came forward to take the spent cigarette away.
“Bring him.”
Whether it was breath or cigarette smoke, the man exhaled a hazy cloud with those two words, and another man immediately stepped forward and held something out to me.
“We would appreciate it if you would accept this.”
“What is this……?”
A business card. Whether it was laminated or not, it stayed perfectly crisp and rigid even in the rain.
“This is Executive Director Baek Yihyeok of BN Group.”
“BN Group?”
It was the name of a major conglomerate I’d been hearing nonstop on the news all week.
That man is…… an executive director there? He looks way too young to be an executive director.
In the meantime, the man had turned and was leaving with his suited entourage. Hidden behind umbrellas and people, he grew smaller and farther away.
“Would you have a moment?”
All I did was nod at the question of whether I had a moment.
Now I was busily looking around a massive, immaculate suite at a five-star hotel. I’d never been in a hotel room this nice in my life.
“Your herbal tea.”
“Oh, thank you.”
I was sitting on the sofa, gawking around like a tourist, when a man who appeared to be a secretary poured steaming tea into a beautiful teacup and set it before me. I gave a grateful bow of my head, and the secretary pushed his round glasses up with a click before stepping back without a word.
I took a sip of the tea and warmth spread through my body. Before entering the suite, I’d been allowed to shower in a separate room and change into fresh clothes the secretary had provided, so the cold that had been tickling at the bridge of my nose had eased up a little.
I took out the business card the man’s subordinate had given me at the alley and checked it one more time, then tucked it back into my pocket.
Baek Yihyeok.
I didn’t know much yet about the major corporations of this world, but I’d heard on the news that BN Electronics was the top domestic company by both revenue and market cap. Which meant, compared to the world I’d come from, it was in the same position as a company like S Electronics.
Why was someone like that there of all places, and why did he propose to me. Was the marriage talk really just…… purely because I’m a Superior Omega?
“And here I thought he was just a mob boss.”
“Is there something you need?”
“Oh, no. I’m fine.”
The secretary responded to my muttering with such sharp attentiveness that I had nothing to do but sip my tea meekly and sneak glances at the clock.
He’d said “a moment,” and yet it had been over thirty minutes with no sign of Baek Yihyeok. Whenever I asked when he would arrive, no clear answer came from the secretary. By the look of it, he didn’t seem to know either.
It was already strange enough that this man had used informal speech with me from the very first moment and then had the nerve to call me rude, but I hadn’t expected him to be this utterly self-centered—calling me here and then keeping me waiting endlessly.
Still, it felt like a waste to leave after coming all this way. The executive director of a major conglomerate had specifically told his people to bring me here.
Instinctively, I knew this had to involve money. And money was exactly what I needed most right now.
I sat alone on the sofa, killing time, sipping at my tea for a few more minutes.
Click.
Finally, the sound of the front door opening, and Baek Yihyeok appeared.
“Welcome back, sir.”
The secretary bowed with the perfect angle of someone who’d used a protractor, but Baek Yihyeok didn’t even glance at him and went straight to the main sofa and sat down. Instead of apologizing for making me wait so long, he shot a quick look at me sitting on the side sofa, then ground out his cigarette in the prepared ashtray.
Is that his version of an apology.
While I entertained that absurd thought, the secretary set a few sheets of paper in front of me. The same papers were placed on the sofa table in front of Baek Yihyeok as well.
I picked up the papers and the word printed at the very top caught my eye.
“A contract? What is this?”
“It is a contract that the Executive Director has prepared.”
Like I needed you to tell me that. I looked at the secretary with eyes that demanded more of an explanation, but he only pushed his glasses up and said nothing further.
“I’m in urgent need of a Superior Omega right now.”
The answer came from Baek Yihyeok. Leaning back comfortably against the sofa cushion, he looked me over openly as he spoke.
“So you’re going to have to marry me.”
“……Are you serious?”
“I don’t have time to spare.”
It was the most absurd and charmless proposal in the history of the world.
To think that the marriage nonsense from earlier had been something he genuinely meant. It was so sudden and so preposterous that I started to doubt whether this was even real.
“You’re proposing because I’m a Superior Omega. That’s it, right?”
“What else is there to look at?”
“……And how are you so certain that I’m a Superior Omega?”
“You can tell by looking.”
Baek Yihyeok draped his arm arrogantly over the back of the sofa. His expensive suit pulled taut, creasing at the broad line of his shoulder.
“There’s no refusing. You’re going to sign that contract no matter what.”
At that brazen certainty, I flicked a glance toward the large bodyguard standing behind him. His forearms looked like they were easily three times the size of mine. I swallowed quietly so as not to show how tense I was, then shifted my eyes back to the contract.
The only sound in the wide living room was the soft rustle of pages turning.
From a rough read, it seemed to be a proposal for a contract marriage. The topmost sheet was covered in a confidentiality clause applying to all the terms within.
“So it’s a contract marriage.”
“Not entirely stupid, are you.”
It absolutely did not feel like a compliment.
“You’ve got nothing to lose given your situation right now. If you agree to that contract, I’ll move your parents to a better place and help make your lives more comfortable.”
While Baek Yihyeok spoke, the secretary deftly flipped through several pages of the document in my hands and pointed to the bottom section of one page. The text there was printed in thick red lettering. The moment I saw it, I had to blink several times.
“A signing bonus will be provided separately, naturally. The financial details are all laid out in the documents, so check them yourself.”
I was already looking. With very wide eyes.
[Party A shall immediately pay Party B a signing bonus of 1 billion won upon completion of marriage registration.]
[Party A shall pay Party B 500 million won once per year on a designated date.]
No matter how many times I looked, those were definitely the right numbers. I rapidly ran the calculations in my head.
Let’s see—if I stay married for just four years, I’d earn 2 billion won without even trying. 2 billion in four years. And adding the 1 billion signing bonus, that’s 3 billion total, meaning I could pay off all 3 billion won in debt in just four years.
Even a successful stock investment would be hard-pressed to make that kind of money. It would brand me as someone who’d been married once, sure, but if this money was genuinely going to be paid—a record like that meant nothing to me.
“Then how long is the contract for?”
“Three years maximum.”
“Three years……”
I might end up making less than I thought. I pushed that disappointment aside and read through the contract from the beginning, carefully and in order.
As I was reading through the third page, I came across a clause related to domestic duties: [Party B shall do their utmost to fulfill the household obligations expected of an omega.] I looked up.
“Um, I have a question.”
Baek Yihyeok tilted his head as if to say, what.
“Reading this over…… I feel like ’employment marriage’ fits better than ‘contract marriage.'”
Either way, I needed to make sure I went through this thoroughly and carefully.
I set the contract down on the table and laced my fingers together with a serious expression.
“In that case—would the four major insurances be included?”
