Ganghyeon summed it up in a single sentence — he hadn’t invited Choi Yumin, and he didn’t consider him a welcome guest. The message was clear: know your place before you insert yourself. The cold gaze he’d fixed on Choi Yumin with one brow raised shifted over to Jiwon.
Jiwon stood awkwardly in the charged atmosphere between the two of them. Ganghyeon deliberately raised his large hand and lightly brushed the pad of his thumb under Jiwon’s eye, making himself look all the more affectionate.
“I’m sorry for asking you to come when you must be busy.”
“Not at all. It’s your mother’s birthday — of course I had to come.”
“I appreciate you saying that. My mother isn’t the easiest person, but Jiwon is family now, so I’ll be counting on you.”
Leaving Choi Yumin behind with his stiffened expression, Ganghyeon placed a hand on Jiwon’s back and guided him inside. As Jiwon walked away and glanced back, Choi Yumin was glaring at him with a rigid face. He seemed to have taken the message well — that Jeong Jiwon was nothing like an uninvited guest such as himself.
When feelings of affection develop for someone, it’s natural to want to treat that person well. It’s generally human nature to hold back things that make the other person uncomfortable, and to do more of what brings them joy.
In that regard, Choi Yumin’s feelings had gone somewhere deeply off course. He was caught in the delusion that if he kept trying, Ganghyeon would eventually see him. When Ganghyeon had been on his own, he hadn’t cared what Choi Yumin did — but now, he felt the need to rein him in.
“You’re so thin — what are we going to do with you. You’re not sick somewhere, are you?”
“No, I’m perfectly healthy, Grandmother.”
“Good. Eat well and put some meat on your bones quickly. That way you can give this grandmother a great-grandchild to hold before long.”
It was a conversation that had already repeated itself several times over dinner, but Jiwon answered dutifully each time without any sign of reluctance. Thinking about the clause on children clearly written into the contract gave him a pang of guilt — but for now, there was nothing else he could do.
After Ganghyeon arrived home, and after Choi Yumin left claiming something urgent had come up, the dinner that followed was an exceptionally solemn affair. Questions and answers were exchanged here and there in sparse intervals, but the atmosphere was far too heavy for what was supposed to be a family gathering — to the point where Jiwon couldn’t even register what he was putting in his mouth.
Ganghyeon’s grandmother, who had Jiwon seated beside her, occasionally spoke to him and urged him to try the side dishes — but the atmosphere was so different from his own family, where chatter never stopped, that he struggled to adjust. In the silence broken only by the occasional clatter of chopsticks against dishes, Jiwon quietly worked his way through his rice and soup.
Ganghyeon finished his meal without a single word, drank one cup of coffee, and then stood up, saying he’d be heading out now. There wasn’t even a cake to speak of, and Jiwon never got to see the birthday guest open the gift wrapping. He looked startled when Ganghyeon said they were leaving — but every member of the family tidied up naturally, as though it were perfectly normal.
“You’re going straight home, right. I’ll drive you.”
Ganghyeon said it while opening the car door in the parking lot across the garden, and Jiwon nodded compliantly. He’d been so anxious before coming to the family home, but the evening had passed uneventfully — and quickly, at that.
“I should have brought a cake or something.”
“A cake? That’s never been something this family does. Don’t worry about it.”
The words Jiwon heard most often from the not-very-talkative Ganghyeon were don’t worry about it. At a glance it sounded like consideration for Jiwon, but it also came across as you have no reason to concern yourself with such things.
His role in this marriage was simply to adapt to the circumstances and follow Ganghyeon’s lead — nothing more. It wouldn’t have mattered in the least if it had been someone else entirely in his place. Eyes cast down beneath long lashes, Jiwon gazed out at the distance and sank into thought.
Paused momentarily at a red light, Ganghyeon glanced over at Jiwon in the passenger seat. Jiwon, who usually kept up some kind of conversation whenever he sat in the passenger seat, was unusually quiet today. The expression on his face as he looked out the window seemed somehow dim. Was he still bothered by Choi Yumin? It was frustrating not knowing what Choi Yumin had been saying while he wasn’t there.
“You seem like you’re not in a great mood.”
“Hm?”
“Is it because of Choi Yumin?”
Ganghyeon said the name while keeping his eyes on the road, and it brought Choi Yumin back to Jiwon’s mind — someone he’d already half-forgotten. He hadn’t been a particularly pleasant type. The way he smiled with that pretty face and tossed out comments had felt oddly uncomfortable and rude. But Jiwon had been tense in so many ways that, after Choi Yumin left, he’d naturally let it go.
“Are the two of you close?”
It was a simple enough question, but Ganghyeon tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and didn’t answer right away. What does he mean by that? He couldn’t tell whether Jiwon was asking why he kept company with someone like Choi Yumin, or whether he was asking if the two of them had some other kind of history — so Ganghyeon paused for a moment and then answered with just the facts.
“We were close friends. Now — I’m not sure.”
Ganghyeon had written Choi Yumin off the list of friends a long time ago.
“Choi Yumin seems to think very highly of you. I also got the impression he doesn’t particularly like me as your partner.”
“Did Choi Yumin behave rudely toward you?”
“A little.”
“I’ll apologize on his behalf. You won’t be seeing much of him going forward.”
“Your mother seemed quite fond of him though.”
“Fond of him… I wonder.”
His mother was comfortable around Choi Yumin, but that was only because Choi Yumin knew how to make himself agreeable. When your son was hard to reach and rarely spoke, and his friend came around being cheerful and attentive — there wasn’t a mother who wouldn’t warm up to that. On top of it all, Choi Yumin had been winning points by passing along news of Ganghyeon to his mother.
“A relationship that’s not bad with the elders is more than enough. Don’t worry about it.”
“You know what? Ganghyeon, you always say there’s nothing to worry about, no matter what it is.”
“…….”
“But from where I stand, there’s a lot I worry about. About you, about the family — and the closer the wedding date gets, the more it weighs on me.”
Ganghyeon had tossed out the comment casually, wondering if perhaps the relationship between his mother and Choi Yumin had been bothering Jiwon — and Jiwon suddenly opened up with what was really on his mind. His voice was heavier than Ganghyeon had ever heard it, thick with something like a long-held sigh.
“Is it crossing a line for me to say something like this? I’m not sure where the line even is.”
This was a marriage entered into with predetermined boundaries, meant to put an end to the neverending pressure to marry. In that kind of arrangement, Jiwon was inevitably the one carrying the burden — so Ganghyeon had, for Jiwon’s sake, trimmed away as many hassles as he could on his end. He had kept most potentially problematic situations under his own control, and therefore assumed there was nothing for Jiwon to worry about either.
“I meant it as — don’t worry. If it came across as dismissive, I’m sorry.”
Acknowledging that don’t worry about it could, depending on how it landed, feel like being dismissed, Ganghyeon offered a composed apology.
“The contract only covers the basics. The rest — I think we can work out reasonably as we go.”
“Contract or not, we really are getting married. Give me some responsibility too.”
“Alright. Let’s do that.”
Wouldn’t it be happier for everyone if there was nothing to worry about in a marriage like this? Making what wasn’t quite an excuse, Ganghyeon had the strange sense that he was somehow being managed by Jeong Jiwon. It felt vaguely unfair — like being scolded after trying to be considerate — and he swallowed back the nonsense that nearly slipped out: I’ve never been married before either.
As he drove, the turn-off toward Jiwon’s apartment came into view. Jiwon’s expression was still stiff, and Ganghyeon kept finding his gaze drawn to it. He didn’t want to send him home in a bad mood.
“I heard the newlyweds’ place is done with renovations.”
“…….”
“Aren’t you curious?”
Ganghyeon had only stopped by once himself, but Jiwon knew nothing beyond which building and which apartment complex the place was in. When the topic of the home they’d be moving into after the wedding came up, a spark of curiosity lit up in those wide eyes.
“Want to go take a look now?”
“Yes.”
At the decisive answer, Ganghyeon hit the signal and quickly turned the wheel to make a U-turn. Whether it was the excitement of seeing the apartment for the first time, the sullen look on his face lifted considerably.
On the way there, Jiwon asked things like how long it would take to get there, what floor the unit was on, and whether you could see the sky from the front balcony — and those questions were far nicer to hear than ones like how many square meters is it or how many rooms does it have.
The first time Jiwon let out a cry of wonder while looking around the still-empty newlywed apartment was when he stepped out onto the living room terrace. It was a night cloaked in deep darkness, but the sweeping night view — the kind that opens up your chest — left him with his mouth hanging open. He stood there for a long while, taking in the skyline where the lights of buildings and cars sparkled like stars, and breathed out in quiet awe.
