Pulling a move like that under the pretense of just wanting to get closer — mixing pheromones, he said. A helpless laugh escaped him. The car pulled out of the parking garage and turned onto the main road, picking up speed. A faint smile flickered at the corners of his well-defined lips, then faded.
The black sedan came to a brief stop in a residential alley, let Jiwon out on the passenger side, and drove away. The windows were tinted so dark that nothing inside could be seen, but Jiwon raised his hand in an awkward farewell wave to his soon-to-be husband. When the car turned the corner and disappeared beyond the alley, Jiwon dropped his head and ruffled his own hair.
“Ugh.”
His original intention had clearly not been that — but a flicker of worry passed through him that Ganghyeon might have taken it as him having wanted things to go that way. He was pulling at his own hair when he told himself it’s fine, it’s fine. He’s going to be your husband anyway. The person who will ultimately become your closest— will be, is, well— is that even possible?
“What are you doing out here.”
“Hmm?”
Jiwon turned at the sudden voice, still pulling at his hair. Lee Jaeho was standing beside Chaewon, who wore her usual indifferent expression. He was the biological father of the baby in Chaewon’s womb, and the person officially recognized as this household’s son-in-law to be.
“Nothing. I was about to go in.”
“Hey, Jiwon. Good evening.”
“Oh. Jaeho, you’re here.”
“Yes! Chaewon said she wanted tteokbokki so I went to get some.”
Chaewon, who had been blunt and utterly devoid of any sweetness since she was little — so much so that Jiwon had worried whether she could even manage to date someone — had somehow found herself a boy as gentle and good-natured as a squirrel and gone ahead and started a whole second generation with him. There had been an uproar when she’d gotten herself into trouble at such a young age, but it turned out the boy was decent and came from a good family, and their household had taken a liking to Jaeho.
If it weren’t for Jiwon’s situation, this couple would have been the one rushing to get married first — but Chaewon, who knew everything, had no complaints. If anything, her brother was a constant source of worry, appearing to have given absolutely no thought to that sort of thing. Jiwon had taken on a heavy burden for the sake of the family. Would he be able to hold his own against people from a family like that? Was the man he was about to marry a decent person? They all felt sorry for Jiwon but couldn’t show it — the whole family was worried about him.
“Did you meet that person today?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do?”
“Had dinner and watched a movie.”
“Wow, you went on a proper date and everything. Bring him home sometime. You know I haven’t even seen this supposedly incredible brother-in-law-to-be yet, right? Is he a unicorn or something? All rumor and no sighting.”
Chaewon grumbled deliberately as she said it. She felt like seeing what kind of person her future brother-in-law was would ease some of her worry. It was only now that Jiwon realized Chaewon and Ganghyeon hadn’t met yet. Ganghyeon was a difficult subject in every regard. Compared to Jaeho, who had only formally greeted the family once and was already being treated as family and coming and going freely — the difference was enormous. Then again, it was bound to be different from the start.
“Mom, I’m back~!”
Chaewon scrunched her brow watching Jiwon’s eyes follow Jaeho, who was calling out cheerfully to their mother as he walked in. In this kind of marriage, getting a partner of that type was essentially zero probability. Chaewon patted the shoulder of her brother, who was standing there looking pointlessly melancholy, on the shoulder. That face and expression of his would be far more effective used to charm his other half than wasted on a younger sister.
“Jaeho really does have such a good personality.”
“One like him in our family is more than enough.”
“Huh?”
“Hoping for someone from a family like that to have that kind of personality is just too greedy. Unless maybe you become that kind of presence for them instead.”
“No way.”
“I’m just saying.”
It worried her that her brother was pushing thirty and still so unaware of how the world worked and incapable of playing the social game — but there wasn’t much Chaewon could actually do to help. Could he hold his own with that personality of his? Chaewon chewed her tteokbokki and watched her brother with a flat expression. Han Ganghyeon, wasn’t it. What a stiff name. It already sounded unyielding and no-nonsense.
At that same hour, the man with the stiff name was on his way to a gathering. He hadn’t particularly wanted to go, but he had already skipped the last one claiming to be busy and couldn’t bow out again. With his wedding approaching, Ganghyeon was the gathering’s main topic of the evening.
The core group was six, with a few others who came and went with them depending on the occasion. They were all sons of families whose names anyone would recognize, and despite their young age, each held a respectable public title of some sort. It wasn’t a product of personal ability, of course, but in this day and age, being born to wealthy parents was one of the finest talents there was.
“Hey, Han Ganghyeon.”
“Sorry. I’m late.”
“Why is it so hard to see your face these days? We have to set a date and wait, and you always show up dead last.”
“Something came up.”
Having rented out an entire small bar, the interior was quiet and intimate. As Ganghyeon took the empty seat at the table, his usual drink was placed in front of him. Seven of them sat gathered around the table under the dim lighting. He was only a little late from dropping Jiwon off, so everyone was still clear-eyed and sober. Everyone, that is, except Kim Sunwoo, second son of Singuk Pharmaceuticals, who was busy groping the man he’d brought along.
“That guy is completely obsessed. Does he break out in sores if he goes a day without it?”
“That’s why he’s aging fast. Getting his life force drained day and night.”
“Hey. Got to enjoy it while the wife’s away. Now that Han Ganghyeon’s fired the starting gun, the rest of us are going to get reeled in any minute too.”
Kim Sunwoo shook his head as if he couldn’t comprehend why Ganghyeon would choose to become a married man so early. He went on about how he couldn’t understand why anyone would put a full stop on things in a world brimming with pleasures, while idly running his fingers along the neck of the man he’d brought.
The purpose of this gathering was fellowship, networking, information exchange, and mischief. Since none of them had gotten serious about the family business yet, the last one tended to be the main draw. The gathering was less about what they did when they met and more about the fact that they kept in regular contact — a relationship built with the future in mind, not the present.
“Hey. Be honest. Did you get someone in trouble? What’s the rush on the marriage? I heard the other family isn’t anything to speak of either.”
Park Mujin’s face was alight with excitement at having something interesting to talk about for once. Ganghyeon hadn’t said a word about his upcoming marriage, and yet it seemed the details of his future spouse had already been circulated. This world never ceased to amaze with how invested it was in other people’s private lives.
“We’ve barely met. What trouble could I have gotten into.”
“What. Is this the Joseon era?”
“Like yours would be any different.”
“Fair enough. Heh. But hey — I’ve never even heard of your future spouse’s family company. Why is your family tying themselves to a family like that? Isn’t it a pretty lopsided match? Did someone get something on you?”
At the end of the day, it was a question of why Ganghyeon was marrying into a family like that. For an arranged marriage, the gap between Ganghyeon’s family and Jiwon’s was too wide to make sense. It was reasonable to suspect someone had leverage on him.
“Do I look like the type to roll over and agree to marry someone just because they had something on me?”
“Fair point.”
Park Mujin conceded easily. A ruthless one like you would never. Ganghyeon lifted his crystal glass to his lips and set it back down, answering with a composed smile.
“It’s what the elders wanted. An omega who, based on family lineage, has a high probability of bearing a dominant alpha. They say a lopsided match is easier to manage down the line.”
“At your age you’re already thinking about having kids?”
“The Han family has always been particular about that sort of thing.”
“Spot on.”
Yoo Taekyeong’s casual remark carried a lot of weight beneath it. It was a dig at Ganghyeon’s origins — not that he had been born from any immoral relationship, but a jab at his birth circumstances nonetheless. Since there was nothing else they could use to cut him down, the snide remarks about his birth never really stopped. Childhood friends? That kind of warm concept had never existed here to begin with.
“As everyone knows, dominant omegas from distinguished families are rare. That side of things wouldn’t settle for someone like me. Everyone already knows how I came into this world, and they wouldn’t particularly want to marry into that.”
Dominant alphas born through ordinary circumstances were rarer than one might think. Ganghyeon knew that among the alphas gathered here, there were those who had come into the world the same way he had. The difference was that the other person vehemently denied it, while Ganghyeon had simply acknowledged it. The person in question averted their eyes from Ganghyeon’s steady gaze.
“Come on. It’s not like you’re short on people who are hooked on you. People who would do anything for you.”
“Hey. I honestly half-expected Choi Yumin to really snag Han Ganghyeon for himself. Ha.”
“Just hearing that is exhausting.”
“Heh. Still though — even so, isn’t such a lopsided match a bit much? What’s the other person like? Looks-wise?”
Just as Park Mujin said, it was a match that made no sense in so many ways, tilted entirely to one side. And Jeong Jiwon wasn’t someone with exceptional enough qualities to offset that imbalance. Ganghyeon still had no intention of having a child with him.
