“I’m getting married.”
Holding his fork perfectly straight, Yeongbeom said. Lee Seongjo slowly raised his head as if broken. From his barely lifted neck came sounds that seemed like they needed more oil, creaking and groaning.
Originally, breakups have signs. Contact becomes sparse, or even when together one can’t focus and keeps checking their phone, or avoids physical contact. Or perhaps they treat their partner excessively well, wanting to package the coming separation as if it’s not their fault.
But it was none of those things. Seongjo replayed the past month in his half-emptied mind. Their dates had been normal. Nothing particularly better or worse than usual. Just until yesterday, Yeongbeom had ended their phone call saying he was looking forward to tomorrow, along with a confession of love.
“Marriage?”
Thanks to that, Lee Seongjo showed a reaction unbefitting of Jo Yeongbeom’s calm confession. Not only did he fail to understand his words immediately and ask again, but he even revealed his flustered expression completely.
Marriage, he said.
Yeongbeom’s lover was Lee Seongjo. Then the person he should be discussing marriage with should also be Lee Seongjo. Seongjo pushed back the inexplicable anxiety, like grains of sand being finely chewed in his mouth, and tried to think optimistically.
Did Yeongbeom want to get married? I didn’t know since he said just being by my side was enough and didn’t show it. If he felt anxious in his relationship with Seongjo, and therefore wanted to be bound institutionally to become a more solid couple, he was willing to grant that wish.
Should we go abroad and have a modest ceremony before returning? It would be inconvenient and complicated, but it would be worth enduring. Among countries where same-sex marriage is possible, there’s Belgium or Denmark, places Yeongbeom said he wanted to visit, so preferably there…
That plan formed quickly in Seongjo’s mind. Just like with everything else. But if he had known what would follow, he wouldn’t have entertained such thoughts at all.
Yeongbeom, who had been quietly watching Seongjo, put down the fork he was holding. The food on his plate hadn’t decreased at all. He takes out a paper envelope from his pocket. Soon, what lay on the dining table was a neat beige envelope.
His body reacted faster than certainty. After letting out a hollow laugh, a belated premonition struck his mind hard. He reached out, grabbed the incompletely sealed envelope and opened it, and words written in thin serif typeface immediately caught his eye.
Wedding
Groom: Jo Yeongbeom
Bride: Oh Seyeong
Neat letters were making an absurd request. Please attend and grace us with your presence. Wasn’t it too deceptive a sentence to write on a wedding invitation given to a lover? Moreover, the bride’s name seemed somehow familiar.
Oh Seyeong…
Oh Seyeong of Oseong Electronics?
As he chewed over the familiar name, he could quickly figure out who Jo Yeongbeom had shoved in front of him as his marriage partner. Once he realized it, it was so absurd that his laughter wouldn’t stop. The precious beloved daughter of the Oseong Electronics president… marrying Oh Seyeong.
For a joke, it was poor quality. However, if he got on his knees right now and begged for forgiveness, he would forgive him once—just once. It was so absurd that it actually seemed possible.
But there was still no wavering in Yeongbeom’s eyes, and he looked more sincere than ever. Seongjo’s laughter, which had continued like hiccups, finally stopped.
Silence descended. Seongjo looked down at the wedding invitation before him with coldly sunken eyes.
Jo Yeongbeom wasn’t a man with refined taste, so this design was probably the bride’s choice, not his. What on earth was he thinking, shoving this in front of Seongjo? When did he even start planning to audaciously stab him in the back like this? What problem was there between them, no, what had Lee Seongjo failed to do for Jo Yeongbeom… that he would pull off such nonsensical bullshit?
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do with this.”
Seongjo asked in a dry, cold voice. Even though there was no way he didn’t know what state of mind prompted the question, Yeongbeom answered calmly.
“It’s as you see. I’m getting married to this person.”
How should he react? Yeongbeom’s attitude was so composed and nonchalant that for a moment, getting angry made him feel strange. Seongjo gave his face a dry wash, ran his hand through his hair, then sank into his chair with a hollow laugh.
“Are you in your right mind?”
After spitting out those words, the rest became easy.
“Do you even properly understand what you’re doing right now?”
Before he knew it, his voice had become agitated. Those words were exactly right. If Yeongbeom were in his right mind, he couldn’t do this with him right in front of him. However, Yeongbeom’s eyes looking at Lee Seongjo were calmly still. They just carried a slightly bitter air.
“Try to understand me a bit, Seongjo-ya.”
“……”
Can he make such an innocent expression while doing this? For a moment, the man sitting before him felt unfamiliar. It was as if he wasn’t Lee Seongjo’s lover, the one Lee Seongjo knew. That’s why he was speechless. And once Seongjo became quiet, Yeongbeom began to explain calmly.
“It’s been discussed for a while, but we only recently started preparing in earnest.”
For a while. For a while, he said.
That is to say, he had been deceiving Lee Seongjo during that ‘while.’
“What was I lacking?”
But rather than calculating how long he’d been cheating, he was more curious about that. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t think of anything he hadn’t done. To speculate on the reason why Jo Yeongbeom had to consider marriage with someone else, Lee Seongjo had done too much for him.
“It’s not about lacking. Rather, I had more than enough from you.”
Yeongbeom said that and lowered his head. Was this his last bit of conscience?
“I just wanted to be… comfortable. It’s a choice I made to be happy.”
The Jo Yeongbeom saying this really looked like someone who had endured the time so far in agony. There seemed to be no pretense in his bitterly distorted eyes. That’s why it was even more unacceptable.
“…I have no idea where or how you’re so unhappy that you’re spouting such pitiful nonsense, Jo Yeongbeom.”
Seongjo took a deep breath and pulled himself together.
“So… this marriage, you have to go through with it no matter what?”
“…I’m sorry.”
“You had time while looking at venues, choosing dresses, and printing invitations. Yet not a single word all that time…”
Seongjo continued speaking in a voice that had somehow become calm. The more he spoke, the more his emotions, which had reached an extreme, actually cooled down coldly.
“Even playing with people has its limits… How dare you deceive me like this?”
It was a criticism befitting Lee Seongjo.
Yeongbeom was silent for a while. Because he hung his head like a sinner, his eyes weren’t visible, making it difficult to read his true feelings. Looking down with his arms crossed, Yeongbeom said something after a long while.
“I’m sorry, Seongjo-ya.”
Once again, an apology without any emotion.
“I wasn’t trying to play with you. Our relationship… there was never a time it wasn’t sincere. The reason I’m only telling you now is because I was agonizing over wanting you to be less shocked, even a little.”
When he didn’t answer, more meaningless words continued endlessly. Yeongbeom’s words finished in a persuasive tone.
“I won’t talk about what happened between us anywhere. So you too… I hope you’ll accept this.”
A tone as if bestowing something grand. As if not talking about what happened between the two was some kind of great favor.
Suddenly he felt puzzled. Their relationship was something not only their mutual friends knew about, but even Lee Seongjo’s grandfather had somewhat noticed. So what meaning could Yeongbeom’s silence possibly have?
But there was no way he could notice the doubt harbored in his heart. Yeongbeom continued in a sincere and desperate voice.
“This person doesn’t know anything. I know you wouldn’t anyway, but just in case—”
“Don’t touch her?”
What an admirable line. Hearing that made it seem like Lee Seongjo himself was the one intruding on a couple about to be married. Yeongbeom continued with difficulty.
“…I’m worried. Because then there would be repercussions for you too.”
Whether touching Oh Seyeong, who would become Jo Yeongbeom’s wife, or more precisely President Oh Hyeonmin who was Oh Seyeong’s father, would actually cause repercussions for Lee Seongjo was a matter to set aside. What mattered was what intention Yeongbeom had in saying that. Seongjo snorted briefly and muttered.
“Fucking ridiculous… Yeah, I guess the problem was that I raised you beyond your station.”
“……”
“Hey, Jo Yeongbeom.”
At the suddenly different tone, Yeongbeom’s answer also became heavy.
“…Yeah, Seongjo-ya.”
“I’ll ask just once more, for the last time… Are you serious? Are you confident you won’t regret it?”
He no longer felt like pressing further. This was the only thing left to say. Even in this situation, he found himself ridiculous for trying to give one last chance. It seemed love had blinded him. It was exactly the same reason he had continued an inefficient and uncalculating romance for the past several years.
However, Jo Yeongbeom’s face looking back at him seemed like someone else’s.
It was a gaze without warmth. Could this be the look a man who spoke of love just until yesterday could show?
“I see…”
There were no words. That answer was enough. Lee Seongjo laughed with a deflating sound. On the dining table, the untouched food was growing cold, and next to it lay the wedding invitation envelope carelessly thrown down. Lee Seongjo snatched it up with one hand and delivered his last words.
“I’m leaving.”
With flawless attitude, he tucked the white envelope into his pocket. For a moment, Jo Yeongbeom seemed about to stand up out of habit, taking an awkward posture. He glanced back, but in the end, he didn’t stand up to follow Seongjo. Seongjo, with an expression that was neither smiling nor frowning, turned his back just like that.
He maintained an upright posture so that his back wouldn’t look even slightly small in Yeongbeom’s eyes. Because he thought that was the way to preserve his pride.
Walking away like that, Seongjo suddenly recalled the fact that since meeting him, he had never tried to establish his pride in front of him. That fact made Seongjo feel very bitter.
Leaving behind Yeongbeom’s gaze that continued to be felt on his back, he opens the door. With the sound of the restaurant room opening and closing, the two people became completely severed.
It was an absurd breakup.
