Gangwoo went still in an instant. Thanks to the word cerebrospinal fluid and his somewhat lacking medical knowledge, a gruesome image of something being extracted from his brain through his spine seized hold of his mind. The mummification process — removing the brain through the nostrils — came along with it.
Sijin carried out the remaining procedure for the spinal anesthesia without difficulty. He rose and began pressing the skin outward from the injection site.
By the time his fingers reached chest level, Gangwoo showed no reaction. Having confirmed firsthand the efficacy of a product that had completed clinical trials and was on the verge of release, Sijin felt a swell of pride.
“Now we can finally have a proper conversation.”
He picked up a vial from the kit and headed toward Gangwoo. He resumed his usual whistling. This time it was a piece even Gangwoo recognized. It was too famous not to.
“Crazy bastard.”
It was Wagner’s Wedding March. Sijin crouched down in front of the bed and rested his chin on the mattress. He brought himself to eye level with Gangwoo, who was lying on his side, and held up the vial in his hand.
A white label was affixed to the small glass bottle. The moment Gangwoo saw the name of the drug printed beneath the Eaton Biotech logo, he drew in a sharp breath. He looked back and forth between the label and Sijin with wide, stunned eyes.
“Allen-Park Syndrome is a grueling condition in many ways. The inside is falling apart while the outside can still function normally, so even when you say you’re in pain, there’s no one who believes you. And yet trying to work is out of the question because workplaces can openly refuse you. That’s why you submitted falsified health examination documents, isn’t it?”
The vial containing the treatment caught the light and glimmered. Give it here. Gangwoo pushed himself up. So what if his lower half was anesthetized — he could crawl perfectly well on two arms. His eyes glistened with desperate longing.
“You came to steal this because you needed it, didn’t you? I’ll give it to you. As much as you want. But——”
“But?”
“You’ll have to marry me.”
“……”
Sijin proposed marriage again. They were close enough that if Gangwoo tilted his chin up, he could bite off Sijin’s nose.
No matter how foul it made him feel, he couldn’t say a word. The treatment was Gangwoo’s leash, and that was what it meant to be a dog with a leash around its neck.
He turned things over in his head, trying to make sense of Sijin’s words as best he could. Sijin didn’t know his true identity — that he was the infamous “Jerry,” known in Hangdong as the maestro of thieves — but he did know that Gangwoo had approached him with the intent to steal. At the very minimum, that meant Sijin was fully aware that Gangwoo was a thief.
“Are you in your right mind? You want to marry a thief?”
It didn’t make sense even by a thief’s logic. Being held captive and used as a test subject would have been more realistic. Sijin answered with a single, brief affirmative.
“Yes.”
In contrast to his expressionless face, Sijin’s one-word answer carried absolute conviction. Gangwoo’s eyes opened a fraction wider.
“With someone who’s on death’s doorstep?”
“That’s precisely why.”
“Because I’m about to kick the bucket? Oh — are you after life insurance? I don’t have any——”
“Why would you die when I’m here?”
Sijin pushed the vial right up to Gangwoo’s face and dismissed the nonsense. Ah, right. Gangwoo remembered something he had forgotten.
The defining characteristic of this syndrome was that, as long as treatment was received periodically, normal life was possible right up until natural death. That was precisely why Gangwoo had planned to purchase forty years’ worth of the drug and retire. By the time he was around seventy, he figured he’d be able to close his eyes without any lingering attachment to the world.
“And pocket change like a life insurance payout——”
“Is it a marriage of convenience? Just stamp the marriage registration form and disappear — is that what you need?”
Gangwoo cut in with his own question before Sijin could finish pointing out the modesty of his thinking. When he ran the numbers, it seemed like a deal that worked in his favor.
Sijin appeared to have some unavoidable circumstance — the way chaebols in morning dramas always did. He had no real desire to know exactly what it was. But if signing a few documents could get him a lifetime supply of the treatment, it wasn’t a bad proposition.
They would live as strangers without so much as laying eyes on each other, anyway. And if either of them ever met someone they truly wanted to marry, they could simply get a divorce.
No. Sijin shook his head.
“I’m not talking about a marriage of convenience. I mean a real marriage.”
“A real marriage?”
“Do you not know what marriage means? Marriage is when two people enter into a mental and physical union that the world at large would recognize as a spousal bond.”
“Wh — wait. Am I some ignorant idiot who needs to ask you what marriage means?”
The moment Gangwoo tried to lift his head, Sijin’s hand moved swiftly. His palm shoved Gangwoo’s head back into the pillow. He rose slowly, a furrow forming between his brows.
“Don’t lift your head for the next six hours. Not if you’d rather not suffer a pointless headache. If we want everyone to believe in our love and our marriage at tomorrow’s press conference, you’ll need to walk out smiling, won’t you.”
“What press conference are you talking about?”
“The announcement of our engagement. For reference, it’s at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.”
Stay still. If the cerebrospinal fluid leaks, you’ll be suffering for over a week. Sijin pressed his soon-to-be fiancé’s head firmly into the pillow and added as much.
Not a trace remained of the man who had spoken of love and proposed. It felt like revenge for everything that had happened earlier. With his nose and mouth smashed into the pillow, barely able to breathe, Gangwoo struggled to make sense of this contradictory situation.
“In front of everyone — you and I publicly announce that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives joined at the hip until our black hair turns white? Is that all I have to do?”
“It’s not just an announcement — we’ll actually be living that way. Under civil law, spouses are obligated to cohabitate, support, and cooperate with one another.”
“Wha — spouses?”
“Isn’t it obvious that marriage leads to becoming spouses? I’m saying I want to live with Jeh Gangwoo under the same roof, eating from the same pot, and having sex. And treating you, of course.”
Gangwoo broke out in goosebumps from head to toe.
“You’re completely insane.”
“Don’t call your future husband insane. From now on, crude language in front of me is strictly prohibited.”
“Go f**k yourself. Mrph!”
Gangwoo strained with all his might to break free from Sijin’s grip. The tendons in his neck and jaw stood out, and his face flushed deep red. He barely managed to lift his head and gasp in some air — but Sijin shoved it back down again.
It was obviously payback for the forearm to the throat. He felt like he was going to die not from pain, but from suffocation. Gangwoo finally slapped his palm against the mattress.
Sijin released his head but didn’t fully remove his hand from the back of Gangwoo’s skull. It seemed like a warning that he was ready to slam it back down the moment it rose above a certain height.
“What is wrong with you? Are you — are you into me? Don’t tell me you’re in love with me?”
He felt strange saying the words himself, but it was the only interpretation his mind could come up with.
A man who wants for nothing, proposing not a fake marriage but a life together? Until death do us part?
In this day and age, it was a genuinely rare, passionate proposal. If someone he loved had said those words to him, Gangwoo might have dropped to his knees for them then and there.
“How long have we even known each other, and you’re claiming to love me? Even if it was love at first sight, you’re supposed to date for at least a year before——”
On top of that, this was literally the first time they had properly exchanged words. Sijin looked at Gangwoo with wide, startled eyes. He blinked at him as if he’d heard something unexpected — and then let out a quiet, involuntary laugh.
“No. I haven’t fallen for Jeh Gangwoo. Love? Hardly. How naive.”
Well, that’s a relief. Gangwoo felt both reassured and irritated. If he wasn’t infatuated and he wasn’t in love, then he couldn’t fathom why he was tormenting some pitiful thief with a death sentence — who was hardly a breathtaking beauty — like this.
“According to common law, the duties of a spouse are cohabitation, support, cooperation, and fidelity.”
Sijin explained, unfolding his fingers one by one from a closed fist. The fingers stopped — at exactly four.
“Love is not included.”
“……”
“Marriage based on romantic love is a product of eighteenth-century Romanticism. The original form of marriage was a mutual strategic alliance based on calculated interest. For reference, I intend to faithfully fulfill all spousal duties. You need not worry that I would abandon the duty of fidelity.”
Gangwoo buried his own face in the pillow. If he hadn’t been anesthetized, he would have kicked the mattress in frustration.
Sijin was proposing a loveless marriage — yet swearing absolutely that he would never be unfaithful. Any scheme to sabotage the marriage by using infidelity as grounds had been sunk before it could even be conceived.
No. Gangwoo murmured into the pillow, face buried. No. I won’t. A crease formed between Sijin’s brows.
“Isn’t it a good deal? Fed, housed, given the respectable social standing of being the husband of the CEO of Eaton Biotech. And as for sex — I’m a superior Alpha, so there’s no need for great concern——”
“No.”
Gangwoo’s answer was short. He reacted with such cold indifference that every condition Sijin had offered seemed worthless and squalid.
“You came to steal the treatment because you needed it, didn’t you? You don’t need to steal anymore. I’ll give you enough to last a lifetime.”
He closed both eyes, drew slow, measured breaths, and said nothing. Whatever Sijin said, however he tried to persuade him — to Gangwoo, who had already made up his mind to refuse, every word was noise. Sijin kept talking beside him without pause.
“No charge. I’ll administer the treatment myself. Think about it — an opportunity like this doesn’t come twice.”
“You’ve really got a long tongue…… No.”
“Jeh Gangwoo, are you in a position to negotiate with me? I don’t think so. If you won’t marry me, I have no reason to keep you alive. You are a thief who broke into my home.”
Sijin forced a choice upon Gangwoo. Marriage, or death. There was nothing in between. As if to tell him to think carefully, he pressed the treatment into Gangwoo’s hand.
Gangwoo dropped the vial over the side of the bed without a second thought. The glass vial struck the linoleum floor and rolled beneath the bed.
