0. Prologue
Poverty was a poison that made people feel small. Yuhyeon, who had swallowed that poison from the moment he was born, was willing to do anything to escape the suffocating, breathless struggle of his existence. Even if that meant doing things that went against all moral sense.
“Try this one too.”
A plump, richly colored kiwi was presented before Yuhyeon’s closed lips. He stared at the piece of fruit being held out to him with eyes full of distrust, then stole a glance at Seongjun’s expression.
Why is he suddenly acting like this?
Even if someone had the ability to read minds, it seemed unlikely they’d be able to read this man. Yuhyeon tried his best to hide how flustered he was, his gaze drifting toward the tip of the fork. The kiwi dangling from it dripped with more juice than necessary. Seongjun tilted the utensil up and down as if urging him to eat already.
If he kept his mouth shut like this, it would only end up embarrassing the man. The juice dripping onto the surface of the table pressed Yuhyeon to do something, and quickly. Suppressing the discomfort on his face, Yuhyeon let his tightly sealed lips part. It was a reaction that felt distant, nothing like someone receiving fruit fed to them with affection.
“You eat well.”
The moment the soft flesh of the fruit touched his molars, an oddly unfamiliar compliment came his way — embarrassingly so. Unlike Seongjun, who was smiling, Yuhyeon was forced to taste the tension steadily mounting inside him. The sweetness of the juice that came with each bite only left a bitter aftertaste lingering at the tip of his tongue. Even a three-year-old would have sensed something was off.
Yuhyeon pushed the kiwi past the tightness in his throat and opened his mouth to speak. Beneath his quiet, measured voice was an anxiety he hadn’t been able to fully conceal.
“You seem to be in a particularly good mood today…?”
He was someone who didn’t naturally express much emotion, which made it hard to accept the man’s smile without suspicion. Either way, Yuhyeon had plenty of reasons to feel unsettled, and he worked tirelessly to hide the unease gnawing at him.
Don’t tell me… he found out?
What “found out” could entail was considerable. Approaching Seongjun — who believed himself to be suffering from amnesia — under the pretense of a contract engagement. Secretly breaking into the space he had been trying to keep hidden. Even the part where Yuhyeon had begun to suspect that the man might not actually have amnesia at all.
Turning each of those incidents over in his mind, one unscrupulous act after another came spilling out. No wonder he couldn’t calm down. Seongjun had never been someone who treated him badly, but the more Yuhyeon had uncovered, the more his guard had risen.
“Of course I am.”
“Did something happen?”
“It’s the day our relationship became legally recognized.”
What did I just hear?
There was only one thing “legally recognized” could mean. A marriage registration. But what Yuhyeon had contracted with Seongjun was an engagement — nothing more, nothing less. It was never supposed to become something entangled with the law.
He’d been so startled that the kiwi almost came back up. That can’t be right. Yuhyeon bit down on his trembling lips. The mortification that couldn’t be smoothed over with a smile spread plainly across his face.
“Why are you getting it all over yourself.”
Seongjun’s thumb brushed across Yuhyeon’s lips. The vivid sensation of warmth against his skin made Yuhyeon feel as though the fine hairs on his body had all stood on end at once. In contrast to those gentle fingertips, Seongjun’s lowered eyes were so calm they were unsettling — still as the eye of a storm. An emotion Yuhyeon couldn’t parse seized his entire body. By the time the heartbeat pounding in his ears began to sound like a warning signal, Yuhyeon had shoved himself out of his seat. His pupils trembled with shock and disbelief as they fixed on Seongjun, who was maintaining his unhurried composure.
“…This kind of joke isn’t funny.”
“It’s not a joke.”
Too bad if you thought it was, Seongjun said quietly.
“It’s not a joke…? Then are you seriously telling me you actually went and filed a marriage registration?”
He had deceived the amnesiac Seongjun and made himself his contract fiancé. It had been a rather hastily fabricated setup, which meant Yuhyeon had to hustle to lend his lies any semblance of credibility. He had believed that at this man’s side, he would surely never have to feel small again — and he hadn’t let that opportunity slip through his fingers. But he never imagined that his own misconduct would lead to an actual marriage registration. The hope that Seongjun might casually tack on that it had been a joke was shredded to pieces by what came next.
“For reference — I don’t do divorce.”
“What?”
The fact that he was even bringing up divorce meant it was real. When had he even—no, how? Yuhyeon was swamped by an emotion he couldn’t name. Had Seongjun gone mad because his lost memories never returned? Maybe his broken mind had finally stopped functioning properly, and his reasoning circuits had ended up damaged. Even though Yuhyeon knew he wasn’t actually mad, he refused to stop doubting it — grasping at anything to deny reality. Yuhyeon’s lips, gone blank and numb, twitched in a spasm.
This isn’t right….
Then a single hypothesis surfaced. The suspicion that Seongjun had seen through his lie long ago and had been toying with him all along.
“I did think things were going too smoothly to make sense…. Did you already know? About everything?”
It was a question asking whether Seongjun had known from the very day Yuhyeon had claimed they were engaged — all the way up to now — that every bit of it had been a lie. Struggling to tamp down the surge of emotion, he breathed out a breath that burned hot, and the goosebumps crawling up his skin seized his throat in a tight grip.
The firmly sealed mouth of Seongjun opened, and a low voice cut through the silence. He didn’t make any particular gesture — he simply let the words fall — but Yuhyeon felt as though the back of his neck had been snatched in a firm grip. The atmosphere around them shed its warmth and pressed down heavily on Yuhyeon’s shoulders.
“Yuhyeon, you said you were tied to me.”
Thud — the heart drumming against his chest plummeted into a pit.
“That was….”
“So I filed the marriage registration. Shouldn’t you be happy about that?”
A document he had no idea when Seongjun had prepared was pushed toward him. Yuhyeon’s eyes lost their footing and wavered as they fell on the yellow envelope. Faced with Seongjun’s composed reaction — so unlike his own — Yuhyeon felt fear. What Seongjun pulled from it was a marriage certificate. It was real. Chae Seongjun had actually gone and done it.
…Is something like this even possible without my consent?
Yuhyeon’s rattled mind churned for a moment. Every time Seongjun spoke, it felt as though the organs in his stomach were twisting with dread, and he wanted to scream.
Found out. Seongjun had known every single one of his lies.
Nothing else could explain something this absurd. This was a kind of punishment. Just as Yuhyeon had brazenly burrowed his way into Seongjun’s life and walked around with his head held high, Seongjun had done the same in return. Unilaterally. Without discussion. Shamelessly. It was a mirror of what Yuhyeon himself had done.
If he had known it was all a lie — if that was truly the case — then when had it been? The tips of his fingers tensed, crumpling the edge of the document. Yuhyeon rubbed at his chest to try and calm the heartbeat that was growing faster by the second. His throat, wound tight with anxiety, stung raw, and every time he swallowed, it felt as though thorns had sprouted inside his mouth.
“When I want something, I do whatever it takes to make it mine.”
“…….”
“That’s why you shouldn’t have said you were engaged to me. Caught by the nose, weren’t you?”
He tried pressing the back of his hand against his trembling lips to get them under control, but it only made him look more ridiculous. Dizziness slammed into Yuhyeon’s skull. Reeling, he shook his head over and over against this bolt-from-the-blue situation.
“I never consented to this. We’re not at a point where filing a marriage registration makes any sense. Think about it again — again. File for divorce, or—!”
“I believe I already said this. I don’t do divorce.”
That unbudging refusal stripped away even the last of the strength Yuhyeon had been barely holding onto. He ended up sinking down where he stood, floundering in a situation that had spiraled to an extreme. He was filled with regret. He felt like tearing out every strand of his hair and bursting into tears. Slowly shaking his head, Yuhyeon then snapped his eyes open wide and tore the paper to pieces.
I didn’t consent. Then it’s obviously void.
A marriage registration filed without reflecting the other party’s wishes. Then there surely had to be a way to nullify that document.
“V-void. Void! I never filed a marriage registration!”
“Void my ass.”
Seongjun looked down indifferently at the torn scraps of paper and let out a quiet scoff. The way Yuhyeon kept repeating the word “void” was desperately, wretchedly sincere.
“Seo Yuhyeon, you like my money, don’t you. That’s why you stayed by my side.”
“…No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do — then you’d better take responsibility.”
Seo Yuhyeon, twenty-eight years old — having schemed after the assets of an amnesiac Seongjun, he had instead found himself caught in a snare.
