MHLM 02

Chapter 2

It really was true.

If the woman sitting across from him had been So-yul, Tae-heon would not have been able to go through with this blind date today.

At first, he had been certain she was So-yul. He thought that the girl who had grown into an adult had appeared in front of him, saying she would become his bride.

His heart had seemed to drop into his stomach.

But then he realized she wasn’t So-yul.

He had not even bothered to check the profile of his blind-date partner because he intended to marry whoever she was. However, his chief secretary had read the details to him, so he knew that her name was Ji Min-chae, not So-yul.

Thank goodness she wasn’t So-yul.

But I still don’t feel entirely comfortable with this. Of all people, she had to be So-yul’s twin sister.

He was going to become the husband of a woman with exactly the same face as that girl.

But the situation was urgent.

Over time, he would probably become less sensitive to her identical appearance.

Yes. I can’t help it. In a situation like this, rejecting her simply because she has the same face as that girl would be unreasonable.

Tae-heon composed himself and spoke again.

“Then I’ll ask you directly, Ms. Ji Min-chae.”

His low voice settled heavily over the table.

“Are you willing to go through with this marriage?”

“……”

The woman’s answer came slowly.

Her expression seemed gloomy, and her neatly folded hands appeared to tremble slightly.

“…Yes.”

At last, a quiet answer came.

It sounded less like an enthusiastic expression of her wishes and more like reluctant acceptance.

But Tae-heon did not look too deeply into it.

As long as we get married for now, I don’t care what her personal circumstances are.

Tae-heon decided to make his own circumstances clear first.

“Then let me make one thing clear from the beginning.”

“……”

“This will be a loveless marriage. All of my time has already been allocated. I don’t have the spare time to take some of it away from work and devote it to a family.”

Tae-heon drew a firm line with a decisive voice, sounding cold not only to her but even to himself.

“I will guarantee everything else. It’s better to set our expectations from the beginning. If they don’t match later, the cost will be much greater for both of us.”

If his young wife ever approached him one day with a face that begged for his affection, he would not be able to respond.

That would be unfair to his wife, and it would also be exhausting for him.

But that’s not the only problem anymore.

He would grow accustomed to her face, but there would still be moments when So-yul’s face appeared over it.

What if one of those moments happened when his wife came to him wanting his love?

If that happened, he felt as though he would somehow be betraying So-yul and Young-ho.

For that reason, it would be best to block out any expectation of affection from her from the very beginning.

“…Yes, I understand.”

The woman answered in a subdued voice.

A young woman of only twenty-two had calmly accepted the idea of a loveless marriage.

Perhaps this isn’t really her own decision.

But it was not his place to question her about it.

With that answer, things would actually be easier for him to proceed.

“Good. Then my secretary will inform you of the schedule and procedures.”

Tae-heon stood up.

He had taken the first step.

He started walking with a lighter heart, but before he had taken even three steps, he stopped again on impulse.

“Um…”

So-yul… is she doing well?

Just as he was about to turn around and ask—

Tae-heon firmly closed his mouth.

Since he had decided to marry So-yul’s sister, perhaps he would see So-yul soon anyway.

There was nothing wrong with asking her directly if she had been well.

“No. It’s nothing.”

Tae-heon gave a small bow and walked away.

“Representative, did your meeting with the woman go well?”

Inside the car heading to Chairman Kang Deok-heung’s hospital, Choi, Tae-heon’s chief secretary, asked.

“Yes. We both agreed to marry.”

Perhaps because Tae-heon was reviewing documents on his tablet, his answer sounded extremely businesslike to Choi.

Almost as though he had just signed a contract.

It was surprising in its own way.

Tae-heon had not even properly checked the woman’s profile, leaving Choi to read it to him.

Before going up to the café, he had even said:

“I’ll be finished within ten minutes. Wait so we can leave immediately.”

Choi had assumed Tae-heon meant that he would meet her in person out of courtesy and simply reject her.

But he was getting married?

“Th-that’s good to hear. I suppose you liked her.”

At the words liked her, Tae-heon’s finger paused over the tablet screen.

Liked her?

It was actually the opposite.

The fact that she had So-yul’s face weighed heavily on him.

Still, if he set aside the fact that she had the exact same face, objectively speaking, she wasn’t a bad match.

“She arrived exactly on time, so she seems to have basic manners. I expected the conversation to take ten minutes, but it ended in five. That’s a fifty-percent reduction from the estimated time. She seems capable of efficient communication.”

…Are we hiring a new employee?

Choi pressed his lips together.

He could only feel sorry for the woman who must have been confused.

Grandfather will be relieved now.

Not long afterward, Tae-heon finished reviewing the documents and looked out the car window.

“Your younger brother, Taeseung, who passed away, appeared in this old man’s dream. He said you were in danger.”

Tae-heon’s blind date had begun with that dream of his grandfather, Kang Deok-heung, the founder of DH Group.

Chairman Kang had asked Baek-un about the dream.

Baek-un was a fortune-teller known for being exceptionally accurate, not only because he read people’s saju but because he was also said to possess spiritual insight. Chairman Kang had relied on him for many years.

“I asked the master about it, and he said you really do have bad luck hanging over you. He said that the only way to avoid it is for you to marry a woman with this saju. Please, I’m begging you. This old man can’t bear to lose you too, like Taeseung. Please?”

In this day and age, when the power of science is driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution, he actually believes the words of a fortune-teller.

Tae-he respected and loved his grandfather, but this was something he simply could not take seriously.

And the woman was eight years younger than him.

Does he want to turn his grandson into a cradle robber?

“Grandfather, all of that is just superstition. I won’t die even if I don’t follow what he said, so don’t worry.”

“No! His predictions have never been wrong! So, Tae-heon! Please, just grant this old man’s final wish while I’m still alive!”

Chairman Kang pleaded with him for days, but Tae-heon refused to listen.

Chairman Kang had recently undergone surgery for stomach cancer and grew thinner and thinner as he pleaded with Tae-heon.

He had reached the point where Tae-heon feared his grandfather might really die if things continued this way.

In the end, Tae-heon had no choice but to change his mind.

He, too, knew the grief of losing a younger brother in an accident.

That was why he wanted the family he had left to remain healthy for as long as possible.

At least it’s fortunate that there is someone.

Now he could put his grandfather’s mind at ease.

Tae-heon also thought about the compensation that would come with the marriage.

He intended to compensate his in-laws generously.

The same went for the bride herself.

In return for accepting a loveless marriage at such a young age, he intended to guarantee that she would live comfortably for the rest of her life.

Aside from that, he would keep his distance.

That was the most he could offer his young wife.

Tae-heon simply had no energy to devote to a woman.

Because there was something he absolutely wanted to accomplish.

So it absolutely can’t happen.

A marriage with So-yul, who was probably somewhere in heaven hoping to meet a good man and live happily, was truly impossible.

So-yul headed home without gaining anything from the day.

“Ah, it hurts… So this is how painful heels are. Sister Min-chae even wears these when she goes to clubs. Does she actually dance in them, too? I’m starting to respect her all of a sudden…”

Sigh.

So-yul walked down the alley with a heavy sigh.

Her feet hurt.

And the fact that the only place she could drag her aching feet toward was home was painful in its own way.

Everything about it was sad.

“Ji So-yul, you think your adoptive parents raised you better than us, so you compare us to them, don’t you?”

“Then go to those dead people! Don’t call me Mom!”

Not long after returning to her biological family, So-yul had been deliberately turned against by Min-chae.

“No, I never compared you! I really didn’t…! Please believe me…!”

But they didn’t believe her.

They chose to believe Min-chae, not So-yul, who had been a stranger to them for twelve years.

The verbal abuse and neglect that followed had made her lonely and miserable.

But they were the parents who had given birth to her and come looking for her again.

She already knew how painful it was to lose a family.

She believed that if she simply tried harder, they would eventually clear up the misunderstanding.

So she always smiled and behaved well, desperately trying to be loved.

But that morning—

So-yul, who had been forced to take a leave of absence from school and was working at her parents’ meat restaurant without even receiving a proper salary, had set out for work when she realized she had forgotten her phone.

She returned home and was taking off her shoes at the entrance when she heard something shocking from the living room.

“Then send Ji So-yul in my place! Just let her pretend to be me! We look exactly alike, so one day should be fine!”

“Her? Oh my, should we? I guess having her as a bonus daughter comes in handy sometimes.”

“It sure does. I heard the only reason they brought her back in the first place was because of her adoptive parents’ inheritance. It was very useful when we opened a branch of our restaurant.”

“That’s right. But I never thought she’d be useful like this, too.”

In that moment, her heart collapsed.

All those years she had spent innocently craving their love came crashing down like a sandcastle.

So-yul quietly left the house and burst into tears in a nearby park.

They told me to go to the blind date pretending to be Sister Min-chae. Instead of letting them use me however it’s convenient for them again, should I just disappear somewhere…?

Then, suddenly, her perspective changed.

What if Ji So-yul, who had always obediently done whatever they told her, simply stole that marriage from her?

They would surely go crazy with anger.

Just as furious and heartbroken as she was right now.

It was the first truly malicious idea she had ever had.

Maybe it was too cruel of a thought…

As if that were her punishment, she had failed completely.

So-yul limped her way home and entered the living room.

On the sofa, Mi-young and Min-chae were both extremely excited.

“You must have done well. Kang Tae-heon’s personal secretary contacted us right away. He said they wanted to meet soon and discuss the marriage.”

“What did you talk about? I need to know.”

“…He asked if I really intended to get married, so I said yes. And I told him it would be a loveless marriage.”

“What?”

One of Min-chae’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“I told him he didn’t have the time to devote to a family. He made it clear that as long as I intended to marry him, that was enough.”

At that, Mi-young frowned for a moment before the corners of her lips lifted.

“Well, that’s great. What’s the point of love anyway? As long as you’re married, the family’s wealth isn’t going anywhere.”

“Exactly. Since it’s all settled, hurry up and take off that dress. It’s expensive, and you completely wasted it on this.”

Ignoring them, So-yul headed toward her room in the basement.

“When does the secretary want to meet?”

“Your face is still bruised. Tell him to wait until the bruises go down at least.”

The excited voices of the mother and daughter followed So-yul as she descended the stairs.

After changing clothes in her basement room, So-yul collapsed onto her bedding.

The blankets were damp with the unpleasant moisture unique to a basement.

As she stared blankly at the mold-covered ceiling, Tae-heon’s face floated through her mind.

“Was it three years ago? I first saw him at my brother’s funeral. I didn’t even get to ask how he was…”

Now Tae-heon would marry Min-chae and become her brother-in-law.

“I should have ruined it completely. Idiot…”

If she couldn’t marry him, she should have made sure he couldn’t marry Min-chae either.

She should have done something completely crazy while pretending to be Min-chae.

Beyond her anger toward her family, there was another reason she didn’t want Tae-heon to marry Min-chae.

In her memories, Tae-heon might have seemed cold, but he had been a good older brother figure to her.

“It’s okay now. So-yul won’t be bullied anymore. Don’t cry.”

She had liked the way he had comforted her and gently stroked her head.

So-yul squeezed her eyes shut.

The thought of him becoming Min-chae’s husband made her shudder.

But she still couldn’t imagine it.

The fact that she would eventually marry Tae-heon.

Just in a rather strange way.