Chapter 4: Divorce Scheme

Chairman Joo’s voice echoed distantly in Haeyeong’s ears.

Terminal illness.

Those three words twisted into an unrecognizable mess.

Haeyeong blinked her slightly swollen eyes a few times before asking again.

“W-what do you mean… terminal?”

Her face changed by the second—first a playful expression as if to say, Don’t joke, then a dazed one in disbelief, and finally, one full of fear that it might be true.

All those emotions blended together into the color of despair that deepened on her face—an expression far too grim for a nineteen-year-old girl. Chairman Joo calmly continued.

“I don’t know if I should be the one telling you this… but I don’t think I could ever make you understand unless I do.”

He then quietly explained the circumstances that led to this marriage.

At the end of last year, Boksoon secretly went for a health check-up after feeling something was off. The diagnosis: heart cancer.

They could attempt chemotherapy or even heart resection surgery, but the doctor had warned that such procedures were too much for a woman in her seventies.

Finally, the doctor added that even with treatment, a full recovery was unlikely.

In other words, any medical intervention would likely become mere life-prolonging care.

Boksoon, not wanting to spend her remaining days simply surviving, calmly chose to accept death.

And when she began preparing for the end, the person she worried about the most was Haeyeong.

At that moment, she suddenly remembered her late husband’s will: a childhood marriage arrangement made long ago between friends, and the fact that the friend had now become the chairman of a massive company.

Who better to become Haeyeong’s guardian than someone like him?

Rather than let Haeyeong face the world alone as an orphan, Boksoon wanted her to marry—even if unwillingly—and live safely within a strong fence.

No matter how many times she thought it over, there was no better choice.

So Boksoon contacted Chairman Joo and asked him to honor the old marriage promise.

Even knowing Haeyeong would hate it.

After hearing the full story, the chairman agreed.

“That’s how it came to be. Of course, I hadn’t forgotten the arrangement with Gwangsik. But I was planning to talk to your grandmother later, once you both were older.”

The unexpected backstory made Haeyeong’s eyes tremble violently.

“This… this can’t be happening…”

She shook her head in denial.

“But there has to be treatment. She should be getting treated…”

As Haeyeong became incoherent, Chairman Joo met her eyes and gently explained Boksoon’s thoughts.

“You’re still young, so you might not understand… But when you get to our age, death doesn’t feel so frightening. That’s why your grandmother wants to spend what time she has left being wholly herself, not hooked to machines.”

His heavy voice filled the air.

“What’s scarier than death is living in a way that’s worse than dying. Most people go through that while enduring hopeless treatments.”

For the first time, emotion crept into the chairman’s otherwise calm tone.

He was around Boksoon’s age, so it was easy for him to empathize.

“Yes, nineteen is too young to marry. But she rushed this because…”

“…”

“She needs to see you with a new family before she can let go in peace.”

As he fully laid it out, fresh tears streamed down Haeyeong’s cheeks again.

Her lips trembled before she could finally whisper her fear.

“But I… I’ve never imagined a world without Grandma. So… giving up without even trying treatment… that’s just…”

Even as she understood, some part of her desperately wished her grandmother would fight to live.

Was it selfish to want her to stay, no matter how?

“I… I… sob…”

No matter how mature or composed she seemed, she was still just a nineteen-year-old girl—

One who loved her grandmother very, very much.

Haeyeong’s tearful sorrow twisted the chairman’s face with pain.

“I wanted to give our Haeyeong a family before I left. Chairman Joo… that’s why I reached out to you, shamelessly. Could you keep the marriage promise you made with my husband?”

Remembering Boksoon’s bitter voice as she raced toward the end of her life, Chairman Joo asked Haeyeong:

“Haeyeong, would you become my grandson’s bride?”

Hic… sob, sob…

“For your grandmother’s sake?”

“Waaaah—”

Haeyeong sat in front of the chairman and cried for a long time.

After pouring her heart out in tears, she finally wiped her eyes and nodded.

She had accepted reality.

“Yes. I’ll do it. I’ll marry.”

The only thing this nineteen-year-old could do for her grandmother was to ease her worry—even just a little.

* * *

Chairman Joo and Haeyeong returned to the room in the main house.

Taeseong was nowhere to be found, and only Boksoon was waiting nervously.

When swollen-eyed Haeyeong entered, Boksoon jumped up and hugged her.

“Oh, Haeyeong…”

“Grandma… Graaandmaaa…”

Facing her grandmother, Haeyeong burst into sobs again.

Seeing Chairman Joo’s grave face and Haeyeong’s swollen eyes, Boksoon understood the situation and held her granddaughter tight.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…”

She regretted dragging her here by force because she couldn’t bring herself to say she’d die within a year.

She regretted letting someone else deliver the devastating news.

Even after seventy years of life, she was still just a clumsy human in the face of death.

“Grandma… sob sob sob…”

And so, the two who had leaned on each other all their lives sobbed in each other’s arms for a long, long time.

That evening.

Haeyeong and Boksoon returned home, and Chairman Joo went back to his house in Pyeongchang-dong.

Though everything ended without a major hitch, Chairman Joo was in a foul mood.

Taeseong had left without a word, leaving Boksoon behind.

“That brat, I swear—”

Chairman Joo chugged cold water while waiting for Taeseong, who still hadn’t come home.

After his third glass, Taeseong finally returned.

“You inconsiderate brat!”

Chairman Joo jumped to his feet, but Taeseong remained expressionless.

“How could you leave without saying a word?!”

“I had plans with Hyuk.”

“You little punk—!”

“You pressured me into marriage by threatening my future, and I agreed. But there was no condition saying I had to stay for the meal.”

As Taeseong calmly recited the terms of their deal, Chairman Joo’s face turned red.

“Ack, my blood pressure—! You’re all talk, no respect!”

“And if I’d known the bride was that poop kid from the store, I would’ve thought twice, even with those terms.”

Taeseong frowned slightly, recalling Haeyeong’s pale face from the convenience store.

“Don’t call your future bride ‘poop kid’!”

“Well, that’s what she is.”

As Chairman Joo clutched the back of his head, Taeseong smiled prettily.

“Don’t worry. I’ll stay till the end of the wedding. So you’d better keep your promise too.”

His tone reeked of mischief, and Chairman Joo shut his eyes tight and yelled:

“Ugh! I can’t even look at you—go to your room!”

Back in his room, Taeseong flopped onto his bed and threw an arm over his forehead.

“Haaah—”

What a long day.

Thanks to his grandfather suddenly demanding a New Year’s marriage, he’d run away from home.

Then, at exactly midnight last night, he received a text outlining a deal.

He could study film—if he came home and agreed to marry.

With one caveat: if he didn’t show notable results within three years, he’d have to return to business studies.

It wasn’t a bad deal.

He’d already decided to battle his grandfather over getting into a film department during his senior year of high school.

So he accepted the absurd arranged marriage.

His plan was to just get into college first.

“But why her of all people?”

The problem was who the bride was.

That weird girl from the New Year’s sunrise trip with his friends.

“She clearly had an unusual personality…”

He imagined a distant relationship during college and a smooth divorce.

If things didn’t work out, his grandfather would have to accept it.

But it seemed unlikely that girl would let things stay quiet.

Her personality was chaotic enough—he just hoped she wouldn’t bite.

The thought of living together made his stomach turn.

“Wait a sec.”

Suddenly, Taeseong sat up sharply in bed.

“…It doesn’t have to be me. If she wants a divorce first, that’s fine too, right?”

He snapped his fingers.

“Then Grandpa wouldn’t have any argument. A deal’s a deal, after all!”

Eyes gleaming with pride, as if struck by genius, Taeseong grinned.

“Yeah! I just have to make that ‘Super Poop Kid’ want to divorce me!”

Even before getting married, Taeseong’s face lit up like a rainbow as he hatched a divorce plot.