Chapter 2.1

Chapter 2.1

“What are you talking about? You’ve already graduated, haven’t you? Isn’t that right, Si-eun? I even sent you a necklace as a graduation present… Look, she’s wearing it right now. I’m telling you, that’s the necklace I gave her for graduation.”

“I don’t mean high school.”

“You expect him to wait until she graduates from university? For four whole years?”

The person who asked in bewilderment was Jang Si-eun’s mother, Min Se-hwa. Seo Eun-seong’s stepmother, Jo Hyeon-ju, looked Si-eun up and down instead of looking at Eun-seong.

“Who said anyone was going to lock her away somewhere? She can attend school while managing the household and supporting her husband. Once a girl graduates from high school, she’s a grown woman.”

“What do you think, Si-eun?”

*Do you feel the same way? Who knows what could change in four years?*

Min Se-hwa asked in frustration.

“.…”

Of course Si-eun wanted to postpone the marriage until after graduation. Who would want to begin living at the age of twenty behind the prison-like walls of a chaebol family, forced to be careful even about the way she breathed?

Even after graduating from university, she would only be twenty-three, twenty-four at most.

That was the age when most people were only just beginning their careers.

She had not fought tooth and nail to get into university, but she had worked and struggled just as much as anyone else. Once she married, she would have to follow Seo Eun-seong as he travelled overseas and devote herself to supporting him. If they had a child, she would probably end up confined to the house for good.

Surely she should at least be allowed to finish university as she pleased.

Four years was nothing in the span of a long life.

She had no grand romantic fantasies about university, but she wanted the chance to enjoy the outcome she had earned through her own efforts.

“I think it’s because I’m still… too much like a child. Please wait just a little longer, until I grow into the kind of woman Eun-seong likes. I’ll graduate as quickly as I can.”

When even Si-eun said that, the adults smacked their lips in disappointment. Just as there were few truly eligible men among the upper class, demure and obedient women were hardly common either.

Min Se-hwa shrieked in aggrieved fury.

“See? I told you that you’d regret it! Do you think there’s a man in this world who would wait four years? You should have married him back then!”

It had been Seo Eun-seong who suggested that they wait until after graduation to marry, so Si-eun could not understand why she was the one being berated.

“You stupid girl. Do you have any idea what it took to arrange that marriage…?”

“Why are you yelling? Did something happen?”

Jang Ju-eun, Si-eun’s younger sister, asked as she came down the stairs. A high school senior, she had used her studies as an excuse not to attend that evening’s dinner.

“Your sister’s engagement was called off today! That bastard Seo Eun-seong said there’s another woman he loves and demanded that they break off the engagement!”

“Really?”

“Of course it’s true!”

“Why are you angry? That’s great! I hated that marriage. It felt like you were selling her off…”

“You fucking bitches! What are you shouting about like it’s something to be proud of? Is it? Is this something to be proud of?!”

Their father, Jang Myeong-hwan, grabbed the glass ashtray within reach and hurled it at the wall.

Crash!

The cigarette ash and butts piled inside it scattered everywhere along with shards of glass.

The room instantly fell silent. The only sound that remained was Jang Myeong-hwan’s animal-like panting.

Jang Myeong-hwan was a second-term politician nicknamed the “Hahoe Mask” because he always wore a genial smile. In truth, his public and private faces were entirely different.

People outside might call him a pushover, but the women in his family were far more familiar with that fiendish face.

“Jang Si-eun.”

“Yes.”

She answered immediately, but his large hand struck her across the face anyway. She did not even have time to close her eyes or raise an arm to protect herself. Her body staggered, but she barely managed to keep her balance.

Her ears rang, and lukewarm moisture seeped into her mouth through her burning lip. It was the familiar taste of blood.

“I knew that bastard Seo Eun-seong had always looked down on our family, but to insult and humiliate us this openly… Do you think this would have happened if you’d behaved properly?”

It was not as though the arranged marriage had come about because Si-eun herself was particularly impressive. What difference could anything she did have made?

Si-eun had even told Seo Eun-seong that she would not mind if he continued loving that woman. Had it been wrong to ask only that he not have a child with her?

Should she have said that she could accept even a child, so long as he left her name in place as his legal wife on the family register?

She had grown up hearing, until the words were practically drilled into her ears, that she should never expect fidelity from a man. She had been taught that when a man went out into society, he might meet any number of other women, and that such affairs were merely passing winds she should pretend not to notice.