Marry My Daughter
It was on a day when autumn was deepening that Yeon Chang-shin came looking for Ji-hoon.
"Marry my daughter."
The Board Chairman's office at Haeseong High School. Ji-hoon, who had been savoring tea he had brewed himself, set his cup down with quiet composure before speaking.
"I don't believe what you have to say is meant for me."
"Of course it is. I'm asking you to take a bride, so naturally the request goes to you."
Yeon Chang-shin was Ji-hoon's former teacher, the mentor who had once guided him — and also a childhood friend of his father, Sung Gil-joon.
"My own will hardly matters in the matter, as you know. The person with his life on the line over my marriage is someone else entirely."
"Come now, think it over properly. I've never given Bo-ra anything. She accepted me as her father despite how hard that must have been, and I want to do something for her in return. If there's one thing she wants, I'd like to grant it."
Faced with a plea that amounted to a child's tantrum, Ji-hoon's expression turned to troubled displeasure.
"Your daughter is barely eighteen."
"Her birthday falls early in the year, so she'll be eighteen by international reckoning come next year. Which means, as I understand it, there's no legal barrier to marriage."
"Teacher."
"My Bo-ra wants to marry you."
"Yeon Chang-shin. Teacher."
Ji-hoon lifted his gaze, pronouncing the man's name slowly and deliberately, as if to shake him to his senses.
"Is this right?"
Ji-hoon knew exactly why Chang-shin had been driven to this.
Though Yeon Chang-shin looked like an ordinary schoolteacher, he was the second son of a political family that had fed at the public trough for generations.
Chang-shin's father, Yeon Ho-nam, was a three-term assemblyman with his eye on the party leadership and, beyond it, the presidency — but his political staying power was running dry.
And so he had remarried his son off to the second daughter of a bank president, and even that wasn't enough: he plainly intended to put his own granddaughter on the board as a pawn. All so he could strap the wings of the Haeseong Group to his back and soar.
Which made it easy to understand why Chang-shin's heart had raced the moment he heard his former student had entered the marriage-market arena.
The man was Yeon Ho-nam's puppet through and through.
"What do you mean, is it right? I'm not sure what you're…"
As expected, Chang-shin's pupils wavered, unable to find their focus.
"What I mean is — rather than talking your own reckless daughter out of wanting to marry a man old enough to be her uncle by a full zodiac cycle, why is it me you're trying to persuade?"
"But Ji-hoon, I-eum — the other day at the hotel…!"
"I have no intention of raising someone else's child. My apologies, but I'll be going."
With no thought of listening to another word, Ji-hoon rose abruptly from his seat.
He heard the man calling after him in desperation, but paid it no mind as he walked out of the office.
"Goodness —!"
The moment he opened the door, he came face to face with Ju Min-jae, his chief secretary, holding a plate of fruit.
"Oh — Managing Director? Why are you already…"
"I'm finished here. See him out however you see fit."
"Uh… wha…?"
Perhaps he sensed the icy wind blowing off Ji-hoon was colder than usual, because Min-jae could only blink and failed to grab hold of him.
Sung Ji-hoon — Managing Director of the Haeseong Group and Chairman of the Board of Haeseong High School.
His credentials left nothing to covet, which was precisely why so many people came angling for a marriage between him and a daughter or granddaughter of their own.
And yet never before had any of those encounters irritated him quite this much.
"Teacher."
Shadows cast by leaves beyond the window rippled down the long corridor.
"I'm serious. I think I like you."
The memory of a girl from some day past surfaced, and Ji-hoon let his eyes fall shut, then slowly open again.
Pushing through the crowd of students bowing their greetings as he made for the exit, the newly cooled autumn breeze brushed past his ears.
Ji-hoon stopped, without meaning to.
A girl sat alone in the courtyard, ablaze with brilliant autumn foliage.
Her black bob swayed gently at her slim shoulders, and it did, indeed, call to mind the shadows of the corridor.
Ji-hoon, who had been studying the girl through narrowed eyes, finally spoke.
"I-eum."
The girl, who had seemed like she wouldn't move, turned around, her short hair swishing.
"Huh? Teacher!"
Her smile broke open brilliantly, glittering in the sunlight.
Only then did the stiffness melt from Ji-hoon's lips.
"How many times have I told you I'm not your teacher?"
Did the sun follow only Yeon I-eum's head? The girl glowed so brightly on her own that he could entertain such an absurd thought.
Reality, of course, was not so kind.
Ji-hoon had first found himself unable to look away from the girl's circumstances three months earlier, in the summer.
Thwack!
A ballpoint pen with a sharp point came flying down onto a neatly parted head of hair.
It was break time in a third-year classroom. The pen struck the back of her head with unerring accuracy, dropped to the floor, tumbled head over heels, and came to rest at the tip of her shoe.
Behind I-eum, who was cradling the stinging spot with her hand, a voice flew in without a trace of remorse.
"Sorry! Hand slipped!"
I-eum swallowed a sigh and lowered her hand from her soothed skull. A moment later, something struck the crown of her head even harder.
Smack!
Only then did cruel laughter erupt from the back of the classroom.
Among the snickering pack of boys, the biggest of them all, Koo Sung-joon, made sure everyone could hear him as he called out loudly.
"Hey I-eum, you okay? Idiot! Careful how you throw that. Her grandpa's a National Assemblyman, you know. What if he becomes the next president — then what're you gonna do?"
"Oh right, her dad's a teacher at the school next door, wasn't he? What if we rat you out and get us detention? So scary!"
"Where would she even rat? Hehe, them huge-ass tits?"
I-eum listened quietly to their snickering mockery and sexual harassment, then rose silently from her seat.
As she drew closer and closer to Koo Sung-joon's group, the eyes of the entire class poured down on her at once.
When I-eum planted both feet in front of Sung-joon, the mirth drained from his face, where tears of laughter had gathered at the corners of his eyes.
Maaah, maah, shriiilleee.
The chorus of cicadas filling the classroom cleaved through the heavy, pooled silence.
The classmates nearby watched the pair with curious eyes.
"You'd better be really careful."
At I-eum's single remark, Sung-joon's eyebrows shot up sharply.
"What?"
"If my grandfather and my dad decide to crush you all, like you said — it wouldn't even take any effort."
"Ha! What's this girl saying right now?"
"And besides, all you've got is size. If you're that weak, how do you plan to survive this rough old world?"
I-eum glanced around, then picked up the eraser sitting on a desk.
"Watch closely. This is how you use strength."
The words had barely left her mouth when she hurled the eraser with all her might at Koo Sung-joon's forehead.
Crack!
The square classroom rang with the sound of a brutal impact.
Clatter, crash. Sung-joon clutched his forehead and toppled between desks in a thunder of noise, and the classroom descended into chaos.
Two lines of blood trickled from Sung-joon's nose. They say that if luck runs against you, you'll break your nose even falling backward — and the sight of him was truly pathetic.
"Shit! That crazy bitch!"
One of Sung-joon's lackeys came charging, hand raised high, and just as I-eum clenched her fist tight, grinding her molars together —
With a bang!, the front door of the classroom was flung open with great force.
"Hey, you teenagers. You gonna quiet down or what?"
In an instant, the air in the classroom turned over completely.
I-eum's eyes went wide as she turned around.