An Audacious Bribe

"Grandpa really doesn't scare easily after all."

Kang-hyun smirked. The smiling face was so strikingly handsome, like a carved statue, that anyone could see whose blood he'd inherited—but Moon Hee-chan clicked his tongue.

"This rascal. He doesn't even bother pretending to deny it."

"Well, what's the point of beating around the bush? We both know exactly what I want to say."

At the excitement blooming on his grandson's face—at that fresh, youthful energy befitting his age—Moon Hee-chan stopped mid-step.

Since his son's death, his grandson had been forced to grow up far too fast, but today he looked like a young man his own age again. That was why Hee-chan, sharp-eyed as ever, quickly caught on to whatever favor the boy was about to lobby for.

"I don't even need to meet her to know she must be a fine, modest young lady."

"Completely modest."

"Pretty face, and an even prettier heart?"

"Do you even need to ask?"

Hee-chan had lobbed out the compliment deliberately, fishing for him, and the boy had gone and piled on another scoop of his own. That gave him slight pause, but his grandson's expression was so bright that Moon Hee-chan wisely held his tongue.

Standing shoulder to shoulder beside him, Kang-hyun gazed out through the glass at the garden beyond. His eyes rested on the immaculately kept grounds, but his mind was painting pictures of the moments he'd shared with Lee-jin.

After standing there side by side for a while, staring outside, Kang-hyun was the first to break the silence.

"Mother's going to object, though."

"Yes. I imagine she will."

Moon Hee-chan had no trouble reading the meaning behind his grandson's words, and he nodded slowly.

A girl with a pretty face and an even prettier heart might still be lacking something. Wealth, perhaps, or pedigree.

The Moon family, who had built the Moonseong Group, had produced generation after generation of men with the spirit of the tiger—bold and grand, rarely swayed by petty emotions, fierce at times and valorous at others.

But Jin Ae-ran was closer to a fox than a tiger.

Quick-witted, meticulous, and deeply opportunistic, she was endlessly doting toward anything that stayed within the boundaries she drew—and merciless, without a shred of blood or tears to spare, toward anything outside them.

Her standards would be just as clear when it came to acquiring a daughter-in-law. Hee-chan knew Jin Ae-ran's temperament all too well, so he could understand exactly why Kang-hyun was saying this.

"So what would you have this old man do for you?"

A wry smile crossed Kang-hyun's face as he answered.

"Come to my wedding."

"Ha. You do say the most obvious things."

"It's a marriage the whole family will oppose. Even if no one else shows up, Grandpa, you come."

It was nothing short of a declaration of war—that no matter what opposition arose, he would push this through exactly as he pleased. Heh. Moon Hee-chan let out a helpless laugh and nodded.

"Well, you did hand over a bribe this magnificent. I suppose I owe you at least that much."

"Ah—I can't hand it over right away, though. It'll be a few months. Six months or so? And besides, you would've come to the wedding even without this bribe."

"You rascal. You knew that full well, and you still went ahead and built this whole house."

The two men exchanged a look and shared a laugh. Then, as if a question had suddenly occurred to him, Moon Hee-chan asked,

"By the way—have you and this girl of yours actually settled things for marriage?"

"No. That comes in due time."

"What did you say?"

At the unexpected answer, Moon Hee-chan's eyes went round. He had assumed that anyone bold enough to defy the family and push through a marriage would already have the preparations well underway.

"That girl with the pretty face and the even prettier heart—she has rather high standards."

"So what you're saying is... you haven't quite won her heart yet?"

Moon Hee-chan was so incredulous he let out breath after exasperated breath.

"Precisely. But this remarkably handsome grandfather's grandson is working hard at it, so we'll be married soon enough."

Tall, sturdy, and dependable, his grandson had always been something out of the ordinary, even as a child.

How to put it—a slightly different cut from everyone else. Or maybe the word was: just a little off the straight and narrow.

Charitably, one could call it extraordinary. Less charitably, one might say he had a streak that defied common sense.

At any rate, catching a glimpse of exactly that quality in his grandson just now, Moon Hee-chan gave an awkward chuckle.

"Fine. This old man is rooting for you."

He found himself intensely curious about the girl his grandson wanted this badly.

The next afternoon.

Jingle. The door of the Serenitas workshop swung open, and a man radiating an extraordinary presence walked in, carrying the air of a predator on the hunt.

"Hey."

Greeting her as if they'd met for the very first time, Kang-hyun leaned against the doorframe—unlike any other visit—and instead of coming further inside, simply fixed his gaze on Lee-jin.

"Oh, um, you're here?"

Lee-jin greeted him with an awkward fumble.

Moon Kang-hyun was Moon Kang-hyun, before and now and always—yet the moment they'd agreed to date, he somehow felt like a different person, and it was unbearably awkward and strange.

No doubt all of that confusion was showing on her face in plain view. Which meant he was probably looking at her with that expression of barely contained amusement right now.

Even knowing it, Lee-jin had no composure to spare. Her heart was pounding so much harder than usual that her thoughts were in complete disarray.

"Th-then come in—why are you just standing there?"

Pointlessly, she busied herself pretending to inspect her pottery materials. She deliberately kept her eyes off his face, but her senses had already flowed straight toward him.

The quiet huff of a suppressed laugh. The corner of his mouth tilting up just slightly to one side. The lopsided posture, one hand in his pocket, that somehow still managed to look perfectly straight. A presence so strong it seemed to change the very density of the air...

She could picture him perfectly without looking. And with every passing second, her senses grew more acutely aware of him.

Adorable. Kang-hyun smirked as he watched her fumble around. He'd known this was exactly how she'd be, meeting the day after they'd decided to date.

Even though she was behaving precisely as he'd predicted, seeing her this cute confirmed it—he was thoroughly wearing rose-colored glasses. Ah, though to be fair, those glasses had been on for a very, very long time.

He could feel the patience he had built up over the years—layer by layer, until it had become its own kind of mastery—draining away like the ebbing tide.

Seeing Seo Lee-jin's ears turn crimson and her shoulders flinch involuntarily and remaining unmoved by it was tantamount to giving up on being a man, so the outcome was inevitable. He would become a downpour crashing over her without warning, shaking her to her core, and in the end a great flood that would swallow her whole.

Thud, thud. He walked straight toward her and, from behind, wrapped one arm around her waist. Apparently unprepared for him to go straight for physical contact, her whole body went rigid.

"Busy, I see?"

"Uh, yeah. A little."

He could see right through her—her small head churning away busily. She was probably agonizing over whether this was what dating couples were supposed to be like.

Kang-hyun knew it perfectly well, and without letting a hint of it show, he creased his eyes into a smile.

"The weather was gorgeous on my way over. Is there anywhere you want to go? Doesn't have to be today."

"Somewhere I want to go?"

Turning around to face him first, Lee-jin racked her brain for a destination. But he was standing far too close, and all she managed was:

"The Ceramics Biennale?"

"Mm, that's in Uiwang, though. And here I thought—who'd have guessed you'd say the Biennale."

"What's wrong with the Biennale?"

Her hackles rose for no good reason, and she mumbled a small protest. Kang-hyun pinched her nose—gently, careful not to hurt her—then let go.

"We're absolutely going to the Biennale. But that feels like an extension of work, so think of somewhere else. Somewhere that suits a date."

The word date bored suddenly into Lee-jin's ear. Ah. He meant a date spot. That's what 'somewhere you want to go' meant. The belated realization left her mortified.

"I'll think about it. The date spot."

Nothing was coming to mind just now. She'd need him to get out of her sight before she could think about it properly.

He huffed another quiet laugh, then nodded.

"Sure, think about it. I figured we could alternate—my dream date spot, then yours."

Ah. So it's not going to be just once. Lee-jin blinked rapidly at this newly discovered fact.

It wasn't as though she didn't know what dating was, but the moment Moon Kang-hyun was added to the equation, everything seemed to reset to a blank page.

"Okay."

For now, she simply nodded along. After all, dates were a perfectly natural part of being a couple.

Kang-hyun had been gazing at her face steadily when, as if a question had just occurred to him, he asked,

"But hey. You said it before, remember? That you'd never once thought of me as a man. How is that even possible?"

"What?"

"This face, and you couldn't see me as a man? That's just weird."

Lee-jin faltered for a moment at his sheer shamelessness—then forced herself to think, well, I suppose from his point of view it might make sense, and answered.

"Hmm... maybe because Lee-hwan oppa was handsome too?"

Her own brother, whom she saw every day, was good-looking—so his friend being good-looking had simply stopped registering as anything remarkable.

When he heard her answer, Kang-hyun let out a long, disbelieving breath.

The best friend who had blocked his every approach to her all those years had never needed to lift a finger—his face alone had been the obstacle. That was quite the blow.