Marriage
"Oh my, what's this?"
Team Leader Hye-jeong asked, staring down at what she'd just taken out of my hands, genuine bewilderment written all over her face.
She had every right to be. The thick cardstock in her hand, about the size of a notebook, was none other than a wedding invitation.
To find the one you will spend forever with
is truly a happy thing.
We met as two strangers passing by,
but now the word we binds the two of us as one.
Having pledged a hundred years together,
we begin our long journey, just the two of us.
Your gracious presence to bless this new beginning
would be treasured as our greatest joy.
Groom: Han Yu-jae · Bride: Moon Chae-rin
And so it came to pass.
"Yu-jae, didn't you tell me before that you two had only just started dating?"
Damn it. I'd been hoping she'd forgotten.
Team Leader Hye-jeong had the facts right. It was two weeks to the day since Chae-rin and I had started seeing each other. At the team dinner that night, I'd gone and let it slip to her — that I had a girlfriend of all of two weeks.
This loose mouth of mine, honestly.
In fairness to the Han Yu-jae of that time, he'd apparently wanted to drop a subtle hint that his girlfriend's family was quite wealthy.
A rich family's youngest daughter, dating a twenty-nine-year-old late bloomer who still hadn't shed his rookie label? Then surely that same Han Yu-jae — twenty-nine, still tagged as a rookie — must secretly be somebody special.
I suppose I'd wanted to plant exactly that impression.
At any rate, right up until then I hadn't known. That Chae-rin was pregnant.
Team Leader Hye-jeong could barely contain her excitement. She'd even forgotten that we were supposed to be in our one-on-one meeting right then, the ones we held once every other month.
"How did you two end up getting married this fast? I knew it — your girlfriend's family really is loaded. How'd you reel her in so quickly? What's your secret? I'm jealous. You've got it made, Han Yu-jae."
That wasn't it. That wasn't the reason at all.
We were speeding, plain and simple.
Because that goddamn ultra-thin Japanese condom was too thin to handle the rigidity of my cock.
Because my boys came gushing out and, instead of a wad of tissue or a flimsy rubber membrane, got to luxuriate in a proper swimming pool.
I wailed inwardly.
"Well-off" was no exaggeration when it came to Chae-rin's family. Her parents' home was a high-rise apartment in Dongjak-gu with a view of the Han River — and it was fully owned, which said it all.
Her mother had been a nurse back in the day, working at the OB-GYN hospital her father ran.
Perhaps they'd wanted to be the model couple, leading by example for their own OB-GYN practice. Both Chae-rin and her older sister had been born right there in that hospital — in the heat of things, so to speak.
But not once — not even with a background that loaded — did I ever want to marry her.
I was simply drunk on the fact that I was dating the daughter of a thriving hospital director in Seoul, of all people.
Simply satisfied that I was seeing the hospital director's daughter every other day, and nailing her three or four times on each and every visit.
And yet it was Chae-rin's background that ended up binding me.
If I had a single reason to refuse marriage, it was the state of my wallet. Me — not even a full year into the company — getting married?
Absurd. How was a man with no savings supposed to become a head of household? It flew in the face of South Korean reality itself.
I wanted to throw those exact words back at them... but the truth was, her family's money solved even that problem.
Chae-rin's older sister had married early, at twenty-eight, and already had a son and a daughter. Chae-rin, meanwhile, had failed at romance time after time, and by thirty-five had long since given up on marriage and children altogether.
She must have lived her whole life being compared. She'd have been sick to death of the nagging — hurry up, get married, give us grandchildren.
On our third date, she'd said as much herself.
"You're never going to marry me anyway. I'm done. I'll just live comfortably on my own and die when my time comes."
That's right. I wasn't holding out hope for marriage with you. You were an older woman who came close to my ideal type. That was all.
The plan was to date you for a decent while and, the moment another older woman caught my fancy, leave you without a second thought.
Not that I could ever say any of that out loud.
"You never know, though. There's a female deputy manager in the department next to ours — she got married at forty-four."
That was the extent of my comforting. And as if answering that comfort, Chae-rin saw my cock off with her mouth twice that day.
Good grief. Han Yu-jae, you absolute idiot. All it took was a little oral sex for you to spout empty words about something that important?
You planted false hope in Chae-rin, you fool. "You never know," my ass. Aigoo, you prize specimen of a man.
And in the end, the "you never know" went and happened. Two vivid lines were burned into the pregnancy test.
When the news reached me by text, my head held nothing but those four succinct syllables.
What do I do?
Chae-rin's parents heard the same news, yet their reaction was nothing like mine.
As if downing a whole bowl of kimchi soup in one gulp, they took one look at me — the man who'd impregnated their spinster-to-be daughter — and said this the very first time we met:
"Aigoo, look who's here — our Han son-in-law!"
What a joyous occasion. Truly joyous. At that rate, they looked ready to break into a traditional mask dance next.
The wedding hall, naturally, plus the studio, the dress, the makeup... they'd gladly cover every last expense. What was a man to do about that?
Pause right there for a moment. I, Han Yu-jae, do hereby swear — no, confess with a sincere heart — that I did not have the slightest desire to promise eternity with Moon Chae-rin.
So as for the child carrying my seed — raise it or abort it, do as you please.
What great soul on this earth could possibly bring himself to say something like that?
Besides, Chae-rin herself had no religion, but her parents were devout Christians. I couldn't very well spout satanic remarks to their faces.
Right. I still had cards left to play. Marriage, after all, properly requires the blessing of both sets of parents.
I had a widowed mother. And an older sister who, filling our father's shoes, had been even more terrifying than he ever was in life.
My mother said this:
"Go on and do as you please. Your life is yours to answer for."
My sister said this:
"Ah, shit. I so don't feel like going to this whole meet-the-in-laws thing."
Unbelievable. Not a trace of worry from either of them.
This, at a moment when their only son and baby brother was about to take on the weighty mantle of head of household before his life had even properly begun to bloom.
That's right. They'd long since grown numb to my stubborn streak.
Han Yu-jae at nineteen. The headstrong young man who declared he'd give up college and boldly throw himself into web novels.
My sister cursed me six ways to Sunday for it, and my mother wept.
And yet there was Han Yu-jae at twenty, boldly striking out on his own to lease a tiny one-room apartment — having fired off nothing but a single curt text: I'll take responsibility for my own life.
"Our son, you see. His sense of responsibility has been something else since he was little."
That's what my mother said at the family gathering. Her knack for twisting the knife was something else, too.
In an era of record-low birth rates like this one, what act of patriotism could top a little speeding? And yet the glances aimed at the bride — her belly already well rounded beneath the wedding dress — remained less than kind, that much was true.
Which is why we rushed to book the ceremony hall. To be precise, my father- and mother-in-law rolled up their sleeves and booked everything themselves.
From what I'd heard through older friends and acquaintances, couples normally rack their brains haggling and compromising over this and that. The wedding preparations of Han Yu-jae and Moon Chae-rin proceeded without a single headache, swift and clean.
Two days before the ceremony, Chae-rin said:
"They say couples fight like crazy while preparing a wedding — some even call off the engagement over it... How come we've never fought once?"
Ha ha ha. I answered with laughter.
I'd rounded up my buddies to hand out wedding invitations, and every last one of them was hopeless at giving well-wishes.
"I keep telling you, this bastard is genuinely insane."
"Amazing, seriously. Not you — your boys. Those are the impressive ones."
One friend, a self-styled patriotic conservative, even lavished praise on me, declaring that he had been defeated in patriotism.
The long-awaited wedding day.
Bowing at a full ninety degrees to every guest I crossed paths with, I soaked my formal attire clean through with sweat.
Meanwhile, inside the hall, music was already ringing out for the rehearsal.
By Chance, I See You by Rucola and Yuja. One of my favorite songs. That crisp, breezy track was, as it happened, the background music for the pre-ceremony video at that day's wedding.
"Oh, this song! I listened to it so much back in college."
Team Leader Hye-jeong, dressed to the nines among the guests, murmured it, lost in nostalgia. Listening quietly, I felt that sour taste rising in me again. But I strained to keep the smile on my face.
Our relationship hadn't even lasted half a year, so the photos of bride and groom unfolding in the pre-ceremony video were mostly the same studio shots recycled over and over.
In that video, Moon Chae-rin in her wedding dress was smiling brightly. In that video, so was I.
I did my best to mimic the expression on my face from that video.
Did my best to look happy.
The ceremony proceeded in that state, so I have no idea how that time actually passed. All I remember is nearly collapsing from a bout of orthostatic hypotension as I performed the deep bow to my new in-laws.
A month after the wedding, Chae-rin and I left for Europe. A luxurious honeymoon, a full thirteen days of it.
France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic... knocking back beer or wine every single day and feasting on meals loaded with high-quality protein, I gained a full six kilos.
A European trip that had once been only a dream. Back then I'd resolved: someday, when the novel I was serializing hit it big, I'd backpack through here all by myself.
Dreaming of a future where I'd travel solo, open up a dating app, and fuck my way through foreign women — the motivation to write came bubbling up all on its own. That was Han Yu-jae at twenty-three.
That Han Yu-jae finally set foot in Europe six years later — with wife and child in tow, beyond his wildest dreams.
By then, Moon Chae-rin's belly was rounded enough that anyone could tell she was pregnant. Even so, we had our honeymoon sex with gusto.
As we had ever since learning of the pregnancy, I fucked her bareback. And came inside her without a shred of hesitation.
We didn't have sex twice or more a day like in the early days of our relationship. Chae-rin had to manage her stamina carefully too, so she never begged for my cock.
Which is exactly how I had energy left over to jerk off in the bathroom, pretending to take a leak.
Perched on the toilet, I opened a Japanese AV site on my phone.
The Japanese actress in the video was decidedly not a married woman. Better yet, she had a youthful face, porcelain skin, and pink nipples that were luscious beyond words.
I liked her, so I looked her up — and it turned out she was born in 2004. Of all things.
Did that make any sense? What times we live in. Kids born in 2004 are already making their AV debuts.
Of course, it was 2023, so someone born in 2004 was legitimately a grown adult. But the Han Yu-jae of that moment was shocked by the very fact that '04ers were grown up already.
Which meant she was a full fifteen years younger than Chae-rin, born in '89.
I couldn't help but lament. Couldn't help but keep stroking midway through, either.