All Three, Please
"Excellent..."
Jihoon suppressed the surging elation and raw lust burning through him and cleared his throat.
"Ahem, very well then. I'll come back and visit right now. It's practically around the corner, after all."
"Oh! Of course, sir. Yes, yes! The moment you arrive, I'll have the paperwork, the detailed profiles of the women in question, and a full briefing on the upcoming procedure ready for you! Travel safely, honored customer!"
The call ended with the director's obsequious voice still ringing in his ear.
Jihoon shoved his smartphone into his pocket and turned his gaze out the taxi window.
"Phew... please, God, let one of those three actually be her. The Yevgenya from my dreams."
Anticipation dwarfed his anxiety by a wide margin.
With money rotting away in his accounts, everything in the world seemed to fall effortlessly into place.
"Ha, money really is the best. No dragging things out, no agonizing delays—everything resolves in one clean, satisfying stroke. Whether it's reality or anything else, I have zero tolerance for sweet-potato pacing. None whatsoever."
Just a few hours later, when Jihoon returned to the agency, they greeted him with a servility that made the morning reception look casual by comparison.
The moment Jihoon settled into the most comfortable seat at the head of the VIP consultation room, the director came rushing in, panting, three luxurious leather folders clutched to his chest.
"Please, make yourself comfortable, sir. Thank you for making the trip."
The director carefully set down the top-shelf black tea his secretary had prepared, then seated himself across the table with practiced formality.
"The documents here are the detailed profiles of the three women who—miraculously—match every condition you specified: dazzling blonde hair, early twenties, untouched virgin, and the name 'Yevgenya.' Our local brokers wrung their entire databases dry to narrow down these absolute cream-of-the-crop candidates."
The director swallowed hard, then added with the grave expression of a seasoned professional.
"That said, sir, where in this world does a perfect person exist? Each of them has distinct strengths and weaknesses, so I would be grateful if you would examine the documents and photographs thoroughly and make your decision with care."
"Understood, so let's just open them up already."
At Jihoon's urging, the director spread open the topmost leather folder and slid it before Jihoon's eyes. Inside were a high-resolution full-body photograph, a portrait shot, and a detailed résumé translated from Russian into Korean.
"The first candidate. Her name is Yevgenya Astakhova, age twenty-two. She's currently an elite university student majoring in economics at a prestigious school in Moscow. Her family is equally impeccable—her father is a civil servant and her mother a teacher, so she was raised in a harmonious, thoroughly respectable middle-class household."
Jihoon let the director's briefing wash past his ears and stared intensely at the photograph attached to the file. The woman in the photo was, objectively speaking, an unimpeachable beauty.
Jade-white skin, blonde hair, a gracefully straight nose. But...
Not her. That's not the face.
She wasn't the woman from his dream.
And then, decisively, when Jihoon's gaze slid down to the woman's chest, the corner of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
And her tits are... pathetically small.
Even in a full-body shot taken in a skin-tight dress, the curve of her chest was utterly ordinary.
She was a galaxy away from those shell-shaped breasts of overwhelming, violent proportions—the ones that had once crushed the air from his lungs as he buried his massive cock between them.
A beauty, yes. But she was absolutely not that Yevgenya—the one he craved to the point of madness.
When Jihoon silently set the photo down with a displeased expression, the director, who had been carefully reading his face from across the table, stroked his chin and spoke.
"Hm...? Judging by your expression, sir, it seems the first candidate didn't quite win you over?"
"Wh... huh?"
Jihoon flinched and looked up at the director.
"No, I didn't say a single word out loud. How on earth did you know that?"
At Jihoon's flustered reaction, the director preened and squared his shoulders with an air of superiority.
"Hahaha! Sir, I do have a rather long career in this business, you know. Do you have any idea how many international marriages between men and women I have presided over? In service of successful unions, I have studied day and night—psychology, physiognomy, even the reading of micro-expressions..."
And thus the director's mouth began to run like a motor, eager to flaunt his illustrious career and penetrating insight.
Oh, for fuck's sake. He's one of those unsolicited-explanation guys, droning on and on about something nobody asked. Gotta skip this fast.
Right now, Jihoon's brain had not a single second of patience to spare for a middle-aged man's self-congratulation.
"Ahem! Ah, yes, yes. Your skill speaks for itself, Director—it's already been proven by the amount I wired over, hasn't it? Let's skip the small talk and move on to the second candidate."
Jihoon cut him off decisively, tapping the remaining folders with his finger.
The director looked mildly sheepish, smacked his lips, but soon rallied his professional spirit and swung the second leather folder wide open.
"Ahem, very well. Straight to the second candidate's profile, then."
The second folder held a photograph of a blonde woman who looked slightly younger than the first, with a gentle, kind-hearted face.
"This is Yevgenya Sokolova, age twenty—a fresh, innocent young lady who's only just come of age. She has a remarkably natural gift for music and majored in piano and violin at an arts school. But above all, this woman's greatest strength is that she is the very embodiment of the virtuous homemaker. From cooking to cleaning to laundry, her housekeeping skills are astonishingly superb—she is fully prepared to wait on her husband like a king."
Jihoon gazed thoughtfully down at the photograph in the second leather folder.
Just as the director had said, the second Yevgenya in the photo radiated that particular freshness and youthful beauty of a girl who'd only just turned twenty. With her blonde hair braided down neatly, the description of a devoted homemaker suited her rather well.
"By the way, Director."
"Yes, yes! Of course, sir. Please, go ahead."
"When you started the briefing, you definitely said this: no person can be perfect, and each has distinct strengths and weaknesses, so think it over carefully."
Jihoon crossed his arms and leaned deep into the sofa.
"So far you've only rattled off their shining virtues. So what are the 'weaknesses' these two women and their families carry?"
The director tapped the first folder and lowered his voice.
"First, the weakness of candidate number one, the economics student Yevgenya. Because this young lady was raised delicately in a middle-class elite family, her pride is excessively high."
Then the director moved his hand to the second folder.
"Second, the weakness of this fine young lady who majored in piano: 'family illness.' One of her immediate family members is suffering from a fairly serious disease. It's not immediately life-threatening, I'm told, but it's an illness that requires continuous treatment and care. In other words, unless her family is very wealthy, there is a very high probability they will demand regular remittances from her husband here in Korea under the pretext of hospital bills. In international marriage, an in-law's medical expenses operate like pouring water into a bottomless pot—a recurring financial burden and a source of constant stress."
Jihoon snorted.
"I see. Well, aside from a bit of money leaking out, those are pretty ordinary drawbacks."
As Jihoon replied with studied indifference, the director at last laid both hands heavily upon the third leather folder, sitting abandoned on the table.
The director's face, which had flowed through the briefing like clear running water only moments before, stiffened noticeably, and a strange tension began to coil through the consultation room.
"And then... there is the third candidate."
Without opening the folder, the director looked up at Jihoon with grave eyes and spoke.
"Objectively and subjectively alike, this young lady is a dazzlingly beautiful, magnificent woman. However... her 'weaknesses' are far more obvious—and far more fatal—than those of the two ladies I've already described."
"Fatal, you say?"
"Yes. Which is precisely why I'm telling you the weaknesses before I show you her photograph. I would rather you not be rashly swept away once you see her face."
The director swallowed dryly and continued.
"At this very moment, this young lady's family is teetering on the very edge of collapse, a cliff's edge in the most literal sense. First: she has one older brother, and his name is currently on the conscription list for that abominable Ukrainian war. The brother has young twin daughters, so the entire family is frantically greasing the palms of military officials to keep him from being dragged off as cannon fodder. Furthermore, he has been designated a person barred from leaving the country—emigration or escape is simply not an option."
The director's voice went on.
"The family has been gutted to its last root paying for those bribes. If you marry this woman, it is as plain as day that her family will desperately extend their hands to you, sir, to pry out money for those conscription-evasion bribes. And second..."
The director pushed up his glasses and let out a sigh.
"Her family originally ran a small farm out in the provinces, but the war turned it into a scorched wasteland and destroyed it completely. In the process, they took on private loans as well. Even factoring in the exchange rate at the collapsed, garbage-value ruble... they are carrying a crushing debt of approximately '200 million won' in Korean currency."
"Two hundred million..."
"Yes, two hundred million. Of course, I saw with my own eyes that you are a man of immense means, sir—you just wired us 100 million in a lump sum—but no matter how wealthy you are, this is a different matter entirely. The moment you marry her, you would be footing your brother-in-law's bribe money AND swallowing her family's 200-million debt whole... There is a strong chance this becomes an enormous, filthy risk on your life, sir."
As if genuinely worried for Jihoon, the director pressed down hard on the folder and offered his counsel with force.
"Candidate one or candidate two from earlier would be far better choices. And if neither of those suits your taste, then even at the cost of refunding part of our fee, we would gladly search again for untroubled women from other countries or under entirely different conditions. This third young lady is... a swamp. One wrong step, and your noble assets will be sucked in without end."
But throughout that entire briefing on her "fatal flaws," Jihoon's heart had been pounding like a madman.
Her plaintive voice echoed in his ears—the way she had clung to him in his dream, tears falling one by one as she begged.
A debt of 200 million. A brother on the brink of being dragged to the front lines. A family in ruins.
That whole desperate backdrop was, in itself, the perfect plausibility behind the woman in his dream pleading with him for 'salvation.'
A woman crushed beneath crushing debt and despair. And therefore—a woman who could be bought outright, collar and all, for a mere few hundred million won.
A deep smile spread across Jihoon's lips.
"Director. No need for long speeches. Let's just see the photograph first."
Jihoon reached out a hand to seize the third leather folder the director was pinning down.
But the director held it firmly shut and would not easily let go, warning him in a voice that was utterly resolute and grave.
"Sir. I have warned you clearly. Men are weak to the eye. I beg you, do not let your lower half make this decision for you. Marriage is one of the most important and heaviest affairs in a man's life. Do not decide impulsively over a single photograph—please, deliberate on the risks I have laid out for you."
"Don't worry yourself. My life, my call."
Jihoon shoved the director's hand away with force, and finally snatched the third leather folder open before his own eyes.
Click—
The leather folder fell open, and the high-resolution full-body photograph and portrait tucked inside spilled into Jihoon's field of vision.
In that instant, Jihoon's breath stopped.
His pupils dilated until they felt ready to burst.
From the mouth of Jihoon, who was caressing the photograph with trembling hands, there escaped a shivering, ecstatic grin—the laughter of a man falling into rapture.
"Ah... I really... found her..."