Now We're Really Adults

"Ta-da~!"

Ye-eun's laughter rang out bright and carefree. My parents had left for a couples' trip starting December 31st, apparently deciding their fully-grown son was no longer their concern, so the house was empty today.

And Ye-eun, who knew my parents' schedule better than I did—their own son—had brought over a bottle of wine, declaring, "We're adults starting January 1st too, you know."

So there we were, sitting side by side in the living room with our drinks laid out, watching TV.

This was still before COVID had made its way to Korea, so the world was nothing but peaceful. Even now, the whole city was bustling with preparations for the New Year's bell-ringing ceremony.

More importantly, Lee Ye-eun—there are still several hours until you're legally an adult. Are you sure you should be drinking?

As for me, since I'm an athlete and alcohol's off-limits, I'd filled my glass to the brim with grape juice. Meanwhile, she was gulping hers down without a care in the world.

"Hee hee."

I stared at her pointedly to make my point, and she just laughed. I'll let it slide because she's cute. Really.

Then Ye-eun, unusually loose and relaxed today, asked me in a languid voice.

"So, what's the team saying?"

"Ah, they told me to join spring camp this year. And they'd prefer it if I moved into the second-team dormitory, if possible."

First-team spring camp started February 1st. By then, COVID would be causing an uproar across the country, but it wouldn't be the era of social distancing or bans on large gatherings yet. I'd probably make it through spring camp without any major complications.

But Ye-eun seemed more bothered by a different part of it, her tone tinged with annoyance.

"Why on earth would you move into the second-team dormitory? That's absurd."

"It's called the second-team dorm, but it's really where the young rookies live. If I live at home from my very first year, it'd look bad—no way around it."

Even if I'm a insane genius skipping straight past the national team, pushing too far out of line isn't a good look. It's a process the club established for team discipline and the growth of the young players, and I can't just trample every little rule.

"The second-team dorm's way out there in Yangpyeong, right? The place Cha Il-sung lived."

"That was Hongcheon."

A whole different town—and for that matter, a different province entirely, Gyeonggi versus Gangwon. Ye-eun waved it off with a "same thing," but if Cha Il-sung ever heard that, he'd have a triple-strength meltdown.

"Anyway, if you move out there I'll barely get to see your face. That town's got literally nothing around it."

"I'll visit often."

"Don't bother. You're supposed to be an athlete managing your body—why would you run around? Stay rested at the dorm. I'll come see you."

Still, we wouldn't get to see each other as often as we did now, living in the same apartment complex.

At some point, Ye-eun had leaned against my chest and started to whine. Maybe she's a bigger lightweight than I thought.

"National team stuff and spring camp are short, so that's fine. But if I can't even see your face properly all season long... that's going to be hard on me..."

Felt the same way, honestly. How many times was I supposed to relive the feeling of being drafted into the army in a world without conscription? But there was nothing to be done. If we were playing baseball, it'd be the same even in the majors. Considering the travel distances and life in the minors over there, it might have been even worse.

As I patted Ye-eun's shoulder to comfort her, she slipped back into that languid tone of hers.

"So, did you notice what I looked into? A way for you to avoid the second-team dorm entirely."

"Huh?"

Was there such a thing? Ever since a few promising players ran wild back in the day, I was pretty sure every club in the KBO managed this strictly.

Then she suddenly broke into a beaming smile and thrust a single sheet of paper at me—who knows where she'd gotten it.

The document, printed on some stiff official form, bore this title:

Uh...

"Turns out married players don't have to use the second-team dorm."

Ye-eun's eyes, which had been lazy and slack all this time, sharpened in an instant. Like a predator closing in on its prey.

"We're adults now. All you have to do is sign here and drop it off at city hall. Done. What do you say?"

I was nearly steamrolled for a moment, but I pulled myself together and got a word in.

"Hold on—let's think this kind of thing through a bit more carefully. Marriage isn't something to take lightly..."

"So you're saying you're never going to marry me? You're dumping me?"

"No, that's not what I—"

It had all come so fast that my brain was a jumbled mess. Still, I forced myself to stay calm, sort out my logic, and explain as best I could.

"I'm about to start my first year as a pro, and I haven't even established myself yet. Let's wait until I've built a real foundation—until we can have a wedding where everyone can celebrate us properly. Like I'd ever leave you."

Besides, getting married just to dodge the second-team dorm? Kind of a flimsy reason, no? Maybe it was because I'd been a hopeless single guy in my past life, but when it came to marriage, part of me wanted to do it properly—a real, well-planned proposal, and to see the look on Ye-eun's face when it moved her.

Ye-eun listened to my answer with a dismissive little sniff, then left me with a smirk that said that's all you've got? and brushed my arguments aside one by one.

"A wedding's nice if we have one, but it's not required. If you really want one, we file the paperwork first and hold the ceremony later. I never planned on some big, complicated wedding packed with guests anyway."

"Establishing yourself as a pro? You're telling me a man who still can't pick out the skin lotion that suits his own skin without me would actually be better off in dorm life? Think about it."

"Since when do we need a special occasion or a proposal? Oh, I see—you thought I was joking every time I called you 'hubby.'"

She advanced, demolishing my logic point by point. And not just psychologically anymore—she was now fully draped against my chest, whispering right into my ear.

Still, something about this felt wrong, no matter how I looked at it. I racked my brain for another line of reasoning.

"Have we even gotten permission from both our families—"

"Permission? Did you forget what my name is in your mother's phone?"

The answer: my daughter. She'd always said she'd wanted a daughter more than a son, and to be fair, Ye-eun had looked after my mother better than I had since we were kids. For Mom's last birthday, I forgot it entirely—Ye-eun had prepared a gift on my behalf too.

Come to think of it, if I just showed up having filed the marriage registration, both families would probably go, "Ah, well, that's that~" and move on. Had this been settled a long time ago without me realizing?

I shelved the belated realization and the regret that came with it and blurted out one more desperate line.

"I'm just not mentally prepared yet. Let's give ourselves a little more time to think it over."

I kept trying to open my mouth, scrambling to talk her down—and that's when I heard it.

- "Three! Two! One!"

Bong— Bong— Bong—

The bell announcing the new year rang out across the city. I broke off to glance at Ye-eun's face in the pause, and her expression was calmer than I'd expected.

And then, as if the mood had entirely passed, she pulled the pressure out of her voice and spoke with a suppressed giggle.

"Kim Yi-seon. Still not certain, after all that?"

"No, it's not that I lack certainty—"

The moment the words left my mouth, I winced. Still not certain? On the surface she didn't seem shocked, but was she hurt inside? I carefully searched Ye-eun's face.

But regardless of my efforts, Ye-eun didn't appear to be in a bad mood at all. Then, out of nowhere, she brought up something unexpected.

"Remember when we talked about baby names?"

"Baby names?"

"You said if we had lots of kids, it'd be a struggle to come up with a new name every time."

Now that she mentioned it, we might have had that conversation.

"And you said we should plan ahead—that the siblings' names should all be connected somehow. You said that, remember?"

We definitely had talked about that. More accurately, Ye-eun had excitedly rattled it off at me and I'd nodded along obediently, but still.

What was it she'd said? Something about wanting names ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that carried on—like Sun, Moon, Star?

As I gave a vague reaction suggesting I half-remembered, Ye-eun pressed herself even closer—she was already practically glued to me—suddenly took a sip of wine from her glass, and passed it into my mouth.

Then she whispered, very quietly, very calmly, into my ear.

"Our little Haet-nim says she wants to see her daddy soon. Are you really going to say no?"

Ah.

Mid-morning—slightly late to call it New Year's Day morning.

The moment I opened my eyes in bed, I looked to the spot beside me.

"...You're up?"

Mm...

So my upper brain had, in fact, lost to my lower one.

I answered Ye-eun with the bright smile of a man surrendering on all fronts.

"Yep, honey. I just sign right here, correct?"

I pointed at the marriage registration form sitting on the desk. At my answer, Ye-eun burst into absolutely howling laughter.

"That's right. Sign away, husband dear."

The form seemed to have a daunting number of fields. My hand hesitated over each blank, and every time it stalled, Ye-eun would stroke her lower belly and murmur things like "Only ten more months until Haet-nim gets to meet Daddy, hm?"—so I filled it out as fast as humanly possible.

Ye-eun hummed a tune as she looked over the completed form, not a single blank left, satisfaction written all over her face.

"Today's a public holiday, so let's go to city hall together tomorrow."

"Ah..."

I'd half expected a twist—that she'd say I didn't have to file it after all, or that she was only going to keep the paperwork for later. But no such luck.

Well, since it'd come to this, I was wondering how best to play the good husband when Ye-eun handed me yet another strange document.

"Now what's this?"

"What do you mean? Were you not planning on it at all? Maybe I shouldn't have written it."

The paper I received was titled Consent to Marriage.

The field marked for the consenting party was filled completely, edge to edge, in Ye-eun's handwriting—and only after reading every word did I understand.

"...Thank you."

"Then treat me well."

Even in this world of legal polygyny, you couldn't just take wives willy-nilly. Bringing in a new wife required—of all things—the existing wife's consent, a brutally high bar that was exactly why polygamous households remained a small minority.

What Ye-eun had prepared was the document granting exactly that consent.

"You're so predictable, Kim Yi-seon. You saw the registration form and didn't think a single step further, did you? I told you Min-ah would suffer for it too."

I'd completely overlooked that. If Ye-eun had gotten greedy here, things could have gone seriously sideways.

With a heart tangled up in guilt and embarrassment, gratitude and relief all at once, I pulled Ye-eun into a tight hug. She hates hearing "I'm sorry," after all.

And with the thought that it was a mercy the world was built this way, I offered up my first-ever word of thanks to Yasin. I couldn't speak to the baseball or the plot, but the worldbuilding—I was genuinely, truly grateful.

"Seriously, Kim Yi-seon. You tormented me all night and it's still not enough for you?"

And as I held her close, embarrassingly enough, my body was starting to respond.

It was a holiday anyway, and January is a resting month even for baseball players...

Right. Personal training can wait until the afternoon. Call it a different kind of endurance workout.

Just as I set the papers aside, scooped Ye-eun up in my arms, and made for the bed—

"Hm? Ye-eun. Why are there two of these?"

When I put the papers down and looked, the consent forms were two completely identical copies. Did we have to submit them to two separate agencies or something?

"Hold onto them. You'll be needing two eventually."

"Huh?"

A suspiciously evasive answer from Ye-eun.

"Haet-nim might get lonely all by herself, so should we make a little Dal-nim too? Her daddy's team is the Twins, after all..."

But between her whisper and those dangerously wandering hands, I let it slide.

Yeah—it's not having them that's the problem. What's wrong with a few extras?

January 2nd, a certain café. A regular meeting spot for two women—one that Kim Yi-seon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knew nothing about.

And when Kang Min-ah arrived to find Lee Ye-eun looking considerably worn out after a single day, irritation surged up inside her. Even right now, the woman was yawning dramatically in her face, practically broadcasting how sleep-deprived she was.

"So, did everything go according to plan?"

"Obviously. It was never a hard thing to begin with."

That relaxed expression, as if it were nothing at all. Anyone could see she was doing it specifically to rub it in, which made it that much more insufferable.

"Well, at least you've bought yourselves some breathing room. Honestly, the man can't take his eyes off you for one second, can he?"

But showing her the reaction she wanted was the last thing Min-ah intended. She brushed it off with practiced indifference and steered back to the original topic of conversation.

Lee Ye-eun nodded ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠along halfheartedly and added her own two cents.

Wonder where he picked up some bizarre conspiracy theory this time. From now on, someone has to keep him under surveillance so he can't pull these stunts and just focuses on baseball."

Kim Yi-seon's latest American investment was, to any outside observer, baffling behavior.

Between the two of them, his odd antics were hardly a one-time thing, and they could have written this off as him fixating on something again and going off the rails—but the problem was that he'd spent the entire signing bonus.

A rookie's signing bonus is the last lump sum a player can touch before his first free agency contract. Blowing through money like that made the amount itself less worrying than his entire sense of financial reality.

"We're legally husband and wife now, after all. Time to hold the reins properly."

The two women, spooked, had ultimately agreed that formal marriage was the only option. A girlfriend has no legal standing whatsoever, and an agent can only exercise the rights Kim Yi-seon explicitly delegated to her.

Hence the rushed marriage registration. The money already spent stung, but call it tuition—if they wanted to stop this kind of behavior going forward, a girlfriend's ambiguous position simply wasn't enough. Living in the second-team dorm really would be a problem, wouldn't it.

And since the dorm was a concern, Lee Ye-eun—who had no intention of going to college or getting a job—planned to rent a studio apartment somewhere nearby. No, scratch that. She was already preparing it.

The marriage registration and the stakeout near the dorm, however, were impossible for Kang Min-ah—a high schooler still two years from legal adulthood. Only Lee Ye-eun could do those things.

Min-ah had objections, but she'd ultimately agreed to tolerate Lee Ye-eun's actions. In exchange, Lee Ye-eun had negotiated concessions of her own.

"And of course, you drafted the consent form too, I assume?"

"Of course. Do I look like someone that petty?"

"Yes."

The terms were the obvious ones: she would consent to a future marriage between Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-ah; she would never leverage her position as wife to mistreat Min-ah going forward; she would thoroughly inform Yi-seon's parents of all this, and so on.

Kicking Min-ah out entirely would only make Kim Yi-seon suffer and earn Lee Ye-eun nothing but resentment, so these were terms even she had no choice but to agree to.

But concessions or not, Lee Ye-eun clearly intended to grate on Min-ah's nerves at every opportunity.

"Honestly, the man's a total animal. He's the one who said he absolutely wanted a wedding, and then he goes and knocks up the bride—what is she supposed to wear, the wedding dress?"

Lee Ye-eun hummed as she stroked her lower belly. Min-ah was dumbfounded. What were the odds, realistically, of conceiving in a single night?

Min-ah finally lost her patience and reached for that needlessly sensitive topic herself.

"More surprising, though. I didn't expect Mad Dog Lee Ye-eun to hand out another seat quite so easily."

The woman who'd glared and circled suspiciously since elementary and middle school had actually pushed that one along from behind, of all people.

Did Ye-eun find her too intimidating to keep in check?

Min-ah laughed at her, letting every ounce of that jab show—and Lee Ye-eun only shot back a look of pure contempt.

"Oh, her? Living with two of us already taught me one thing: at the end of the day, I'm Kim Yi-seon's first."

Min-ah didn't believe that for a second, but setting that aside, the sheer certainty in Ye-eun's voice was absolutely infuriating.

"That's why I decided to allow it. Weird women keep latching onto him from who knows where these days—she's better than that crowd, and she'll genuinely be useful to Yi-seon."

Min-ah resented it, but she agreed on that point too. The crazies insisting there was "one seat left" and clinging to Kim Yi-seon were only multiplying, and by background and ability, it was true that this one would be an asset to him.

If a reasonably sensible, decent, capable person—above all, one with a shred of shame—claimed the last seat, it might actually mean less stress for everyone else.

She despised the idea of the household growing by one, but by the letter of principle, she was the one who'd come rolling in uninvited herself.

What really stuck in her crawl was Lee Ye-eun driving the whole thing without any proper agreement with her. Who did she think she was, some Joseon-era principal wife?

"Mm, this might be a sore spot for you, Min-ah. One more person means your share could shrink."

That deliberate nerve-grating remark finally broke Min-ah's restraint, and she fired back.

"My, aren't you awfully pleased with yourself—aging two years ahead ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and getting a brief head start with Yi-seon oppa? Or is it that you're under the delusion that this is Joseon and birthing the first son makes you the principal wife?"

A direct hit that required no diplomacy whatsoever. At last, that insufferably smug face cracked apart.

Kang Min-ah felt the sweet release of catharsis. Yep—the two of them were simply incompatible from the ground up.