A one-year marriage term.
Yeoheon Jin stared down at the first sentence I had written for a while.
I waited without writing the next line.
If he was going to make any changes, now was the time.
If he was going to refuse, he had to refuse now.
But he said nothing.
“Why?”
I asked first.
“Is it too short?”
“No.”
“Then is it too long?”
“That’s not it either.”
“Then why are you looking at it like that?”
Yeoheon lifted his eyes from the paper.
“It would be better to set a specific end date.”
I hesitated for a moment.
I hadn’t expected him to accept even that much.
“One year from today?”
“Let’s use the marriage registration date as the starting point.”
“Not the wedding?”
“The point when the legal marital relationship begins is clear.”
It was such a Yeoheon Jin answer.
A calculation with no room for emotion to intrude.
But that made it easier.
I had no intention of letting emotion get involved this time, either.
I wrote again on the blank paper.
[The marriage term shall be one year from the date of marriage registration.]
“And after one year, if I want to, we’ll get divorced without any conditions.”
“I agree.”
“No claim for division of marital property.”
“Yes.”
“And neither of us will claim damages.”
At that, Yeoheon’s eyebrow moved ever so slightly.
“That requires an exception.”
“What kind of exception?”
“There’s no need to waive our rights if the marriage falls apart due to one party’s marital fault.”
It was an unexpected answer.
I stopped rolling the pen between my fingers.
“We’re not going to live as a real married couple anyway.”
“Being in a contract marriage doesn’t mean we have to give up our legal rights.”
“Are you saying I can claim damages if you cheat on me?”
“That won’t happen.”
His answer was so definitive that I let out a laugh without meaning to.
“You sound pretty confident.”
“At least about that.”
I looked at him for a moment.
Even in my past life, there had never been any issue with other women.
No scandals, either.
No traces of perfume lingering after he came home late.
No suspicious phone calls.
If there had been another woman, perhaps I would have felt less pathetic.
I could have thought that he had someone he loved and was ignoring me because of her.
But Yeoheon Jin had no one.
He simply had no me.
I lowered my gaze.
“Fine. If the marital fault is clear, we’ll negotiate it separately.”
“I’ll have the legal team draft the language.”
“No.”
Yeoheon looked at me.
“I’ll finish drafting it first.”
“Legal review is necessary.”
“Review only. Don’t change the conditions.”
“Understood.”
There it was again. Understood.
No matter what I said, he accepted it.
Even though I found that strange, I didn’t stop.
This time, I had to get everything I could.
“Separate bedrooms.”
“I agree.”
“No interfering in each other’s personal schedules.”
“Yes.”
“And any official joint appearance must be agreed upon in advance.”
“Let’s do that.”
“You can’t suddenly drag me to an event, either.”
“That won’t happen.”
I wrote down the next item.
“Don’t interfere in my work at my company.”
He didn’t answer right away.
That was a first.
I stopped my pen and looked up.
“Why?”
“We need to define the scope.”
“What scope?”
“Whether you mean the work you do at Haedam Distribution, or whether that includes any business you start independently.”
Independent business again.
That was the second time he had brought it up.
This time, I didn’t let it slide.
“Why are you so sure I’m going to start my own business?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you keep bringing it up.”
Yeoheon’s expression remained calm.
“I’m speaking of a possibility.”
“Why that possibility, specifically?”
A brief silence fell.
I still wasn’t used to seeing him choose his words before I did.
“I knew you weren’t satisfied with Haedam’s existing structure.”
“Who told you that?”
“I’ve seen several of your proposals.”
That could have been true.
As Hyeonrok and Haedam prepared their joint venture, some of my proposals had made their way to Hyeonrok.
“You knew they were mine?”
“I did.”
That was the first I’d heard of it.
In my past life, I had thought Yeoheon Jin wasn’t interested in my work.
“When did you find out?”
“Is that necessary to deciding the terms of this contract?”
This time, I was the one left speechless.
He had deftly evaded the question.
“No.”
I looked back down at the paper.
“Then let’s say you won’t interfere in any of my work. The exception is if I ask for your help first.”
“That would be better.”
“Likewise, I won’t interfere in Hyeonrok’s affairs.”
“That doesn’t need to be included.”
“Why not?”
“I have no intention of putting you in charge of Hyeonrok’s affairs in the first place.”
It could have sounded cold.
In my past life, I would definitely have been hurt.
It would have felt as though I had been brought into the family as Hyeonrok’s daughter-in-law, only to be given no role at all.
This time was different.
I was actually relieved.
“Good.”
Yeoheon’s gaze paused briefly.
Apparently, he hadn’t expected me to be genuinely pleased.
“And both families.”
I moved on to the most important item.
“Whether it’s Hyeonrok or Haedam, neither side can demand my equity stake or voting rights on the grounds of our marriage.”
“It’s already included.”
“Make it even more explicit.”
I pulled over the existing Marriage Property Agreement.
I opened it to the sections I had marked after reading it over several times through the night.
“Neither party may force the other to participate in company management, demand proxy voting authorization over personally owned shares, or force the other to sign intercompany transactions on the grounds of the spouse’s status or the relationship between both families.”
I read each item aloud and wrote it down myself.
“This applies to both sides.”
“I agree.”
“Our parents aren’t exceptions, either.”
“Yes.”
“Even if you become Chairman of Hyeonrok Group someday.”
This time, his gaze lingered on my face.
“It will be the same then.”
“You promise?”
“Put it in the contract.”
His answer came without a moment’s hesitation.
I watched him for a while, then moved my pen again.
After writing this much, I felt a little strange.
These were the things I had wanted in my past life.
My own room.
My own work.
My own property.
The right to make my own choices.
They were all things that should have been perfectly natural, yet I had set them aside one by one when I got married.
No one had taken them from me by force.
I had given them up myself.
Because I had to be a good daughter.
Because I had to become an acceptable daughter-in-law.
Because I had to be a wife who didn’t cause problems.
I had given them away first.
I wouldn’t do that this time.
“Anything else?”
Yeoheon’s question pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Marital relations.”
At that moment, his face grew just slightly tense.
I deliberately spoke as though it were nothing.
“We won’t have a physical relationship unless we both consent.”
“That’s a given.”
“We’re writing down things that are a given in the contract.”
“…I see.”
There hadn’t been that kind of problem between us in my past life.
Quite the opposite.
Yeoheon Jin had never touched me.
Not even on the first night of our marriage.
When he entered the hotel suite, he had said first,
“You must be tired. Get some rest.”
Then he had gone to another room.
At first, I thought it was consideration.
Then it became a month.
Then six months.
As the years passed, I stopped asking.
This time, I wanted to draw the line from the beginning.
So I wouldn’t expect anything.
“Separate bedrooms, too.”
“I’ll make the arrangements that way.”
“Arrangements?”
I asked the question before I could stop myself.
Yeoheon paused briefly.
“I mean the newlywed home.”
“That’s already been decided.”
The place we were supposed to move into after the wedding was the Hyeonrok family’s estate in Hannam-dong.
The very house where I had died.
The moment I thought of it, the skin on my back went cold.
The winter sky visible beyond the window.
The long hallway.
The empty dining table.
The final stairs leading up to the rooftop.
My fingertips stiffened.
“That house won’t do.”
The words came out faster than I expected.
Yeoheon’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“…I don’t like it.”
“May I ask why?”
“I just don’t like it.”
I couldn’t say anything more.
That I had died in that house.
That simply thinking of its entrance made it hard to breathe.
“Find us somewhere else.”
He looked at me for a long time.
I thought he would refuse.
The estate had been prepared as the two of us’ newlywed home from the start.
I had heard that even the interior design and staff assignments had already been finalized.
But Yeoheon nodded.
“Let’s do that.”
Again.
Far too easily.
In the end, I set my pen down.
“Wait a minute.”
“Why?”
“Yeoheon Jin.”
“Yes?”
“Is there anything you don’t agree to?”
He fell silent.
“Even when I say we should have separate bedrooms, you say fine. When I say don’t interfere in my work, you say fine. When I say Hyeonrok can’t touch my equity stake, you say fine. Even when I tell you to change the newlywed home, you say fine.”
My voice grew quieter with each word.
“Why on earth are you accepting all of this?”
Yeoheon looked at the contract on the table.
Only after a long while did he speak.
“I’m the one who suggested we marry under the conditions you want.”
“But you must want something, too.”
This time, the silence lasted longer.
What he wanted.
In my past life, I had never asked.
He had never said.
Yeoheon Jin took the blank paper in front of me.
Then, for the first time, he wrote a line himself.
[If a serious physical danger or legal crisis arises, the other party must be informed of the matter.]
I read the sentence and looked up.
“Is this your condition?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For the duration of the contract, we’re legally family.”
“That’s all?”
The hand holding the pen stopped.
He raised his eyes.
“It means you’re not to try to handle things alone.”
The words I had heard last night came back to me.
Someone who said they would take responsibility alone would not ask for help even when things became too much for them to handle.
Something about it made my chest tighten.
“Do I seem like that kind of person?”
“It seems possible.”
That word again. Possible.
He always evaded the question with words that could explain just enough.
I didn’t press him further.
“The same applies to you.”
“Very well.”
“If something serious happens, you have to tell me.”
“Understood.”
“If you hide it and handle it alone, that’s a breach of contract.”
This time, the corner of his mouth moved almost imperceptibly.
“You’re strict.”
“You’re the one who put it in first.”
“That’s true.”
It was the first time we had had such a long conversation.
The first time Yeoheon Jin had asked about my conditions.
The first time I had seen him give even a small smile from this close.
For no reason, I looked away.
Then my phone rang.
It was my father.
The atmosphere in the room changed the moment I saw his name on the screen.
[Dad]
When I didn’t answer, the vibration stopped.
A message came right away.
[Come downstairs by 7:30.]
A short, single line.
It was the response I had expected.
I checked the time.
7:16 a.m.
The makeup team was still waiting in the hallway. A little earlier, I had asked an employee to delay letting them in.
“Then I suppose I have to decide now.”
I looked down at the draft contract.
Not getting married.
That had been the first decision I made after returning to the past.
And yet, within just a few hours, my options had changed.
Refusing to get married outright wouldn’t make Haedam’s problems disappear.
Even if the problems had been created by my father and brother, countless employees were caught up in them.
I had no intention of sacrificing my life to save them.
But if there was a way to solve the problem while protecting my own life at the same time,
then there was no reason not to choose it.
Above all, with a contract like this,
I could end it whenever I wanted.
I wrote the final condition at the bottom of the page.
[If Haeon Ki requests the termination of the marital relationship after the contract term ends, Yeoheon Jin shall cooperate with the uncontested divorce process without any special conditions.]
I handed it back to Yeoheon.
“Read it.”
He read it slowly from beginning to end.
It took several minutes.
He seemed to be looking for something to revise, but he didn’t touch a thing.
After checking the final clause, he picked up the pen.
“I’ll request legal review as written.”
“I said not to change the conditions.”
“I’ll only polish the wording so it has legal effect.”
“You can’t change the original meaning.”
“That won’t happen.”
“And the version disclosed to both families and the version the two of us keep must be identical.”
“Yes.”
“And don’t create some secret supplemental agreement, either.”
He paused briefly, then nodded.
“There won’t be one.”
Only then did I lean back against the sofa.
It was strange.
I hadn’t slept at all through the night, yet my mind felt clear.
“Then.”
Yeoheon asked,
“Have you decided?”
I looked at the paper.
One year.
In my past life, it had been seven years.
In a marriage with no end in sight, I had endured the same tomorrow year after year.
This time, the date it would end was already set.
Within that time, I would do what I needed to do.
Sort out my share at Haedam.
Build a foundation that would allow me to stand on my own name.
And end things with Yeoheon Jin, too.
This time, I wouldn’t fail.
“Yes.”
I lifted my head.
“We’ll go ahead with the wedding as scheduled.”
Yeoheon’s eyes trembled ever so slightly.
It disappeared too quickly to be called happiness.
It looked more like relief.
“But don’t get the wrong idea.”
I added,
“I’m not doing this because I want to continue this marriage.”
“I know.”
“It’s exactly one year.”
“I know.”
“One year from now, we’ll get divorced.”
This time, his answer came a little later.
But in the end, the same words came back.
“Very well.”
Looking at the paper in front of me, I counted the days in my head.
A marriage that would begin today.
And end one year later.
Not because Yeoheon Jin wanted it.
Not because my father had ordered it.
But one year that I had chosen on my own terms.
And so, on the morning of the wedding ceremony where we were supposed to promise each other a lifetime,
we set the divorce date first.