Chapter 3

The melody of the gayageum[1] drifting through the private room at Ilgayeon was poised and graceful.

It was a gayageum sanjo opening with the slow, deliberate jinyangjo rhythmic cycle.

Amid the unhurried sixteen-beat rhythm, the subtle clink of a teacup settling into its saucer blended seamlessly into the room. In the pause between notes, someone swallowed dryly, and the strike of the janggu that slipped in at that precise moment was nothing short of exquisite.

It had been a strange day weather-wise. Despite the bright sunshine overhead, a drizzle had fallen steadily all day long. Humid and clinging, the rain-soaked air carried a rich fragrance of pine needles. If one concentrated, the deep scent of damp earth was unmistakable.

Listening to the gayageum piece, which was far better suited to the rain than the sun, Se-woong kept his fingers on his teacup. There was simply nothing else he could do.

“That’s the Choe Ok-sam style.”

The man seated in the seat of honor directly across from Se-woong raised an eyebrow in pleasant recognition. As his wrinkled lids lifted along the curve of his arched brow, an incisive gaze emerged. The single deep furrow etched across his forehead seemed to reflect his resolute temperament. He appeared to be somewhere in the transition between middle age and his senior years.

“Isn’t that the piece you like?” he asked, turning toward his wife.

Setting her cup down with a cold clatter, his wife replied, “I happen to prefer Master Choe Ok-sam’s disciple.”

To the cheerful overture offered by her husband, his wife responded with complete indifference. He had likely broached the subject in a gentle bid to thaw the stiff, awkward atmosphere typical of a formal family meeting, but his wife evidently had no intention of playing along.

Twitching an eyebrow once more before letting it settle, Lee Myung-heon offered an unbothered grunt in reply. He didn’t seem particularly embarrassed. And with good reason: throughout his life, he had never once paid genuine attention to his wife’s tastes. To suddenly play the part of an affectionate couple now, the years of cold indifference had simply stretched on far too long.

His gaze drifted across the three brothers sitting opposite him, sweeping from left to right. The eldest was a psychiatrist at a university hospital; the second, soon to be his son-in-law, was a prosecutor who had made a name for himself tackling high-profile scandals; and the youngest was an elite officer graduated from the Korea Military Academy. Despite having lost their parents early and enduring countless hardships, all three brothers had grown up thoroughly respectable.

“So, Prosecutor Cha,” Lee Myung-heon spoke up, “do you ever listen to traditional Korean music?”

“I’m not familiar with it, sir,” Se-gyeom replied evenly.

Having been called upon, Se-gyeom set down the teacup in his hand without hesitation and replied without missing a beat. Since Lee Myung-heon had not expected his prospective son-in-law to appreciate gugak in the first place, he merely nodded twice. In fact, this lack of interest pleased him immensely. A man destined for great endeavors had no business entertaining such whimsical artistic hobbies.

Above firmly pressed lips, the sharp tip of his nose twitched with satisfaction. Then again, having turned down all the most prominent marriage prospects to handpick this prospective son-in-law himself, it was impossible for the choice not to meet his standards.

Lee Myung-heon waved a dismissive hand. “Then again, you must be far too busy. Gugak isn’t something one can appreciate just by stealing a spare moment. Still, make some time going forward to attend performances with Young. She is, after all, a professional gugak musician. It won’t look good to outsiders if her husband is entirely ignorant of her craft.”

“Yes, sir.”

The moment Lee Myung-heon assumed office as the Army Chief of Staff, marriage proposals flooded in as if everyone had been waiting for the signal to latch onto his coattails. With the newly appointed four-star general having two grown, unmarried children, it was hardly a surprise. Furthermore, he was an influential figure positioned to vie for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and even Minister of National Defense in the future. Families desperate to tie their fortunes to his power were legion.

The prospective matches pouring in lacked nothing—ranging from the scions of prominent media conglomerates and the eldest son of a five-term lawmaker to veritable tycoons paying billions of won annually in income tax alone. Yet the son-in-law Lee Myung-heon had ultimately chosen was an ordinary prosecutor with nothing particularly remarkable to boast of in background.

Compared to those elite candidates, Prosecutor Cha Se-gyeom fell short in more ways than one. Although he possessed a tall, imposing build and a respectable title as a prosecutor, he had lost his parents early and risen to his current position entirely through his own grit—a dragon born from a muddy creek, so to speak. Having delayed his own schooling to support his eldest brother through medical school, there was no family wealth to expect either.

Yet Lee Myung-heon had not minded in the least. Having devoted his life and flesh to the military to reach this pinnacle, he had zero intention of serving as a mere political shield for powerful in-laws. Above all, cultivating a member of his own household within the judiciary was an arrangement that struck him as far more appealing. The prospective son-in-law’s brothers also met his approval.

He was particularly pleased by the fact that the brothers had lost their parents early. Only someone with no outside family to rely on could truly become his own.

Turning toward his daughter, Lee Myung-heon barked, “And you, Young. Once you’re married, stop running around making a fuss with all those performances and focus seriously on supporting your husband. Understood?”

“Stop making a fuss…? Father, honestly,” Young protested under her breath.

Lee Myung-heon cut her off sternly. “Make sure Prosecutor Cha has nothing to worry about, and never let raised voices leave the house. When a man has to fret over every trivial household matter, things that could have passed quietly only blow out of proportion. Unless it’s an absolute crisis, there’s no need to report every single detail. Handle it yourself. Just like your mother.”

Looking at his daughter, who pouted with blatant discontent stamped across her face, Lee Myung-heon clicked his tongue softly. To a man who had engineered his life without a single flaw and executed it with precision, the one blemish that refused to bend to his will was his daughter.

“What age are you living in—the days of drawing water from a village well?” his wife interjected coolly.

At the sharp rebuke from his wife, who had remained quiet all along, Lee Myung-heon cleared his throat with a dry cough. The oppressive air hanging over the room instantly splintered. Authority, it seemed, was thoroughly relative.

So-hwa pressed on without looking at her husband. “Why even get married if that’s how it works? I only let it slide because reasoning with you was impossible. A married couple ought to consult each other on household affairs. Wouldn’t you agree, Prosecutor Cha?”

“Good grief, my wife does have a way with words…” Lee Myung-heon muttered under his breath.

“Is a home the military?” So-hwa countered, turning toward him. “What is this nonsense about ‘reporting’… Dialogue and consultation, dear. Between husband and wife, it’s dialogue and consultation, not reporting.”

Ignoring her husband’s hand jabbing at her beneath the table, So-hwa smiled warmly at the three brothers. Having spent a lifetime acutely conscious of public scrutiny, she knew the exact, exquisite moment to offer a smile.

So-hwa addressed them warmly, “I suppose I’m lacking dignity for an occasion like this, aren’t I? Please don’t think I’m acting out of line because your parents aren’t present—just think of it as me speaking comfortably now that we’re becoming family. I’ve lived with this man for well over thirty-five years. If I still answered every word with a meek ‘Yes, yes’ and blushed, would that be normal? That would be downright insane.”

Se-hwan, the eldest, chuckled heartily at the word ‘insane.’ While his younger brother’s future mother-in-law had certainly not aimed the remark at the psychiatrist brother-in-law, working in mental health made it impossible for him not to laugh.

“Besides, you’re all young enough to be my sons. Especially our youngest in-law here—to think you were classmates with our Shin at the military academy! What a small world. You even shared a cadet room, didn’t you?” So-hwa asked, her gaze settling on Se-woong.

As if finding the revelation genuinely amusing, a rare warmth briefly enlivened her usually detached expression.

Shaking her head in mild wonder, So-hwa marveled, “It truly is remarkable. Did neither of you really know anything at all? There’s a limit to how indifferent sons can be. You two are so close, yet neither of you knew your sister and brother were getting married?”

While Shin nodded slowly, Se-woong failed to muster any discernible reaction. He simply kept fiddling with the cup in his hands. Although warmth undeniably radiated from the ceramic filled with hot tea, his fingertips felt strangely frozen. A chill seeped not only through his fingers, but across his entire body. Only his shoulder, touched by a shaft of afternoon sunlight, felt oddly numb—neither distinctly cold nor warm.

Finding nowhere to rest, his wandering gaze eventually settled upon Shin’s hand. Along the back of the hand wrapped around the teacup, blue veins stood out with stark clarity.

It was the very hand that, merely a few hours ago, had gently rubbed his freezing feet beneath the blankets, sharing its warmth.

“By the way, the youngest is leaving Gyeryong for the Joint Chiefs?” Lee Myung-heon asked.

Lee Myung-heon’s heavy, commanding voice was directed at the dazed Se-woong. Blinking deliberately, Se-woong forced his scattered senses back into focus.

He drew his parched lips inward and moistened them with the tip of his tongue. His tongue was just as dry, so it hardly made a difference.

This imposing four-star general was someone Se-woong had never imagined meeting in a private setting—let alone at an intimate family gathering like this.

What were the odds of an Army captain drinking tea and listening to gayageum music with the Army Chief of Staff without any prior personal connection? Count every probability in the world, and the chances hovered near zero.

Yet right now, seated before Se-woong’s eyes was General Lee Myung-heon, his supreme commander and the Army Chief of Staff.

Perhaps claiming they had no personal connection was no longer true. He was about to become his in-law, after all.

And…

Se-woong straightened his posture. “Yes, sir. That is correct.”

More than a commanding officer, the four-star general sitting before him was his lover’s father.

“Well, now this is rather inconvenient,” Lee Myung-heon remarked, clicking his tongue. “Prosecutor Cha, no matter how tight-lipped you are, you should have mentioned this sooner. Had I known, I could have pulled some strings. If only we were one step quicker… That single step is truly a shame.”

To Se-woong’s ears, the words of his future in-law—no, the Army Chief of Staff—sounded muffled, as though reaching him from above the surface of the water.

Earlier today, knowing his second brother had a marriage meeting scheduled, Shin had mentioned that his own sister had one too, calling the coincidence amusing. With both Shin’s sister and his brother of prime marrying age, overlapping dates hadn’t seemed strange in the slightest. In truth, so startled by the sudden announcement of Se-gyeom’s meeting, Se-woong hadn’t possessed the bandwidth to dwell on Shin’s sister.

Shin had merely mentioned plans in Gangnam, while Se-woong only knew his family was heading to a traditional Korean restaurant, so he had never connected the two. Even had he realized they were going to the same establishment, he likely would have dismissed it as a coincidence, given how renowned the place was for family meetings.

He could not bring himself to believe the reality unfolding before him.

Shin and I are becoming in-laws. His sister and my brother are really getting married.

For a gathering meant to pledge the union of two households, the strains of the gayageum sounded devastatingly mournful.

Before anyone noticed, the autumn rain had cleanly ceased, leaving only long slants of late afternoon sunlight stretching across the private room.

One month after that formal meeting, on a mild afternoon in late autumn, Se-woong’s brother Se-gyeom and Shin’s sister Lee Young were married.