After cleaning the dishes and arranging the books to their new place, Gun-Ho and Young-Eun watched TV, and then they laid down on the bed together.
“It’s good, right?”
“What’s good?”
“Being together. I mean as a married couple.”
Gun-Ho hugged Young-Eun and kissed her on the cheek.
“Thank you for being my significant other.”
“I saved an old bachelor, did I?”
“Why did you choose me as your husband? I’m sure you have plenty of men to choose from.”
“I don’t know.”
Gun-Ho pressed his lips against Young-Eun’s lips.
“Why did you choose me, oppa?”
“I just wanted to save an old bachelorette.”
Young-Eun kicked Gun-Ho’s shin under the comforter.
“I wonder why you picked me. There should be tons of people who would want to marry you.”
“I’m not sure.”
Young-Eun rubbed Gun-Ho’s chest.
“The reason I picked you was, I think, that I want to be compensated.”
“Compensated for what?”
“I didn’t graduate from the top university—Seoul National University. I guess I wanted to fulfill that deficiency by having a spouse who graduated from that college.”
“I heard that once you get old, everyone reaches the same level regardless of their various educational levels.”
“When I was in high school, my family was not financially affluent. Since your father was a teacher, studying hard probably came natural to you at that time. But, my family was different. My parents were so busy with their work in order to feed us, and I felt small all the time, and I didn’t have any will to study hard. The atmosphere overall was not very supportive for me to concentrate on studying. I think I started focusing on making money because I wanted to compensate myself for those days.”
“That drove you to come this far, I guess.”
“Come to think of it now, I think you are right. You were ranked top in high school, and you are pretty. I guess you must be a popular kid in high school and had a happy adolescence.”
“Not necessarily. I had to constantly fight with myself in those days. It was not pretty; I can tell you that.”
“Why was that so?”
“I think I developed PTSD after my mom’s death. It was hard to overcome at my young age.”
“I see.”
“My mom died of ovarian cancer. She was not even 50 years old. I wanted to be a medical researcher who devotes her life to find treatment for ovarian cancer. That was my sole goal in my life. I decided not to pursue my dream to become a painter, but instead, I studied hard to be admitted to a medical school.”
“You must have been ranked first in your class.”
“Not just in my class, but I was ranked first in the entire school. Once I achieved my first step toward my life goal and started studying in medical school, I realized that my plan was probably not feasible. It’s not simple to find a cure for a terminal illness like ovarian cancer. Well, someone will eventually find a cure someday of course. However, that doesn’t mean it will happen during our generation.”
“Hmm.”
“When there is no guarantee to develop a cure, it’s hard to find a fund to proceed unless I can get the fund from some conglomerate family. Whenever someone asked me why I hadn’t married yet, I always made a joke by telling them that I wouldn’t marry anyone except someone from a conglomerate family. One day, one of my friends introduced me to someone from a conglomerate family. He was a nephew of CY Group’s president. I was told that he was smart, and he studied at one of the Ivy League universities. I actually met him.”
“And what happened? He rejected you on the spot, huh?”
Young-Eun kicked Gun-Ho’s shin again under the comforter.
“Shoot. I feel like I married a gangster.”
“So I met this guy who is the third generation of an extremely wealthy family. He came to the meeting wearing short pants and flip-flops. He was also chewing a gum. His outfit and his attitude bothered me a lot.”
“Maybe because he was Americanized in some way?”
“I don’t believe all of the American people are like that. There are so many conservative people in the U.S. as well.”
“That’s true.”
“So we started conversing, and I found out that he had no historical consciousness and no common knowledge about anything. He was just an idiot with a rich family. I didn’t even think twice when I turned him down.”
“Hmm.”
“Another friend introduced me to another man who was upper level than me in the same medical field. I thought that even though I wouldn’t be able to devote my life to develop cancer treatment, maybe I could just have a life with someone who would share the same life value and philosophy. It would be very nice to do some volunteer work together in Africa or something, but when I actually met that person, he was not my type at all.”
“Why not?”
“First of all, I didn’t like his appearance. Second of all, he was a money-oriented person. He almost seemed to be obsessed with money. I just couldn’t go on with a person like that. He was from a not very financially bountiful family either just like you. He was driven too strongly by his desire to make money. He even opened his own practice with a bank loan.”
“I do have a strong desire to make money as well.”
“You can’t make money with just your desire to do so. You need luck and the ability to make it happen.”
“So, I guess he started his own practice without enough clinical experience, huh?”
“I heard that he eventually had to close his business, which left him with enormous debt. He is now working for a small clinic.”
“I still don’t understand why you chose me. I do have a strong desire to make money. I’m sort of obsessed with money too.”
“You will have to thank my aunt for that. She talked extremely highly of you constantly. She said you have hundreds of billions of won, and you are a self-made successful young man with good manners.”
“Artist Choi said that?”
“I didn’t believe what she said at first. Think about it. How is it possible for a young man to make hundreds of billions of won without his family background? Especially, given the fact that there is no economic ladder to climb up these days. Even a medical doctor who graduated from the top medical school often files for bankruptcy after opening his own practice with a loan from a bank, so I didn’t believe what my aunt said.”
“So your aunt fed you with all those information, huh?”
“But it was not just my aunt, but my aunt’s dear friend—President Jeong-Sook Shin—also persisted in asking me to meet you. She is one of my favorite people, so I decided to give it a try.”
“Do you know what my first impression was when I saw you for the first time?”
“How was I?”
“You didn’t look like a rich man, but you looked like a mediocre salaryman who was working for a big company. I liked your appearance though. You looked like a decent man, but I didn’t imagine marrying you at that time. I was just interested in hearing your story about how you make all that money.”
“And?”
“Remember the day when I showed you my scar on my arm? That I was bitten by a poisonous insect? After looking at my scar, you showed me yours. You said you got those scars when you worked in a factory. Probably, you haven’t noticed at that time, but I almost cried. I didn’t know until then that I was such an emotional person. I realized that you are a person who knows how to devote yourself to achieve something, and I thought that we might have a different life goal, but we could be a good companion to each other throughout life. At that time, I knew you were the one.”
“Hmm.”
“Also, you are conservative. You have a good manner, no chewing gum, no short pants or flip-flops. Also, you are a man who knows how to enjoy the arts.”
“Thank you for recognizing my value.”
“I knew you were the man who would protect me at any cost.”
“Of course, I will protect you for the rest of my life.”
Gun-Ho hugged Young-Eun tightly. She didn’t act like a piece of wood that night. She wrapped Gun-Ho’s neck with her arms. Gun-Ho and Young-Eun had a steamy night for the first time since they got married.