Read Marriage Agreement Novel Translation Chapter 8

(결혼합의)

Author: 문스톤 (Moonstone) | Translator: Genie

#josei #drama #romance #contract-marriage #mature #modern #slice-of-life

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2. Decision

“Thank you for dropping me off.”

She offered a polite bow and stepped out of the car. Neither of them said anything about contacting each other again. Watching Eunsu enter the house, Jinhyuk only started the car engine after the gate had closed behind her.

It felt… odd, like standing right in front of a massive mountain but stopping just before starting the climb. An unsettling feeling lingered in the air.

It was only natural for her to want to know why he wanted to marry her. But how could he explain something he didn’t fully understand himself? Yet, saying something like, “The real reason is that I don’t want to see you crying over another man,” didn’t sit right with him either. If she had asked why he didn’t want to see that, he wouldn’t have had an answer.

A short sigh escaped Jinhyuk’s lips.

The truth was his feelings toward Seo Eunsu were difficult to put into words.

People who knew Jinhyuk would never believe he’d struggle to define something. He couldn’t believe it himself, as this kind of emotion was entirely unfamiliar to him.

But Seo Eunsu had always been that way. Being near her evoked strange feelings.

If he had to categorise them, he’d say they leaned toward the positive. However, it wasn’t as if he was head over heels for her or couldn’t stop thinking about her. In truth, even to himself, Jinhyuk couldn’t clearly articulate the complex and subtle emotions she stirred within him.

One thing was certain, though. He had felt inexplicably irritated seeing Eunsu cry so sorrowfully at her former fiancé Jinsoo’s funeral, and the memory of that scene remained vivid in his mind even after several years.

He never wanted to see her cry over another man again. If it happened one more time, he felt he wouldn’t be able to endure it. But he never voiced those thoughts to anyone because, no matter how much he considered it, it felt utterly unreasonable.

So Jinhyuk refrained from explaining himself to his father, who deemed Eunsu unsuitable as a marriage partner, or to his brothers, who gave him puzzled looks upon hearing her name. Instead, he simply ended the conversations with a plausible line: “I haven’t found anyone I like as much as Seo Eunsu, and I don’t plan to.”

“I’ve returned to Korea as Father wished, and I’ll marry and settle down here. So you don’t need to concern yourselves with anything else.”

Whether his words worked or his family simply picked up on his determination to resist further interference, he wasn’t sure. In any case, his family stopped bringing it up afterwards.

Perhaps they stepped back, fearing he might quit everything and take off back to the U.S. again. After all, the excuse for summoning him to Seoul—his father’s health—had been exposed as much less serious than initially implied.

In any case, Jinhyuk had thus established his marriage to Eunsu as a foregone conclusion in his family’s eyes.

He hadn’t worried about potential objections from Eunsu’s family either. It was widely known that her father, Chairman Seo, would stop at nothing to secure a good family connection.

And yet, the ironic part was that Eunsu herself still needed time to think. As he mulled over ways to get her to make a decision faster, he shook his head.

Jinhyuk knew himself well. When it came to conveying knowledge or persuading others with logic, he was more confident than anyone. But when it came to eliciting emotional understanding from others, Woo Jinhyuk was utterly lacking.

So, rather than risk saying something unnecessary and making things worse, it was better to wait quietly. After all, she would end up agreeing to the marriage. Until the day Seo Eunsu willingly said yes, he could suppress his inexplicable impatience.

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