Chapter 29

As soon as they stepped inside, a sense of bustle could be felt.

Savory smells drifted out from the kitchen side, and the orderly movements of the household staff filled the place with energy.

In the living room stood a large ancestral rite table set before a twelve-panel folding screen, and Myeonguk, Miho, and Ijun’s younger brother Hanjun were seated on cushions laid out over the carpet.

They were all dressed in elegant hanbok, but there was not the slightest trace of holiday cheer.

“We’re here.”

“Father, Mother, how have you been? It has also been a long time since I’ve seen you, Brother-in-law…”

Ijun’s voice was dark.

Then Seoyun offered her greeting as well, but they only nodded in silence.

Hanjun especially was seeing her for the first time since the wedding, yet he seemed lost in thought, as if Seoyun were not even in his field of vision.

Mrs. Ahn had told her to smile brightly, but in an atmosphere like this, she did not think she could possibly smile.

Following Ijun, Seoyun sat down beside Hanjun.

It was still early morning.

Soon, the guests would begin arriving one by one, yet the expressions on the faces of the family sitting together in silence felt strange.

Seoyun had seen a similar look before.

When her father had been hospitalized with a cerebral infarction and underwent a procedure to have a stent inserted into a blood vessel in his brain.

The faces of the people sitting together in the surgical waiting room had looked exactly like this.

Eyes filled with the despair and pain of people watching misfortune approach.

And something like anger toward someone they could do nothing about with their own power.

Was she mistaken.

Was she thinking about it the wrong way.

Seoyun did not understand herself for having such thoughts, so she simply kept her eyes lowered.

“Chairman will be here soon.”

Myeonguk spoke.

She had always thought of him as a grave and solemn man, but the end of his words, especially from someone so unusually quiet today, trembled faintly.

“Once the ancestral rite is done and the meal is over, everyone will leave, so the two of you need only stay calm and then go.”

“Yes, Father.”

Ijun’s voice sounded ominous.

Just as Seoyun looked at him in concern.

“Chairman has arrived.”

The composed voice of one of the household staff was heard.

As though they had made a promise, the four of them rose from their seats at once.

Seoyun hurriedly stood as well and followed them toward the entrance.

“Father, you’ve come.”

“Yes, yes. I came with my Ganguk.”

In that instant, an inexplicably chilly current passed through the family.

It was just as Seoyun’s eyes widened at the unmistakable force of it.

“So you’re Ijun’s wife. They say you’re the daughter of President Song Jeonghun of K-Cell?”

“Y-yes…. Yes, Grandfather. Ah, h-how do you do.”

Suung was a well-built old man, but his back was straight and his voice boomed loudly.

Startled, Seoyun bowed awkwardly as she stammered.

“I saw you only briefly at the wedding, and after that I should have seen your face. When a granddaughter-in-law entered the family, would it do for her not to come greet me? I came under the excuse of Chuseok to see my granddaughter-in-law’s face at least once.”

“I’m sorr….”

“I truly did not have the capacity to come along together, so the greeting was delayed until now against my intentions. I apologize.”

Seoyun was about to bow once more in flustered haste, but beside her Ijun stepped forward first.

His voice was strangely rough.

“You rascal. Are you already taking your wife’s side just because you’re newly married? Hahaha, enough. Now that we’ve seen each other’s faces. Where now, everyone, sit down.”

Among the cushions that a household employee had tactfully laid out in extra number, Suung sat in the seat of highest honor.

To his right sat Myeonguk and Miho, and to his left sat Ganguk.

Even though Suung’s hearty voice rang out in the house where nothing but silence had flowed, somehow the atmosphere grew even more rigid.

Everyone’s face was expressionless, as if each wore a layer of mask, yet to Seoyun it somehow felt as though they were grinding their teeth and enduring something.

Ganguk, who was sitting beside Suung, suddenly smiled faintly.

It came to Seoyun then that no one had offered any greeting to Ganguk, who had come with Suung.

“Our nephew’s wife, I saw you once when you were little. I wonder if you remember me.”

Seoyun was bewildered.

When would she ever have had reason to see someone from the Daejeong family.

“Father, don’t you remember? At the Daejeong Electronics foundation anniversary ceremony, didn’t Chief Executive Officer Song Jeonghun bring his daughter with him? I even gave her some spending money then, remember?”

“Ah, hearing you say that, I remember. It was when you were the representative of Daejeong Electronics, wasn’t it. That’s right. President Song Jeonghun brought her and came to greet us.”

“She was fresh and pretty even then, and now she’s grown up well and even married my nephew.”

Seoyun remembered too.

Because that day had been the first time she had met Ijun.

She had not forgotten even a single trivial thing about it.

The smile on Ganguk’s face as he looked at her, smiling broadly, somehow felt greasy.

At that moment, from beside her, there came the grinding sound of someone clenching their teeth.

No one spoke, and no one made any overt move, but the atmosphere was vicious enough to feel as though it might explode at any moment.

Seoyun was simply bewildered.

“In a little while your aunts and cousins will arrive, but before that, under the excuse of the holiday, let me say just one thing. Myeonguk.”

“Yes, Father.”

Myeonguk answered heavily, his eyes lowered.

“I feel sorry toward you. Ganguk too, I am a sinner to him. Even if what happened came from my own shortcomings, and no matter how one speaks of it, half the same blood still runs in you both, does it not.”

“……”

“How much longer do you think I have left to live. In the future, Daejeong must be led by the two of you, so why not put an end to opposing each other and let go of your feelings now. You should also know that many eyes are watching you.”

Only then did Seoyun understand a little.

So Ganguk was not Myeonguk’s full younger brother.

But could that alone make the mood of the whole family this ugly.

Apparently, there had been many clashes between Myeonguk and Ganguk that she did not know about.

“Myeonguk. Even if you and I think very differently, you are still my son, aren’t you. I will feel sorry until the day I die for having disappointed you, so show some generosity to your younger brother. After all, didn’t you grow up lacking for nothing. This rascal Ganguk had a hard life before he was brought into this house.”

Myeonguk still said nothing.

It seemed only Seoyun noticed that his tightly clenched fist was trembling.

“Father. I will do better. I caused so many incidents in the past, so how could my elder brother possibly think well of me. Now I’ve come to my senses, and I’ll do better.”

“Haha. Yes. It may not all be resolved in an instant, but if you both make an effort, won’t that do.”

For a middle-aged man, Ganguk had rather fine and delicate features, but there was something mean about his face.

When he answered with smiling eyes, Suung also seemed quite satisfied and let out a broad laugh.

But Myeonguk and the rest of the family listened to their warm exchange like people swallowing some loathsome medicine.

Were relations between half-brothers really this bad.

She and Jiho were step-siblings too.

Seoyun could not understand it, but still, since her heart was on Ijun’s side, Ganguk felt even more distasteful to her.

Soon after, Myeonghui and Suran, Suung’s younger sisters, arrived one after another with their families.

“So you’re Ijun’s wife. I only saw you briefly at the wedding, and I might not even have recognized you if I passed you on the street. No matter how busy one is, who rushes through a marriage like that, honestly.”

“No wonder Ijun got married like his tail was on fire. She’s lovely, truly.”

Myeonghui and Suran, who each managed distribution and hotels respectively, had open and hearty personalities.

Their sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren were cheerful as well.

They might not know every detail of the family’s circumstances, but at least they did not seem to have the kind of conflict that plagued Myeonguk’s family.

The house, which had once only felt spacious, now bustled and rang noisily with people everywhere.

At last, it really seemed as though the holiday had begun.

***

After the ancestral rite and the meal, they even drank tea personally prepared by Suran, whose hobby was tea ceremony.

Just as Myeonguk had said, all the guests rose to leave before the afternoon came.

“These days, just because it’s a holiday, you can’t keep young people trapped in the house all day.”

“That’s right. If the ancestral rite is done in the morning, then the afternoon should be spent happily in each one’s own way.”

“Mother, next Chuseok, can’t all of us go on a family trip together? To somewhere like Hawaii or Bali.”

“Oh dear, if this whole group were going, we’d have to charter an entire plane.”

They were cheerful people right up until the moment they left.

Since they seemed like exactly the kind of holiday gathering she had always imagined, Seoyun watched them with a faintly envious smile.

And when the very last person stepped out the door.

Once again, a dark shadow spread thickly over the house.

“We’ve done all that needed doing, so the two of you should go now as well.”

Pressing a hand to her forehead as though she had a headache, Miho spoke weakly.