Chapter 1 | Launch

“Noona, you really have to attend the club mansion for married elitist couples. You can’t always hang out with your friends at the proving grounds!” Daniel says to Seulgi while they are waiting for the start of the auto-drive car project launch.

The Korean Elitists Club was founded after Korea’s colonial period under the Japanese. The founders of the club were the remaining elites from before it happened. They vowed that never again will other nations thwart their own. They swore to collect their power and influence together so that they can do whatever necessary for building a society that survives among the fittest.

The club has two tiers: proving grounds and bartering circle. Proving grounds are open for those who are sixteen years of age. The only requirement is that both parents must be members of bartering circle. The main purpose of this tier is to try and find eligible prospects to marry and secure their place in the club, specifically to raise their membership tier. The bartering circle on the other hand, is the tier where married elitists are classified into. Literal to its name, the main principle is to mingle with other couples and lobby their business trade or political influence further in the circle.

“We’ll hang out there after the launch, I promise. Maybe next week?” Seulgi takes a cocktail from the waiter’s tray and readies to sip it when Joohyun takes the glass from her. “I was going to drink that!” She says clearly expressing her dismay.

“Seul, we’re going to present the project later. I don’t want you tipsy when we’re on stage.” Joohyun finds another waiter and puts back the cocktail on the tray.

“Uh-oh, is this another married petty fight?” Daniel says letting out a laugh. He tries to find Sejeong from the crowd hoping not to get caught in between if it happens.

“As if.” Seulgi hugs her wife from the back. “We’re immune to this. Right, babe?”

“Oh, you just know what to do when we’re about to.” Joohyun says in delight. It has been two months since Seulgi confessed to her. Her wife does not hold back any form of public display of affection, even when they are surrounded by many. They’ve grown fonder in that span of time.

Sejeong makes her way to their small party joining closely with Daniel. “Joohyun-unnie! I hope this event goes well. We’ll be covering the whole media thing for you, so leave that to me.”

“Thank you, Sejeong. Have you seen Suji anywhere?” Johyun enquires as she hasn’t seen her sister even though she tried her hardest skimming from the crowd.

“Maybe she and Rowoon are having a quickie somewhere in the rest room.” Seulgi jokes. Joohyun elbows her abs, breaking the back hug. “I was joking.” She says clutching her stomach. Maybe they’ve been too comfortable around each other.

The other couple just laughs at them.

“We were like that when we started out.” Daniel says to his wife looking with such tender eyes.

“But I’m not as violent as Joohyun-unnie.” Sejeong admits returning her husband’s loving stare with a sweet smile.

“Oh, you have no idea.” Seulgi has already recovered from her wife’s elbowing.

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“My wife has tirelessly supervised the programming team for this project. We created the driverless car not because we don’t need drivers anymore. We envisioned this as a backup plan. Like for example, when the driver suddenly experiences a heart attack and cannot continue to drive but he is on the freeway. He can opt and just press auto-drive.” Joohyun starts the launch with such confident words.

Seulgi looks at her Joohyun while she was talking. She cannot help but admire her wife’s confidence. She cuts into the middle of the paragraph, “Or if you want to make out with your wife because you just feel like it but you’re stuck driving at the expressway. You can press auto-drive.” That clearly wasn’t in the script but she just cannot remember what she was supposed to say after Joohyun.

Joohyun looks at Seulg