Prologue: A Sudden Engagement 프롤로그: 급격한 약혼

 

A day where I had my life as a high-school teenager was ended and starting my way to become a university student, was the day I had been anticipating for my whole life. I was filled with overflowing happiness after having small chats with my classmates, I went home from the school ceremony,—it was the first time I had enjoyed hearing the headmaster’s lecture, as he spoke, I sometimes yawned, though—I was about to burst my happiness to my parents as I found them waiting for me on the living room.

As usual I sang, “Eomma! Appa! I’m home!” I hug my mom and I kissed her cheeks as soon as approached her, swiftly sat beside her and lowered my hand to her waist with my chin on her left-shoulder.

Mom loosens my hug. She showed me her gentle-angel-like smile.

“Alright, alright, what’s the matter, Soo Jung? You seemed to have exceeded your happy-meter, something really lucky must have happened.”

I proudly showed her my diploma. “Jjajang! You see, you see, I have passed! I am officially a university student now!”

I didn’t remember whether I had said anything that sounded inappropriate or wrong, however mom’s smile faded away, she looked at dad, who straightened his glasses as he read the newspaper.  The atmosphere that I felt was different from every moment that I had been through with them, there was something cheesy that they were hiding from me, I could feel it right into my bones.

“Eomma, what is going on?”

She didn’t answer.

I turned to dad—I knew he often glanced at me ever since I got home; he cleared his throat and went back reading his newspaper after he noticed me glanced back at him—who was acting as if he truly didn’t know that I had began to be suspicious about their attitude, “Appa, tell me, what’s going on?”

Dad still didn’t look at me, “Yeobo, tell her.”

Mom grasped my hands, which made me a bit shocked, and said, “Soo Jung, you are going to have a marriage.”

They were talking about marriage and I truly clueless about it. Of course, marriage was one of my unfulfilled dreams on my dream-list, but in the age of twenty and facing the reality of being a mother, my brains could only force my mouth to say, “You got to be kidding me,” I laughed it up, “this is all marriage thing is a joke, right?”

The expression in my mom’s face clearly had the answer that I didn’t want to hear. “It is not a joke,” she sighed and continued, “You are going to marry the son of our old friend. You still remember Kim family?”

In a bli