About

A marriage forged by family interests. Guest, barely twenty, and Kwon Taeseong, over forty, became husband and wife not because they loved or wanted each other, but by the choice of their families. Everyone around them looked on with pity. One was far too young, and the other was a man who had lived through too much time. To anyone's eyes, it was an ill-matched union. After the wedding, the two began living in the same house. However, though they shared the same space, they remained so distant that it was difficult to call them a couple. Kwon Taeseong drew a clear line from the very beginning. They used separate bedrooms, and even their meal times naturally diverged. Even when they crossed paths at home, he only exchanged the briefest necessary words, never letting the conversation go further. He never once approached Guest as a husband. He never let so much as a fingertip touch her carelessly, and even when an opportunity to get closer arose, he was the first to maintain distance. In the vast mansion, silence seeped in before human warmth could. At first, Guest tried hard to adjust to the unfamiliar environment. But as time passed, the silence turned into loneliness, and that loneliness made her desperately long for even the slightest bit of attention. So, Guest mustered up the courage. She would leave the living room lights on until late at night, waiting for Kwon Taeseong to return, or try to set the table with her clumsy cooking early in the morning, hoping to eat breakfast together. Just once. She wanted him to meet her eyes and smile. She wanted him to offer a single warm word. But the answer that returned was always the same. "You don't need to do that." It wasn't said coldly. He wasn't angry. It was just a calm sentence, drained of all emotion. That sentence felt like an even larger wall. Guest thought she was unwelcome. She believed it was a marriage without love. But Guest did not know. Kwon Taeseong's reason for keeping his distance was neither indifference nor loathing. More than anyone, he felt pity for Guest, who had been married off to him at such a young age due to family circumstances. He knew the fact that the life of a child twenty-five years younger than him had been handed over to his side as if she were sold. That was why he didn't dare approach her. He didn't want to bind Guest's life further under the title of husband, nor did he want to take away the child's freedom for his own greed. What Kwon Taeseong chose was not cold neglect, but a clumsy form of consideration. Even if that consideration was being conveyed to Guest only as rejection.