Contract Marriage with a Male Friend - Chapter 5

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#5

Team Lead O tapped his phone screen with a delighted grin.
“You’ll hear from CEO Gi any day now.”
……Hearing that suddenly made me feel so burdened.
“You know my wife likes An Sui, right? She said the other day that a woman should have time to meet a man, share meals, drink coffee, catch a movie, maybe even take a light trip outside the city. My wife’s upset An Sui doesn’t get to date.”
A date.
I’d never thought I wanted to do something tedious like that.
Besides…….
I’m already meeting someone, eating meals, drinking coffee, watching movies, and occasionally going to the countryside with Dok Go Beom Jin.
“You know, life goes by so fast. We grow weaker with time. I’d love to see you find someone good and support each other through life.”
Team Lead O smiled with warmth.
“Try to understand this busybody uncle and aunt—we’re only nosy because we care.”
Touched by his words, An Sui spoke with playful mischief.
“Back then you were saying we should work hard, drive the chairman out, and take over the company.”
“Ha, that was when I was fighting badly with our Yeon-su. But you know, having family—even after all the ups and downs—that’s a really good thing.”
Family.
The weight of that word rippled through An Sui’s heart.
“Oh, the district office is calling.”
“Should I go?”
“No, no, don’t worry. Yesterday you must have been exhausted filling in for me.”
Team Lead O gestured for her to stay seated and stood up.
“If anything important comes up, I’ll call you right away. Don’t worry.”
Besides Dok Go Beom Jin, Team Lead O and his wife were the only people who knew An Sui was searching for her father.
Like Dok Go Beom Jin, he didn’t pry into the details. Instead, whenever an unclaimed body was discovered, he gathered the most thorough information he could.
“……Thank you, Team Lead.”
“What are you saying? Don’t be strange. I’ll be back soon. See you tomorrow.”
After seeing Team Lead O off, An Sui headed for the small room in the corner of the office.
The desk was filled with various sketches and preserved flowers.
‘Let me design just a couple more, then bring them to life in flowers.’
An Sui had designed various Memorial Flower Frames for unclaimed bodies—those who had no one to see them on their final journey—and when a local newspaper reporter picked up the story and wrote about it, the response was overwhelming.
After that, An Sui found herself planning commemorative products for Seonham Sanjo.
As graduation from university drew near, a restless urgency had taken hold of her. Then she spotted a banner and impulsively obtained her Florist certification—now she was putting it to use in ways she’d never imagined.
One day, her father might arrive as an unclaimed body.
When that happened, she hoped to offer flowers she had created herself.
‘Is he even alive?’
Before she died, her mother, drunk, used to say things like this.

“Your father, on top of everything else, he’s got gambling debts. Somehow he’s managed to keep the creditors from showing up at the house… but at this rate, he might end up getting sold to a fishing boat.”

Her mother’s frail shoulders trembled as she laughed at her own words.

“Or he could just disappear without a trace. Maybe he already has. There won’t be much left of him. He came empty-handed and he’ll leave empty-bodied.”

After she grew up, she tried to find her father, but nowhere left any trace of him.
So An Sui joined Seonham Sanjo, the only funeral home in the country with a dedicated team for unclaimed bodies.
With the hope that someday she could send off her father with her own hands.
Every time she handled a funeral for an unclaimed body, she saw her father in them all, so she couldn’t bring herself to cut corners.
How lonely must that final journey be, all alone—that’s what she thought.
“Ugh, my throat hurts.”
An Sui was just stretching after working intently for a while.
Brrrrrrrr—
Her phone rang. It was Team Lead O.
“Yes, Team Lead?”
—An Sui, can you come for a moment?
Her eyes widened in an instant, her body going rigid.
Could it be.
—The body has a mark on the shoulder that looks like a heart shape.
After hanging up, An Sui rushed toward the University Hospital.
Slam—!
She shut the taxi door hard, practically leaped out, and sprinted toward the morgue.
“Hah, hah…….”
But at the entrance of the long hallway leading to the morgue, An Sui stopped short.
A few strands of hair fell across her forehead, but she didn’t bother brushing them back.
All her attention was fixed on a distant door down the corridor.
‘Could it really…… be him?’
Her father had a mark on his shoulder that looked like a heart.
Back when they were happy together, her father used to say—
it was the mark of a father’s love for his mother and An Sui.
An Sui closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them and took a deep breath.
She couldn’t tell if she’d been hoping for this moment, or dreading it.
Holding all those conflicting emotions, An Sui walked slowly down the corridor.
“An Sui, the funeral director?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
The hospital staff member looked her over, nodded as if she matched the description they’d heard, and opened the door.
Team Lead O, who had been waiting inside, greeted her with a somber expression.
“You’re here?”
“……Yes.”
Barely able to answer, as if something were lodged in her throat, An Sui slowly turned her gaze toward the body Team Lead O had been looking at.
The moment she saw the shoulder.
Thump.
Her heart fell to the floor with a heavy sound.
An Sui blinked several times, then let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Hah…….”
“It’s not your father, is it?”
She gave Team Lead O a small nod, watching her with careful eyes.
“I don’t even know if I should call this a relief.”
The man with the large mark on his shoulder was not her father.
As Team Lead O said, An Sui herself couldn’t tell whether to call this fortunate or not.
“He was found in an abandoned house in a redevelopment zone in Seongdong District. Doesn’t seem like he’d been dead long. Cause of death was myocardial infarction.”
“I see…….”
“There was a small flowerpot beside him. Shoots had just begun to sprout.”
Next to the man who had died alone and in solitude, life was beginning to bloom.
An Sui, envisioning that image—a breath that had just stopped and a leaf just born passing by each other—bowed her head and closed her eyes.
“May the departed find peace.”
After offering a quiet bow to the nameless man, An Sui thought of her father.
Father.
Where are you now? Are you alone?
‘I hope someone is beside you.’
At the very least, I hope you didn’t close your eyes alone, in solitude.
“Team Lead, I’ll help with this.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m already here. It’s better when two of us do it. Less lonely.”
“Yes, let’s send him off well. With all our care.”
An Sui put on the gloves Team Lead O offered her and steadied her heart.
‘I hope you find peace wherever you’re going. Please don’t be lonely there.’
After silently reciting this prayer to herself, she found herself missing Dok Go Beom Jin terribly.
That big, straightforward man who never gave her a moment to feel alone.

***

Kangho Group Headquarters Annex Building B was a restricted-access zone with security clearance requirements.
It stood far from the main headquarters building and was hidden among tall trees, difficult to see.
Only someone possessing a specially made anonymous security pass could enter, and to move down even a single corridor, one had to tag their pass at the card readers installed on each floor.
This was the exclusive zone of Strategic Planning Division 1, which belonged to the Future Strategy Division.
It served as the chairman’s direct briefing line, handling subsidiary consolidations, mergers and acquisitions, and internal politics—the true nerve center of group power, unknown to the outside world.
Dok Go Beom Jin’s reasons for taking on this grave and irritating work aligned perfectly with the reason he showed human emotion.
An Sui.
From the moment he first saw her, he was so captivated he’d lost his soul.
And so today, after finishing irritating tasks one by one, as quitting time drew near—
Chairman Dok Go Hyung Jun visited the annex.
“So you caught a bug today. Some mid-sized company executive, they say.”
“Yes, a pest. From now on, there will be fewer women enduring sexual harassment, and fewer men being worked like slaves without proper pay.”
“Is this for that girl again?”
Dok Go Beom Jin answered by not answering.
Dok Go Hyung Jun shook his head with an exasperated look.
“If she asks for the whole company next, this old man might just stab himself.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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