I Was Reborn at My Engagement Party, So I Proposed to Someone Else novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Two Witnesses

Her ex-fiancé kneels with roses and a reporter at the district office, she registers her marriage anyway, moves into Tae-gyeom's house, and her mother calls: the police are at the foundation.

The Jongno-gu office smelled of floor wax and instant coffee.

At five to nine on Monday morning, a line had already formed at the family registration window.

A young couple with a newborn in a carrier. An old man with a folder of his late wife's papers.

Ji-an, in ivory, with her seal in her coat pocket.

Her mother beside her in her good navy suit.

So-hee on Ji-an's other side, eating a lemon candy and glaring at everyone.

"You need two adult witnesses," So-hee had said on Sunday night. "Your mother and me. I already practised my signature. It's very elegant."

Kwon Tae-gyeom walked in at nine exactly.

Black suit, black shirt, no tie. He had shaved. There was a tiny nick on his jaw beside the scar.

The young mother with the carrier took one look at him and pulled her baby closer.

He bowed to Ji-an's mother first.

"Mother," he said. "Did you sleep?"

"Not at all," she said, delighted.

He took a number from the machine. Number 41.

"You took a number," Ji-an said.

"Everyone takes a number."

"You're the CEO of Myeongsan Capital."

"And you're the Hanseong heiress." He handed her the ticket. "We're both number 41."

So-hee choked on her candy.

They were filling in the form at the side counter when the glass doors opened behind them.

Jae-hyuk walked in carrying a hundred red roses.

A man with a camera came in right behind him. Then a woman with a phone held up and recording.

The whole room turned.

Jae-hyuk went down on one knee on the waxed floor, right in front of the registration window.

"Ji-an," he said, loud and broken. "Please. Come home."

The old man with the folder took a step back.

"I know you're not well," Jae-hyuk said, to the camera more than to her. "I know Saturday wasn't really you. I forgive you. We can get you help."

"Not well," Ji-an said.

"Baby, you had an episode. Everyone saw it." His eyes were wet. He was very good. "Don't do something you can't take back."

The woman with the phone moved closer to get Ji-an's face.

In her first life, he had used those words on her for two years.

Not well. Episode. Help.

By the end she had believed him.

Ji-an put her pen down on the counter.

"On Saturday you told me not to read the papers you wanted me to sign," she said. "You said, 'You always do.' Four hundred people heard you."

Jae-hyuk's face didn't move.

"I read them anyway," she said. "That's the episode."

Somebody in the line laughed, then turned it into a cough.

Jae-hyuk got up slowly. He held the roses out to her.

She didn't take them.

He leaned in to kiss her cheek, and as his face passed hers, he whispered.

"You'll sign for me again, Ji-an. Women like you always sign."

Then a hand landed flat on his chest and moved him back a full step.

Tae-gyeom didn't push. He just put his hand there and kept it there.

"Director Yoon," he said. "You're in line."

"I'm not in your line, Kwon."

"No," Tae-gyeom agreed. "You're in front of my wife."

"She isn't your wife."

Tae-gyeom looked at the electronic board over the window.

Number 41 lit up with a soft chime.

"In about four minutes," he said.

He picked up the form, walked to the window and set it down with his seal on top.

Ji-an followed him.

Her mother signed as a witness with her lips pressed tight. So-hee signed after her with a huge flourish.

The clerk looked at the form, at Tae-gyeom, at the man with the roses, and at the camera.

She stamped it twice, very hard.

"Congratulations," she said, with feeling.

Behind them Jae-hyuk dropped the roses on the waxed floor and walked out.

The camera went with him. The woman with the phone stayed and kept filming Ji-an.

Ji-an let her.

At 10:42 her phone buzzed. It was the trust lawyer.

"Ms. Seo," he said carefully. "I've been notified of your marriage. Your father's nine percent vested in you as of this morning."

"Thank you."

"Your uncle has already called me," he said. "Twice."

Tae-gyeom's house was in Buam-dong, high on the slope under the old fortress wall.

It was glass and grey concrete and almost nothing inside.

A long table. One sofa. A view of the whole city with the mountains behind it.

"Your room," he said, opening a door.

It was the main bedroom. Huge bed, white sheets, a window full of sky.

"This is your room," Ji-an said.

"It was." He put her suitcase down. "I'll be in the study."

"There's a bed in the study?"

"There's a sofa in the study."

"You're a hundred and eighty-eight centimetres tall."

"I'm aware."

She looked at him, standing in the doorway of his own bedroom with his hands in his pockets.

"You could ask why," she said. "Why I picked you."

"I could." He didn't move. "You'd tell me when you wanted to."

His eyes went to her mouth, just once, and came back up.

He had done it at the gala too. She had thought she imagined it.

"Goodnight, Seo Ji-an," he said.

"It's eleven in the morning."

"I know." The corner of his mouth almost moved. "I'm getting used to saying it."

Her phone rang again before he had reached the stairs.

It was her mother. Her voice was very small.

"Ji-an," she said. "There are police at the foundation. Your uncle says I stole two billion won."

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