Prenup of a Third Son novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Clause Seven

Seo-yeon stood in the powder room with the wet towel in her hand until the door stopped swinging.

Move it up.

She didn't know what it was. She knew what Yu-na had looked like on that marble floor.

She folded the towel, put it on the sink and went out to her mother.

She didn't tell her mother. She didn't tell anyone.

That night Bo-ra brought soju and fried chicken to the studio.

Seo-yeon's new home was a mattress in the loft over it, and Bo-ra said it needed a housewarming.

They sat on the floor of the studio below, among the model tables, with the Hermès bag on a chair.

"Sell it Monday," Bo-ra said. "I know a woman in Apgujeong."

"Then I pay you back."

"Then you pay me back." Bo-ra pointed a drumstick at her. "Now tell me about the pen."

Seo-yeon had told her about the parking garage at two in the morning on Sunday. Bo-ra had screamed into a pillow.

Seo-yeon took the pen out of her pocket. Plain and black.

"He was joking," she said.

"Kang Do-hyun has never joked in his life. My cousin works in his procurement team. They call him the Freezer."

"So he was making a point to his aunt."

"So write it." Bo-ra pulled a sheet of tracing paper off the roll and slapped it down in front of her. "Call his bluff."

"If he's bluffing, you laugh. If he's not."

She wiggled her eyebrows.

Seo-yeon was two glasses in.

She wrote at the top, "Prenuptial Agreement," and underlined it twice.

"Clause one," Bo-ra said. "Either of you can leave. Nobody pays a won to leave."

Seo-yeon wrote it.

"Clause two. You keep the firm. Your name, your hours, your weekends."

She wrote it.

"Clause three," Seo-yeon said, "he eats at my mother's shop once a week and says it's good."

Bo-ra laughed so hard she choked on her chicken.

By clause six they had covered pets, Seo-yeon's mother's birthday, and his promise never to call her "my wife" in front of reporters.

"Clause seven," Seo-yeon said, and stopped.

She thought of a girl in white, pouring tea at someone else's table.

"No family friends."

Bo-ra stopped laughing.

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