Chapter : 01
The day of the wedding.
Kang Tae-heon stood side by side with the bride in front of his grandfather’s hospital room.
Because his grandfather’s condition was critical, they had decided to hold a simple wedding ceremony in the hospital room.
Tae-heon glanced at his bride, Ji Min-chae, who was eight years younger than him.
Wearing a neat white dress with her eyes lowered, she looked like a freshly bloomed lily.
It felt strange because she had exactly the same face as Ji So-yul, her identical twin, but she was not So-yul.
“Our So-yul has to marry a really good man later. I won’t give her to anyone unless he cherishes So-yul like his own life.”
Although So-yul had been born as a twin, she had been adopted alone as a baby and raised as his friend Young-ho’s younger sister.
Then, when So-yul was twelve years old, Young-ho and his adoptive parents all passed away in an accident.
At that time, when So-yul was about to be sent to an orphanage with no relatives to take her in, her biological parents appeared with her twin older sister, Min-chae, and took So-yul back.
That was how So-yul changed from ‘Seo So-yul’ to ‘Ji So-yul.’
While he was alive, Young-ho had always wished for So-yul’s happiness.
Tae-heon could not give So-yul that happiness.
His top priority had always been work. There was something he absolutely wanted to accomplish.
He had no energy to devote to a woman. He had already decided that this marriage would be a loveless relationship.
‘So it’s a relief.’
It really was fortunate that the bride standing beside him was not So-yul.
With his grandfather’s condition so urgent, if his blind-date partner had been So-yul, this marriage would have been impossible.
Tae-heon was waiting inside the hospital room for Chairman Kang and both families to finish exchanging greetings when—
“Huuuh… Hoooooo…. Huuuh… Hoooooo….”
A quiet sound of deep breathing came from beside him.
Was she nervous?
Well, it was understandable. A twenty-two-year-old girl, practically still a child, had suddenly found herself getting married.
With a little sympathy, Tae-heon glanced sideways at the bride.
At that moment—
Tae-heon’s brows furrowed.
‘That…’
The bride was taking deep breaths while counting the rhythm with her hand.
Using her thumb, she touched the index, middle, ring, and little fingers of the same hand in succession, inhaling for four beats. Then she used her thumb to count seven beats while holding her breath, before counting another eight beats and slowly exhaling.
There was nothing particularly unusual about deep breathing itself, but the problem was that hand gesture.
Back in their school days, whenever Young-ho became nervous because of a performance assessment or something similar, he would take deep breaths while counting the beats in exactly that way.
‘No way….’
It was supposed to be a breathing technique to calm her nerves.
Ironically, however, Tae-heon’s own breathing became slightly faster.
Confused, he forced himself to remain calm. Then he turned around and looked at the bride.
“Ah….”
The bride stared at Tae-heon with her eyes wide open, as if asking what was wrong.
“…I thought it would be best to take one last look before we go in.”
Tae-heon offered a plausible excuse and looked over her appearance, pretending to notice something around her neck.
“There’s a loose thread at the back of your neck. Please turn around for a moment.”
“Ah! Yes….”
The bride obediently turned her back to Tae-heon.
Without realizing it, Tae-heon swallowed hard.
His hand, which moved the bride’s long hair to one side, felt strangely heavy, as though it did not belong to him.
After hesitating for a moment, he eventually looked slightly down at the neckline of the bride’s dress.
‘This is….’
Tae-heon’s pupils shook violently.
Five moles arranged in the shape of a W.
They were the same moles he had once seen through the gap in So-yul’s T-shirt when she had lowered her head while playing with dirt in the yard as an elementary school student.
He had thought they resembled the constellation Cassiopeia. That was why he remembered them so clearly.
Did identical twins even have the same moles?
Even if that happened, what were the chances that several moles would be arranged in exactly the same pattern?
No matter how identical the twins were, that could not possibly happen.
‘Then this girl really is….’
His vision turned white. It felt as though he had been struck in the back of the head with a blunt object.
The one person he could never marry.
The person his dead friend had cherished so dearly….
That very person was standing beside him as his bride.
“Is… is it okay now…?”
At the bride’s question, Tae-heon quickly pulled himself back from his dazed state.
“…Yes.”
After straightening the bride’s clothes and hair, Tae-heon turned around again.
‘Why on earth?’
The woman who was supposed to become his wife was clearly named Ji Min-chae, so why was the person standing beside him actually So-yul instead of Ji Min-chae?
‘Something has gone terribly wrong.’
He had to stop this wedding immediately. The bride had been switched. It made no sense.
Tae-heon was about to speak to the secretary who had been receiving updates about the situation inside the hospital room when—
Through the glass window in the hospital-room door, he caught sight of his grandfather lying there with a ventilator attached to him.
‘Ha.’
Tae-heon squeezed his eyes shut.
A sharp pain throbbed at his temples as though something pointed were drilling into them.
What if he stopped the wedding and his grandfather died immediately afterward?
His condition was so critical that he could not completely rule out such a possibility.
“Please go inside.”
While Tae-heon was unable to decide what to do, the secretary spoke.
Tae-heon stood still, clenching his fists.
The secretary gave him a puzzled look when he did not move.
If they delayed any longer, the family members inside the room would soon be wondering the same thing.
Tae-heon had no choice but to make a decision quickly.
‘For now, I have no choice but to go through with the wedding.’
Afterward, if his grandfather passed away, he could then annul the marriage on the grounds that the other party had deceived him.
But what if his grandfather did not die?
Then he would simply have Ji Min-chae, wherever she was, returned to her rightful place.
It seemed that the other side had also intended to marry off Ji Min-chae, but because something had happened, they had temporarily put So-yul in her place.
Tae-heon organized his thoughts. Even though he had reached a clean conclusion, his face remained rigid.
“…….”
Tae-heon held out his hand to So-yul, the bride’s stand-in.
So-yul hesitated for a moment before cautiously taking his hand.
He could feel the warmth in the hand of the younger sister of the friend who had wished so desperately for her happiness.
Rather than comforting him, that warmth seemed to pierce his chest sharply.
‘She’s only standing in as a temporary substitute.’
Tae-heon repeated to himself.
His real bride was someone else, and So-yul was not the true party to this marriage.
Therefore, this was only for this moment.
There was absolutely no chance that his real bride would ever become So-yul.
Tae-heon held the hand of his dead friend’s younger sister and walked with her into the hospital room.
Two days earlier.
So-yul entered the hotel lounge.
She was there for a blind date. Not as So-yul herself, but as her twin older sister, Ji Min-chae.
Min-chae, who was practically an alcoholic, had been drinking even yesterday, the day before the blind date.
She had suffered from a hangover until this morning.
While stumbling down the stairs at home, she had taken a spectacular fall and had been rushed to the hospital.
Min-chae, whose face was bruised and whose arm had been put in a cast, wanted to postpone the blind date, but—
“They say his time and energy are as precious as his life, so his schedule is already packed! Do you think someone like that will look favorably on a person who postpones an appointment on the very day? No, we should be grateful if he even agrees to postpone it! He might just say forget it altogether!”
“Jeez, why is the man so picky….”
“Under normal circumstances, he’s someone you wouldn’t even dare look at! He’s the man who will inherit DH Group! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that came because of your fortune! What are you going to do about this?!”
“…Then, Ji So-yul, just send Ji So-yul in pretending to be me! You look exactly alike, so one day should be fine!”
That was how it had come to this.
“I have an appointment with Representative Kang Tae-heon.”
“I’ll show you to your table.”
As she followed the hotel lounge employee, So-yul swallowed nervously.
‘I’m going to tell him that I’m not Ji Min-chae, but Ji So-yul, and ask him to marry me.’
Her heart pounded violently, and her body trembled.
She was about to take something that belonged to someone else. It was the first truly wicked thing she had ever done in her life.
‘Still… this is the only revenge I can take right now. So I have to stay calm.’
The blind date between Kang Tae-heon, the heir to DH, one of Korea’s leading conglomerates, and representative of DH Electronics, and Min-chae had happened entirely by chance.
There was a regular customer at the high-end Korean beef restaurant run by So-yul’s parents. He was a person known to have close relationships with influential figures from various fields.
Not long ago, he heard that So-yul’s parents had a daughter who had turned twenty-two that year and asked for her birth date and time.
When they told him, he was surprised, and he arranged this blind date.
Her family was thrilled by what seemed like winning the lottery, thinking, ‘What a stroke of luck!’
But So-yul intended to steal Min-chae’s marriage as revenge against her family.
How empty and furious would they feel if that happened?
Imagining it frightened her, but it also filled her with anticipation.
So-yul soon reached the table by the window.
“I hope you have a pleasant time.”
At the employee’s greeting, the man who had been looking out the window turned his head toward So-yul.
‘Ah….’
For a moment, So-yul forgot how to breathe.
Kang Tae-heon. It really was him.
Now thirty years old, he had become an even more mature and breathtakingly beautiful man than when she had last seen him three years ago.
Once again, she thought he was a perfect man. So perfect that it made her, who had nothing, feel even more insignificant.
Could she really ask a man like this to marry her?
‘Ah, no. They said it was because of my sister’s fortune. Then there’s no reason I can’t do it either. We’re twins, so our fortunes are the same.’
More importantly, if it was Kang Tae-heon, he would grant her request.
Tae-heon had been a high school friend of Young-ho, So-yul’s deceased older brother.
The family members who had sent her here as Min-chae’s stand-in without knowing this fact would definitely regret it.
“You are….”
Kang Tae-heon’s normally composed brows furrowed.
His expression looked so serious that So-yul unconsciously took a small step backward.
But it lasted only a moment. He quickly composed himself and stood up.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ji Min-chae. I’m Kang Tae-heon.”
“Ah, hello….”
“I apologize for that just now. You look like someone I know, so I thought there had been some kind of mistake.”
Someone he knew who looked like her.
He was obviously referring to her.
So-yul sat across from Tae-heon.
‘I’m the very person my brother knew.’
With her heart trembling, she was about to reveal her identity when—
“Actually, I….”
“I know. I know that you’re twins. It seems your sister is someone I know. I thought you were that person and almost left.”
So-yul’s heart sank.
…He thought she was me and almost left?
“I can never marry the person I know.”
