Chapter Text
Author’s Note:
It’s love month… so of course I’m starting another story. I know, I know. I still haven’t uploaded the next chapters for some of my other fics. 🥲 I am once again a victim of new ideas and poor self-control. That said, this one wouldn’t leave me alone, so here we are. I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I’m enjoying writing it. As always... comments and thoughts are very welcome.
CHAPTER 1
STEVEN
I’m already sweating by the time I step onto the field, the sun hanging low and sharp over the grass. The ground is worn down by years of use, but is maintained just enough to stay playable. It smells like freshly cut grass and dry earth, the air warm and faintly gritty at the back of my throat.
It’s a familiar smell. Not sentimental, exactly. Just… old. Like university afternoons that stretched too long, when the only thing waiting for me afterward was cheap food and unfinished readings, not meetings or expectations.
It’s a public pitch, nothing fancy. No reporters. No cameras. Just a place where no one cares who I am, at least not in the ways that matter.
Jeongwoo’s already there, tying his cleats. Easy, relaxed, nothing like the man beside me in boardrooms for the past decade.
“You’re late,” he says without looking up.
“I’m on time,” I reply. “You’re early. There’s a difference.”
He snorts and finally looks up, grinning. Same face he’s had since university, back when he was a campus crush. All soft edges and innocent smiles. Too smart for his own good. Of course, it’s sharper now. More confident, the kind that comes from knowing exactly how much power you hold and choosing not to abuse it. Well, on most days.
He surprises people in boardrooms. Looks harmless until he isn’t. Cutthroat when he needs to be. He’s been with me for years now, through acquisitions and bad decisions and worse hangovers. My best friend. My wingman. The only person I trust not to rat me out when things go sideways.
We start warming up, passing the ball back and forth. There’s no rush, no scoreboard, no one keeping track. This is the only place where my brain shuts up. Where decisions don’t stack on top of each other, where nothing needs to be escalated or signed off. I don’t have to anticipate consequences here. I just move.
For a few minutes, we don’t talk. Just the thud of the ball against my foot, the burn in my calves, the rhythm of something uncomplicated.
Then, of course, he ruins it.
“So,” Jeongwoo says casually, sending the ball my way. “Any luck with the ad?”
I trap it, pass it back harder than necessary. “None yet.”
“None?” He raises a brow. “You’re telling me not a single person wants to marry you for money?”
“The ad doesn’t say anything about money,” I say. “And it’s only been three days.”
“That makes it worse,” he laughs. “It reads like a job posting.”
“It’s efficient.”
“It’s unhinged.”
“That’s usually the trade-off,” I mutter.
We jog, circling each other. Jeongwoo’s still smiling, but I know that look. He’s waiting for me to say more.
“You could’ve done this the old-fashioned way,” he says. “Dinner. Introductions. Let your mom set you up with one of her friends’ kids.”
I picture it instantly, polished smiles and rehearsed charm, people who already know what my last name is worth before they know anything about me. Daughters raised on entitlement and proximity to power, who’d see this less as a relationship and more as an opportunity. I don’t doubt some of them would be kind. Smart, even. But every conversation would come with expectations baked in, every gesture weighed for what it could yield.
“I would rather sell the company,” I say flatly.
He snorts. “That bad?”
“That bad.”
The truth is, this whole thing still feels unreal, like a joke that went too far.
A few months ago, my father collapsed in the middle of a board meeting. One moment, he was yelling about margins and overseas expansion. Next, he was pale, sweating, gripping the edge of the table like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
We called an ambulance. Someone cleared the room. I remember thinking how quiet it suddenly was without him filling the space.
My mother arrived at the hospital before the doctors finished stabilizing him. She didn’t cry. She just stood there, her hand on his chest, like she was reminding him to keep breathing.
He survived. Of course he did. My father has always been infuriatingly resilient. It’s never stopped me from worrying that one day it won’t be enough. And for the first time, the idea of him not being there stopped feeling theoretical.
After that, my mother stopped pretending this was sustainable. The sixty-hour work weeks, the constant stress, the idea that he’d die at his desk and call it a victory. She started talking about retirement. About travel. About rest.
About me.
The business was already mine in every way that mattered. I’d been running operations, signing off on decisions, cleaning up messes he refused to acknowledge. But the ownership, real control, came with conditions.
Marriage, apparently, was one of them.
Stability. Continuity. A successor who looked… respectable.
Jeongwoo steals the ball from me and takes a shot. It goes wide.
“You’ve never been the relationship type,” he says, retrieving it. Not accusatory. Just factual.
“I’ve dated,” I reply.
“You’ve scheduled,” he corrects.
He’s not wrong.
Dating was always complicated. Not because I didn’t know who I was, but because everyone else seemed to want me to be something—a story, an angle. I learned early on that interest was rarely uncomplicated, that people often wanted more than they were willing to say outright.
I came out to my parents as bisexual in high school, braced for impact, ready for disappointment or lectures or silence. None of it came.
My mother asked if I was safe. My father asked if I was happy. That was it.
They didn’t care whether I ended up with a man or a woman. For all their tradition and expectations tied to legacy and name, that part didn’t matter. What mattered was that I didn’t run the family business into the ground and that, someday, I built a life that didn’t look like constant exhaustion disguised as success.
So I worked. Harder than anyone else. Not to prove myself, but to make sure they never regretted trusting me.
I kick the ball back to Jeongwoo, harder this time, watching it cut cleanly across the grass.
“I’m not broken,” I say. “If that’s what you’re implying.”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “I know. You’re just… risk-averse.”
“I prefer predictable.”
He snorts, slowing to jog beside me. “You prefer familiar. Safe. Planned six months in advance.”
“Surprises are inefficient.”
“You’re talking about people,” he says. “Not logistics.”
I shrug. “Same problem.”
He studies me for a second, like he’s deciding how far to push it. We’ve been doing this long enough that I can tell when he’s about to cross from joking into something closer to the truth.
“That’s why the ad makes sense to you,” he says finally. “You don’t want to meet someone and see what happens. You want to interview them. References. Clear expectations. No chemistry you didn’t account for.”
I don’t answer right away. I take the shot instead, drive the ball toward the net, and miss by inches.
“Chemistry complicates things,” I say.
“Exactly,” he says. “And the moment things get complicated, you’re gone.”
“That’s not—”
“You don’t fight,” he continues, not unkindly. “You don’t spiral. You just… step back and decide it was never sustainable to begin with.”
I let out a breath, more annoyed than defensive. “That’s called knowing when to exit.”
“That’s called running,” he says, then adds, “Professionally executed, I’ll give you that.”
I jog past him, muttering, “Says the man who emotionally self-destructs every time it doesn’t work out.”
He laughs. “At least I try.”
“You pass out in random bars and call me at three in the morning.”
“Because you’re my best friend. And you always answer.”
“Someone has to get you home before your drunk ass ends up photographed outside some bar and we spend the next week explaining why our stock dipped over a headline you won’t even remember,” I say. “You love hard. You implode harder.”
He doesn’t bristle. Just smiles, a little crooked.
“Maybe,” he says. “But at least I don’t treat relationships like a hostile environment.”
I glance at him. There it is.
“At least I try,” he adds, quieter. “Even when I know it might wreck me.”
“And you think that’s better?” I ask.
“I think it’s living,” he says. “Messy, expensive, bad for my liver, but real.”
I look away, nudge the ball forward with my foot. “So you think I should just walk into a bar and pick someone at random?”
He scoffs. “Steven, come on. You’ve got the looks, the money, the tragic work ethic people mistake for depth. You could walk into a bar, order one drink, stand there looking vaguely uninterested, and someone would decide you’re worth marrying.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“Because it is,” he says. “But you don’t want that. You don’t want the risk of wanting someone who might want you back.”
I stop short, the ball rolling past my foot.
He doesn’t look at me when he adds, “You don’t want to get to the part where it actually costs something.”
“That’s not it,” I say immediately. Too quickly. “I just don’t want unpredictability. There’s a difference.”
He studies me for a second, then nods once. “Maybe.”
A beat.
I shake my head, bend down, pick the ball up, and tuck it under my arm. “And you wonder why I placed the ad.”
He grins, all teeth and familiarity. “No. I know exactly why you did.”
We play for another half hour, pushing harder now as our competitive instincts kick in. Jeongwoo fakes left and cuts right, and I barely manage to intercept, the ball skidding off my foot and rolling wide. He laughs, already chasing it down.
“Getting slow,” he calls.
“No, just being patient,” I shoot back, lining up a shot and sending the ball sailing just past the post. Close enough to sting.
We trade goals, and the space between us is shrinking, passes getting sharper, less forgiving. At one point, he gets past me cleanly, taps the ball into the net, and throws his hands up like he’s just won something important.
I retaliate a few minutes later, catching him off-guard and driving the ball low and hard. It hits the back of the net with a dull thud that settles something in my chest.
For a while, the world narrows to the thump of the ball and the satisfying burn in my calves. Sweat stings my eyes. My lungs protest. Nothing else matters.
After, we sit on the grass, the sun’s lower now. Golden.
Jeongwoo drops onto the grass, leaning back on his elbows. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks.
“You know,” he says, “this might actually work.”
I scoff. “You’re saying that after all the lecture?”
He shrugs. “I’m saying it because of everything we just talked about.”
“Someone marrying me because they answered a classified ad?”
“Someone marrying you because you made it impossible to misunderstand you,” he says. “No romance. No surprises.”
I shake my head.
“I’m just saying.” He finally looks over at me then. “For someone like you, that might be the only way in.”
We part ways shortly after. He heads out to meet someone because he actually has a life outside spreadsheets. I drive home alone, windows down, letting the evening air cool my skin.
The house is quiet when I arrive. I toss my keys onto the counter, strip off my shoes, and head straight for the shower. It’s only after, hair still damp, phone buzzing on the coffee table, that I see it.
One new message. Unknown number.
My chest thumps, just slightly, as I open it.
Regarding your ad. Is it still open?
I stare at the screen longer than I should.
Just one line. Polite. Neutral.
I type back before I can overthink it.
Yes. It is.
I set the phone down, suddenly very aware of how quiet the house is again.
Somewhere out there, someone read my ad and decided to answer. And for the first time since this whole ridiculous situation began, I feel the unsettling sense that things are about to get complicated.