"The wonders of modern technology. I think it's unpopular in Korea for men because of the legislation around surrogacy."

"As of recently it is possible for two men to be the biological parents of a child, assuming they have a surrogate to carry it to term."

"...huh."

("That was more surprise than I was expecting from her.")

"So you could have a child that would be entirely yours, genetically and legally, assuming surrogacy is taken care of?"

"That's the idea, yes. I have citizenship in both of Canada and Japan, if that helps - you probably knew that but the Canadian identity is not officially supposed to be derivable from public information."

"I would recommend becoming quite attached to the idea and unwilling to bend on it, Suwan Masaharu-shi."

"...Nam Hee-seo-nim, ah, that—surprises me."

"Kang Jaeha-shi, finding an alliance that would be willing to buy into this—I confess to having expressed more confidence than I actually felt. And Kang Jaehyuk is just as aware as I am of how difficult it would be. The possibility of not only having one heir, but multiple—which, correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but I would expect the two of you to be a lot more willing to have multiple children if they would be yours and only yours than if you had to enmesh yourselves in other families like ours—that would be very attractive to him."

"You're not wrong. When I was imagining finding a third party parent I was imagining someone in a like situation to ours - a lesbian, or an asexual, or just a really commitedly single woman - not someone whose default trajectory would be to do the standard heir production process bribed elsewise with coparenting her way into the group. But I agree it'd be a very narrow target, and if presenting as really attached to having our own kids together will sell, can do."

"Kang Jaehyuk will push for Kang Jaeha-shi to find a proper wife, maybe keeping you as a, ah..."

("...mistress.")

"Unacceptable."

"Yes, so I presumed, and given that hard condition you having a husband and legitimate children within your family unit might be a very appealing choice indeed."

"Yeah, we'd walk first. Should we be considering presenting a marriage as a fait accompli, or are we on too tight a timeline?"

"We are not on a tight timeline at all as far as I know. I don't expect Kang Jaehyuk to have reason to suspect anything's changed anytime soon. He might be somewhat more... nervous... due to how public the two of you have been, but Kang Jaeha-shi has not gone through any pains to hide his sexuality in public since becoming a world-famous esper."

"And if there's sufficient wiggle room to allow it would it serve, strategically speaking?"

"I don't have an answer I am certain of right now." She leans back again, tea still in hand, and sips from it thoughtfully. "There are... some ways we could present the two of you getting married—or getting married faster than you otherwise would—as a concession for him."

"In a way where this involves accepting his input on anything about it or inviting him to the ceremony, or not that?"

"Oh, goodness, you should definitely invite him and he will most certainly not come nor ever want to think about it. He will send you an unnecessarily extravagant present, to be sure."

("I would pay the price of a small yacht to see that old hack's face when he receives an invitation to his son's gay wedding.")

"Oh but we would so love to have dear Father at the event."

("He might finally die of that aneurysm he's had coming for the past ten years.")

"If you say so. Now I'm trying to imagine introducing him to Charlie."

She finishes her tea and puts it down. "In more practical matters, I would hear how much you value different possible elements of the arrangement and how much you'd be willing to give up.

"His greatest desire would be for Kang Jaeha-shi to marry an heiress and extract an alliance from the marriage; give him, at a guess, three grandchildren; then have Kang Jaeha-shi turn out to be a brilliant manager who will bring growth and stability to his companies. Having more heirs necessarily means a dilution in the power of each individual heir, which is where their own matches would come into play, so he would want to make decisions about their upbringing, tutoring, schooling, and career focus, to eventually culminate in their arranged alliances with other companies."

Jaeha purses his lips. 

("I would rather cut my hands off than give Kang Jaehyuk any sort of control over our children.")

She gives him a small apologetic shrug. 

("You knew this going in.")

(At some point Dal-seo got her own notebook out and she's been watching the conversation avidly, trying to keep a poker face and not entirely succeeding. The subtitles associated with her mostly suggest that Jaeha thinks she feels like this meeting isn't like other business meetings she's been in and she's confused about several aspects of the etiquette.)