Snugglesnugglenuzzle. "Well then. ...vague recollection that surrogacy is hideously illegal in Korea. Is it also scandalous, or merely illegal such that if you can operate overseas there's no problem?"

"It's not any more scandalous than the homosexuality, but I'm not sure if surrogacy is what's going to be happening, here, because Kang Jaehyuk would not want his daughter-in-not-exactly-law to be someone who doesn't know how the game works."

"Huh. Why? It's not obvious to me why he'd want to - add a participant."

"If a surrogate decides to come after us for the infinite money my family has that would be a huge headache and, most importantly, terribly embarrassing. It's a tidy system when everyone knows how it works and what to expect and introducing outsiders to it upsets the tidiness. It might also be inherently embarrassing, to him, for all of the other rich old men's sons to be married to heiresses that secured alliances while his son got a surrogate to have his child overseas and is living in sin with a man."

"Hm. I think I don't like the one parent gets one kid, other parent gets other kid, system that your folks did, so while there might exist lesbian heiresses in the right class and age group it might be dicey to find one suitable for co-parenting with, that's a lot of filters."

"That is to be fair not necessary or the standard. I think Grandfather was just really paranoid. But yeah, that's why I never gave the possibility much thought, it just doesn't seem possible to satisfy Kang Jaehyuk's constraints."

"Do they have to be Korean, do they have to be themselves married, or could we be casting the net far enough for, like, Singaporean asexuals."

"I don't know. I think not being Korean could be a plus or a minus depending on where exactly they're from? Strengthening international relations is a plus and he might be willing to take a hit to the objective profitability of the arrangement if it helps secure alliances in, say, the US. But I'm just speculating, I haven't sat and had a conversation with Kang Jaehyuk in years."

"Well, I don't cultivate a network as a hobby but I have interviewed as many as several people, if that helps, albeit I don't know which large corporations have lesbian or ace heiresses."

"I imagine it'll be easier to find such in the West, so that's a solid suggestion. Perhaps Nam Hee-seo was thinking along those lines, too."

"Those people - or person, if the first candidate happens to be so great we stop looking - I need to meet."

"Of course, Haru-ya."

"Actually even though I have met you I don't have a ton of insight into your parenting philosophy besides presumably 'don't be a distant homophobic asshole'?"

"I haven't... developed one," he admits. "On account of not really thinking it was in the cards for me at all."

"Me either, I'm not so enamored of the idea of having kids that I had any intention of going out of my way to arrange it. So that's something to think about, I suppose."

"Yeah. I suppose. ...do you have any, uh, early thoughts about that?"

"I'd probably ask my parents for advice, they didn't stay together and I wouldn't go to them for relationship advice but they were both great with me. - we will need next of kin arrangements that do not ever boil down to giving your asshole dad the kid even though presumably I will not be genetically involved."

"God let's never get that man involved. I might want to look into how my mother did it, since it did seem, from those ten seconds of interacting with Dal-seo, that they actually liked each other, but... I don't expect rich traditional Korean families to be the model I most want to emulate."

"Worth knowing what they did even if only as background information and to check that your mother would be an acceptable fallback should we be eaten by dungeons, yeah."

"Regarding you not being genetically involved, though, I... might have heard..." Time to open his commscreen and see if he can find the thing he might have heard. —right, Haru's backlashed. "I might've heard of people being able to get children that are genetically related to two same-sex parents."

"Oh, I've heard of that too, but I was imagining the presence of a Singaporean asexual or something was load-bearing and I don't see one being interested in the proposition if she's functionally a surrogate."

"...ah. Right. Yeah."

"Maybe there's one with a horrifying genetic condition who'd be glad not to pass it on but that's so many filters to apply at that point."

"The spiteful part of me wants to say screw him and marry you and have a kid with you and if Kang Jaehyuk wants an heir he has the option to have one by just stopping being a raging asshole."

Haru pets him. "Well, you can present this option to your consultant who is also your mother, if you want. If the main obstacle to flipping him off is that he might have another kid have you looked into whether you can report him for child abuse in a useful fashion?"