Contemporary · Completed

Conservator Yoon Yeoul discovers that eleven of the twelve pieces in her mother Yoon Sea's series "Windows of the Twelve Months" are sleeping in the Yeondam Art Museum storage vault, listed under "donation." The deed of donation bears no signature from her mother, yet every line is stamped with a "donation" seal. The twelfth piece, the December painting, is missing.

Chairman Ji Manho offers her a deal: a two-year contract marriage to his grandson, Ji Gangwoo, in exchange for viewing access to the eleven paintings and a search for the December painting. "Two years of restoration, two years of marriage." Yeoul sets her own conditions: viewing the originals in person, examining the original intake documents, sole authority over restoration, and taking nothing in a divorce.

On the night a water leak hits the storage vault, she and Gangwoo kneel side by side, draining water from behind a painting's backing board. Afterward, the contract is revised: they will hold hands only, and only by mutual consent. At the family dinner, the chairman gives a strange order: watch who smiles and who doesn't. And Managing Director Seunghyun's office asks about the termination clause before the ink on the contract has even dried. Why?

Spotting a forged painting takes a conservator's eye, a microscope, and three pieces of evidence. The forged deed of donation yields to document science. The missing December painting may be traced through the record of the night of her mother's fire. And then there is the fountain-pen note on the back of the contract: "When Sea's daughter comes, show her the documents before the paintings." Facing the truth that note points to, a two-year contract meant to end with a divorce seal becomes a story of two people holding hands instead.