“These are divorce papers.”

“What?”

“My contract with you is over.”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m saying we should each go our own way. There’s nothing surprising about it, so why the shock.”

“So the contract is over, and that means…… it’s done.”

“This was the contract you handed me when we got married, wasn’t it?”

Three years ago…… It had been a marriage arranged by family politics, decided after just two meetings. Yunjoo was twenty-six at the time. Suppressed by her family, born a daughter, she was expected to marry into a household that would benefit them. She had been dragged to that meeting without a word of protest, and that was where she met Choi Kangwook. He was thirty-three and the man who would one day inherit the Juon Group.

Yunjoo sat under the cold weight of his gaze. The man she saw was handsome, wore a suit with striking ease, and stirred something faint in her chest. But the moment he opened his mouth, the chill in his words and the contempt behind his eyes sent her plummeting.

Cha Yunjoo. A woman from a family worthy of the Juon Group. The youngest daughter of the country’s most prestigious legal family, sitting there with an innocent-looking face and wide dark eyes, the very picture of a woman who knew nothing.

She’s probably sitting here with that sickening look on her face because she wants all the perks and vanity that come with marrying me. This whole thing irritated him, and having to sit across from such a pathetic woman was enough to drive him mad. Though, he had to admit, her face was at least something to look at. Her head was probably empty, but still.

“Ms. Cha Yunjoo, we’re going to have to get married one way or another, so let’s just do it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You knew what this was before you came. The surprised act is pretty convincing.”

“What did you just say?”

“Is there any reason to keep meeting? Two times is enough. I’m busy and I don’t want to deal with this.”

“But…….”

“A simple wedding, done as quickly as possible, and then we live without getting in each other’s way. Is that so hard to understand?”

And so, after two meetings, they held a wedding. The contract came into play during the honeymoon. Yunjoo spent the entire trip on her own. The man she called her husband buried himself in work and never left the room. But that suited her fine. Having him out of the way meant she could move freely, and that brought her a quiet sense of relief.

It was only on the last day of the honeymoon that they finally sat across from each other for the first time, and the first thing he said was that they should draw up a contract. He wanted to avoid the complications that marriage would inevitably bring.

[1. Neither party shall interfere in the other’s affairs.]

[2. Each party shall fulfill their respective role thoroughly until the contract ends. (Sharing a bedroom is excluded.)]

[3. There must be no scandals of any kind. (Applicable to Cha Yunjoo only.)]

B*stard. She said it to herself. She had no intention of causing a scandal anyway, but the fact that he nailed it down as applying only to her was infuriating.

[4. Neither party shall intrude upon the other’s personal space.]

Not bad. She especially liked clauses two and four. Yunjoo quietly accepted his terms.

If she upheld all of the above, he promised that when they parted ways three years later, he would provide fair compensation along with a generous settlement, and transfer the villa they lived in into her name.

Faced with his overbearing tone and the look in his eyes that told her she had no say in the matter, she signed on the spot. When they returned, she received a notarized copy of the document. To Yunjoo, marriage was a job. And at this job she had entered fully trained, she performed without a single gap.

The man had lived abroad for years and ate bread in the mornings, always freshly toasted. His coffee had to be freshly brewed or he wouldn’t touch it. Yunjoo was perfect in all of it. She moved like a machine, precise and without a single misstep.

She had grown up watching her mother. Her mother lived like a shadow behind her authoritarian father, always moving quietly, never doing anything to fall out of his favor. Yunjoo had grown up watching that, and she replicated it perfectly. It was just a job, after all. Work hard, then resign. That was all.

The man had no grounds for complaint. She made his life familiar and comfortable. Yunjoo performed flawlessly not just as his wife at home, but as the hostess at parties and as a daughter-in-law to his family. Even when he occasionally came home carrying the scent of another woman, she pretended not to notice, wearing the face and smile of a perfect wife.

She could endure it because she had hope. The hope that she would one day walk out. He was not her husband. He was a superior at a job. And when the three-year term ended, she would be free. Life at her family home hadn’t been all that different anyway.

At her parents’ house, her father’s word was law, and her mother barely breathed beneath his shadow. In that household, a daughter was nothing more than a piece to be married off wherever it benefited the family. Raised in a rigidly male-centered home, Yunjoo had always come across as a submissive woman.

In the man’s eyes, she was the picture of perfection: silent, and precise in everything she did.

Choi Kangwook.

The word divorce brought him back to himself. He had forgotten even the three-year contract. He had grown too comfortable, too settled into the quiet, frictionless life he had now. He had assumed the woman was satisfied with this arrangement, and had gradually felt relieved by that. And then she pulled out that contract on the final day of three years, and the blow landed like something striking him hard across the head.

Why had he stopped thinking she would leave? When had that happened? The woman who had performed so flawlessly that even the word divorce and the contract itself had slipped from his mind had caught him completely off guard. Of course he was startled. She had structured her entire life around his schedule, his time. He had come to take all of it for granted.

“Starting tomorrow morning, I’m no longer Choi Kangwook’s wife.”

“You haven’t stamped the papers yet.”

“That doesn’t matter. Were you thinking of me when you shoved that contract in my face on our honeymoon? And that contract was nothing but your terms for marriage. There wasn’t a single word of mine in it. I know I was never a real person to you. That’s who you were, Choi Kangwook. From now on, I live as myself. Choi Kangwook’s wife ended with our contract.”

She felt a weight lift from her chest. She had suppressed everything and pushed through to reach this day. She had given her best so she would never have to hear a word of displeasure or reproach from him, and now that was over. She hadn’t lived that way for her family’s sake.

She had done it for herself. It had been the process of waiting for the gift of time that was about to unfold before her. The best reward she could claim in exchange for three years. Marriage was something that had to end with someone. Holding out without marrying was simply not an option, so the contract Kangwook had proposed had been nothing but welcome.

* * *

Kangwook finished getting ready for work, stepped out of his room, and thought about Yunjoo from the night before. Her words still hadn’t fully sunk in. He came out of the room and headed toward the dining table out of habit.

“Where’s breakfast?”

“Fix it yourself.”

“What?”

“I already ate. There’s store-bought bread over there. If you want some, sit down and have it.”

“Have you ever seen me eat that?”

“No. But you’re going to have to now.”

Kangwook stared at her with an expression that held a great deal. Disbelief. Incredulity. Bewilderment. Not one of them was missing. The woman kept her eyes down and muttered without so much as glancing at him.

“I don’t eat that.”

“Then go hungry. People live according to their circumstances.”

“Cha Yunjoo!”

“Choi Kangwook, we’re getting divorced. Or we might as well have already. I made it clear last night that the contract no longer holds, that Cha Yunjoo, your wife, no longer exists. Breakfast and dinner are both gone. Eat what I eat, or eat before you come home.”

It had been Yunjoo who said she wanted to live without hired help. But Kangwook had welcomed it too. They both agreed they didn’t want anyone finding out they slept in separate rooms.

“Is that so? Then what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get a job. I’ve already put together my profile.”

“Doing what? Is there anything you actually know how to do?”

He had never heard of her working before the marriage, and after it she had lived even further removed from anything resembling employment. He couldn’t help but be surprised to hear her talk about getting a job.