“I had work before we got married. Stage design, for plays and musicals.”

“You did that kind of work?”

His surprise made his voice rise. She actually worked? Watching Kangwook’s reaction, Yunjoo grew a little more careful.

“Yes, even my family doesn’t know. They think I just draw for fun.”

She still didn’t want her family to find out, or more precisely, her father.

“But now you’re going to do it openly, and with your head held high.”

“Yes. I sacrificed myself for the family, so now I’m going to live doing what I want.”

Yunjoo had called their marriage a sacrifice. Hearing her say that stung him in a way he couldn’t quite name. He had entered this marriage under circumstances not so different from hers, and yet hearing her put it that way was something he didn’t want to hear.

“Is this who you really are? Do you realize you’re talking back without giving an inch?”

“I endured it to the point of death. That was the only way I could get a divorce and leave this house.”

“So that’s why you put up with it?”

His usual composed image was nowhere to be found. Yunjoo sat there just as she had woken up, tearing off pieces of toast, eyes wide open, talking back without flinching. Kangwook stared at her with a stunned expression, unable to do anything else. And what was she wearing? Tight pants and a shapeless, sack-like T-shirt. He had no idea when she had gotten clothes like that. He had never once seen her wear them. Unbelievable.

He found himself wondering if this woman was really the same Cha Yunjoo he had known all this time. She had hidden this side of herself and lived three years of perfect performance. Even after he got to work, Kangwook kept thinking about how Yunjoo had acted. She said she was going to get a job, and he didn’t think he could simply tell her not to. This changed woman didn’t seem like she would listen to a word he said.

Once she got a job and started going out, articles would pop up everywhere in no time. Even if they were going through with the divorce, he didn’t want people talking.

He figured he should look into the cultural business side of the foundation, place Yunjoo there for the time being, and think things over from there. If he let her go off on her own, there was no telling where she might end up.

The more he thought about it, the more absurd it felt. Juon’s cultural business holdings included a theater company, a film studio, and several performance production companies, so he thought he could send Yunjoo to one of them. Needing to move quickly, Kangwook called the foundation chairman himself, wrapped up the conversation over the phone, and then called Yunjoo into the office.

“I’m here.”

She knocked and walked in, and Kangwook’s eyes went wide, his mouth falling open before he could get a proper word out.

“Oh…!”

He had been staring at Yunjoo, who had arrived much earlier than he expected, when his eyes stopped cold. The woman standing before him wore the kind of outfit you’d see on someone wandering the streets, and the sight left him speechless.

“What are you wearing?”

“What’s wrong with it? I’m not dressing like your wife anymore. This is me.”

It was clothing she had snuck on every now and then even back at her parents’ house. She could only get away with wearing things like this after her father and brothers had all left for work. Whenever that happened, her mother would hide a large cover-up in the corner of the garden for her to throw on when she came back inside. That was all her mother could do for her in that house. Even seeing the worry on her mother’s face back then, she never quite understood why she wanted so badly to dress this way.

She wasn’t entirely unbothered by the outfit as she left the house. This was a workplace, and people here knew exactly who she was. Showing up dressed like this wasn’t something she should do, but she wanted to show her will, even in this small way. So she hesitated, and then wore it anyway. Of course, she had smiled sheepishly when she caught the looks from the people in the secretarial office on her way in, and it had stayed on her mind.

She had wanted to part on good terms, but she wasn’t sure that was going to work out. Neither her family nor his was the kind to take things lightly, and both sides would find it hard to accept their divorce.

Short hot pants and a T-shirt that showed just a sliver of her stomach. Yunjoo’s figure was fully on display, and Kangwook’s shock was beyond words.

‘She walks around in something like that?’

The lines that her clothes at home had always hidden now showed clearly, and he stared blankly at a woman who looked nothing like the one he was used to seeing. It was the first time he had ever really looked at Yunjoo. In three years of living together, he had never examined her this closely. A small, pale face, a sharp nose, red lips, and a slender frame. Who exactly had he been living with all this time?

When she attended gatherings, she wore impeccable formal attire. When she visited his family home, she dressed in a way that gave no one anything to talk about. He couldn’t wrap his head around how a woman like that had changed so completely overnight.

Kangwook sat there in a daze for a long moment before Yunjoo’s voice snapped him back.

“What are you doing? You called me here, so say something. I’m busy.”

“What’s keeping you so busy?”

“I have to go submit my resume.”

“Looking like that?”

“It’s not an interview, so it’s fine.”

Yunjoo pushed her hair back under Kangwook’s gaze as he stared at what she was wearing.

“Submit that resume to our group.”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t want to be near you.”

“If you dislike me that much, how did you manage to live under the same roof?”

“You’re the one who made me this way.”

“Me? This is my fault.”

“Of course. You didn’t even show me basic courtesy while I was living as your shadow.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You came home smelling of other women, and there were times women showed up at the door. And the looks those women gave me at every party told me exactly where I stood. You didn’t think I’d know, did you? You must think I’m a complete fool.”

It felt to Kangwook like someone had hauled off and hit him hard over the head. She had known everything and smiled quietly through it all. But the part about a woman showing up at the house was something he was hearing for the first time, and he had never given anyone his address or left any opening for someone to feel free to show up at his home.

“Who was she, the woman who came? I never told anyone they could come to my house and do as they pleased, and I never gave anyone that kind of standing.”

“You really don’t know?”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

“Song Rahee, the actress. The one the articles linked you to.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“There was no reason to. I was a contracted employee. You were the one who said I had no authority beyond that.”

“Huh…”

Yunjoo’s brief, clipped explanation drew a clear line between herself and him. He had thought that because they were married and she had no real complaints about her daily life, she was getting along well enough with things as they were. He hadn’t expected her to have been living with such thorough planning and preparation all along.

“Shouldn’t I be the one sighing?”

In the first stretch after the wedding, he had gone on living the way he had as a single man. Seeing women, sleeping with them when the mood was right. But it never went beyond something casual. That was how he lived. He didn’t want to be tied down by a marriage he hadn’t wanted.

At some point, though, going home started to feel comfortable. Late into the night, at drinking gatherings that stretched on and on, whenever he reached for a woman, Yunjoo’s clear, untroubled face would surface in his mind and kill the urge entirely. The guilt had begun when he started to see how flawlessly she handled everything in that space they shared.

She greeted him when he came in but never asked questions, and when it grew late she retreated to her own room and didn’t come out. He liked that. Yunjoo had lived so quietly, like a shadow, that the idea of sharing a space with someone never felt bothersome or uncomfortable.

He couldn’t say it was for Yunjoo’s sake, but little by little, out of something like courtesy toward the person sharing his space, he had tried to be more careful. And yet hearing now that she had already known everything left him without a word to say, while at the same time making him curious about what had been going on inside a woman who had never once let it show. Just who was this woman? He was starting to wonder about the true nature of Cha Yunjoo.

“Team Leader Moon! Come in for a moment.”

— Yes, sir.

“We’re changing the company’s model.”

The words landed without any explanation, and Team Leader Moon looked at Kangwook. There had to be a reason to make a change like that.

“Sir, we still have time left on the contract. Do you have someone specific in mind?”