Chapter 3.2

Wasn’t he angry? To say such things even after hearing her call him a beast, she was starting to feel slightly afraid. The most frightening part of her husband’s words was “from now on.”

“That won’t happen.”

“Go Ah-jin.”

“It’s not just something I blurted out. It was something I really thought about and thought about again.”

She poured it out rapidly without even breathing. Because that was nothing other than her true feelings.

If it were up to her heart, she wanted to separate from her husband as quickly as possible. Just like how they had hurriedly held their wedding ceremony as if something had gone bad.

However, she should give her husband time to prepare as well.

Her husband was a proud man. He believed their marriage had come about solely by his own choice. She had never thought of it as her choice.

Having thought so thoroughly centered on her husband, he probably had such conversations with Madam Shin too.

It was during the New Year holiday break at the beginning of this year.

From the entrance, Madam Shin barely acknowledged her greeting. It was when she stood in front of Madam Shin’s room door, holding a fruit plate that the housekeeper had brought, telling her to score some points after the meal.

“She was far from my taste. That’s why I chose my current wife.”

“Jin-wook, you. What kind of ridiculous talk is that?”

“As a wife, she probably wouldn’t expect love from me.”

After hearing those words, somehow, she couldn’t muster the courage to open the door and enter. She had thought the mother and son didn’t resemble each other.

However, the fact that they knew how to crush a person’s spirit and strangle their breath with just a few words made her realize why the two were mother and son.

She had experienced subtle convulsions at the words she heard through his mouth. She had to escape to the bathroom as if running away to catch her breath. The devastation at that time was indescribable.

She had always resolved not to live like her mother. It was foolish to have her body and heart completely taken by one man and only long for a man who couldn’t come to watch her final breath.

Her mother’s end, having lived considering another person as her entire life, was quite pathetic. Unable to bear her mother’s urging, she kept calling her father, but her father, who was on an overseas business trip, couldn’t come immediately.

That version of herself, when her heart collapsed at her husband’s words, realized she was living a life no different from her mother’s.

That seemed to be the first time she thought about divorce. More precisely, that she should leave her husband. As far away as possible. That was the only way she could live as herself.

If it wasn’t simple change of heart, what could she explain to her husband?

‘I realized that I love you much more than I thought.’

There was no way she could make her husband understand with just such words.

Though the urge to say such things arose from time to time, each time she barely suppressed it by anticipating her husband’s reaction.

If she were to directly see her husband’s face looking at her as if he couldn’t understand her, her heart would be torn to shreds. That would be nothing different from self-t*rture.

“You said I was the most selfish during s*x. And yet you.”

“……”

“Suddenly asking me for divorce—is that not selfish?”

“That’s…”

She bit her lower lip. She had intended to give her husband time as well, but that was only if he had that much attachment, wasn’t it? She wondered if her husband really needed time to prepare his heart.

“If you tell me to do it, must I accept it unconditionally? Where did that confidence come from?”

That’s why her husband’s reproachful tone sounded meaningful to her. It was quite an ironic question for her, who was trying to run away because she lacked confidence.

“I know you’re busy. I’m not asking you to do it right away.”

“I’ll tell you one thing for certain, Go Ah-jin.”

Her husband’s chair was pushed back, making a scraping sound against the floor. It wasn’t a clean movement but was uncharacteristically slow and sluggish for her husband.

“I will never be the one to stamp my seal on divorce papers.”

Her husband walked slowly toward her face. With his long legs and large stride, it was instantaneous.

His large palms, big enough to cover her face and more, came to rest on both her shoulders. Even though her husband hadn’t applied force, it somehow felt tremendously intimidating.

“Your mother would allow it.”

They say a cornered mouse bites the cat.

In the end, she brought up Madam Shin. She was saying this because she knew her husband generally followed his mother’s wishes.

Madam Shin had been bringing up divorce for several months now, so if she went and said she would do so, she would be someone who would recommend it to her son as well. In the end, Madam Shin would achieve her goal.

“You seem to have forgotten that your husband is me.”

“I’ll go see your mother today and tell her.”

“Do as you please.”

“Why are you really acting like this?”

“You’re asking why I’m acting like this?”

Her husband’s voice grew louder. Even when he spoke without any inflection as usual, he had enough charisma, but when he raised the volume, it resonated throughout the kitchen.

“Because until the day you die! Your husband must be me, and me alone.”

When he said those words, her husband looked a little confused. Of course, it wouldn’t have been as much as she was, hearing those words. Then he turned around, saying they would continue the conversation in the evening.

“Don’t sleep. Wait for me until I come back.”

She had forgotten. This must be how her husband was going to collect the price for the honey water he had made for her. Somehow it had been too sweet and delicious. They say the sweeter something tastes, the more poisonous it is, and that was exactly the current situation.

Her husband, having finished preparing for work, was defiantly wearing the coat she had worn to the street food stall.

Seeing the back view all wrinkled made her feel somewhat relieved, but it still couldn’t ruin her husband’s handsomeness.

Before going to the entrance, she heard the sound of sliding doors opening and closing. She didn’t get up from the dining table.

‘I don’t want to. I won’t wait for you anymore.’

For the first time after marriage, she didn’t want to see her husband off.

More precisely, she didn’t want to say “have a good day” to her husband. She wanted to stop waiting for her husband.

Today she had habitually opened her eyes at her husband’s departure time, but she could gradually fix that. If she lived alone, she could comfortably sleep in late, which wouldn’t be bad either.

Her husband’s words telling her to wait kept echoing in her mind. What she had expected yesterday had turned completely upside down.

Going to the street food stall yesterday wasn’t a simple impulse. She had gone with Eun-hee while hoping it would appear to her husband as a thoughtless action.

Because Eun-hee wouldn’t just leave her drunk and go.

She would somehow take her home, and she thought that if she showed such an ugly appearance to her husband when he returned from work, he would divorce her without a word.

Since there was no affection to begin with, wouldn’t he let her go if he found her disgusting? The fact that she had acted as if she couldn’t drink alcohol would probably feel like she had lied.

But she couldn’t understand why her husband wasn’t angry and was acting as if he was obsessed with her.

‘I must have thought something wrong.’

Her head seemed to have been affected by just one cup of honey water. Obsession. It was a word that didn’t suit her husband at all.

Since they were going to divorce anyway, what would it matter if she earned a bit more of his dislike?

In any case, she had to try to get used to life without her husband. Living alone meant no more farewells, no one left to see off.

***

She ate some of the side dishes and rice that the housekeeper had prepared yesterday before leaving, then prepared to go out.

The woman in the mirror looked different. Just by changing her clothes and hairstyle, she seemed almost like a stranger, even to herself.

It wasn’t the two-piece suit she always wore when going to Cheongdam-dong where Madam Shin was.

Though she was actually four years younger than her husband, Madam Shin had said that looking too young wasn’t good. Though she didn’t point it out directly, she had given her enough humiliation to become a laughingstock in front of the other two daughters-in-law.

From then on, she registered at a shop that Madam Shin frequented. The place, which operated like a salon, always provided full styling including clothes and makeup whenever she went. Regardless of her own taste, they styled her according to Madam Shin’s taste, which was convenient in that one aspect.

They were things that wouldn’t feel out of place even if she attended some gathering or event right away. They were what people called the “Cheongdam-dong daughter-in-law look”: restrained, yet unmistakably luxury.