Chapter 4.3

“Please leave.”

As soon as they arrived at the underground parking garage, he got off the elevator. He walked straight to where his car was parked.

In his head, he was already calculating that it would take longer to reach Mia Intersection due to rush hour traffic.

“Jin-wook! This is something I’m saying for your sake, but how about having a child? With Ah-jin’s personality, she probably has nowhere to go, but if she left to that extent, how disappointed she must have been. That’s why I told you to have a child long ago.”

Even after he got in the driver’s seat, Madam Shin didn’t leave. When she shouted against the window, he rolled it down and responded. Now it seemed like something worth listening to.

“And would that make a difference?”

Madam Shin nodded as if she had been waiting for this.

“Of course it would. If there’s even a child, that Ah-jin girl won’t go anywhere. With her personality, she’ll devote everything to just one child.”

“I’ll keep those words in mind.”

He thought it wasn’t wrong. If it were his wife, perhaps if there had been even one child, she wouldn’t have brought up divorce. She was a woman who could have lived just looking at that child.

But that was a problem in its own way.

Simply having his wife stay at home wasn’t what he wanted. If that were the case, he would have just placed a doll there instead of bothering to get married.

The only place where she expressed emotions and feelings was in bed. That’s why he had no choice but to push her like that.

She had complained as if blaming him, but she hadn’t realized the real cause lay with herself.

‘A child.’

Until now, it had been a relationship solely aimed at seeing his wife’s reactions. As he started the engine, gauging whether to give it more meaning, he said lastly,

“From now on, don’t contact Ah-jin personally. If you want to know anything about me, go through my secretary.”

After saying only what he needed to say and rolling up the window, he couldn’t hear what Madam Shin was saying. Madam Shin’s feelings had long since left his consideration.

***

“This woman, really…!”

It was right after receiving a text that his wife’s location, which should have been near Mia Intersection, had changed again while the traffic light was red. He immediately called his wife.

“It’s me. Where are you now?”

He had planned to contact her when he got there. Since it was winter, the sun had set early. He was going to tell her not to think about going out anywhere and to stay put there obediently.

– I came to my father’s house.

But his wife was in a completely unexpected place. If it was her father-in-law’s house, that would be in the Samcheong-dong area.

“Why did you go there alone?”

– The family said we should have dinner together.

His wife’s voice was quite calm, not knowing that others were burning with anxiety.

He was about to question where her family was, but he let out a quiet sigh. If he said such things, his wife might go into hiding again.

“Wait there.”

– Are you coming here?

“Is there a reason I can’t go?”

At his wife’s puzzled reaction, he wrinkled his nose.

Unless it was something special, he hadn’t accompanied his wife. Special occasions meant family events, and even then, he would skip them if work was busy.

Each time, his wife would say she would go alone, as if she hadn’t expected much anyway.

If he went today, it would be after quite a long time, but what of it.

He expected his father-in-law’s surprised face, but he didn’t care. If his wife was there, he was determined to go directly and bring her out, wherever that might be.

– Um, today there are many people, so there’s no seat at the dining table and it’s too chaotic… couldn’t you just not come?

Her rambling way of speaking, unlike his wife, only fueled the fire more. Why didn’t she know that when told not to come at all, it only made him want to go more?

“I told you to wait there.”

He hurriedly hung up the phone, using the changing traffic light as an excuse. Now he couldn’t even tolerate words that rejected him.

He now understood that the past three years had been a time of patience and endurance for his wife. She had endured quite a lot. Just like the woman he had chosen. That’s why he couldn’t tolerate his wife’s change of heart even more.

When had his wife’s patience been broken?

Was it then? He recalled that Lunar New Year when he had briefly gone to see his mother in her room after dinner.

“Just a thought, but… have you considered divorce?”

“That sounds out of the blue.”

“Just think about it. You two didn’t marry for love. You have no child, and it wouldn’t be strange if you split up anytime. Don’t you agree?”

“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.”

“What?”

“And besides, I do love her—in my own way.”

“……”

“Even if it’s not passionate, I like it that way. I’m satisfied.”

At his words about loving his wife, Madam Shin completely shut her mouth.

Her expression then was one of incomprehension, as if she couldn’t understand her son at all even though he was her child.

He didn’t explain further either. From his perspective, it was sufficient expression.

In three years, his position had risen, but that had only made it more solid. There was still a long way to go.

But just because he had tasted success a few times didn’t mean that could be grounds for divorce from his wife.

Rather, his wife needed to be by his side even more in the future. Even if it was just being there, that’s how it should be.

It might have been a married life that didn’t look passionate or ideal to others, but he had been satisfied with his wife. That was a value that couldn’t be converted into money.

If his wife had married him attracted to his background, it would have been easy to resolve. However, she was a wife who barely used the card he gave her after marriage.

On that holiday, when he came out of the room, the housekeeper there said his wife had definitely come to the door. He heard that his wife had run to the bathroom with a pale face.

She must have heard from the middle or around the end of the conversation, but she didn’t ask him about that day. If his wife had asked, he would have answered sufficiently.

If it wasn’t about that day, he really couldn’t think of any other incident that would have disappointed his wife.

But his wife didn’t ask even after that day. Probably because she had reached her own conclusion.

As if she had no expectations of him from the beginning.

“Go Ajin. Truly, you….”

Following Jeongneung-ro and turning left toward Bukaksan-gil, it was when he entered toward Samcheong Tunnel.

The tunnel wasn’t very long. Perhaps it was because it wasn’t a familiar road and the day was dark.

Suddenly, a corner of his chest felt blocked. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Ha…”

As something that had never happened before occurred, his body naturally bent forward. His neck stiffened and he even felt a headache. He barely endured the sudden surge of pain and took deep breaths.

A moment later, when he exited the tunnel, he felt fine as if nothing had happened. However, the cold sweat on his forehead made him look back on what had just occurred.

It was momentary, but it felt like he had become lost. He couldn’t believe that he, a perfectly healthy adult, would feel such fear and anxiety.

It was his wife who had left home, who had said she would leave him. He couldn’t understand why he, the one left behind, felt like he was lost and wandering.

Then it struck him. The reason she had gone to her father’s house.

Of course. She must have gone to speak of divorce to her father as well.

‘Fine. Let’s go. Let’s see how far this will go.’

He accepted, at last, just how great an influence she had been. He decided to acknowledge the weight of her presence.

Since she had pushed him to the edge of a cliff like this, it was his turn to counterattack.

For the first time, this winter felt cold. He was someone who usually drove around without turning on the heater, but today he truly felt the sub-zero temperature.

There was a time when his wife had told him to at least wear an outer coat even if he wasn’t cold, seeing him carelessly going around because he wasn’t sensitive to cold.

He had just brushed it off then, but now he wanted to hear that voice too. At some point, he missed what he had thought were interference and nagging from his wife, which even she had given up on.

Even he hadn’t known it would come to this.

His pure white breath swept across the car window and suddenly disappeared.