The Tyrant Husband - Chapter 1.2

Chapter 1.2

She should’ve responded to that joke with a suitably relaxed smile, but she couldn’t manage it.

The banana milk, flattened like a sheet of paper in his hand, was suddenly tossed into the night sky. His playful gesture made it seem as if he were throwing a paper airplane.

The banana milk soared in an arc and landed neatly in the trash can in the empty lot with a loud clatter that echoed unusually in the stillness.

Without realizing it, Eun-sol turned her gaze toward the night sky.

He hated it when people avoided his gaze.  

But if she were to meet his eyes now, he would surely notice the anxious trembling in hers.  

Either way, she would be under suspicion. In that case, she wanted to avoid those eyes that so effortlessly intimidated her.  

“…It’s not that. Earlier, I heard from a police officer that there’s a drunk fisherman wandering around here with a knife….”  

She thought it was a plausible excuse, but he didn’t respond.  

‘Does he think it’s a ridiculous story?’  

His gaze was simply steady, scrutinizing her. The dark, oppressive silence he created felt as though it would drown her.  

“It’s true. Police officers were just at the convenience store. That’s why I was so startled.”  

The more she added, the more pathetic she felt.  

“Alright. That could happen. Still, I feel hurt.”  

He closed the distance between them in an instant. His swift movement left no room for her to flinch.  

Before she knew it, his slightly oily fingers brushed against her ear, tucking her loose brown hair behind it.

Gasp! It felt like a jolt of electricity shot through her, a sharp spark racing down her spine.

“Sol-ah, at the very least, you should at least be able to tell the difference between a drunken lunatic and your husband.”  

His words hit the mark. A reproachful remark asking how long she intended to treat him as a brute.  

Eun-sol clutched the snacks and beer she was holding even tighter to her chest.  

“Even in the darkest of nights, I can recognize you. Your scent, your breathing, even the sound of your footsteps—I know them all.”  

He whispered gently. Perhaps it was the ultimate expression of love, but those words gripped her heart tightly.  

“Well, you’ve lost all your memories. That’s probably why, right? You loved me so much, too.”  

Normally, she would have nodded along to such words, but this time, she couldn’t.  

She didn’t believe him.  

No matter how much she had lost her memories, would she really be this wary of the man she loved? Would she feel this unfamiliar and afraid of her husband?  

“But our Sol-ah, did you really want beer this late at night? Still, I told you it’s dangerous to ride a bike at night. Especially with your leg not fully healed yet.”  

His tone was as if he were scolding and comforting a child at the same time.  

Eun-sol hated that tone. It felt like a hypnotic spell that rendered her powerless.  

Or perhaps it was a brutal reminder of her current state—how she couldn’t do anything without him.  

Her health had only recently recovered after the car accident.  

With her memory loss, the only things she knew about herself were her name and age.  

Her only family was this man, who claimed to be her husband. Even if she wanted to leave him, she had no idea where she could go.  

Knowing nothing about herself made her feel like a three-year-old child.  

And so, she was plagued by an immense contradiction. The man in front of her was someone she absolutely needed to be wary of, yet he was also the only person she could rely on financially and circumstantially.  

“…I suddenly had a craving for cold beer, so I came out. I couldn’t sleep either….”  

Eun-sol deliberately rustled the snack bag as she answered.  

“I thought I’d stay up all night watching movies with beer and snacks. When I looked at home, all I found were fancy cookies and wine.”  

“You should’ve woken me up. I could’ve bought it for you, or we could’ve gone together.”  

Was he genuinely believing my words without suspicion? 

She tried to sharpen her senses, but it was no use. As always, he was a man whose true feelings were impossible to read.  

“How could I ask you to run an errand for snacks?”  

“Of course you can. I’m your… husband, after all.”  

Once again, she was at a loss for words. He responded affectionately with those cold, shadowless eyes.  

“…Alright.”  

Eun-sol nodded. She didn’t know what she was agreeing to, but it was the only response she could give at the moment.  

At any rate, he didn’t seem suspicious of her late-night outing. He was merely annoyed that she had gone to the convenience store alone at night without saying anything.  

“But. Sol-ah.”  

His gaze became faintly smoky.  

“Are you sure it’s really this snack you wanted?”  

His once-straightforward gaze tilted slightly, landing on the snack Eun-sol was holding.  

Why was he asking such a thing?

Hiding her uneasy expression, she nodded.  

He smirked slightly, his lips curling upward.  

“Our Sol-ah, you’re lying. Didn’t I tell you that lying is bad?”  

At that moment, splash! The sound of an exceptionally loud crashing wave felt like it had slapped her across the cheek.  

Eun-sol finally lowered her gaze to the snack she was holding.  

Ah!  

A sigh slipped down her throat. In her haste, she had grabbed just anything, and it happened to be shrimp-flavored snacks.  

“Did you already forget? You’re allergic to shellfish.”  

She couldn’t use her memory loss as an excuse.  

The man before her had made it a point to emphasize, on the very first day she woke up with amnesia, that she had a shellfish allergy and needed to be cautious at all times.  

But she hadn’t believed him. No, she hadn’t believed this man at all.  

From the moment she regained consciousness after the accident and saw him, every sense in her body had sounded a blaring alarm.  

Was this man really my husband?  

There was a wedding photo, but there was only one. And photos could easily be doctored, so it wasn’t definitive proof of their marriage.  

After being discharged from the hospital, everything he introduced as “our home” felt overwhelming.  

She had mistaken the high-tech clothing care appliance for a refrigerator. The unfamiliar smart home system, the shocking price tags of the furniture—these were beyond words.  

Even without her memory, her body seemed to carry traces of her past life, allowing her to make rough guesses about her circumstances.  

She felt a deep disconnect between herself, who seemed to have lived an ordinary life, and the luxurious mansion and overly perfect husband in front of her.  

If they had been lovers who overcame class barriers, there should have been some kind of poignant love story. Yet, he never spoke about their courtship.  

During her entire hospital stay, no acquaintances came to visit her. She hadn’t met any of her in-laws, either. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being deliberately isolated.  

From one to ten, everything was riddled with suspicion.  

So even his mention of her shellfish allergy felt like something he might have fabricated to lend credibility to his claim of being her husband.  

Information about an allergy is something only family members would know, and being concerned about it as soon as someone wakes up would also be something a family member might do.  

If she didn’t eat shellfish anyway, there would be no way to confirm whether she actually had the allergy or not, so it could have been a rather clever lie.  

So, she decided to test it herself. She dipped a bit of shrimp paste and touched it to her tongue. If it turned out to be a lie, it would be reasonable to doubt everything he had said.  

But soon, she realized that at least one thing he said was true. Just two weeks ago, she had caused a scene by being rushed to the emergency room due to a shellfish allergy.  

“Well, that is, um…”  

Even with memory loss, picking up shrimp snacks didn’t make any sense.  

In the meantime, the faint crescent moon disappeared beneath the clouds. She envied even the crescent moon. At least it could hide.  

“The truth is…”  

“Yes, the truth is…?”  

He echoed her words. His voice, rough and low, felt like it was tightening a leash around her throat.  

The crashing waves, like the ticking of a clock’s second hand, seemed to press her for an answer.  

“The truth is… originally… I came to buy… sanitary pads!”  

At that moment, it was sheer luck that she remembered the sanitary pads sitting on the shelf above the pregnancy tests at the convenience store.  

“Sanitary pads?”  

“It wasn’t that I wanted snacks. I needed those. But I felt too awkward asking you, Jeong-hyeok, to buy them for me, so I went out to get them myself. But unfortunately, the convenience store owner was a man, and there were male police officers nearby as well…”  

Once she found an excuse, the words poured out effortlessly.  

“I felt so embarrassed checking out with them… So I thought I’d just ask Mrs. Boryeong to get them for me tomorrow and grabbed whatever was nearby to leave quickly. And it just happened to be shrimp snacks.”  

She nervously wondered if this lie would work.  

“If that’s the case, since you’re already here, just buy them now.”  

“What?”  

His straightforward response left her even more confused.  

‘Does he believe me?’  

But this kind of kindness didn’t seem like him.  

“No, there’s really no need to go that far.”  

“You said it was necessary, didn’t you?”  

Eun-sol’s eyes widened.  

For some reason, his lips twisted into a peculiar angle. Or perhaps they were distorted?  

In any case, it was a smile whose meaning she couldn’t quite grasp. It was such a fleeting moment that it wouldn’t have been strange if she had imagined it.