The Tyrant Husband - Chapter 3.1 - Seoul at Night

Chapter 3.1 – Seoul at Night

“The important thing isn’t ‘how I got here,’ is it?”

This place was an old jewelry shop in an underground shopping mall. The only source of light in the space was a crude fluorescent lamp.

Yet, every time he tilted his head even slightly, a dazzling shadow, as if sprinkled with gold, followed him.  

It was so surreal that Eun-sol wondered if she might be trapped in another nightmare.  

But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was a reality she had to face.  

“Then what on earth is important?”  

Eun-sol clenched her small fists tightly and asked again in a clear voice.  

It was different from that night at the convenience store. Back then, she hadn’t even had the courage to ask.  

“It’s not about ‘how I got here,’ but whether you can keep coming back.”  

It was a strange and terrifying answer. No matter the method, he was saying he could find her again in the future.

A strange, complex emotion crept up her throat. It wasn’t the same as the simple feelings she’d had in front of the convenience store last week.  

Today, it was undeniably sorrowful.  

Was it because the memory of their first meeting came to mind?  

Instead of suspicion, an expectation filled the void. The hope that, unlike before, they might get along better from now on.  

That’s why she wanted to quickly find the necklace and go back home.  

But even if he was her husband, even if they had married for love, one thing seemed certain.  

This man’s coerciveness.  

Now, she thought she might understand why she had instinctively been so wary and afraid of him after losing her memory.  

‘Maybe before I lost my memory, I was suffocating under a husband who behaved like a tyrant.’  

It might have gone beyond simple marital conflict to the point where she wanted a divorce. Perhaps their relationship had been one-sided and twisted, full of obsession.  

‘If that’s the case, what does it even mean if he’s truly my husband?’

Her head throbbed. A noise, like tinnitus, echoed long and loud in her mind.  

She saw Kwon Jeong-hyeok moving his lips, but no sound reached her ears.  

“…Take it off.”  

It was only after the ringing subsided that she caught the last two syllables.  

Her breath caught. She must have misheard.  

No matter how angry or forceful he was, no matter how crazy he might be, this was still someone else’s business establishment.  

“…W-what did you just say?”  

“Take off your pants.”

His voice was clear. This time, there was no noise like tinnitus. Even his pitch-black pupils, staring at the buckle of her pants, conveyed his intentions unmistakably.

Eun-sol took a hesitant step back.

She couldn’t understand why the situation had escalated to this point.

Yes, she had left the house, but she had changed her mind and decided to return to him.

While she hadn’t expected the scenario that followed to be bright or hopeful, this worst-case scenario had never even crossed her mind.

“Ah…!”

As she stepped back, something caught her heel. She lost her balance and stumbled.

She thought she would fall flat onto the floor, but unexpectedly, she felt something soft beneath her. The place where she landed was the customer chair set up in the jewelry shop.

It didn’t feel like a relief. Rather than feeling reassured that she hadn’t fallen on her backside, the sense of crisis—that there was nowhere left to run—overwhelmed her.

When she lifted her head, she was already completely engulfed in Kwon Jeong-hyeok’s shadow, as if she had fallen into a deep well.

She had to crane her neck far back to look up at him. He seemed towering and immense, like a god gazing down from the heavens.

Compared to him, she felt like nothing more than a cornered mouse—no more, no less.

“…Ha…”

A single breath scattered and sank.

He reached out his hand. The sleek black suit he wore made the gesture seem even more ominous.

Instinctively, her arm rose to cover her chest. No, that was a mistake. She should have covered the buckle of her pants instead…!

Not that it mattered. Either way, it would be meaningless. She already knew that resistance would be futile, and it would only make the process more complicated.

“…?”

The arm covering her chest slowly dropped. She had thought he would grab her chest or roughly strip off her top, just as he had done in the powder room not long ago.

But instead, he placed his palm on the chair, bent his knees, and crouched down. Then, his hand grabbed the fabric of her pants.

Perhaps planning to start by taking off her pants.

“Don’t… don’t do this.”

She wanted to say it more sharply, but in reality, her voice came out as a weak protest.

Because his hand wasn’t gripping the buckle or waistband of her pants, but rather the hem of the pant leg.

“What exactly are you thinking?”

He let out a faint sigh.

“What kind of person do you think I am?”

After a sigh, his now-familiar expression came to mind. It was the kind of look one might give to a stubborn, unruly child who refused to listen.

“I don’t have the bad habit of indulging in perversions in someone else’s place of business.”

It was an expression she truly disliked, but strangely enough, at this moment, she didn’t mind it. That look of his had no s*xual nuance whatsoever.

The startled breath she had been holding slowly began to settle.

He furrowed his perfectly straight brows slightly before fixing his gaze on a particular spot. Eun-sol followed his line of sight. He was staring intently at her knee.

“Ah…!”

A red stain was spreading across her ivory pants.

It seemed that her knee, which had been injured earlier when she slipped in pooled rainwater while running to the jewelry shop, was still bleeding.

Only then did she feel the stinging pain and the burning sensation that followed. She must have scraped her knee against something sharp on the ground when she fell, as the wound appeared to be quite severe.

He grabbed the hem of her pant leg and tore it with a swift motion. Then, he pulled a handkerchief out of the inner pocket of his suit.

“But I do have this kind of bad habit.”

He unfolded the handkerchief, placed it over the wound on her knee, and pressed down firmly with his palm.

“Hngh!”

A cry escaped her lips at the crushing force applied to the wound.

If it hadn’t been her knee that he grabbed, she might have instinctively kicked him in response to the pain.

“Does it hurt?”

He asked the obvious. Eun-sol glared at the top of his head, her breathing shallow and ragged.

“But it’s effective, isn’t it? The bleeding has already stopped.”

It was a cruel but effective method of stopping the bleeding.

“What a shame. I could’ve pressed harder.”

He smirked.

“See? This is what happens when you run away from home.”

“……”

What did running away from home have to do with my injured knee? 

She wanted to retort, but no words came out.

Her knee was still in his grasp like a hostage. She had no desire to experience that pain again.

“The bleeding has stopped, so let go of me now, please.”

He finally released her knee. His narrowed eyes carefully examined the torn knee. His breath brushed against the wound, tickling her. The fine hairs on her skin stood on end.

Soon, he took out his phone and made a call. From the phone’s speaker, Chief Cheon’s voice could be heard.

-Yes, CEO.

“Chief Cheon. Get some saline solution and bandages. I think the wound will need stitches, so contact a nearby hospital. For now, we’ll handle the emergency treatment here.”

At the mention of “emergency treatment,” Eun-sol’s legs instinctively flinched. She wanted to avoid Kwon Jeong-hyeok’s style of treatment at all costs.

“It’s fine. I just need to put on a bandage or something like that.”

He clicked his tongue, as if he were looking at a five-year-old child throwing a tantrum about not wanting to go to the dentist.

“…Don’t make that face. I’m not five years old.”

“You’re right, you’re not five. A five-year-old wouldn’t run away from home. They’d just get lost.”

Clatter—

At that moment, the sound of a shutter noisily rolling up echoed through the space. Chief Cheon entered, bending deeply under the half-raised shutter.

“CEO, I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of bandages were needed, so I bought several different types.”

Chief Cheon placed a bag down. The pharmacy’s logo was printed on the bag, and it appeared to be quite full.

“I’ve also contacted the Korean Hospital. I’ll wait outside in the meantime.”

With a polite bow, Chief Cheon quickly disappeared.

Jeong-hyeok pulled out a bottle of saline solution from the pharmacy bag.

Eun-sol wanted to stop him, but knowing her protests would be meaningless, she decided to hold back.