Still Newlyweds?
I had just lit my cigarette when Senior Chul-min spoke up.
“Gyu-min, are you still acting like newlyweds these days?”
“Well… my heart’s still in honeymoon mode, lol.”
“Really? That’s good to hear, lol. Seriously, marrying your sister-in-law is the greatest achievement of your life, you bastard, lol.”
“You’re right about that, haha.”
I gave an appropriate response to Senior’s words and kept puffing away on my cigarette. But the next question he asked was surprisingly interesting.
“Are you and your wife still keeping the spark alive in the bedroom?”
For a moment, I couldn’t quite grasp the intent behind the question.
“Yeah, things are still good between me and my wife. But you know how it is these days, Senior. The company’s swamped, so I end up working overtime and crashing the second I get home, lol.”
“Is that so? Still, you need to talk a lot with your wife and keep the nighttime activities going strong, lol. That’s life advice from your hyung, lol.”
The moment the word “nighttime activities”—meaning sex—left Senior’s mouth, I was rendered speechless. We were close enough to hang out privately often and drank together a lot, so I knew he liked making dirty jokes and lewd comments. But hearing the word “nighttime activities” tied directly to my wife felt strangely unsettling.
“Hey, don’t overthink it. Just listen. I’m divorced now, right? My ex-wife and I were great during the honeymoon phase too. But as work got busier and she wasn’t really interested in that kind of intimacy, we naturally went over a year without having sex.”
As I listened to his complaints, I realized our situations were similar—maybe even a glimpse of my own future—and I found myself paying close attention.
“But my sex drive has always been strong. So one day I suggested we have sex, and she looked disgusted. She said she’d never really been into it, that it wasn’t fun and it just hurt. We had a huge fight after that, and from then on, just seeing her face irritated me… Sigh. In the end, I decided I couldn’t live like that anymore and filed for divorce.”
“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that for a marriage to stay healthy, emotional communication is important, but physical communication is just as crucial. Pretty wise, huh?”
“Lol, got it. I’ll engrave your wise words in my heart. Let’s head back down and get to work. The other employees should be in by now.”
Even after returning to the lab, the conversation I’d had with Senior on the rooftop kept replaying in my head. I couldn’t focus on work at all that day.
— Late that night, after work —
My wife was watching TV in the living room while I ate a late dinner and took a shower. Even though it was the middle of summer and I was showering with cold water, the conversation I’d had with Senior that morning refused to leave my mind.
“Now that I think about it, I met his wife once before… She was quite a beauty.”
When it came to beautiful women, it was only natural for men to flock around them regardless of age. There might have been several men who approached Senior’s ex-wife. As much as I felt bad for him, it was possible she had been secretly seeing someone else while refusing to sleep with him.
Once that thought crossed my mind, my own wife naturally came to mind.
“What about my wife?”
I suddenly began thinking about her. She was undeniably beautiful. Even though she was an ordinary person, I was confident she could hold her own against a young actress in a beauty contest. On top of that—whether she took special care of herself or not—her skin and figure were still firm and youthful at thirty-two.
“Is this because of what Senior said? Why am I even thinking like this? No… could there still be men hitting on her? I hadn’t really considered it lately, but now I was curious whether men still saw my wife as a woman—and whether any of them were making moves on her.”
Back when she was still my girlfriend before marriage, and even during the early newlywed days, there had been quite a few men who approached her. I’d heard about it from her or seen it myself more times than I could count. Honestly, it hadn’t felt great at the time, but on the other hand, I’d felt a strange sense of superiority that such a woman was my wife.
After a few years of marriage, those thoughts had gradually faded. Of course, my wife had stopped mentioning it out of consideration for me, and with my own work getting busier and more things demanding my attention, I’d stopped paying as much attention as before.
“Even after all these years, her looks and body haven’t faded at all. So why aren’t I initiating intimacy with her as often as I used to? Is it really just because I’m busy and tired? That might be an excuse… But they say a married couple becomes family. There’s some truth to that. We’ve grown too comfortable with each other. They say even normal couples hit a period of boredom after a few years together. I’m not sure if this is exactly that. I still love my wife, and she still loves me. We’ve just had fewer intimate moments, that’s all.”
Maybe living so closely for so long had made us numb to each other. Of course my love for her hadn’t changed, but separately from that, my body might have simply grown accustomed to her sexual appeal.
Any Korean man would understand—watching the same porn video while masturbating over and over again quickly loses its effect. You always need something new. You need fresh dopamine. And it wasn’t just with masturbation; the same went for games and dramas. You couldn’t keep enjoying the same thing forever. That’s why people were always searching for new games and new shows.
“But that’s for games and dramas. People are different, aren’t they? What the hell am I even thinking?”
“Oppa, when are you coming out? I need the bathroom!”
“Yeah, I’m done. I’m coming out.”
My wife went into the bathroom, and I dragged my tired body to lie down on the bed in the master bedroom. I continued the thoughts I’d had in the shower.
“What if my wife met another man besides me? What if she contacted someone else, ate with him, went on dates… and even got physical with him…”
“Honestly, the wife I know would never do that. She’s always been conservative and passive when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex—especially anything sexual. But you never know what people might do, right?”
Against my will, my mind began playing out various scenes. My wife meeting a stranger outside, smiling at him, holding his hand. Then a strange man pulling her close, placing his hand on her slender waist, or roughly groping her firm, plump ass as they walked down the street. Those images flashed through my head.
My face began to twist at the thought, and an unpleasant feeling rose inside me. The idea of my wife in another man’s arms was completely absurd. Just thinking about it made me feel sick. It was an emotion any man would feel.
But why had I suddenly started imagining my own wife meeting another man? I had never once thought about it before. I had never imagined her that way. Who in their right mind fantasized about their wife cheating?
Yet despite those thoughts, I felt my body growing slightly hot. Maybe it was just the discomfort, the anger. But this felt like a different kind of feeling. It was almost like sexual arousal.
“What the hell is this emotion… Damn it, it’s all because I talked to Senior today…”
Just then, my wife came out of the bathroom and lay down beside me.
“Oppa, you worked hard today~ Work isn’t easy, is it?”
“No, it really isn’t. Making money for someone else is tough.”
“Nothing special happened today?”
“Nah, it was fine.”
Before falling asleep, my wife and I usually spent the last moments of the day chatting about this and that. We talked about our daily routines, stories about people we knew, household matters, things we’d seen on TV—our conversations covered all kinds of topics. Sometimes we just talked about whatever came to mind.
And somehow, the conversation I’d had with Senior that morning slipped out of my mouth on its own.
“Oh, and you know Senior Chul-min, right?”
“The one who went to the same university as you?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“What about him?”
There was a few seconds of silence before I told my wife what Senior had said that morning.
“So… I talked with him today, and he told me he’s divorced.”
“Divorced? Really? I can’t believe it…”
My wife looked genuinely surprised. That made sense. Before we got married, we had eaten together with Senior and his wife once. At the time, they were still in the honeymoon phase, so their marriage had seemed strong. With only good memories of them, the news of their divorce must have been quite shocking. Especially since it involved a married couple, she seemed particularly interested.
“Right? I had the same reaction at first.”
“How did it happen…? Why did they get divorced?”
I explained to her the circumstances that had led to Senior’s divorce. And without realizing it, I found myself watching my wife’s expression as she listened.