Looking for My Wife More Seriously Than I Thought
Two weeks later, I returned home.
My wife, Eun-ho, was gone.
I wondered if she'd taken a suitcase, but nothing was missing. Only the smartphone she always carried and her work laptop had disappeared. Everything else—furniture, belongings, cosmetics, clothes—remained exactly as we'd left them. Even her passport and the house documents were untouched. She had literally walked out with nothing but the clothes on her back.
There was no note, no message, nothing.
The only difference was that the sink, the table, and the TV stand we used to lounge in front of were cleaner than usual.
And then there was the photograph.
Our bedroom. The nest of our married love. Eun-ho's pussy, utterly defiled by another man's creampie, had been meticulously cleaned. The sheets and blankets were brand new. That single detail made the horrifying truth of what had happened here feel all the more real.
Imagining my wife lying there, joyfully accepting another man's cock, spreading her legs and smiling while his cum leaked out of her as he took the photo made me want to vomit.
Actually, I did vomit.
"Ugh—! Urghhh!"
Mixed in with the nausea was a crushing self-loathing. I had used the "affair permit" like a free pass, pounced on Min Seo-hye, wandered the streets of France like we were on a honeymoon, and come crawling back as a sex offender.
After wiping my mouth, the terrifying reality of my situation crashed down on me all at once.
My wife had left the house carrying another man's semen inside her.
Her phone was still off. No contact whatsoever. Maybe she was thinking about divorce. But if that were the case, she would have taken the important documents with her…
Six months of unpaid leave. My income had stopped immediately. I had some savings, but most of it was in accounts Eun-ho managed. Even if I hastily sold the stocks I played with for fun, I'd only get about five million won. Ready cash was barely five hundred thousand.
I'd still receive this month's salary, so if I lived on credit cards, I could probably last three months without major issues. But I had to survive six months… Should I take out a loan? Should I temporarily suspend utility payments and my personal pension contributions?
The worries piled up like mountains.
Would I even be able to return to work safely after six months?
I had no idea what Min Seo-hye wanted. Even if this somehow blew over, she now held a leash that could destroy me at any time.
…She probably wouldn't go to the police. I had plenty of counter-evidence of my own. But what tormented me wasn't the legal risk.
It was the fact that Min Seo-hye—the woman I'd confessed my love to, the woman who had felt like a real wife for that short time—had left my side.
To make matters worse, she hadn't answered her phone since returning to Korea either. The last time I saw her was on the plane, when she only gave me a small smile in response to my "good work."
"Seo… hye…"
Ah. So this is how it feels.
My chest tightened violently. My knees buckled and I collapsed to the floor. The pain was so intense I could barely breathe.
I finally understood, with painful clarity, that I had lost not only the wife who lived with me at home, but also the office wife who had been by my side at work.
I couldn't bring myself to contact our families. We didn't call them often to begin with. What would I even say? That Eun-ho had run off with another man? That she was going to have his child instead of mine, so they should be happy since they'd always wanted grandchildren?
Still, if I kept delaying contact, they'd notice when the usual monthly allowance didn't arrive on payday. Eventually, I'd have to face them.
I didn't have any close friends I could share this with either. Even if I told them, I doubted they'd have any useful answers.
The only clue I had was that single text from Eun-ho.
I searched every obstetrics and gynecology clinic near our house. I showed my ID, explained the situation, and begged them to at least confirm whether my wife had visited. On the seventh or eighth clinic, I finally found a trace.
The nurse couldn't give details because of privacy laws, but when I showed her our family relationship certificate and started tearing up, her resolve weakened.
"I can't tell you the details, but she came in twice for examinations."
"What kind of examinations?"
"The first time was to check her fertility. The results showed no major issues with getting pregnant. She came back after her next period to get her fertile window dates. Let's see… two weeks ago."
It matched Eun-ho's claim that her fertile period had started the day I left for France.
The nurse hesitated, then narrowed her eyes and added, "But the second time… she came with a man."
"A… man?"
So it had finally come. My heart sank.
"He was very tall and well-built. That's why I remembered him. When I asked if he was the husband and wanted to register as a guardian, he didn't answer and just shook his head, so I assumed he was a boyfriend or relative."
Tall and well-built…
A wave of nausea hit me again. This was the first concrete information I'd heard about the bastard who had fucked Eun-ho.
The brief sense of accomplishment at finally having a lead quickly turned into regret. I almost wished I hadn't heard it.
Because now, in my imagination of my wife lying in bed, the image of a muscular man who had just creampied her, spreading her legs and taking photos from between them, was becoming painfully vivid.
I stopped pressing the nurse when she started looking uncomfortable and left the hospital. There was no way to explain the full situation anyway. Instead, I registered myself as the guardian and made her promise to contact me if Eun-ho came back. Since that guy hadn't registered, I couldn't get any more personal information.
Of course not. Because I'm the husband. I'm the guardian. The idea of that bastard registering was absurd.
All the nurse remembered was that he was around 185 cm tall, had a sporty haircut, broad shoulders that suggested he worked out a lot, and an obviously muscular build.
Compared to me—average Korean height, only played soccer a bit in college, no particular physical advantages—imagining Eun-ho, who used to enjoy plain sex with me, now being pinned down by that muscular giant and taking his load filled me with a miserable, creeping sense of defeat.
Would she have cried out in pain? Or moaned like a whore in pleasure? Or trembled with her mouth covered, overwhelmed by the pressure of that massive cock for the first time…?
Any of those thoughts were enough to eat me alive.
On the way home, I bought a ton of soju. It sounded like the most cliché story, but now I understood why men in situations like this drank. I didn't have the courage to stay sober.
There was nothing left to do. All I could do was wait. And expensive alcohol was out of the question. I had no money, and I didn't think I deserved that kind of luxury. Only cheap soju. The bare minimum of snacks. That was the only escape I could allow myself.
Ding-dong.
What was that sound?
Ding-dong.
The doorbell.
My head felt heavy. I was dizzy. How many days had passed since then? Three? Four? My memory was fuzzy. Sleep, wake, drink, sleep, wake, drink. In between, I'd call the clinic to ask if Eun-ho had shown up. I'd lie to a few close colleagues at work that I was leaving Seoul to take care of my sick parents back home. Then drink, sleep, wake again.
Ding-dong.
Except for food deliveries, this was the first time the doorbell had rung…
I pushed through the piles of takeout boxes, unwashed dishes and bottles, scattered clothes, and the unpacked remnants of my business trip to check the intercom.
"……"
I'd taken too long getting up with my hangover. The intercom screen was off.
I waited for the person to ring again so I could see their face.
"……"
They didn't ring again. Why?
Wait. This wasn't the time to hesitate. It could be Eun-ho coming back.
Idiot. Stupid drunk bastard!
I rushed to the front door and flung it open.
"Eun-ho, is that you!?"
Crash!
"Kyaaaaah!"
She must have been standing right in front of the door. There was a terrible impact sound, followed by a woman's high-pitched scream as she fell.
Oh god, had I just slammed the door into my wife?
"Ugh, Eun-ho! Are you okay?!"
…Wait. Hold on.
Who is this?
For a moment, I wondered if I'd drunk so much that I was hallucinating.
"Hic… hic… It… it hurts…"
The woman sitting on the floor, rubbing the bump on her forehead with tears in her eyes, wasn't my wife.
She had long black hair that reached her waist and an incredibly voluptuous body. Those massive breasts were impossible to forget once you'd seen them.
It was…
"Is this… Kim Sung-won's residence?"
The same female passenger I had been tied up with in the airplane bathroom two weeks ago on the flight to France.
