More Seriously Than I Thought, I'm Evaluating Her Breasts
In South Korea, raising children with just a married couple's strength is said to be the hardest thing in human history...
Well, I'm no historian, but as someone who's personally terrified that the costs of pregnancy and childbirth would devour my entire life and has therefore refused to have kids, the claim didn't seem all that unconvincing.
"Raising a child all by yourself is definitely hard enough to drive a person insane."
"That's right. Korean parents and children are basically living like mental patients in truly miserable conditions. It's only natural. Humans weren't designed as animals to give birth and be raised that way."
Alright, that part made sense.
But if you have enough money, everything can be solved.
There was no reason to go through the ridiculous hassle of something like 'wife sharing.'
"That guy... Seung-woo, right? He's supposed to be rich. So why not just use money to raise the kids?"
"Not everyone can become rich."
Ji-soo answered simply.
It wasn't a sufficient answer.
"Why does Seung-woo care about everyone else's lives?"
Ji-soo gathered a bit of courage on her face.
"Um, it's a little funny, but... to borrow his expression, it's 'for the infinite glory of the Republic of Korea.'"
"Pfft..."
She caught me off guard.
The sight of Ji-soo saying something so absurd with a serious expression was so funny that I burst out laughing.
"I feel like I should be waving a Taegeukgi flag or something."
"It's ridiculous, isn't it? He really... says the funniest things, that husband of mine... hehe..."
It seemed that just thinking about the man named Seung-woo made a smile naturally form on Ji-soo's lips.
That smile didn't sit well with me at all.
"But he's sincere. South Korea, which is experiencing the most serious low birth rate on the planet... by 2050, it will become the oldest country in the world. There won't be enough people to work, and we'll completely fall out of the ranks of developed nations."
Ji-soo began to speak at length, as if a button had been pressed.
"Even before that, local cities where no children are being born will disappear first. Schools and companies will close their doors. The costs to fill the voids in public safety and administration will skyrocket, and societal collapse will happen even faster. That's what Seung-woo believes."
It looked like the story would go on forever, so I waved my hand.
"I've seen a lot of that on the news already, so I know. What I'm asking is how wife sharing solves that problem."
"It's simple. If living as three couples together becomes the basic setting of Korean society, that will do it."
"What?"
Even though my mouth fell open, Ji-soo continued without batting an eye.
"The reason people can't have and raise children is because they're trying to do it with just two people's strength. But if three couples—six people total—work together to raise a child, it's easy."
"......"
"You can have more children, too. The truth is, the difficulty of raising children doesn't increase that much whether you're raising one or three. If everyone has as many as they want, they can raise them all just fine together."
"......"
"You can save a lot on overlapping costs, too. You can hand down strollers, pass around clothes. And children who grow up together like that will have much better personalities."
The story suddenly leaped to an absurd level, making my head spin.
"So... raising kids together as three couples is fine and all... but how do you make that the basic setting of Korean society?"
"By producing documentaries and films. To introduce our case to the whole country."
Documentaries...
The thought that these people had completely lost their minds crossed my mind, along with the suspicion that the reason Min Seo-hye had chosen Eun-ho as a 'shared wife' candidate was because of his job as a freelance documentary writer.
Creating documentaries based on personal experience was Eun-ho's specialty.
He had already produced several works that had won international awards.
If they were planning to turn the 'shared wife' story into a documentary, there would be no one better suited than Eun-ho.
"Do you really think something like that... will change the world?"
"You never know until you try... That was Seung-woo's answer."
Watching Ji-soo answer all my questions with a calm expression, I was suddenly struck by an uneasy feeling that the people I was dealing with might be far crazier than I'd thought,
and far more serious than I'd imagined.
* * *
I lost my words for a while and sank into thought.
Ji-soo poured me more citron tea, but I wasn't in any state of mind to touch the cup.
To solve the low birth rate problem that was leading Korean society toward extinction, three couples would live together and share their wives.
They would have many children.
And they would reveal the entire process through documentaries to drive social change.
There were more than a few points open to criticism, but I had a feeling that the man named Seung-woo who was seriously putting this idea into action had probably prepared answers for all of them.
After all, hadn't he already succeeded in charming two women and one man?
Above all, throwing his own body into solving society's problems and turning that process into a documentary...
It was a social experiment that fit my wife Eun-ho's tastes far, far too perfectly.
Just moments ago, I had thought Eun-ho must have been tricked or had lost his mind and gone berserk.
So I believed that if I could strip away these people's masks or bring Eun-ho back to his senses, I could reverse this entire situation.
But... I couldn't completely rule out the possibility that Eun-ho had made a perfectly rational decision to participate in this insane plan.
This was bad.
Once Eun-ho made up his mind, he never changed it...
"...Collective childcare."
The word slipped out of my mouth as I agonized.
"Collective childcare means multiple couples coming together to raise children, right?"
Before Ji-soo could even finish speaking, I latched onto the end of her sentence.
"Yes, collective childcare. Simply cooperating to raise the children each couple has given birth to would be more than enough to achieve the desired effect. There's no need to go so far as to do something as ridiculous as sharing wives. Don't you agree?"
I felt proud of myself for coming up with such a counterargument in such a short time.
"Why are you going to such irrational extremes?"
But once again, with that same calm expression, Ji-soo slowly took a sip of her citron tea before saying something completely unexpected.
"Sung-won. Are you truly living with someone you love?"
"...I am. With my wife, Eun-ho."
"Then why did you fall in love with Seo-hye?"
"That was...! A momentary mistake. That day... that day I had been through so much that I had a mental breakdown..."
Among all those things that had happened was the sight of the woman sitting in front of me, completely naked and bound, so I found it hard to look directly at Ji-soo's face.
"I'm not asking why you slept with Seo-hye... I'm asking why you fell in love with her."
"Love..."
That's right.
I had definitely loved Min Seo-hye.
It was... an irreversible truth.
"I never did anything to be ashamed of toward my wife."
This was also an undeniable fact.
But Ji-soo didn't waver in the slightest.
"Yet you still loved her. You held two people in your heart at once."
"...I won't deny it."
"I know Seo-hye well. We've been married together, shared the same husband, and are raising the child I gave birth to together... Seo-hye is truly dazzling. She brightens everything around her. There isn't a single man in the world who wouldn't love a woman like that."
I couldn't help but think of all those men who had thrust their cocks into Seo-hye's mouth and ejaculated without fail.
But some part of my heart wanted to say that Yang Ji-soo, you are the one no man could help but love.
"But Eun-ho is... different from Seo-hye. She shines with a soft, solitary light. She's independent... and she has this wonderful perspective and drive that makes you keep imagining a better world."
That was exactly why I had chosen Eun-ho.
And I wanted to tell her that Ji-soo's beauty and feminine charm were in no way inferior.
As I sat there nodding quietly to myself, Ji-soo suddenly said,
"But her breasts are small."
* * *
"...Excuse me?"
This was so unexpected that I lost my words again.
"Her breasts. Eun-ho's breasts are way too small."
As if presenting a shocking counterexample, Ji-soo bounced her own enormous breasts with her hands—boing, boing—as she spoke.
She wasn't even acting particularly boastful, yet the way her massive tits bounced made me feel like the value of the woman I had chosen had been slammed straight into the ground.
"Her breasts are... small... so what?"
...My voice had grown noticeably smaller.
A slender figure, sharp features, long legs like a graceful deer.
My wife Eun-ho was a beauty with a model-like, slim body that looked perfect in any outfit. The one thing I regretted about her was the size of her breasts.
With her tiny meals that made me worry about malnutrition, alcohol, and coffee, Eun-ho's body was extremely thin.
Honestly, I sometimes thought she looked sexier with her clothes on than off.
I just never expected it to be pointed out in this context.
"Hmm..."
Ji-soo folded her slender arms—which looked far too delicate for those massive breasts—rested her chin on her hand, and gave me a mischievous look as she said,
"Sung-won, did you know that Eun-ho knows you only watch porn with women who have big breasts?"
...I didn't.
It felt like my heart had shrunk in an instant.
