The Sponsor
It was the late twenties, in 2016.
Han Chae-kyung was a civic activist. The representative of a group with the strange name “Youth Development Blueprint.”
In truth, she had simply taken the position to sell a single business card. At the time she was already preparing to run for local office.
The frequency had dropped compared to her early-to-mid twenties, but of course she had still been receiving sponsors back then.
Not the kind who only gave money and gifts, but a full network package—sponsors who accompanied gifts with connections.
She received allowances, and she made connections. A broker auntie in Annam, Siheung, and Hwaseong who arranged introductions to powerful men in the area so she could enjoy them.
And her name was…
“Im Eun-kyung.”
“Husband.”
It had spilled from her impotent husband’s lips.
At least the name.
Probably the two nurses were trying to restrain him.
The nurses were currently caring for the patient whose blood lines had ruptured—Kim Ho-chang. They had clamped the lines, changed the sets, and secured fresh vessels.
But something felt off. Why were there two nurses?
One of them was even pretending to work while her ears pricked up.
*Hey, you voyeur, you bitch?*
It irritated her, yet Han Chae-kyung had no leisure to deal with the nurses right now.
Im Eun-kyung, the lawyer.
The name of the lawyer and broker who had introduced her to the upper-class men had come out of her husband’s mouth.
This was a different problem from simply revealing her past.
When Han Chae-kyung’s face went blank and her lips only trembled.
“Im Eun-kyung. I’ve known your face since high school. Annam City only had co-ed schools back in the eighties.”
“Husband.”
“Chae-kyung. I warned you—if one more ‘husband’ comes out of your mouth, I’ll drive the dagger in right now?”
“……!”
After the dagger threat, silence stretched for a while. Her husband spoke again only after the nurses left.
This was proof that some rationality remained in Kim Ho-chang…
Which made it even more unbearable.
What to do. Han Chae-kyung bit her lip and looked away from her husband’s eyes. The name that had been mentioned right after Joo Sung-hyun, that bastard she was going to kill, had left after saying the word “introduce”—Im Eun-kyung.
Her husband knew her. And she knew him.
Because.
“That noona introduced you to me. When and where was it?”
He had been introduced by the woman who naturally brought him to her. It had not been a pure introduction.
“You have a good memory, don’t you? Start talking. My time and stamina… fuck. If you give me time and effort, I’ll reflect it when I decide your treatment. Just be honest… please, be honest. Where did we first meet?”
“Annam Chamber of Commerce… the large hall.”
“What was the event name?”
“The Annam City Sustainable City Development and Community Link Forum.”
A fear crept closer bit by bit.
Han Chae-kyung would have liked to switch topics gracefully, or at least flee the place.
If she kept answering the questions her husband was hurling, there was only one possible ending.
But she could not escape.
It was the quiet murderous intent Kim Ho-chang, still clutching his right upper abdomen in pain, kept spewing.
“At that place, Im Eun-kyung introduced you to me. What were the titles of the two of you back then?”
“Mr. Kim.”
“Answer, Chae-kyung.”
“Im Eun-kyung the lawyer… was a consulting lawyer for the Annam City Sustainable Development Council. And I was an appointed operating committee member of the same council.”
The questions were clearly already laced with conviction.
Han Chae-kyung answered honestly.
In the middle of it, a faint gray shadow flashed across only Kim Ho-chang’s right cheek. Instantly cold, yet the agitation was so severe that it made her face change… he looked like he might throw something or rip out the IV and punch her right after.
Instinctively, Han Chae-kyung backed away.
But the silence ended when Kim Ho-chang started a sudden one-man show. He seemed insane.
“…Here it is, Representative Kim Ho-chang. …Ah, Senior Im! How have you been? Business is going well? Yes yes, thanks to you. …Ah, let me introduce? This is Chae-kyung. She used to be a reporter at Annam Daily and started working for civic organizations.”
The 2016 she had just mentioned. The conversation that had taken place at that event.
“Representative Kim Ho-chang? Chae-kyung will be the session discussant later—listen to her. She’ll be full of substance. …Hey, senior? I’m actually not interested in the forum, I just came to stamp my face… hehe. Our Kim rep is always so honest!”
“…….”
“Chae-kyung? This is Kim Ho-chang, representative of Taehwa Industrial Development. My junior. Get to know his face.”
The day the two first met—introduced by Im Eun-kyung, Kim Ho-chang’s high-school senior and lawyer. They had officially started dating several months later.
Honestly, Kim Ho-chang’s acting was terrible.
But the consistency of the lines he rattled off was surprisingly high. Nine years ago. Even though Kim Ho-chang was not the type with a great memory. …Han Chae-kyung desperately wanted to check what expression she was making right now.
But her husband’s question came faster than her turning her head.
“You don’t remember, Chae-kyung? …I have one question, and I’m only asking once.”
Kim Ho-chang sounded like he was barely holding back rising emotion.
Surprisingly, there was no blackmail.
He did not say he would drag Im Eun-kyung, who was still writing honorary titles in Annam City, to kneel beside him if she lied. Or that he would tear apart specific parts of her body and throw them into Lake Siwha…
Yet why did fear still rise?
Han Chae-kyung finally gathered her trembling hands and clasped them.
The question from Kim Ho-chang came right after.
“Was it a sale?”
Sale? The term felt odd coming from a real-estate broker.
The industry that paired sponsor women with sponsor men had no such term as “sale.”
Set up, line up, lay the leg, arrange, pass, set the course, attach…
The overwhelmingly common word was simply “introduce.”
But she could guess the meaning. Had he been meeting multiple sponsor men one after another until he settled on her? Even knowing that.
*Do I really have to answer? With my own mouth?*
Han Chae-kyung’s lips would not come out.
Because once she admitted it, she could not predict what would happen.
She needed a way to reduce her husband’s hostility, but nothing good came to mind.
Whatever she said would feel like provocation.
In the closed network, was “introduce” not a disgusting act but “expanding connections”? Or should she say it had started as a pure sponsor relationship with him but she had changed her mind because of marriage.
Or else kneel.
“Chae-kyung. If you don’t want to answer, just don’t.”
“Husband?”
Had she misheard? Han Chae-kyung shook as she looked at her husband.
When he was ruthlessly interrogating… why now.
But Kim Ho-chang, instead of soothing the fear-soaked her, began to tell the story with a relatively calm expression.
“Chae-kyung. I did call you a whore, but I’m not exactly a clean person in my sex life either. I just never gave sponsors.”
“Mr. Kim?”
“Before we got married, a hundred… no, maybe not a hundred. I don’t know. I never counted one by one. There were plenty of girls I met occasionally. Until university my father’s money, after I got the business going it was my own money, and I did all kinds of nonsense.”
Han Chae-kyung already knew.
Her husband was the type who bragged about his sex life as if it were war stories.
That he had eaten a Miss Korea finalist and a regional winner with only a week’s interval in 1994 and 1999.
That in Tokyo he had spotted a high-class boutique madam (really just money) and had over twenty sessions in a week.
That he had done something with a Malaysian stewardess on a plane… seducing the secretary he was keeping was the easiest thing.
He was also the kind of man who thought his own stamina was enormous. In reality he had been holding on with Viagra since his youth.
*Yes, that’s the kind of person.*
But the Kim Ho-chang she knew would never have tolerated his wife’s past just because he was immoral himself.
Moreover, it was strange that the moment the word “sponsor” was brought up, his momentum suddenly dropped.
Even as his wife, Han Chae-kyung could not understand why.
“Probably because it was a short story.”
“Husband?”
“If I say ‘husband’ again, I’ll… no, it’s fine. First, I’ll take care of my body and talk. If I keep staring at your face… ugh. I probably have to go to a specialized intensive care unit today. There are businesses I need to protect; I can’t do that.”
My body is that bad…?
In reality Kim Ho-chang’s condition was bad. The doctor had said he needed at least four days of liver detoxification treatment and a bile duct procedure so the jaundice would disappear.
It was reasonable to prioritize his body no matter how the marriage ended. The current situation was simply not one where rationality applied.
In either case, Han Chae-kyung had no right to refuse.
*Maybe this is the right way.*
Honestly, Han Chae-kyung could think of nothing right now.
The moment Joo Sung-hyun appeared, something had gone horribly wrong, and since the word “sponsor” had come from that madman’s mouth, she felt like she was suffocating.
Even now, barely holding on to her rationality.
Obtaining a few days’ grace until her husband was discharged was not a bad idea. Thinking about it, she even wanted to beg for it.
“Yes. Then… take good care of your body.”
Han Chae-kyung bowed her head to her husband with a creak.
Although there was an age difference of sixteen, she had never bowed her head to anyone. A mistake born of distraction, but Kim Ho-chang did not care. He nodded slightly, lay back on the bed with a tired look…
In the end, Han Chae-kyung was driven out of the hospital room.
The close aides guarding the door avoided her gaze noticeably, and the special-room nurses even glanced at her with hostility.
Han Chae-kyung walked slowly, lacking the energy to care.
After a few hellish hours?
Extremely tired and mentally hazy, she still could not sleep.
She messaged the broker auntie she now just knew as an acquaintance—Im Eun-kyung—and instructed the driver who received her salary from her husband not to come to work for a while, and checked the trends among the influential people of Annam City she was on good terms with.
But she could not contact Joo Sung-hyun. Every time she got tangled with that bastard, something bad happened.
*Fuck you.*
Eventually Han Chae-kyung fell asleep without realizing it. She had nearly fainted.
Only about two hours of sleep.
But when she woke again, the world around her had changed a little.
“Eh?”
In those two hours, 42 missed calls and 112 notification alerts.
Han Chae-kyung’s face turned pale the moment she checked her smartphone.