Let's Have a Real Conversation for Once
"Get away from me, you woman."
"...*sniff*."
"Hey, she is who she is, and you are who you are. Don't do that."
Jia looked thoroughly dejected. He sat there for a moment, watching the TV, before turning it off and speaking. The atmosphere was... it was time for a serious talk.
"...Jia."
"...Y-yes? Oh, yes. Mas—no, Suhyun. No, Suhyun-ah. Yeah."
The way she reacted to just being called by her name was pathetic. She looked truly pitiful.
"...I still find you difficult to deal with."
"...Yes."
"When I look at you, I still feel suffocated. Being at home doesn't feel comfortable. It's stressful."
I said it honestly.
"Honestly, it doesn't make sense, does it? You treated me like... absolute trash. You asked for a divorce. Back then, I actually didn't want to divorce you. When I saw the divorce papers, the way you had everything filled out, as if all I had to do was add my personal information... my heart just broke."
Jia’s eyes welled up with tears again. She knew she was in the wrong. She had just thought that acting that way would make her appeal stronger—
"Seeing that, I felt like you really, truly didn't want to live with me anymore."
"That’s not it, Mas—Suhyun-ah."
"...So I signed them, and you immediately took them and filed them at the court... and even during the cooling-off period, you didn't reach out to me once."
"...I’m sorry."
Jia spoke honestly as well.
"I thought you would be the one to reach out to me first, Master."
"Why?"
"Because I was always the one being loved... I loved you this much, and you gave me this much love, so I thought you liked me more. I thought you’d be the one clinging to me."
"How could I cling to you every single time? I got exhausted, too."
I was exhausted. It was hard. I knew that if I tried to hold on any tighter, the next time wouldn't be divorce papers—it would be a divorce lawsuit.
"So I thought if you clung to me, I would pretend to reluctantly accept it... I’m sorry. Even looking back, I was such a piece of trash."
"The reason you did that was..."
"Part of it was wanting to play out those SM fantasies, but after you failed, once you paid back all the money... well, when you paid it all back, I didn't feel happy. I felt angry. Annoyed. Because by then, I had started to perceive you as my slave... but you looked like you were rebelling against me. That’s why I even hated you."
"So that’s how it was."
Right now, I’m just letting it go. It’s in the past.
"Do you know what I was thinking while you were so silent?"
"What... what were you thinking...?"
"I thought you really hated me a lot."
"N-no, that’s not it. No..."
"I thought living with me was just as stifling and suffocating for you as it was for me... and that’s why you didn't reach out."
"That’s not it... Master, I don't feel that way. Every day..."
Jia then shared her own thoughts.
"The happiest time of my day is when you come to pick me up."
"Oh."
"...I liked you dropping me off in the morning, but... I liked it best when I got off work. When I’d leave the government building with the others, a black sedan would slide up, stop perfectly, and you’d open the door and step out... everyone was so envious of me."
"I see. I suppose they would be."
"'It must be nice to have your husband pick you up every day,' 'I’m so jealous that you’re married to a chaebol who’s so devoted to his wife,' and so on. I’d approach you while hearing those things, and you’d even open the passenger door for me... I loved it so much."
"But..."
However, in my memory, Seo Jia always acted like it was a bother every time I went to pick her up, looking around as if she were self-conscious, and only repeating that she wanted to go home quickly. It didn't seem like she liked it at all.
"...That, I couldn't help."
"...?"
"At the office, whenever people saw me, they only talked about you. 'Since he’s a chaebol’s son, what’s it like at home?' 'Does he have a lot of money?' 'Doesn't it bother you that he picks you up every day?' 'Don't you have to serve him at home?' and so on... You’re not that kind of person. We have... our own private, personal lives."
"...Hmm, yeah. But why does that have anything to do with me picking you up..."
"Sometimes I’d hear them gossiping that you picking me up was just because you wanted to take me home and ravage me right away. They’d say things like, 'Did she sell herself to a chaebol family because she’s pretty?' or 'Did she marry him just to bear his children?'... People seem to see me as nothing more than a concubine selling smiles to you."
"...Ah, hmm..."
"I agonized over it, too. If I showed that I was genuinely happy to see you, those kinds of rumors would just keep circulating. Even if I told them, 'Suhyun and I married because we love each other deeply,' 'I was the one who pushed for the marriage,' 'We’re always happy and doing well at home'... what would that be other than talking to a brick wall?"
I should probably educate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff, not Seo Jia. This.
"I became embarrassed to express my love openly... The more I loved you, and the more I expressed it publicly, the more I looked like a woman serving you. It’s not that I’m blaming you for being a chaebol. It’s the people’s perception... their habit of talking without knowing anything, their dirty thoughts... I hated that so much. So I..."
"..."
"I decided not to express it."
"Not to express it?"
"I tried to act colder toward you. Like you were my servant. Ever since we got married, the way people looked at me was so filthy. Hearing things like, 'If you marry into a rich family, you have to see all sorts of ugly things and just endure it'—that was so, so filthy. I was angry all the time. My husband isn't that kind of person. He’s a very kind, pure, and foolish person."
Foolish... well, I don't think I’m a fool, Seo Jia.
"The colder I treated you, the more it felt like I was proving that I wasn't the subordinate. 'I didn't marry here just to bear his children.' 'I didn't marry to do housework and become a man’s possession.' At first, it was good. People around us would ask if it was okay to treat you like that... and I thought actions spoke louder than words."
"So that’s why you..."
"Yes. But once I made up my mind, it wouldn't change. I should have acted that way only outside and returned to normal once I got home, but I couldn't. Around that time, you went through your failure, and I thought, 'Should I just eat you up while I’m at it?'..."
"Eat... me up?"
"Yes. The image of me reflected from the outside seemed to have swallowed me whole. I changed strangely after that, too. I stopped treating my husband like a husband... Ha, yeah. Eunbyul is right. I should have treated you as a person, but even inside the house, I tried to treat you like some low-level slave. Because that was the only way I wouldn't be looked down upon outside, and if I did that—"
"—maybe I could prevent a future where you truly changed and started mistreating me. That’s what I worried about, what I thought about."
Jia was like that. Some acquaintances and colleagues who found out she was marrying into a chaebol family looked at her with pity, telling her that even if it was hard, she had to endure it, that she might have to deal with in-laws, and that since it was fundamentally patriarchal, she had to hang in there—advice she never asked for.
But when we actually went to greet my parents, my father, who had already been asked by Jia to push for the marriage, said—
"Our son is lacking in so many ways... I hope you take good care of him, daughter-in-law."
And my mother said,
"We don't hold ancestral rites in this house. Don't worry."
"..."
"And don't send us any allowance. Absolutely not. Never. I hate that kind of thing, dear."
"...Ah, then..."
"I will never contact my daughter-in-law. So, dear, call us whenever you want to. I’ll only answer the calls that come in."
They were parents who were completely different from the advice she received—even more polite and kind than the parents of ordinary people.
"...Because of the people around me..."
"Yes, that’s right."
"You should have told me sooner."
"...."
Jia shook her head, looked at me, and said,
"If it were you, could you have said it?"
"...?"
"'Because Suhyun is a chaebol, his wife hears this kind of talk. I can't stand this, please do something about it.' Could you have said that...?"
"...."
Yeah. Even if it were me, I couldn't have said it. It was a marriage she pushed for herself; what could she do if she regretted it?
"So I just decided to endure it. I tried to endure it, and I tried to find a solution in my own way..."
"Your direction was a bit off."
"I realized that too late. Things that didn't have to end in divorce..."
And Jia spoke with a tone of regret, as if lamenting.
"...Remarrying would be impossible, wouldn't it?"
I pondered for a moment. Remarrying this woman. ...Perhaps Jia could go back to how she was. If we remarried, Jia might change like that again. It was certain she would continue her corporate life. If she worked at the company again, she might hear bad things again, and then she would likely change again and act in that stifling way. Would that be the right thing to do?
"..."
Still, as if to say a husband and wife are one body, Jia didn't even look at me; she stared at the floor and said,
"...If we do it again... I’ll be a good wife."
"...."
"I know now. Rather than external things, if I just live happily with you inside the house... that’s enough. I shouldn't have been swayed by what others said. ...I guess I’m vulnerable to that kind of thing. That’s why, when the news was cursing you out and all that... I believed it too."