The Confusion of Lingering Attachments
There were other things to consider, but the weekend was far too short to spend it only dwelling on the unpleasant thoughts of my in-laws, whom I encountered every holiday and special occasion. So, I simply stopped thinking about it there. If I kept going, I felt like I’d throw up. ...Seo Jia’s mother is a Christian. A devout one. If I brought up anything related to that, I’d truly feel sick, so I cut it off.
“Master, I was wrong... I’ll apologize on their behalf. Okay?”
“I’ve told you before, if you stab someone a hundred times and then apologize, does that person come back to life?”
“...I really, truly am sorry...”
Then, Jia clung to me slightly and started pulling out all the elements she thought I’d like.
“...I’ll quit the company and live as a maid at home. For the rest of my life. Okay?”
“I’ll speak to my parents properly. Since I’m the one who made the mistake and caused this... I’ll tell them I won’t work and will only stay at home.”
“Master... I’ll even ask for the land I was supposed to receive early, so I can somehow put it under your name...”
However, I just let out a scoff.
“Hey. You think they’d give land to a daughter who caused a scandal and got divorced? *Sigh.*”
“...Ah, that’s true.”
Jia, who had slumped back down to the floor, rolled her eyes for a moment, trying to think of what her Master would want to hear, before saying, “Master, this won’t do after all.”
“Why again? What is it?”
“...I’ll have your baby.”
“No, Seo Jia, that ‘baby’ card might have worked in the past, but it’s truly useless now, don’t you get it?”
“Why? If I give birth to a baby...”
Jia insisted that the image of me saying I would love a baby that resembled her—no, even one that didn’t—was still stuck in her head. She claimed that if I wanted it, she would remove her Mirena right now and let me ravage her night and day until she was pregnant. Given my personality, which had always been particularly fond of children, she thought this would surely work.
“...And rather than just the two of us, I think it would be better for both of us if I got pregnant, gave birth, and raised a child. Since you decided to give me a chance...”
“Hey, I told you, I never said I was giving you a chance.”
“...Please, spare me....♡”
Crazy bitch. “...*Haa*, seriously...”
“Instead of just the two of us... if we raise a baby, we’ll both be focused on the child, so time will pass faster. And they say homes with babies are peaceful and happy. Usually. Statistically, that’s what they say. That’s why... ah, we divorced because we didn’t have a baby...”
“No, that wasn’t the reason for that problem.”
“...Anyway, if there’s a baby, Master will take better care of me, and if I hold the baby in your arms and breastfeed it, my heart might become beautiful again...”
What is she even saying? She keeps going on.
“Seo Jia.”
“...”
“That might have been fine in the past. When I loved you. Back then, because you were the person I loved, I did have thoughts like, ‘I want to hold a baby that looks like the person I love.’”
“Yes...”
“But now, is there any reason for me to love you?”
Jia pressed her lips together and kept her gaze fixed on the floor.
“You might still like me, but I don’t love you. If I did, that would just be an illegitimate child.”
“...But, Master...”
“So, *haa*...” I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly and looked at Jia as I spoke.
“The reason I keep bringing up the past isn’t to hold it over your head. It’s just that, even by doing that, I’m trying to resolve the knot in my heart... that frustration... It might sound bad, and you probably think I’m treating you like an emotional trash can. Yeah, well, to be precise, that’s exactly what it is.”
“...”
“But when I talk about those things, it’s better if you just listen quietly. If you try to come up with some ‘solution’ to it, things only get more complicated. Do you understand what I’m saying, Seo Jia?”
“Yes...”
“...So, take it slow. I... yeah, honestly, I’m confused too.”
Now it was my turn to tell my story.
“I hate you so much I could kill you. Really. Honestly, I was happy when we divorced. I felt truly liberated, and I was shocked to realize that a home could be such a comfortable place. I felt good every single day.”
“...Did you not think of me at all?”
“Why would I? I really hate you. I was so happy without you that I felt like I could jump off a building. Ask the guys later. I brought the guys over and we played games like crazy. It was so happy not having Seo Jia there to get angry at me for being noisy even if I drank all night, not having Seo Jia there to nag me about weird things if I came home late, and not having Seo Jia there to get annoyed at me for sleeping in on the weekend asking how long I was going to sleep.”
“...”
“Men are like that. Because she’s the woman living with them, and even more so because she’s a woman who was dying to marry me, I think, ‘I should just turn a blind eye to this and let it pass.’ We tend to endure things to a certain extent even when the stack builds up. But you didn’t do that. You’d drag out every single tiny little thing and get angry as if you wanted me to hear it all. Would you like someone like that? Enduring it has its limits. It’s exhausting. ...*Ha*, I was just stupid back then.”
“I thought that was love, and I thought everyone else lived like that, so I was just naive. Truly, as you said, I had so little experience, so I thought that way and endured it. But then there was the freedom I enjoyed after the divorce. The happiness I experienced, the joy I felt. It was like a high school senior who studied like crazy, finally feeling freedom as a college student. Would someone who’s tasted that want to go back to those days?”
“...No, you wouldn’t... I didn’t know it was that hard for you.”
“People don’t know how they sound when they’re angry, or how it’s heard by the other person. That’s why you should have thought about it before getting angry. For example, if I told you not to hang up wet towels but just put them in the laundry basket, you would...”
“...”
“‘How many times do I have to tell you not to hang up towels and put them in the laundry? Why don’t you listen no matter how many times I say it? Are you stupid? Are you doing this on purpose to spite me? It’s an eyesore, so why don’t you listen!’ That’s what you’d say. You. I’m not exaggerating, am I?”
“....You’re right. I... did do that.”
My anger had flared up for a moment, but now that my ex-wife was sitting there, accepting it immediately and showing remorse instead of rebelling and arguing back, my anger didn’t grow any further.
“But then, one day... you really suddenly came into my house.”
“You came in suddenly and cried. You said you couldn’t leave. You said if I gave you just one ring you’d leave, but you didn’t keep your word. And then you climbed on top of me and.... ...You did those things.”
“From then on, you ended up living in my house without me even giving you permission. Honestly speaking, the reason I couldn’t kick you out is because I was afraid your parents would misunderstand and make things worse. I was afraid they’d ruin my image. Do you know how fatal it is for a news article to pop up saying I divorced at twenty-eight? If I don’t disclose the details, it’s an even bigger problem. People will think there’s a problem with me. Remarriage? The hell with that. I can never do that.”
“Not only that, but my parents would find out about it too. How much would they curse me out? If I said, ‘Actually, it was this and that, so Seo Jia was the one who pushed the divorce papers first, so I just thought let’s get it over with and signed them’—do you think they’d take my side? They’d lecture me, saying a man couldn’t even endure that much...! ....They would.... And especially, after you lent me money, you went and tattled to my father. ‘I helped him like this, I helped him solve it well’—as if you were doing me a favor! ...That’s what you said.”
“...”
“If I say I’m getting a divorce now after that, it’s perfect for them to say, ‘Are you dumping her now that you’ve received tens of billions from your wife and everything is going well?’ I haven’t even told them I paid the money back yet. There’s no answer. Seriously.”
Jia shuddered at that part. She hadn’t even thought about it, but the fact that she hadn’t mentioned paying back the money meant his father and mother would still think he had received 70 billion won from her for free. If he announced the divorce now, he would truly be a piece of trash. He would be Han Suhyun, a man who begged his wife for money when a crisis hit, and then divorced her over a simple marital spat once the situation was resolved.
“If... if I tell them now that I paid the money back...”
“Oh, right. ‘I received all the money she gave me. And now she wants to divorce me’—is that what you’d say?”
“...Even so, if I explain it well...”
“You should have done that from the start, what are you going to do now?”
Because that would only make the problem bigger. Jia had nothing to say and just stared blankly. I just let out a deep sigh, returned to the starting point, and brought up what I had said before.
“...Anyway, that’s all in the past... so forget it.”
“I’m sorry, Master.”
“I know. ...That’s why I’m saying I’m confused right now.”
Jia asked what I meant by confused.
“Because I’m human too, I feel lingering attachments.”
“...”
“It might not be as much as you, and you can’t compare these things... but when you came back to the house, it wasn’t like I completely hated you, loathed you, and wanted to kill you. I... made my own efforts too.”