The Past of the Two. 2
She takes a sip of water and begins her story, drifting back into the past.
"...Honey, don't worry... I brought the money."
"....?"
She approaches him as he smokes on the balcony, looking at him with worried eyes. Then, she shows him her phone.
"I sold all the land I'd been holding for the past few weeks..."
"Why, why would you do that..."
"You said you put all your money into that. You said you didn't want to get help from your father..."
"Even so, this is... I, I..."
Faced with the losses from his failed business, he had chosen the hardest path: taking the full responsibility on his own shoulders. That was why he hadn't even answered his father's calls, choosing instead to smoke alone, lost in his own thoughts. She showed him the money in her bank account. It was every cent she had—the building she owned, her apartment, the land in the provinces, even the scraps. Sixty-eight billion won.
"...Is this all,"
"I saw the news... they said you needed about fifty billion. You said that was to put out the immediate fire."
"..."
Though the total debt was one hundred billion won, with this amount, he could negotiate repayment dates with the creditors for the rest. Some even asked for equity in the company. They were likely the ones who hadn't believed the fake news, but had carefully examined the business reports and progress updates, deciding to trust him and leave their money invested. That was how he extinguished the immediate fire, and slowly, he began to regain his vitality.
However, on the other hand,
"That's a good thing. But why?"
"That is..."
From that point on, she changed. Very slowly, little by little. The problem was that this fluctuation happened every single day. Then, the word 'correction' that Seohee mentioned earlier came up again.
"And there was a correction report released, too. It said Han Suhyun—no, your ex-husband—wasn't at fault. The experiment was weird, and..."
"Back then, that information didn't exist..."
He went back to working quietly at the company, receiving his salary. The account where his salary was deposited became her account. About ten million won deposited every month. While he kept paying off the debt, he also began to take an interest in the business he had ruined, pushing it forward, if only a little. With the intention of starting over slowly from the beginning.
His staff around him would say—
"Representative—no, General Manager. This was a mistake in the experiment, not a failure, so from the beginning..."
"...A mistake is also a failure."
"Won't it see the light of day someday?"
"...They wouldn't give a failed business a chance."
"General Manager, that isn't a failure. The timing was just like that, and the incident..."
Those who knew, knew, but the person who needed to know—Seo Jia—did not. She only knew the words floating around in the media. That Han Suhyun had tried something reckless at a young age and got burned badly, that his response was insufficient, that his work was shoddy, and so on. As she heard these things, the feelings of reliability, trust, faith, and respect she had for him slowly withered away.
No matter how much she flipped through the channels, the news was full of people badmouthing her husband; what woman wouldn't change her mind? If one person suddenly approached a king and said, "A tiger has appeared outside the palace," he would scoff and not believe it. If three or four people approached and said, "A tiger has appeared," he would tell the palace guards to be on alert and respond. But if hundreds, thousands of people came running to say a tiger had appeared, could the king remain unmoved? It was the same.
"So I... at some point, I stopped doubting and just believed it all..."
"..."
"Thinking that my husband, that person... Suhyun, wasn't competent, that he wasn't a great person, just... just a person... I was disappointed..."
"That's enough! Finally, I've paid back everything I owed to my sister—no, to you..."
"...."
"Thank you so much for helping me—"
"Helping you?"
About a year after doing that work. It was when the time had passed where he had even pulled out his accrued severance pay to put into her account, solving everything with a mere 400,000 won in pocket money. The situation had calmed down, he had paid off all the places that needed money, and finally, in the process of a major investor being absorbed and merged into Doowon, he had even paid a massive amount of cash on the condition of acquiring a 30% stake in GPL.
Upon hearing that news, rather than the happiness of having his business recognized, the joy of being able to pay her back was greater.
"...Then, if I just look at what I did... this is the investment prospectus, so with this..."
While telling that story, she couldn't understand herself why she had acted that way, why she had looked down on him. Even so, couldn't she have listened to at least one thing like that? She didn't even question how he had suddenly come into money. From a certain point on, rather than thinking she had helped him, she had acted like his creditor, like someone who owned his life.
"I don't want to hear it. It's obviously just some boring company game."
The news endlessly pointed out that he had failed, that his incompetence was the cause. She, who had been listening to words tearing her husband apart, not only had her pride severely scratched by that alone, but as a side effect of that wound, she didn't offer him a single word of support; instead, she attacked him to try and heal her own wounded heart.
"How long am I supposed to keep cleaning up after you?"
"You don't do things octopus-style like you do. I prepare meticulously in advance and do it accurately. But you..."
She speaks, barely managing to recall the words she had said. At the same time, transparent teardrops fall from her eyes. Hayeon, who looks flustered and doesn't know what to say, and Seohee, who is keeping her mouth shut.
"I told him I thought he would succeed... I also told him I was disappointed."
And unlike her past self, the current her, very slowly, clearly, and with tears in her eyes, says,
"...I told him then that I wanted a divorce..."
"......."
"I needed a place to lean on, but it felt like he was an existence I couldn't lean on..."
The three were silent for a while. A few minutes passed. Seohee opened her mouth.
"...Did you apologize for saying that?"
"No..."
"..."
She had asked the question, but it felt like things were only getting more tangled.
"Then I also know the reason your husband changed so abruptly."
"...What...?"
Seohee looks straight at her with an expressionless face and says,
"If it were me, I would have changed like that intentionally to get him out of my sight."
"..."
She didn't say anything. She, too, had begun to realize it to some extent. She hadn't helped her husband when he was at his most difficult. She should have been his sanctuary when he was struggling, but she hadn't been. He had promised to always take her side no matter what situation she was in, but she hadn't done the same for him. Making excuses that she hadn't made a promise back then would be the most ugly and pathetic excuse imaginable.
She slowly opens her mouth to speak.
"So... from then on, when he asked for a divorce, I clung to him desperately... and we lived like that."
"But. You said that was the fourth time."
"...The first time was that, and the second and third were just... honestly, I don't even know if it was four times. It felt like it was always on my lips..."
Seohee sighed, and Hayeon dropped her head. They didn't know whether to comfort her or curse her out. They wanted to say she had a very strange marriage, but seeing her look like she might collapse at any moment, they felt like they would be throwing stones at her.
"I just said it as a joke that I'd divorce him if I didn't want to do housework..."
"Did your ex-husband hear it as a joke?"
"...I don't think so."
"And when he asked to have a drink, I said I didn't want to and broke a bottle..."
"Haa..."
"But, that was... that was really because my father-in-law told me not to let Suhyun drink..."
"So even if your husband wants to do something together, it means you have to stop everything if your father-in-law says so."
"...."
She pressed her lips together. Beside her, Seohee patted Hayeon and shook her head. It meant not to be too harsh. Hayeon let out an even stronger sigh instead.
"Did you... really have to take the money?"
"No, Suhyun said he would give it to me...!"
"Exactly."
She was silent for a moment, then,
"....Honestly, it wasn't that I liked Suhyun's salary being deposited into my account. Just... Suhyun receiving pocket money from me like a child. And I enjoyed him being bound to me. Like I was the master and Suhyun was the slave... strangely, I liked that back then... I enjoyed it, I found it fun..."
"You really..."
Hayeon finally jumped up, but Seohee patted her again and told her to sit down quickly. It was absurd that she had done such things with her husband. Of course, it had to be that way. Hayeon and Seohee were both married women with husbands. If they found out their husbands were playing with their wives like toys, how furious would they be?
"Then what about that money?"
"I used it to buy other land..."
"Tell the truth about this, too."
"..."
And then, she began to say even more absurd things. It would be strange if it had all disappeared just from buying a few home appliances and groceries for his house.
"...I thought I'd try to make some money on stocks like Suhyun,"
"..."
"The ones I had... were delisted. Some are still suspended from trading..."
Hayeon finally dropped the water cup she was holding to the floor.
"Still, Hayeon, calm down..."
"Hey, do you think I can calm down? Baek Seohee, you're weird too. Why do you keep trying to soothe her? The kid isn't normal. Why is she like that? Really? Is that Seo Jia? Is she possessed by a ghost?"
"But still, a person's thoughts..."
"What about a person's thoughts. What? Is she a person? Ha... Seo Jia, try telling your parents that without changing a single syllable. I'm curious to see what happens. Hey, you're the kid who used your husband when he was in a difficult spot, treated him like a slave, got angry when things didn't go your way, and in the end, stepped on him even more by saying things you didn't even mean, only to actually get divorced."
She started to cry, and Seohee quickly tried to soothe her and Hayeon. A whopping 30 minutes were wasted. The meal arrived in the meantime, but no one touched it. Only the broken water cup was cleaned up.
"Alright. That's enough. Let's assume the past is the past. Then, to summarize, Jia, more than anything else, you need to apologize to your ex-husband first. It won't work otherwise."
"...."
"Jia, Hayeon spoke a bit sharply, but she's right. It's not going to work just by satisfying him physically or doing what he wanted. You have to apologize to him and keep telling him you're sorry. Your actions need to be the same. If you overdo it like you are now, he'll only dislike you more."
She nodded while crying. Then, after a pause, Seohee said,
"Haa... yeah, that's all fine. But... why did you hand over the divorce papers in the end?"
Wiping her tears with a tissue, she closed her eyes tightly, opened them slowly, caught her breath, and said,
"...The novels I was reading, too."
"..."
"Since it came to this, I thought if I asked my husband to do SM play... and if I did something like Femdom, then I would like it too... and since Suhyun would do whatever I asked, I thought it would be like that. Then, by threatening him appropriately and training him... I thought he would listen to me better in the future and wouldn't leave me..."
By now, even Seohee was barely holding back her anger. What, what on earth is she talking about?
"And Suhyun liked having sex. It was just a different method, but if I did it that way..."
"Are you unable to distinguish between novels and reality?"
"...."
"Doesn't she need to go to a psychiatrist?"
Hayeon, who majored in psychology, looked at her and tried to compose herself as she spoke. She wondered if the kid had become strange because she had mental problems.
"You don't become strange just from reading novels. You should be able to distinguish..."
"I...! Because I'm older than Suhyun... I thought he might hate me... When we were dating, always...!"
She suddenly raised her voice, speaking with emotion, as if she were slightly angry.
"What are you talking about..."
"Because men always like younger girls, they say so on the internet, in books, and in novels too. So I thought I would be abandoned someday.... I kept thinking that he was just young and pure for now... I thought that when he grew up more, he might be the one to ask for a divorce first..."
The two looked at her with expressions as if they were about to faint.