The Alien Wife Thought Experiment
"Hey mister, what if… and I mean really what if, your wife got, um… abducted by aliens. And then that alien transformed itself into a perfect copy of your wife. Identical body, identical memories. Same behavior, same way of talking, everything. But you know the woman is an alien. So what would you do about it?"
I plopped down next to a middle-aged construction worker I'd gotten friendly with, during the lunch break that finally rolled around after a long morning on the job, and threw the question at him.
"What the hell kind of nonsense is that? Did you eat something bad for lunch?"
The man was sitting on the floor of the building we were putting up, smoking a cigarette, and shot me a sidelong glance.
True to his trade, his language was rough, but for all his coarse words, there was a quietly considerate streak in him that never quite matched his bark.
"Just a hypothetical."
Pressed by my insistence, the man exhaled a long drag of smoke before answering.
"Hoo… shit, that's not a human, is it. That's a monster. Obviously you kill it."
"But it has the same memories and body as your wife? The same personality and way of speaking, too."
"Kaa-hk, tch! So what? That's not the wife I knew. If I never found out, fine, no harm done. But the second I know? That's not my wife anymore."
There was no concrete reasoning behind it, but I suspected this was probably the standard response.
"Okay, then what about an ex-girlfriend? Say this girlfriend used you hard and then dumped you. But then an alien copies her appearance and personality exactly, and devotes itself to you. Like, plays the perfect devoted wife, supporting you in everything. And at night, she's… ahem, uh, seems like she'd be pretty enthusiastic…"
"Hey, did you watch some weird movie or drama or something?"
Only after my string of examples did the man finally look at me with eyes that said I was out of my mind.
"Ugh, come on, just answer. It's not a hard question."
"Look at this little punk, listen to him talk. …ssuup."
He took another long pull on his cigarette and—contrary to all his grumbling—answered anyway, point by point.
"Is she pretty?"
"…Sorry, what?"
"The girlfriend the alien turned into. Is she pretty or not?"
"Insanely pretty."
"Then fuck, you get back together with her on the spot, obviously."
When I just stared at him in bewilderment, he snapped at me like I was being hopelessly slow.
"Come on, isn't it obvious? You said it yourself, she used the guy and threw him away, right? That makes her a rotten bitch. And then you broke up, didn't you? That means the relationship is over. She's a stranger now. It's not like there's a kid involved—what's holding you to the past just because you used to date? And on top of that, she plays the perfect wife? She's enthusiastic in bed? What's there to hesitate about. So what if she's an alien. She's a smoking hot woman, isn't she? As long as she doesn't pull any weird shit on me or the people around me, 'dating' doesn't even begin to cover it."
"…I… I guess so, yeah."
"Enough with the fairy tales. Get up, you punk."
Tak.
The man smacked his work gloves against my hard hat, then rose to his feet.
Getting up myself, I chewed over the words he'd just said, sorting through the tangle in my chest.
"You're back. Hard day at work today."
The moment I returned home, there she was—a woman in an apron, the monster, busy making something in the kitchen.
For a moment I froze at the strange sight of another presence occupying the house besides myself, until I remembered what the monster had said about coming back before I got off work.
"Wait, did I ever actually give you the door lock code?"
"I watched you punch it in the first time you opened the door. …Does that bother you?"
"No—no, if anything, I should've given you the code myself. Sorry."
I waved a hand vaguely and turned my attention back to what the monster was doing.
"So… you can cook?"
"Something simple. It won't taste like this morning's disaster."
The monster had a video playing on a phone propped up nearby and was slicing vegetables with a knife. Astonishingly, even with its eyes fixed on me, its hands moved with perfect precision, never glancing down once.
"Go wash up. I've drawn some hot water for you."
"Ah, yeah… sure."
Not knowing what else to say, I fumbled around for a moment, then did as the monster told me and went to wash up in the bathroom.
Coming home from work to someone greeting me and preparing a meal—it felt strange, and yet it felt good.
When I stepped into the room, a single set of chopsticks and a spoon sat on the table just like that morning, and beside them, a bowl of rice buried under curry.
"So it was curry."
Recognizing what she'd made, I felt an unexpected warmth.
"They said it was a dish even a beginner could manage. I don't know how to make kimchi, so I just took some out of the fridge."
"Yeah… thank you."
I sat down at the table and, with a strange feeling settled somewhere in my chest, slowly took my first spoonful of curry.
"…It's good."
"Good."
The monster said it while watching me, and this time—unlike that morning—there was no mistaking it: a faint but unmistakable smile.
Feeling a complicated mix of emotions and having no idea what to say, I ate in silence, and the monster once again simply watched me eat without a word.
"Um… so, how did things go with going back home? Your family's place, I mean."
When I ventured the question carefully to break the awkwardness, the monster answered while regarding its curry with a slightly languid look.
"There was more to do than I expected. First, my human relationships—or rather, Yoon Sung-ha's complicated web of relationships. I untangled them."
"You… you're allowed to just do that?"
"I am Yoon Sung-ha. What's the problem?"
It wasn't a challenge, just a plain question.
"I… suppose there isn't one."
"And second, I told my parents I'm moving out."
"Huh?"
"If I have to keep living in this house, I can hardly be running back and forth to my parents' place every day, can I?"
When I raised my voice in shock at the completely unexpected statement, the monster looked at me again and said, matter-of-factly:
"So you say you're moving out, and then end up… living at my place, essentially. But what happens when my parents find out later?"
"That's an amusing choice of words."
"What is?"
"My place."
"Ah…"
The moment I understood what it meant, I startled, and the monster rewarded me with another of those faint smiles.
"Naturally, I'll keep an apartment for the sake of the deception. I won't actually live there, of course. It's only for appearances when needed—so my parents can rest easy."
"And your parents agreed to that?"
"They were delighted."
"Excuse me?"
Once again my voice climbed without my permission.
"This girl—that is to say, I—apparently threw a great many tantrums at my parents from childhood on. So they seem to have worried about my capacity for independence. That's why they were stingy with my allowance, too. But when I gave them a reasonable excuse and said I wanted to move out, they welcomed the idea."
"Hmm…"
Thinking back on Sung-ha's personality, it was entirely believable.
"They said they'd give me enough money to secure a place, and there's quite a lot in my bank account already, so I don't expect any hardship for the time being. Still, just in case, I'm planning to sell everything except the bare minimum—my clothes, the luxury goods, all of it."
"Won't you miss them?"
"Why?"
"They were things you cherished."
Technically, things Sung-ha had cherished, before.
At my words, the monster mulled something over for a while, then asked:
"Do you like women draped in luxury brands?"
"No, not at all. Honestly, I couldn't tell one brand from another anyway. To my eyes, clothes all look more or less the same."
"I see. Then I'll sell them as planned."
It was her own wardrobe, and she'd sell it however she pleased—there was nothing more for me to say.
"Since we're on the subject, can I ask you one more thing? Why… why are you so good to me? Besides the whole boyfriend thing. Honestly, there are plenty of other men out there, aren't there? I get that we ended up dating by chance, but that alone doesn't really explain it. My se—ahem… um, my semen tastes good, you said, but if you looked around you might find some that tastes even better, right?"
By the old man's logic, maybe I really was sitting on a windfall I hadn't earned.
But unless I pinned down this lingering unease, I didn't think I could keep living alongside the monster.
"……"
The monster regarded me in silence again, but strangely enough, the silence no longer felt uncomfortable.
The monster tilted its head back slightly, gazing at the ceiling as if weighing something, then seemed to reach a conclusion and looked back at me.
"I want to live a long time. And I want to understand humans."
I listened to the monster's words without interruption.
"To live long, we obviously must not draw human attention. We are the few; humans are the many. No matter how skillfully we imitate them, no matter how superior our bodies are, given enough time we would inevitably go extinct. And we cannot fight back—we are a small species, as I said. So there is only one sure strategy for survival: live among humans, quiet as mice. For that, we need to understand them."
"…So you chose me in order to understand humans?"
"That was the reason at first. Now, it's because I'm interested in you."
"Interested how?"
"…I don't quite know. Interest simply stirs in me. I want to keep watching you. I want to be at your side."
Its expression was as blank as ever, but it didn't feel like a lie or an embellishment.
"Of course, that isn't all of it. Cooking for you, improving your quality of life—there's also the matter of securing high-quality semen."
The monster glanced once at my scraped-clean bowl, then back at me.
Those words carried a streak of cold calculation, and parts even the monster itself couldn't seem to make sense of—but beneath them, I couldn't see any malice.
"Do you… dislike it?"
For the first time, the monster asked cautiously, watching my face.
"I mean… no, I don't dislike it. No—actually, I think I like it so far… so far."
Stumbling over my words, I laid my honest feelings about this bizarre, uncanny cohabitation out on the table.
"Good."
The monster looked at me with what seemed like relief, then suddenly rose from its seat and began untying its apron.
Sulk, tap.
The apron dropped to the floor, brushing past bare skin, and revealed a snow-white string-hem slip of a nightgown that left the soft lines of her body faintly visible beneath.
Startled, I barely managed to keep my grip on the water glass I'd nearly dropped.
"We've had our meal. So now it's time to satisfy a different appetite. Wouldn't you say?"
"Ulp!"
As the monster began closing in on me, yesterday's events flashed through my mind, and with something between a yelp and a scream I scooted backward on my seat, skittering away.
At my panicked reaction, the monster stopped in its tracks—and the corners of its mouth curled up, just slightly.
"Don't worry. I'm not starving like I was yesterday, and I've been reflecting on what you told me."
The monster lay down on the bed beyond me, softening the corners of its eyes, and said:
"Will you lie down next to me… Oppa?"
The monster—no, Sung-ha—patted the empty spot beside her, gently beckoning me over.