The Side of My Wife I Never Knew (3)
"Fucking bitch……"
In that instant, it felt like my heart plummeted straight down into my stomach.
My chest felt hollowed out, cored through to the depths, and yet at the same time a hot ball of fire slammed shut over my solar plexus, leaving me gasping for air. With one short piece of testimony, Sangjun had shattered my world yet again, leaving it in merciless pieces.
I barely managed to steady my breathing, the tip of my jaw trembling. I tried my best to stay composed, but the voice that escaped me was laced with an uncontrollable quaver.
"F-f-from the very beginning……?"
At my question, Sangjun shot me a frightened, sidelong glance — but then, as if the medical student's instinctively pedantic, overly logical temperament had simply surged up on its own, he cautiously opened his mouth.
"Ah…… n-not from the very beginning."
Thwack—!
Before he'd even finished speaking, my upper body sprang forward off the sofa. I smacked the back of his head with my palm, full force, and with a dull thudding sound Sangjun's head snapped forward.
"You little shit! Then you should've SAID it wasn't from the beginning! Why can't you answer a question properly?"
"Ow……!"
Sangjun clutched his head, stammering out a reply in a voice thick with a mixture of grievance and terror.
"N-no, that's not it — you asked whether she 'liked me from the very beginning,' so…… I was only trying to clearly distinguish between the timeline of our first encounter and how her attitude developed afterward……"
The moment the words Jisu-noona slipped out, my eyebrows twitched. The sight of a twenty-one-year-old trying so earnestly to explain himself with his clever little brain actually made my anger spiral. A hollow, exasperated laugh escaped me. I straightened back up in my seat and made a show of lightly tapping his forehead.
"Hup……!"
Sangjun flinched, recoiling into his shoulders like a turtle and instinctively wrapping both hands over his head. Watching him grovel like that, I sank back deep into the sofa and spoke in a voice cold as frost.
"Gonna keep talking back to me?"
"I-I'm sorry."
"Then tell me everything. How it was in the beginning — every last detail, nothing left out."
"In the beginning…… Jisu-noona — I mean, Hayul's mother — seemed quite guarded around me, probably because I was a young, able-bodied man. She never engaged in any personal conversation, just kept a polite, respectful distance — the picture of a proper parent who knew exactly where the line was."
The phrase young, able-bodied man coming out of his mouth made something inside me twist, but I held my tongue and waited for him to continue.
"So I focused purely on the lessons. I taught Hayul using the same methods I'd learned firsthand back in elementary school — the efficient way of organizing my mistake notebook, how to analyze which problem types I was weakest at. She's so bright and quick-witted to begin with that she took to my approach beautifully."
At this sudden burst of praise for my youngest daughter, I felt an unexpected flicker of pride stir somewhere in my chest. Wasn't it just a father's instinct to soften at the mention of his own child? For a moment, a strange sense of satisfaction slipped through the cracks of my suppressed rage.
But the memory of why I was really here came rushing back, and it was like a bucket of cold water over my head.
"Fuck, what does any of that have to do with what I asked? Skip the horseshit and get to the point."
"Ah…… I'm sorry. You did tell me to start from the very beginning……"
"Hold on."
"Yes?"
He hunched his shoulders and stopped talking. And then, without warning, a peculiar blend of intellectual curiosity and sadistic desire lifted its head inside me.
My wife — so frigid she seemed to have no sex drive at all, always throwing up walls against other men, so conservative — what exactly had it been that flipped a switch in her, driving her wild with lust for this brat's cock? That hidden, concrete process burned in my mind with a maddening curiosity.
I glanced down at the watch on my wrist. The metal strap hung loosely against my skin. There was plenty of time.
"Fine. Then just talk, at your own pace. Say whatever you want."
"……Yes?"
"Fuck — do I have to tell you twice?"
The moment I made as if to raise my hand again, Sangjun flinched and clutched his head with both hands.
"N-no, sir! I'll tell you right now! So…… I taught Hayul for about two weeks like that, and during that time I guided her so she genuinely developed an interest in studying and started planning and studying on her own initiative."
……Wow. So even the way a med student tutors is on another level. Two weeks, and he completely transformed a third-grader like that.
The admiration slipped out of me before I could stop it. I thought of how Jisu was always tearing her hair out over Hayul's grades and study habits — and in that miserable moment, I couldn't help but feel how impressive the kid's ability really was.
"Once Hayul started actually enjoying her studies, Jisu-noo — I mean, Hayul's mother — her eyes when she watched us, and the way she spoke to me, clearly began to soften. The snacks and drinks she'd bring out herself became noticeably more thoughtful, more carefully prepared, too. And then……"
Sangjun swallowed dryly and began retracing the memory of that day. Riding the current of his voice like a scene dissolving into the next, a misty haze from that afternoon — the afternoon everything began between them — slowly settled over the living room lights.
Click.
"Good afternoon, Hayul's mom."
Sangjun stepped through the front door with his backpack slung over one shoulder and offered a polite greeting. Jisu, who had been pacing in the living room, hurried over to him, flustered and at a loss.
"Oh, Teacher — what am I going to do?"
"I'm sorry? Is something the matter?"
"It turns out Hayul's school just called together a math competition prep class run by the education office. The kids are supposed to stay after school to work through predicted exam problems, and her homeroom teacher contacted me to say Hayul hasn't been able to leave yet…… and a parent counseling session got scheduled at the same time, so I never got the chance to reach you about rescheduling. I'm so, so sorry, Teacher……"
Jisu bowed her head, so genuinely apologetic she seemed beside herself. At the sight of her, Sangjun waved it off with his usual easygoing smile.
"Oh, no, not at all. If it's competition prep, school obviously comes first. Sounds like Hayul's going to do well today."
He laughed good-naturedly and turned slightly toward the front door's smart lock.
"In that case, I'll head to a café nearby, grab a coffee, and come back at the right time."
Just as he was about to step outside, Jisu's hand shot out.
"Oh, Teacher! It's so hot out — where would you even go? Just come in."
Grab.
Jisu's soft, slender fingers closed gently around Sangjun's firm forearm. Then, as if determined not to let him leave, she drew him lightly toward the inner living room.
"You haven't eaten yet, have you? Come sit down at the table. I'll get you something simple to eat."
Under the dim light of the room salon, Sangjun stopped there and abruptly clamped his mouth shut. His face drained visibly white, and he kept swallowing dryly, stealing glances at me.
It was obvious what lurked behind that point in the story — a secret far too explicit, far too shameful, for a twenty-one-year-old kid to confess with his own mouth in front of a husband.
I slid my chin forward off my hand and pinned him with eyes as cold as a snake's.
"Why'd you stop? You little shit, did your tongue get cut off? Talk properly."
"Th-that's not it, it's just…… after that I just sat down at the table, that's all……"
"Whether it's trivial or not is for me to decide, remember?"
When I slammed my palm against the table with a bang and glared at him, Sangjun recoiled into his shoulders like a turtle, trembling faintly.
"Talk. Don't test my patience. When Jisu grabbed your arm that day — what were you thinking inside your head? If you're not honest, I'm turning this phone on right now."
"……"
"Keep stonewalling if you want to see this link posted on your school's Everytime. One…… two……"
"I-I masturbated……"
Sensing there was nowhere left to run, Sangjun squeezed his eyes shut and spat out the confession like a scream. Burning scarlet to the very tips of his ears, head buried low, he poured the words out.
"The truth is…… actually, three nights before that day, I was lying on my bed in my apartment and…… I stroked myself, roughly, alone, picturing Jisu-noona's body. She's not some breathtaking beauty like an actress or anything, but…… her face is pretty enough, and she takes such incredible care of herself that her figure — the fullness of her chest — was no joke. I was at that age where girls were all I could think about, so every time I came for the tutoring sessions, in my head……"
Gulping for air, he pressed on.
"And then the object of a fantasy I'd only ever dreamed about suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me inside — for a moment it felt like my ability to think just shut down entirely. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would burst at that completely unexpected physical contact, and……"
On the word burst, Sangjun clamped his mouth shut again. His face was already flushed to the point of bursting, and he squirmed in place, plainly unable to force out what came next.
Watching him squirm was starting to make my temper boil. My gut was already churned inside out over my wife's betrayal, and every time the brat choked off his story at the worst possible moment, what little patience I had left was grinding down to nothing.
I swept my hand away from my chin and rapped my knuckles against the table, my voice cracking with irritation as I bore down on him.
"WHAT next!! Didn't I tell you to stop hesitating and just say it all? Huh?"
"Eep……!"
"Do you really need another beating before your head cracks open and some sense rattles into it? Why do you keep stopping, you little shit? Can't you just spit out the rest?"
Sangjun instinctively leaned his upper body back, trembling all over. Completely overwhelmed by my fury, he finally squeezed his eyes shut and blurted out the rest of his filthy secret.
"M-my…… my cock — it swelled up between my legs, so heavy and hard that it slipped beyond my control, enough that it showed right through my pants……"