The Wife's Late Return
Yoo Kang-soo had no way to verify anything when his wife came home late.
Because Pil-jun had eaten both dinner and midnight snacks entirely outside.
Her academy schedule made it unavoidable.
Even when he himself was not home, if his son Pil-jun came home from the academy at such a late hour and immediately collapsed, he would not have known whether his mother was there or not.
He could only imagine that.
Yoo Kang-soo thought the situation had become somewhat serious.
Actually, it was not as if Ji had surrendered for Yeom Seong-bong’s sake.
It was Yeom Seong-bong who had exposed their affair.
Still, last time she had gone to karaoke after eating with a male friend.
Today he did not know who she was having dinner with.
Even though it was almost midnight, she had still not come home.
If she was reflecting on her infidelity, Yoo Kang-soo was thinking that this behavior was simply not acceptable.
He was thinking that Ji Hye-in’s actions were extremely displeasing.
The time had long since passed midnight.
At almost one o’clock, the sound of the front door opening reached his ears.
Ji Hye-in entered the house, slightly staggering.
Yoo Kang-soo walked from the living room toward the entrance while staring at his wife.
“Right now… what time is it exactly…”
He tried to speak to his wife but stopped, startled.
Because Ji Hye-in had lowered her head deeply the moment she saw that he was awake and waiting for her.
She walked toward the bedroom with those slightly unsteady steps.
Yoo Kang-soe raised his voice unnecessarily in the living room, afraid he might wake his sleeping son Pil-jun.
He simply let his wife go into the bedroom.
He turned off the light in the living room, followed her, and closed the bedroom door.
“Ha… damn it…”
Yoo Kang-soo could not help but click his tongue.
He reached out and grabbed Ji Hye-in’s chin with one hand, forcing her face up since she would not lift it herself.
“H-Husband… it hurts…”
Her voice was thick with alcohol.
The smell of alcohol wafted over, but the real problem was not the alcohol.
Far fouler than the alcohol was the cigarette smell.
It was heavy, unmistakable cigarette smoke.
Yoo Kang-soo knew Ji Hye-in was not a woman who smoked.
He himself was a non-smoker, so he was extremely sensitive to the scent.
The alcohol smell could be explained by the fact that she had just come from a drinking dinner.
But the cigarette smell was something he could not understand no matter how he thought about it.
She had also applied bright red lipstick to her lips.
What stood out even more than the lips was the eye makeup with a light green tint.
She had never worn eye makeup like that, even during her younger days when she dated.
Because she had been a naive woman with no experience, she had never been the type to do heavy makeup or wear sexy clothes.
He had not completely missed her wearing eye makeup before, but doing it this heavily with bright red lipstick was something he had never seen in recent years.
It felt like a completely different woman.
The neat two-piece suit she wore was the usual commuting outfit he knew well.
But the heavy makeup was unfamiliar no matter how he looked.
Under the two-piece skirt that reached just above her knees, she wore black transparent mesh stockings.
It was the first time he had ever seen her in stockings with such a sexy pattern.
“Who are you…
What did you do to come home looking like this?
When you went to work in the morning, did you go out like this too?”
Actually, Yoo Kang-soo left for work very early in the morning while Ji Hye-in arrived at the office slowly until ten o’clock.
He had no way of knowing what she looked like when she went to work.
She finished work much earlier than he did.
“W-What do you mean…?”
His wife retorted.
But her voice was not bold.
It was a shrinking, submissive tone as if she were trying to crawl into a hole.
“……”
Yoo Kang-soo said nothing.
He could not answer.
He had made a difficult decision in his heart to forgive her, ask everything, and simply move on.
Yet despite not receiving even one proper answer to the three questions he had asked her, he had still decided to eat his heart out and demand answers.
But those decisions were now being shaken violently.
To put it mildly, even if it was not just for his son Pil-jun, he felt no urge to throw everything away in disgust.
Because in the past he had been famous for his bad temper and choleric personality.
But now he was past the age where he would throw tantrums and show his true self.
He was quietly living.
With a light sigh and slowly shaking his head, Yoo Kang-soo opened his mouth.
“Quickly… go to sleep. It’s over one o’clock.
It’s too late.
What transport did you take home at this hour?”
“The person I had dinner with… I was dropped off on the way to calling a substitute driver…”
“A man?”
“Yes…”
“You eat and have dinners with men often.
A man gave you a ride home?”
“It wasn’t just the two of us.
I came with a substitute driver.
Why do you keep treating me like some strange woman?
I really don’t like that…”
Her tongue twisted slightly, but she continued to retort.
She spoke in a sharp, cutting tone.
Yoo Kang-soo was quietly thinking about the past.
During the nineteen years of marriage, he had no memory of ever disagreeing with or refusing his wife’s words.
Perhaps the first time he had refused something she said was when she had refused his request for a divorce.
“You went to work like that in the morning?”
“Wh-What…?”
“Aigoo… never mind.
Anyway… go to sleep. It’s late.
Tomorrow is Saturday, but I have to go to work briefly in the morning.”
Yoo Kang-soo wanted to ask many things, but simply shook his head.
He wondered if he was making a huge mistake right now.
People who committed insurance fraud.
People who cheated on their spouses.
Just one category.
He wondered if forgiving his wife and trusting her had been a huge mistake.
Suddenly, the whereabouts of the missing Yeom Seong-bong.
The strange words he had left the second time he came.
His actions of not clearly resolving those words and simply burying the situation.
Were they really right?
Yoo Kang-soo was plunged into a deep dilemma.
Ji Hye-in had gone into the bathroom in the bedroom, locked the door, and was taking a shower.
But among the sound of the shower water, he heard faint voices.
Very quietly.
Yoo Kang-soe put his ear to the bathroom door.
He could not hear what she was saying, but it was clearly a phone call.
He could not make out the words, but there was a low, humming voice among the water sounds.
It was not a monologue.
It sounded like a low voice on the phone.
Yoo Kang-soe did not want to do anything dirty.
But he could no longer hold back.
His wife had gone into the bathroom still wearing the clothes she had on, only holding her phone.
The handbag remained on the dressing table in the bedroom.
Because the shower sound was still going, Yoo Kang-soe slightly opened his wife’s handbag.
Originally, such behavior did not suit his style.
He would simply flip the handbag upside down and shake it out when he saw it.
Not like a rat sneaking around in an empty room.
But now he could not trust his wife.
It was a situation in which he truly could not trust her.