The Wife's Secret Meeting
Yoo Kang-soo was in a situation where he had told a lie.
The provincial business trip wasn't a two-night, three-day affair...
It was only a one-night, two-day trip.
On the day his wife Ji Hye-in was supposed to be at a dinner party... in truth... she was supposed to be at home.
But the excuse... was that she was in the province.
Now... the real curiosity was eating him alive.
He couldn't believe Yeom Seong-bong either...
And he couldn't believe Ko Dong-seok either.
And what puzzled him most...
Was his own wife.
The way his wife was acting... with a man who called her by name... and was at least ten years older...
Wearing a friend-cosplay outfit...
No matter how hard he thought about it... he couldn't understand it at all.
On the day his wife claimed she was having a dinner party...
Yoo Kang-soo... had rushed to finish the provincial business trip as quickly as possible...
And had already... returned to this city and was waiting there.
And... right in front of his wife's office... he was waiting for her to come out.
He had planned to tail her himself.
It was Thursday evening.
If everything had gone according to plan... Yoo Kang-soo... should have been...
Returning home on Friday afternoon.
At 5:10 p.m...
His wife was coming out of the building that housed the association's office.
The car... seemed to be parked normally in the lot.
His wife was walking on foot.
Wearing a neatly tailored A-line skirt that fell below her knees...
And a jacket.
Her shoes... were low-heeled flats...
And her makeup wasn't heavy.
His wife was dressed exactly as she always was...
And Yoo Kang-soo was watching her carefully.
Not right in front of the association building, but at the entrance to a side street a short distance away...
His wife was standing there.
And after a moment...
A silver sedan stopped right in front of her.
His wife... looked inside the car, bowed her head deeply in greeting...
Then... got into the passenger seat.
And the car pulled away immediately.
Yoo Kang-soo started chasing the silver sedan.
The car drove for about ten minutes... and entered the parking lot of a large eel restaurant that had its own building.
Next to the parking lot was a spacious garden and an artificial waterfall...
It was a high-end restaurant.
Just the fact that such a large private parking lot existed in the heart of an expensive city...
Was astonishing.
Yoo Kang-soo... searched the menu of the eel restaurant on his phone.
It was an expensive place where one serving of freshwater eel cost over 500,000 won.
From the silver sedan... a man and his wife got out.
The man... was a middle-aged man dressed neatly in a suit.
It wasn't Ko Dong-seok.
The man... got out of the car first, then his wife followed from the passenger seat...
The two walked side by side.
When his wife... lagged a little behind, the man... lightly touched Ji Hye-in's shoulder and pulled her toward himself.
The two entered the building.
Yoo Kang-soo felt frustrated.
There were almost no empty spaces in the parking lot.
And... he couldn't park the car because...
There were too many parking attendants... and if he stayed quietly in the car... they would probably cause a scene.
Since valet parking was being handled... he couldn't park anywhere.
Yoo Kang-soo... hurriedly pulled the car out... and illegally parked it on the nearby side street, then wandered around the eel restaurant building again.
It was frustrating.
His wife... had gone inside the eel restaurant...
He couldn't enter the restaurant alone to eat... and anyway... tailing alone was...
Annoying, whether in the past or now...
Yoo Kang-soo was thinking that.
In the end... he stood far away where he could see the entrance of the eel restaurant...
Waiting for his wife to come out.
In a few years... he would be fifty...
Because of having a wife who was too good...
What kind of thing was this... thinking...
Yoo Kang-soo was thinking.
Now... honestly, he thought he shouldn't make excuses about his son.
Pil-jun... was now... almost an adult.
Even if there had been no father figure...
Under his mother who worked as an employee in a food market stall...
While studying alone... without deviating...
His past that had grown well...
He remembered his past.
He had lived his whole life... with just his mother... struggling...
But the memories of the household finances... were only of how incredibly difficult it was.
A woman alone...
How difficult it was to raise a child alone... as a single mother...
Yoo Kang-soo had realized this desperately while looking at his mother's whole life.
Honestly... whether he was an only child... or whether his mother was a single mother... or whether his father had an accident...
He didn't know the detailed situation well.
Because his deceased mother... disliked revealing that part... so throughout his life... he hadn't directly asked about it...
Yoo Kang-soo was thinking that even just the fact that she had raised him without abandoning him was...
Grateful.
Just thinking about his deceased mother... thoughts of his wife Ji Hye-in automatically came to mind.
She had been a kind daughter-in-law who had taken care of his mother like his own mother...
And had always cooked warm meals and served them...
But in reality... she had nothing but two breasts...
Not a military officer... but had married a non-commissioned officer...
And even while taking care of his sick mother-in-law...
She hadn't frowned or complained even once...
Such a kind woman...
He didn't know how she had become like this...
"Fucking hell...
Since I suffered in the past...
I should just let her enjoy and live..."
Yoo Kang-soo was muttering to himself while cursing.
Just thinking about his deceased mother...
The feeling that he wanted to forgive and defend his wife Ji Hye-in... kept welling up in Yoo Kang-soo.
But... setting aside the child excuse... the excuse of his deceased mother...
Even after throwing all that away...
Yoo Kang-soo himself...
Still felt that he liked his wife Ji Hye-in...
He was clearly feeling it himself.
While thinking these various thoughts... Yoo Kang-soo was waiting for his wife Ji Hye-in and her group to come out.
Looking at his phone... two hours had already passed.
It was half past seven.
It seemed like they had entered the eel restaurant at around 5:30...
But by half past seven... it was already past eight...
And at almost eight o'clock...
Several customers were coming out from the eel restaurant.
A group of middle-aged men.
And... women were behind them...
One woman wearing familiar clothes appeared.
It was his wife Ji Hye-in.
But... his wife wasn't alone.
There was one more woman besides his wife.
His wife and the woman... were standing side by side.
There were quite a few men.
All the men were dressed neatly in suits or no-tie suits...
No young men were there.
All were men above middle age.
It seemed like chauffeurs were attached.
It seemed like they were moving with three vehicles.
Six men... two women.
A total of eight people... seemed to be a group.
Up to here... there was nothing strange.
Really... it seemed like a dinner party while working in a company and generally in social life...
Everyone seemed to be drinking alcohol...
Chattering noisily... three chauffeurs lined up the cars... six men and two women... divided into three sedans and moved.
Yoo Kang-soo... hurriedly came to his own car...
Preparing to start the car.
He followed the sedans.
Anyway... since it was just a short distance... it was a very bustling entertainment district...
So... the car... didn't go far and entered the public parking lot at the entrance of the entertainment district.
In the public parking lot... six men and two women... got out of the car again... and walked around the entertainment district on foot.
Ji Hye-in was walking almost at the very back.
Another woman... like Ji Hye-in... was dressed in ordinary office lady clothes.
Since he couldn't see their faces up close... it was difficult to accurately guess their ages.
Instead... another thing was confirmed.
Earlier at the eel restaurant... because the distance was quite far... he couldn't distinguish who was who...
But among the six men...
Ko Dong-seok was visible.
Although the clothes were all similar... hard to distinguish...
But upon close look... one of the men seemed clearly to be Ko Dong-seok.
The group... all moved on foot.
They all went down to the basement of one building together.
It was a place with a large sign flashing "Room Club".
Just from the large sign... it had the atmosphere of a casual pub.
Yoo Kang-soo... this time also...
Couldn't follow inside.
He looked at the time on his phone screen.
It was past eight-thirty.
Honestly... if it was like this...
Both situations... the cases could be valid.
His wife saying...
It could all be true.
Just... people who did similar things gathering together...
Drinking, singing... and having a fun dinner party.