Chapter 3: The Wife's Tears
"I was wrong...
She knelt in front of me, tears streaming down her face.
That man...
He was trying to protect that woman...
No... his wife...
Even with tears falling, I couldn't speak. It was shocking."
"You have one son, right?
I have one daughter and one son...
Your son is the same age as our eldest daughter.
The second one is much younger... elementary school... senior year."
"How can I live with a husband who cries for another woman in front of me?
But... you know...
If my husband had been the type to keep having affairs,
I would have understood...
But that wasn't the case either.
He was a man who only cared about his kids and family...
Then suddenly... he changed like that.
Instead of child support, he gave me all the remaining property...
And gave up custody and parental rights...
On the condition that I do whatever he says...
We got a divorce, and on top of that...
He dropped the slander lawsuit against that woman."
Jeong Jeong-hee had carefully explained all the events that happened during the divorce process to Yoo Kang-soo a year ago.
Yoo Kang-soo was also explaining to Jeong Jeong-hee how he had found out.
After hearing Yoo Kang-soo's words, Jeong Jeong-hee showed a somewhat surprised expression.
"The kids' dad contacted first and told you?
He even sent a video?
He committed suicide first?
Even though he was so desperate...
Is that true?"
Jeong Jeong-hee was speaking with a quite surprised expression after hearing Yoo Kang-soo's words.
"I personally went to find Yeom Seong-bong.
After the divorce and the business going bankrupt...
He said he wanted to die..."
"Even at the time of the divorce... the husband's business was really precarious.
That's why... to protect the remaining property at least...
He probably rushed to stamp the divorce papers...
But... a few months after the divorce... I heard that he really went bankrupt."
"In a way... divorcing so quickly... it seems he did well.
If it had been a few months later... the kids might have been on the streets...
That's why I feel a bit absurd."
Jeong Jeong-hee slowly shook her head while speaking.
Yoo Kang-soo let out a long sigh.
Then, barely opening his mouth again.
"How did you find out that the two of them were having an affair?"
"My husband...
While he was in the bathroom...
I casually looked at his phone with the screen open...
And saw the two of them chatting on KakaoTalk."
"At first... I was in denial.
I kept interrogating him for days.
That's when he finally confessed honestly."
"Ugh... I don't know...
It's all in the past now...
It's been a year since the divorce.
Now, I only have the kids.
I don't think about anything else."
Jeong Jeong-hee, feeling thirsty, gulped down a cool iced Americano.
"Are you going to sue him?
Are you going to file a slander lawsuit against the kids' dad?"
"I don't know.
Anyway... the other side said that if Jeong Jeong-hee sues the wife, that's it."
"Did your wife say that?"
Yoo Kang-soo nodded.
"I don't know...
One year ago, my husband was trying to protect his wife...
But after a year, believing that he committed suicide first... I can't believe it.
The kids' dad... probably has no money now.
He went completely bankrupt, with billions in debt.
Anyway... as long as there's no damage to me and the kids...
I don't care."
"It's not something I need to worry about...
But are you divorcing?"
Jeong Jeong-hee asked Yoo Kang-soo.
"I still don't know.
The child... will be a college entrance exam student next year...
I can't decide anything on my own.
It's painful."
Yoo Kang-soo let out a deep sigh.
"If you want to sue... go ahead...
Then I'll file a counter-suit.
I have to live with the kids...
Even though I divorced...
I don't want to forgive that woman.
She has a normal family of her own... how can she do such things with a man who has a family?
I can't even imagine it.
Well... but after the divorce... I see a lot of unbelievable things around me.
You know I go to the mart...
So you came to the mart.
There are a lot of married women working there...
With a little exaggeration... half of them have boyfriends.
Only women like me without boyfriends are stupid.
It feels like I'm going crazy.
Married women or whatever... everything seems crazy.
Men are the same...
In this world where only people quietly maintaining families are the stupid ones."
"........."
Yoo Kang-soo lowered his head.
He couldn't figure out what to do next.
It was really unclear.
"It's hot... go shower quickly...
I made bulgogi..."
His wife Ji Hye-in was handing over Yoo Kang-soo's bag while speaking.
The initial anger was gradually subsiding...
Yoo Kang-soo was in a state where he couldn't make any decisions.
For the first time in a long time, his son Pil-jun was eating dinner with them.
There weren't many occasions where the three of them sat together for dinner.
It was because Yoo Kang-soo often went on business trips to the provinces,
and Pil-jun often went to academies in the evening.
Ji Hye-in was taking great care of her son Pil-jun.
Yoo Kang-soo was watching this attentively.
A good daughter-in-law...
A good wife...
And a good mother.
There was no denying that.
But... how could she do such things secretly for two years?
No... what exactly had she been doing?
If Yeom Seong-bong hadn't committed suicide...
Would they have continued meeting for three years... four years?
Yoo Kang-soo's mind was filled with endless questions...
The situation was becoming complicated.
At night, lying side by side in bed, Yoo Kang-soo and Ji Hye-in.
"Starting tomorrow... a 4-day business trip to the provinces..."
"Yes... I packed all the underwear and socks."
"Hye-in...
It's a stupid question, but...
Why did you do that?"
"I'm sorry...
I was crazy for a while..."
"Did you love that man?"
"No...
It's not like that.
The only people I love are you and Pil-jun.
Something was covering my eyes.
I'll come to my senses and live.
I'll live selflessly.
So... please forget everything."
"I... met Yeom Seong-bong's divorced wife."
"........."
"When I told her that Yeom Seong-bong had committed suicide, that woman was quite surprised..."
"Back when we divorced... the man gave all the property and accepted all the conditions the woman set for the divorce.
It was all because he was trying to protect you... Do you know anything about that?"
"........."
His wife was unable to respond immediately to Yoo Kang-soo's question.
"Why can't you answer?
That woman...
When she heard that her ex-husband committed suicide...
She was really surprised.
She thought her husband was so despicable for doing that...
Why would she do that to such a woman?"
"Do you know?
Why did Yeom Seong-bong commit suicide..."
"I suggested the divorce.
No matter how much I thought, it didn't feel right.
So I suggested the divorce.
Let's stop seeing each other...
So I threatened to tell my husband... That was everything..."
"Why did you suggest the divorce?"
"Because it wasn't the right relationship...
I was always anxious.
I was afraid of getting caught."
"Ugh..."
Yoo Kang-soo let out a long sigh.
"Let's do this...
After the business trip, let's talk again..."
Yoo Kang-soo wasn't the best time to go on a business trip...
But since there were things he had been postponing...
He had no choice but to schedule the trip.
However, the 4-day trip was a lie.
No matter how long, 3 days would be enough.
He deliberately inflated it by one extra day to his wife Ji Hye-in.
At dawn on the day he left for the trip, Yoo Kang-soo secretly installed a location tracking device under the trunk of Ji Hye-in's white Kia's car that she drove.
In a deep place where it would be hard to find easily...
Yoo Kang-soo installed the location tracking device.
Because he had been conducting insurance fraud investigations, he had a lot of knowledge about illegal tracking devices.
So, he left for the business trip to the provinces for insurance fraud investigation,
and as soon as he arrived in the provinces, he proceeded with the work smoothly,
and in just two days... Yoo Kang-soo had achieved his purpose.
So, on the third day, much earlier than expected, he returned to the city where he was staying.
His wife worked at a place where she arrived around 10 AM and left exactly at 5 PM.
It was the office of some corporation association, and her job was just to receive simple phone calls and handle paperwork, Yoo Kang-soo knew.