Chapter 3

And so began the cruel twist of fate that would turn Hajin, the person who had once felt the most alien to Sua in her entire life, into the most intimate person she would ever have.

Her in-laws wanted Sua to leave the military.

It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable demand. There were no military officers among the daughters-in-law of chaebol families.

Even if they coveted the upright, honorable background that came from a military family, her in-laws wanted a daughter-in-law who would conceal that presence within their household and simply smile brightly at their son.

When Sua announced her intention to leave the military, the person who regretted it most was Lieutenant Colonel Shin Cheol-woo, who had always looked after her.

Lieutenant Colonel Shin was convinced that Sua possessed enough talent to surpass even her grandfather.

“Is the work too difficult? Or is someone giving you a hard time…?”

But Sua couldn’t tell him all the petty circumstances within her family, so she answered matter-of-factly.

“I just want to sleep in a little.”

“…What?”

“Getting up so early every morning is a little exhausting.”

Sua deliberately ignored the change in Lieutenant Colonel Shin’s expression.

“My grandfather, my father, my uncle, my aunt… Even my brothers are all protecting the country. So surely it’s all right if just one of us lives a little carelessly.”

She didn’t bother taking back her words.

If she had to choose between receiving people’s sympathy and being seen as a pathetic person, she’d rather be the latter.

It rained on the day Sua left the military.

As though the heavens themselves were mocking her heartbroken state.

Sua didn’t have an umbrella, but she didn’t hesitate for long before walking straight into the pouring rain.

What did a little rain matter when she had just lost her job overnight?

But suddenly, a large black umbrella appeared overhead, shielding Sua’s face from the raindrops that had been about to fall upon it.

Tap, tap, tap.

The sound of rain hitting the umbrella was like music played in short, rhythmic beats.

The next sense to reach her after hearing was smell.

A cool yet sweet fragrance of perfume lingered at the tip of Sua’s nose.

Sight was the last thing she registered.

Sua lifted her head and stared at the face of the man who had held the umbrella over her.

He seemed to have absorbed all the moisture in the world, making him calmer than usual.

The darkest part of him was undoubtedly his eyes.

When their gazes met, his eyes were as heavy and dark as storm clouds.

She wanted to poke them.

Would raindrops really roll down if she did, just as she’d imagined?

Would thunder rumble and the world around them grow noisy?

“What brings you here…?”

Sua, who had been observing Hajin in a daze without realizing it, hurriedly came back to herself.

Then she asked as calmly as she could.

“It looked like you hadn’t brought an umbrella.”

Hajin spoke casually, as though it were nothing.

But to Sua, it was anything but insignificant.

There was no way a man as indifferent as him would come all the way to his wife’s workplace for such a trivial reason.

Not when he’d even taken time off to do it.

They were looking directly at each other, yet Sua couldn’t decipher his true feelings at all.

“So this is the last time you’ll be wearing your uniform.”

Hajin was three years older than Sua, yet he always spoke to her formally.

Perhaps it was his way of showing respect toward her.

But to Sua, it felt as though he were drawing a line between them.

And because of that, she couldn’t bring herself to willingly let him come any closer, either.

Well, it wasn’t as though they had married for love in the first place.

“I actually knew.”

Hajin’s low voice drifted across the deserted parade ground, somehow fitting perfectly with the mood.

“I knew that if you married me, Lieutenant Chae, you’d have to give up the things that were precious to you.”

Had he known?

Was that why he’d asked her that question back then?

—Will you regret it?

Hearing those words made tears well up in Sua’s eyes with an inexplicable sense of misery.

In truth, she had felt much the same way when she’d told her father she would marry this man.

“My father has a talent for buying things of great value for next to nothing.”

Chairman Do-young hadn’t acquired only Sua’s family’s honor at a bargain price.

He had taken her dreams, her youth, and her future as well.

Hajin already knew the value that even Sua herself had never realized she possessed.

“You were taken advantage of by Chairman Do. Both you, Lieutenant Chae, and your father-in-law.”

The storm clouds in Hajin’s eyes seemed to spread into Sua’s as well.

She felt as though she might burst into tears at any moment.

Hajin’s eyes looked as though they might swallow her whole.

He didn’t take his gaze off her, his focus cold and unwavering.

His stare seemed to bind her tightly in place, leaving her unable to move even an inch.

Without a single rope, Hajin restrained Sua’s slender body.

Her breathing grew as labored as it had when she ran endless laps around the parade ground, and a dull ache began throbbing in her head.

“Even knowing that, Executive Do never told me?”

“No. I’m a despicable merchant myself, after all.”

Hajin shrugged as though the fact were nothing remarkable.

“You’re not very honest.”

“That might be a flaw for Lieutenant Chae, but why would it be a flaw for someone like me?”

Even though Sua knew he wasn’t someone she should blame, she suddenly wanted to blame him anyway.

Perhaps if she did, today wouldn’t feel quite so unfair.

Maybe then she could finally let go of the innocent version of herself who had once been so happy to put on a military uniform for the first time.

“I’ve already started regretting this marriage. What should I do?”

Hajin let out a quiet laugh at Sua’s words.

Under his binding gaze, Sua removed her beret and let down the neatly tied hair she’d been wearing.

Her long, glossy hair spilled over her shoulders.

Only then did it truly sink in that she was no longer a soldier.

From now on, she would have to grow accustomed to elaborate accessories studded with dazzling jewels instead of a beret, and to carefully styled hair cascading down her shoulders instead of hair hastily tied back.

From now on, Sua would no longer be ‘Lieutenant Chae.’

She would have to live as Executive Director Do Hajin’s wife.

“Then regret it as much as you like.”

Hajin stared at her.

“As much as I like?”

“Yes. As much as you like.”

Sua didn’t want to admit it, but she couldn’t cut the rope he had wrapped around her by herself.

Her fingertips merely scraped uselessly against it, like the edge of a dull knife.

Yet the pressure Hajin exerted upon her gave Sua a strange sense of stability.

It steadied her unsettled heart now that she no longer had a place where she belonged.

It gathered together the fragments of her emotions that had been flapping helplessly in the wind.

Perhaps this was the moment when Hajin began to quietly take root in the deepest part of Sua’s subconscious.

He did it so subtly that even Sua herself wouldn’t discover how deeply he’d settled inside her until much later.

At the time, she truly had no idea.

Though even if she had known, perhaps nothing would have changed.

“Rather than offering you some pathetic consolation, I decided I’d be someone you could properly blame.”

The tears Sua had desperately held back ever since she left the parade ground began to pool in her eyes again at those words.

They rose to the very limit, then finally spilled over.

Hajin’s fingertips touched the corner of her eye.

For a fleeting moment, Sua couldn’t tell whether the tremor she felt belonged to her or to him.

One thing, however, was certain.

The place his fingertips had brushed felt as though an electric current had run through it.

The sensation was so intense that she could barely calm herself.

Others might have laughed if they heard this, but that had been the most intimate physical contact Hajin had ever initiated with her until then.

They were husband and wife, but they were farther apart than strangers.

The only physical contact they’d ever shared was linking arms at their wedding.

Every other moment, they had simply passed one another by.

And yet even in this situation, Sua’s face grew hot.

Had I been affected by you?

“Go ahead and hate me as much as you want.”

A dangerous misunderstanding was beginning to form in her mind.

Perhaps the reason he’d come to this completely unsuitable place today, even taking time away from work, was to comfort her.

Perhaps he was offering her an elegant form of consolation disguised as resentment.

“Until you’re no longer angry.”

Her heart began pounding uncontrollably.

Sua was confused by the overwhelming turmoil surging through her.

She had never even felt such a violent upheaval of emotion toward her first love.

At the same time, she was terrified that Hajin might hear the sound of her heart.

It was a foolish reaction.

He hadn’t given her even an inch of his heart.

He was a member of the very heartless family that had forced her to give up all her dreams.

And once today was over, he would return to his usual indifferent self.

“Thank you for saying that, but…”

Sua came to her senses, afraid that if this continued, she would only make a fool of herself.

She barely managed to steady her breathing and hid her trembling hands behind her back.

“I think it would be better if I dealt with my anger on my own.”

And just as Hajin always did, Sua drew a thick line between them.

A line neither of them should, nor could, ever cross.

“You can’t take my anger forever. We don’t even know how long we’ll remain married.”

For a brief moment, Hajin’s expression changed.

His eyebrows lifted, and his eyes wavered.

It was an expression she’d never seen on him before, so Sua didn’t understand what it meant at the time.

“You’re right.”

A moment later, he had returned to his usual languid expression.

“We’ll eventually become strangers.”

The Hajin she’d glimpsed moments earlier, with his gaze trembling, felt as unreal as a mirage.

Looking back after time had passed, perhaps he’d been shaken by something just as she had.

Perhaps that had been her first and last chance to hear an answer from him.

But unfortunately, Sua would never see that expression on his face again.

She wouldn’t even have the chance to ask him what it had meant.

Because one year later, when Sua finally wanted to learn more about him—

he had already fallen from a helicopter and died.