Kkaeal Couple — Chapter : 03

Jae-in covered her mouth as she looked the man up and down.

She couldn’t believe it.

Although he looked a little gaunt, the man standing before her was perfectly fine, with all four limbs intact.

It was different from the articles that had been pouring out every day, saying things like he had been unconscious for a week and that the succession structure of the Daeha Group might change.

“Sunbae, you’re awake?”

“I’m awake, so that’s why I’m here.”

He gave her a look that seemed to say, Can’t you tell just by looking?

He took another step toward Jae-in, and their gazes met firmly.

“You never came to visit me at the hospital, did you?”

This time, the man’s sharpened gaze landed on Jae-in.

“That was because……”

None of your family welcomes me.

In truth, she had been so worried that she had gone all the way to the hospital entrance several times, only to turn back.

She was also worried about the reporters camped outside, but more than anything, she simply hadn’t had the courage.

She didn’t have the confidence to face her in-laws, and she was afraid that seeing Tae-ha lying in a hospital bed would weaken the resolve she had painstakingly built up.

“Enough. Let’s go inside and talk. Open the door.”

He gestured toward the entrance with his chin.

Jae-in habitually entered the passcode, then suddenly straightened her head.

“But, are you going inside the house?”

“Then?”

His brow furrowed slightly, and his neatly arranged eyebrows twitched.

“You want me to keep standing out here?”

“It’s not that, but—”

On the day they filed the divorce papers, Tae-ha had packed a few belongings and left.

And he was a man who hadn’t come back even once during the entire one-month divorce reconsideration period.

It was strange enough that he had suddenly shown up, but it was even more unfamiliar that he was speaking to her so casually.

With an awkward expression, Jae-in finished entering the passcode, and the door opened.

“And who told you to change the passcode? Change it back.”

After saying that, he walked past Jae-in.

Jae-in blinked several times as she watched him, then hurried after him.

“Why?”

As they passed through the hallway and entered the living room, she saw Tae-ha already sitting on the sofa.

He was sitting with his back resting deeply against the sofa, looking up at Jae-in.

“Why? Because this is our house.”

“You said you were going to give this house to me.”

Instead of dividing their property separately, Tae-ha had agreed to give Jae-in the newlywed home they were living in.

Since she hadn’t married him for the purpose of obtaining his wealth in the first place, Jae-in had readily agreed.

She had already received her father’s surgery expenses from him several times, so the newlywed home was more than enough—almost excessively so.

“I did?”

“Yes. You said it was alimony.”

At the word alimony, Tae-ha’s eyebrows twitched again.

“It’s only natural to change the front-door passcode when you’re getting divorced. I’m going to live here alone.”

At Jae-in’s words, Tae-ha finally burst into a hearty laugh.

Had she ever seen Sunbae laugh so freely before?

Jae-in’s face twisted strangely. It was an oddly bizarre sight.

Didn’t they say he’d had surgery? Is he still in a lot of pain?

Had he suffered serious damage to his head or something?

Jae-in stared at the man with a deeply concerned expression.

He rose from his seat and approached Jae-in.

He walked toward her with clean, effortless steps and stopped directly in front of her.

“Divorce? Did you dream it?”

He bent down toward Jae-in, lowering himself until their eyes were level.

“I’ve never said anything like that.”

His dark graphite-colored eyes gazed at her.

His gaze was so straight and unwavering that Jae-in almost wondered if the whole divorce situation had been nothing more than a dream.

“What…… do you mean? Our reconsideration period is almost over.”

Her voice trembled as it escaped through her lips, which she had barely managed to part.

Jae-in hurried into the bedroom, grabbed the documents she had left on top of the cabinet, and held them out to Tae-ha.

“Look at this. The confirmation hearing is next week. Sunbae, we agreed to get a mutual divorce.”

Is he teasing me? Or is this some kind of hidden-camera prank?

Unable to understand the situation at all, Jae-in watched as Tae-ha skimmed through the documents.

He seemed to look at them with an emotionless gaze before raising his head.

“No.”

“……?”

Before Jae-in could even ask what he meant—

“I said we can’t get divorced.”

He tore apart the documents in his hands.

Rip. Rip.

The papers were torn into countless pieces, and one by one, the fragments fell to the floor. The moment seemed to unfold in slow motion.

It took several seconds before Jae-in finally came back to her senses.

“W-What are you doing?”

So shocked that she immediately crouched down, she gathered the scattered pieces of paper together. Seeing that they had already been torn apart left her feeling utterly helpless.

“Why won’t you get divorced? The confirmation hearing is next week. It’s over next week!”

Normally, time passed so quickly.

Even though their reconsideration period was only one month because they had no children, it had felt unbearably long.

Their marriage was finally reaching its end.

And now he was saying he wouldn’t do it?

“I’ll say it again. I don’t remember ever saying anything like that.”

“How can you not remember? Can’t you see your signature right here?”

Jae-in picked up one of the pieces of the torn documents and showed it to Tae-ha, but he didn’t even spare it a glance.

“Ask Mother. Does she know we’re getting divorced?”

As if only Mother knows.

His younger brother, his aunts.

The only person in the Daeha family who probably hadn’t heard about their divorce was his grandfather, Chairman Woo Byung-ho, who was receiving treatment in the United States.

If it hadn’t been for the chairman’s illness, they might have already publicly started looking for a new daughter-in-law.

Everyone in the family welcomed the divorce between the two of them with open arms.

Jae-in hurriedly searched for her phone, intending to call right away, but Tae-ha calmly returned to the sofa and sat down.

“Yeah. She doesn’t know. And I don’t want to know either.”

Then he turned the upside-down glass upright and poured water from the pitcher.

Trickle.

The refreshing sound of water filling the glass echoed through the living room.

Unlike Jae-in, whose heart was pounding so hard it felt as though it might burst, he remained calm.

Just as he always had.

“Forget the divorce. I’m not planning to divorce you.”

Jae-in approached the man as he answered while holding the glass of water to his lips.

“Then why? Why are you saying you won’t do it?”

Jae-in was so bewildered that she stumbled over her words. It felt as though the blood throughout her body was rushing so violently that it might burst out of her.

When he had suggested getting divorced, he had acted as though he would let her go without the slightest regret.

She couldn’t understand why he was acting like this now.

Their gazes met through the transparent glass of water.

Unlike Jae-in’s light-brown eyes, which trembled incessantly, his were calm.

Like the surface of a tranquil lake without even the slightest ripple.

He crossed his legs and slowly placed the glass down on the side table.

“I like you.”

His smooth lips parted, and the voice that drifted from them echoed faintly in Jae-in’s ears.

Even after hearing those words with both ears, she had to turn them over in her mind for a long time, wondering if she had heard him wrong.

He likes me?

What?

Me?

Why?

Those two words felt incredibly out of place together.

No, in truth, it was a sentence that simply couldn’t exist.

If he had said something like:

I like success.

I like the company.

That would have made sense.

But Seo Jae-in was not included among the things Woo Tae-ha liked.

Absolutely not.

Never.

“I’m still in love with you, so why would I get divorced?”

Jae-in couldn’t close her wide-open mouth.

Soon, she began shaking her head frantically.

I’m crazy. I must be dreaming.

Otherwise, how could this possibly make sense?

She should have realized it from the moment he suddenly appeared and started talking about divorce.

She must have fallen asleep while watching the rough cut in the editing room.

Jae-in raised both hands and slapped her cheeks, trying to wake herself up.

“Ah! It hurts.”

Jae-in grimaced at the stinging pain.

It was the kind of pain that instantly cleared her mind.

“Why does it hurt? What are you doing?”

“Of course it hurts when you hit yourself that hard.”

Tae-ha gave a small laugh and looked at Jae-in at an angle.

“Seo Jae-in, now that you know this is reality, put it into your head. We’re not getting divorced.”

Her wide-open lips trembled.

Where exactly did everything go wrong?

“As long as I like you.”

Tae-ha had never liked her.

Not even for a single moment.

Unless, perhaps, she had been the only one who had loved Sunbae all along.