Chapter : 05
“Ah… Daehyun canceled the appointment? He said something urgent came up?”
What was that supposed to mean?
Juhye slowly grasped the situation.
Apparently, Daehyun had plans with Kang-il today, but he’d canceled on his own and gone back home.
The cause didn’t need much thought—it was clearly her fault for not answering the phone.
“Okay. You go home first. I’ll talk to Juhye.”
After hanging up, Juyeong set her phone aside and looked at Juhye.
“Juhye, Yunhee’s dad is coming home now. He was supposed to have dinner with Mr. Seo Daehyun, but it seems it got canceled.”
“Oh, then I should head out too. I’ve already eaten.”
Juhye hurriedly gathered her bag and stood up. The way she looked around with wide, startled eyes like a rabbit was pitiful.
“Can you wait just a bit? It’d be okay to say hello to your brother-in-law.”
Juyeong asked regretfully. She looked sorry to let Juhye go like this after seeing her for the first time in a while.
“No, he must be tired. There’s the baby too… and I have to have dinner with Daehyun anyway.”
While Juhye made up a reasonable excuse, Juyeong ended up following her all the way to the door. Her gaze, full of worry, overflowed with affection.
“Juhye, are you really okay?”
“Of course I am, sis. The meal was delicious too.”
A gentle smile appeared on Juhye’s fair face—beautiful like a masterpiece even with just a slight curve of her lips, refined and elegant.
“No, I mean your heart.”
Juyeong carefully wrapped an arm around Juhye’s shoulders. At the tender touch, Juhye’s eyes wavered slightly as she put on her shoes.
It was the same expression she’d had earlier when Daehyun’s name slipped into the phone conversation.
In that gaze, Juyeong saw affection so deep it couldn’t be hidden.
So deep that it made her wonder how the two could even have fought at all.
“I don’t know if this will help, but Juhye… when you’ve sorted out your thoughts, try telling Daehyun properly why you fought.”
No matter how much they’d argued, it probably wasn’t as serious a problem as it seemed.
Seeing the expression on Juyeong’s face, which clearly believed that, made it even harder for Juhye to open up.
“I just hope your heart feels more at ease because of that.”
“…Thank you. I’ll go now, sis.”
“Be careful. And if anything happens, call me. Promise.”
With a bitter smile as her last expression, Juhye stepped completely outside.
Inside the elevator, her hands busily searched through her handbag for her car keys.
Juyeong’s comfort had made her feel a little better, but it was impossible to completely shake off her tangled thoughts. Ever since she’d checked the missed calls, Daehyun’s whereabouts had been weighing on her mind.
Was Seo Daehyun waiting for her right now?
Or…
‘He might’ve gone to see that woman again.’
The moment she recalled what she’d once witnessed, a throbbing headache surged back.
Juhye quietly furrowed her brow.
Why was it that unexpected incidents always happened on Mondays?
The day she first met Daehyun in college, the day they happened to reunite at Inwangsan, even the day they ran into each other again at a party—all Mondays.
And… the day she witnessed her husband’s mistress was also, inevitably, a Monday.
‘Ah, it’s broken… what do I do?’
On a day when her morning schedule was canceled, she’d gone to her husband’s company—and of all days, the elevator was broken.
Juhye debated taking the stairs, then realized too late that she’d left her phone in the car. She hurried back down to the parking lot.
‘Oppa, I just arrived.’
Halfway down the stairwell to the parking lot, Juhye stopped when she heard someone’s voice.
A woman was on the phone, standing by a secluded wall beneath the stairs.
‘Yes… I’m on the parking lot stairs. I’ll wait here.’
She wore a baseball cap pulled low and a mask covering her face—secretive at a glance.
Her softly murmured voice sounded young, yet her overall aura felt strangely mature.
‘No, you don’t need to take me home. You’re busy… What? The parking lot?’
The woman smiled brightly and ended the call.
Curious about who she might be meeting, Juhye peeked her head out slightly.
‘Eunjae.’
A painfully familiar voice pierced her ears.
Juhye froze, cautiously looking down past the railing—and swallowed hard.
Because she saw a man she knew all too well.
‘Oppa!’
The woman cried out happily and ran toward him.
The person she reached out to embrace was—
‘Did you really come all the way here like this?’
Her husband, Seo Daehyun, stood there in a neat suit, frowning slightly.
‘Why are you soaked? Where’s your umbrella?’
He frowned again as he looked over her thin clothing.
‘It suddenly started pouring. I thought it was just a brief shower and ran…’
The woman waved her hands flusteredly, her voice excited. Her eyes, fixed on Daehyun, were full of admiration and affection.
At the rawness of her exposed feelings, Juhye’s fingertips slowly turned cold.
‘I’ll just take the bus, so it’s fine.’
‘Wait. I’ll get you an umbrella.’
Who was that woman to her husband, that he looked so concerned over her shivering in the cold?
Someone precious to him? But she was a face Juhye had never seen before.
In that brief moment, countless thoughts flashed through her mind.
Soon, Daehyun returned with an umbrella from his car trunk and handed it to her.
‘I… really, I’m fine.’
The woman fidgeted and followed closely behind him. Daehyun whispered as if to reassure her.
‘I’m not fine. Hurry and use it.’
At his casual yet gentle words, Juhye’s heart sank heavily.
Because she knew better than anyone that he wasn’t the kind of man who treated just anyone so tenderly.
‘I have an umbrella at home too. I just forgot it today.’
‘I said it’s fine. The flu’s going around these days—if you catch it, it’ll be serious. You’re not exactly healthy.’
The sight of her husband placing the umbrella directly into the woman’s hands felt unfamiliar.
Watching the scene, Juhye’s lips trembled.
‘Why is he… standing there like that with a woman I don’t even know?’
No matter how hard she searched her memory, it was the same. She’d definitely never seen her before.
It was a scene that could only be explained as an affair.
‘Here. This is what you asked for.’
When Daehyun handed her a shopping bag, the woman beamed. Even as she smiled, she bowed her head politely, her demeanor innocent.
‘I’m sorry to always trouble you.’
‘No, I’m the one who’s sorry… for always making you come while avoiding people’s eyes.’
‘It’s hard for me to come openly too, so it’s okay.’
The woman smiled shyly, and Daehyun smiled back, lightly patting her shoulder.
Only Juhye, watching them from above, couldn’t smile.
She waited a long time until the two of them completely left, then dragged her weak legs back to her car.
“Ha…”
She couldn’t properly remember how she got home that day.
Her mind was filled only with the image of her husband secretly meeting an unknown woman.
She couldn’t step in right then. As ridiculous as it sounded, she was afraid that if she did, Daehyun would immediately demand a divorce.
Even after witnessing the affair… pathetic as it was, she still loved him.
But as she thought it over again and again until evening, her mind gradually cleared.
The thought of continuing to feel this misery was unbearably horrifying. And so, she had no choice but to choose divorce.
It wasn’t a sudden decision. The loneliness that had accumulated over two years of living with Daehyun had simply collapsed all at once with the appearance of his mistress.
‘I’m having lunch with Sister Juyeong tomorrow. Don’t wait up.’
‘I booked a dinner reservation, so it doesn’t matter. I’ll wait.’
She recalled the proposal Daehyun had made.
After rejecting him so firmly, why had he canceled his plans just to look for her?
Then was Daehyun waiting for her at home right now? Or had he gone somewhere else?
‘What if he canceled his plans with Kang-il not for me… but to meet that woman?’
Standing in front of her home, Juhye steadied her heavy heart. She entered the password and opened the door, and beyond the entryway lay a dark living room.
In that square darkness that seemed empty, a man turned his head.
“Daehyun?”
Startled, Juhye called his name without realizing it.
Only then did Daehyun, who had been pacing silently in the middle of the living room, stop.
“…Juhye.”
With a ghostly pale face, Daehyun stared blankly at her. When she hesitated, he strode toward her.
Soon, his indifferent gaze took on a hint of impatience as it wandered over her face.
As if he were someone who had trembled with anxiety, waiting only for her brief outing to end.
