I Want a Divorce

The prologue

Light laughter, the clink of dishes. A warm, honeyed voice rang out — "Mother, try the braised croaker. It's so tender."

Breakfast had clearly already begun.

Chaeyoon hesitated a moment before stepping forward. She was used to this by now. The bewilderment, the absurdity, the irritation and fury — she had discarded all those unnecessary emotions long ago. There was no point in them anymore.

"Delicious."

"Yes. I should learn from you how to pick out good croaker, Mother."

"Why? Is it not to your taste?"

No one had welcomed her, and now that Chaeyoon had taken her seat late without a word, her mother-in-law Jang Hyun-ah's cold gaze settled on her.

No, it's wonderful. Too wonderful. That was the correct answer, and Chaeyoon knew it. But she was done choking down the hypocrisy. No — more than that, she no longer wanted to stay in this house at all.

"Yes. It's not really to my taste."

At her reply, the table that had been humming with warmth only moments before went as frigid as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over it.

Unable to bear the chill, Minjung — Moon Taesoo's wife — straightened her face and snapped.

"Does my sister-in-law have to say things just to be disagreeable?"

She was the eldest daughter-in-law, the one in perfect sync with Jang Hyun-ah.

"Exactly. Unnie, that was way out of line. It's not like you need to advertise how poorly raised you are."

Jiyoung, Moon Taemin's wife, chimed in as well.

"Is that so?"

Chaeyoon answered as if it were nothing. This was hardly their first day at it — the contempt.

"Well, after all, who in this house could ever measure up? Though come to think of it, I thought so from the very beginning — that I didn't belong here. Honestly, I don't watch even the trashiest melodramas, so I wonder how I managed to live like this for so long…."

CRASH. A heavy hand struck the marble table, and it boomed grandly through the room. Everyone flinched and stole glances at Jang Hyun-ah, but Chaeyoon calmly lifted her eyes and looked straight back at the mother-in-law who lorded over this house like its second queen.

From beginning to end, no one dared breathe a word against Jang Hyun-ah, who bent everything to her will. Chaeyoon had been the same for the first year of her marriage — because she'd thought that was the only way to survive. Because she'd believed she had no other choice. But she had learned, painfully, how futile all of it was. No matter how devotedly she served this family, the man called Moon Taejun would never change.

"What do you think you're doing? Do you want to be thrown out of this house?"

Jang Hyun-ah's voice dropped low as she cracked the whip.

"No. I won't be thrown out — I'm leaving on my own two feet."

"What did you say?"

Jang Hyun-ah repeated the words as if they were beneath contempt.

"I'm done with this. I'm so sick of it. Day after day, this endless theater — smothering my own feelings just to get by. Honestly, I feel pathetic that I ever lived like that. Why did I even bother?"

"Sister-in-law!"

"Love — what was it even worth, all that pitiful groveling I did for the past year? I pity myself so much I can't stand it anymore."

It was absurd. It even felt unjust.

The bright, cheerful Yoon Chaeyoon of the past was gone. All that remained was a gloomy, cringing shadow of a woman.

And Chaeyoon had hated that woman with everything in her.

"So what, you're planning to divorce?"

Her mother-in-law asked, as if the very idea were laughable.

"Yes. I'm getting a divorce."

Chaeyoon answered evenly. And in that instant, it felt as though the weight pressing on her chest finally, slowly, began to lift.

Chapter 1

"Has the response come in?"

Long legs covered the ground in quick, silent strides.

"Yes, sir. They say construction will be completed sometime around the middle of next month."

No matter how fast he'd hurried, Secretary Lee found himself scrambling to keep up, footsteps urgent all over again.

"'Sometime around the middle' — and what day, exactly, does that mean?"

Moon Taejun was a boss who checked his schedule with near-compulsive precision. When Secretary Lee had first begun assisting him, he'd been run ragged answering for every minute of it. And since Taejun's appointment as CEO early this year, the compulsion had only grown worse.

To a man who demanded that everything be exact and certain, the word mid-month meant nothing at all.

"Well… the contractor says they can't commit to a precise date, sir."

"Tell them the fifteenth. If they can't make that date, tell them they're done. The deadline is tomorrow morning."

Secretary Lee was at a loss. It wasn't that he didn't know his boss's temperament, but construction simply didn't bend to one man's will — especially not an expansion in the very heart of the city. The project had been nothing but obstacles.

"Understood, sir. I'll convey it exactly that way."

But once Taejun had decided something, it could not be un-decided. It was then that his phone rang. As he drew it out, his brow creased almost imperceptibly.

In all the time Secretary Lee had known him — a man whose emotions barely registered on his face — there was exactly one person who could put that crease between his brows.

His wife. Yoon Chaeyoon.

Taejun stopped dead in his tracks.

"Go on ahead."

"Yes, sir."

For the first time, Secretary Lee walked ahead of him toward the department store. Only when he was alone did Taejun finally touch the screen.

"What is it?"

A call from his wife during work hours — it had been a very long time. In the early days of their marriage, the calls had come so often that he'd cautioned her about it. And after that, one day, they had simply stopped coming altogether.

"Please make some time for me."

The voice through the receiver was low and heavy. The bright, ringing brightness of it was nowhere to be found.

"I'm busy. Say it on the phone."

Taejun checked the time. There were documents waiting in his office that needed his approval.

"I don't think this is something we can do over the phone."

Today of all days, his wife's voice gnawed at him. When he'd left for work that morning, her face had betrayed nothing — perfectly calm, no different from any ordinary day.

"There's no such thing as a conversation that can't happen over the phone."

Taejun started walking again. It was the first call from her in ages, and he wasn't glad to receive it.

"You're right. Moon Taejun ssi is always right, isn't he?"

His brisk stride halted mid-step. He had never once heard her call him that.

'Can I call you oppa?'

The woman he'd met on that first arranged date had seemed like a child. She'd fallen in love at first sight, she said. He was her ideal man, perfectly, completely, she'd said. She'd floated through those days giddy with the thought of marrying him.

"What are you trying to say?"

"…"

At his cold voice, silence stretched across the line. Taejun pressed the elevator button. A moment later the doors slid open and employees began filing in. He acknowledged their light greetings with a nod and moved to the far corner of the car.

"Hang up."

And then it came.

"Let's get divorced. I want a divorce."

"…"

At words he had never once imagined, Taejun's entire body went rigid. Just then the elevator doors opened and the employees stepped out, leaving him alone in the car.

"Did I hear you correctly?"

he asked, as if to confirm it.

"Yes. You did. Please divorce me."

Her voice drove into his ear, cold as a blade of ice. Without answering, Taejun stepped out of the elevator.

"Come home. We'll talk then."

Waving off the secretary hurrying toward him, he strode into his office.

"No. I have nothing left to say. The papers are on the desk in the study. Sign them and submit them. Goodbye."

The call ended. Taejun stared at his phone for a long while. For a moment he couldn't make sense of anything he'd heard — and yet what Yoon Chaeyoon had said rang perfectly, unmistakably clear.

Divorce.

It was a demand so absurd it was almost comical.

This, from the woman who once clung to me begging to get married.

Five months had passed since his wife vanished. And now Taejun was being pressured to remarry.

"Divorce her and remarry."

Moon Daeshik. Chairman of Royoung Group.

Born a fourth-generation only son, Moon Daeshik's obsession with children — with sons in particular — bordered on the pathological. Moral scruples meant nothing to him. As long as it got him more children, he would bow to no criticism, endure any reproach.

He had remarried almost before his first wife's body was cold. Two sons came from that second wife — and in between, through his affairs, he had fathered Taejun. After Taejun, another affair produced a daughter. Then yet another produced still another daughter. That was what had come to light, at least; no one knew how many more children might be scattered elsewhere.

"Why would you wait for a woman who walked out on her own, when she couldn't even give you a child?"

"I'll handle it as I see fit."

Taejun answered his father's merciless rebuke about his wife with frost.

Not having children had been a decision they'd made together. Chaeyoon had wanted to savor their newlywed days a little longer, and Taejun had given children no thought at all — Moon Daeshik's obsession with offspring made him sick to his stomach. For that reason, Taejun had gladly deferred to his wife's wishes, and their contraception had been thorough.

"Handle it how, exactly? It's been five months already. No — count the whole marriage and it's a year and seven months. More than enough time to have had a child. Remarry. I'll find you a suitable bride."

"I won't."

"Are you defying me?"

"Think whatever you like."

"What is it — now that you've become CEO of Royoung Department Store, you think the store belongs to you? Is that it?"

"Did you ever intend to give it to me?"

"You think a brat who lets my words go in one ear and out the other deserves anything?"

"I never wanted it. Not once. And I became CEO of the department store on my own merit — it wasn't a gift from you. Kindly keep company matters and family matters separate."

"Listen to this nonsense. You think anyone just hands you the CEO's chair because you work hard? What a sheltered little world you live in."

"Is that so?"

"You dare try me, boy? Would it take losing that seat for you to come to your senses?"

"Go ahead and try. If you can."

Taejun did not retreat a single step. At his unyielding stance, Moon Daeshik's face twisted — but even he knew he could not cast Taejun out of that seat. Of all his sons, Taejun was the one he favored most, and the one he could least bear to favor.

"Enough talk. Either go and bring me a son, or divorce and remarry. That is my answer, so get out of my sight."

Moon Daeshik dismissed him as if he were no longer worth the breath.

Bare shoulders in an off-shoulder top, a short skirt swaying in the breeze. Chaeyoon drew in a deep breath.

Despite it being summer, the crisp air of the early morning didn't feel bad at all.

Chaeyoon had finally returned to Korea, ending nearly five months of traveling alone. The freedom had given her back enough of herself to restore the woman she'd stopped being for so long. Even the way she dressed had changed. She rather liked what she saw reflected in the transparent window glass. It had been a good trip.

Yes. This is Yoon Chaeyoon.

"Welcome baaack… Yoon Chaeyoon."

It was Juhyun, her oldest friend. Chaeyoon hadn't contacted a soul after leaving on her travels — except this one person.

"How do I look?"

Chaeyoon shrugged and spun around once, deliberately showing off. The wind lifted her skirt in a soft flutter.

"Club-ready. Tonight. You in?"

Juhyun shot her a thumbs-up.

"A club? I'd love to… but do they even let married women in?"

The divorce still wasn't final. She'd signed everything and left the papers behind — who knew they still wouldn't have processed them.

"It's still not done?"

"Nope."

Chaeyoon's voice sank into a gloomy mutter.

"Why not?"

"No idea."

"What a seriously messed-up family. I mean, is money all it takes in this country?"

Juhyun's voice rose with indignation.

"Keep it down a little."

"Why? How am I supposed to not be furious right now? Honestly, I'm about ready to blast the whole thing all over social media."

"Do that and you'll end up in a grave."

Chaeyoon, who knew all too well just how powerful that family was, reeled her friend back in.

"Ugh, fine. What's the worst that could happen? Maybe I'll go poke the hornet's nest once."

"Then who am I supposed to hang out with?"

At Chaeyoon's question — so exactly like the reckless girl she'd been in the old days — Juhyun broke into a laugh.

"There's my best friend. Come on, let's go."

"Yes. I want tteokbokki. The screaming-spicy kind."

"Obviously. We have our usual place, remember?"

The two friends, reunited after so long, swept quickly out of the airport.