A Perfect Dinner
It was a late dinner, yet the most comfortable meal they'd shared since their marriage.
Taejun, who had finished eating first, slowly lifted his gaze. His eyes landed on Chaeyoon sitting across from him.
Beneath her long lashes, her gaze rested quietly on her plate, and a few strands of hair slipped down along her cheek. Each time she swallowed a bite, the pale, slender line of her throat moved softly.
And then, quite suddenly, Taejun realized something.
He had never once looked at Chaeyoon like this before.
It struck him that everything had been merely perfunctory. The thought stretched further still — that his marriage to her had simply been a reasonable choice made out of necessity.
The moment that thought took shape, Taejun felt his breath catch in his throat.
It had been a desperately shabby thing to do.
To treat one person's heart so carelessly, like a tool to be used. To choose her for no other reason than that she loved him.
Chaeyoon probably had no idea.
She had simply been doing her utmost, in her own way, to hold this marriage together — watching his moods, swallowing her hurt, enduring it all in silence.
And he had accepted every bit of it as if it were owed to him. Taejun slowly raised his eyes and looked at her again.
Just how much had he turned away from her?
What she was thinking, what she liked, even what her face looked like when she truly smiled — he had never bothered to learn any of it.
He had all but abandoned her, wearing the title of husband like an accessory he never took off.
A heaviness pressed down on one side of his chest. Even feeling this now, so late, felt like cowardice. And Chaeyoon still knew nothing at all.
Who are you?
The words had burst out of him on pure impulse. His wife's face, from just before he collapsed, drifted impossibly far away. That brief fragment of memory seemed to have shaken Taejun to his core.
Perhaps that was why. The words had slipped out carelessly, and there was no taking them back.
"Why…?"
Sensing his stare mid-bite, Chaeyoon looked up. Instead of answering, Taejun simply gazed deeper into her clear eyes.
Hers was a face with traces of youthfulness still lingering here and there, and it was rather lovely.
He had never once asked whether she loved him. And so he had never once told her that he loved her. And yet Yoon Chaeyoon had been so certain of his love. Which meant…
She must have thrown herself into it without a shred of doubt. For someone like that, she looked far too small and fragile.
"Do you still love me?"
Taejun asked, fully unaware that he was supposed to have lost his memory.
Chaeyoon's eyes went wide at the unexpected question.
It was the first time. The first time he had ever asked if she loved him.
Come to think of it, that was right. All this while, the one who had always been saying I love you was Chaeyoon herself.
She had loved him. Very much. She had wanted to pour her entire self into him.
She had hungered endlessly for his affection, her eyes fixed on him and him alone. It had felt as if all she needed in the world was that one man, Moon Taejun. But that feeling hadn't lasted as long as she'd imagined. A love of gazing alone, of aching alone, of waiting alone wore a person out far faster than she'd expected.
There had been a time when Moon Taejun alone felt like the whole world, but as the days passed, even that devotion began to waver, little by little. It wasn't so much that he had changed — it was that she had simply run out of strength and collapsed under the weight of it.
Moon Taejun had always been exactly the same.
And now…
"…Honestly, I'm not sure."
Is he really all I need? That was the question a year and some of marriage, plus five months of travel, had left her with. And then, quite suddenly, she found herself curious about his heart.
Had Moon Taejun ever loved Yoon Chaeyoon?
Chaeyoon lifted her head and looked at him. His expression was no different from before — those unreadable eyes.
Back then, she had thought that gaze was so impossibly cool. The kind of eyes only a grown man could have.
And Chaeyoon had believed that marrying him was his love. She had believed the nights they spent together were proof of it.
"And what about you, Taejun?"
"……"
His dark eyes deepened.
"Do you love me?"
"……"
Taejun couldn't answer right away.
His black eyes wavered for an instant, then settled into something even darker.
"Did I never once tell you that I loved you?"
He hadn't. Not once, not ever.
Taejun had asked, and Chaeyoon held his gaze for a moment. For a second, she couldn't think of what to say. She could have said he was a kind, good husband. But if she claimed he'd never once said he loved her, that would be nothing but a lie.
And yet — she didn't want to deceive him anymore. It wasn't as if she meant anything by it, but she no longer wanted to tell him falsehoods.
"The truth is…"
Chaeyoon bit her lip.
"If a wife as lovely as you is asking whether I loved her, then I suppose I wasn't quite the good husband I thought I was."
"……"
Chaeyoon's dark eyes trembled as she looked at him. Taejun let out a small sigh.
"Distracted."
"……"
"Cold, probably."
He raised his eyes and looked at her steadily.
"I've never been the type to care about anything that isn't something I want. And more than that — marriage was never part of the plan."
"……"
For the first time, she was hearing his heart. Instead of resenting him, Chaeyoon simply listened.
"I'd never received love, never given it, never even tried to…"
Something in his gaze looked almost sorrowful. Regret was written thick across his face as he exhaled a small sigh. Even the sharp line of his eyes, usually lifted so coolly at the corners, had gone slack and weary.
"……"
Why does he look like that…
"I suppose I never told you I loved you, either."
At the self-mocking edge of his words, Taejun gave a short, hollow laugh.
Chaeyoon bit down harder on her lip. Not because his words made her angry.
It was that he seemed — just a little, a very little — pitiable. She could faintly sense, buried inside those words, how long he had lived his life lonely.
Taejun, watching the flicker in her eyes, spoke slowly.
"I'm sorry. For hurting you."
Taejun's voice dropped low. He didn't want to lose Chaeyoon. The five months without her had been nothing short of hell. Somehow, even breathing had felt like a struggle.
On nights when he slept alone, he ached for her warmth; dragging his exhausted body home, he ached for her chattering. What that feeling was, he no longer needed to ask.
It was a heart he had never once put into words.
Moon Taejun loved Yoon Chaeyoon.
He had never said it, not once — but he had loved her. And he loved her still, even now.
But while he was playing the amnesiac, there was no way to show her that heart.
"I'm sorry I can't say I love you — I don't remember."
It was a coward's excuse. But to the man Taejun was now, it was the only truth he had.
"……"
Chaeyoon's breath caught and stopped for an instant. Her heart dropped with a dull thud, then began pounding wildly all over again.
"If you'll give me the chance."
His voice sank low.
"This time, I want to be your husband properly."
"……"
At his confession, Chaeyoon couldn't say a word. A quiet corner of her chest simply ached.
"Chaeyoon."
Taejun called her name.
"Thank you for becoming my wife."
A declaration of love made without his memories meant nothing at all. And yet.
Chaeyoon nodded slowly. Nodded, and nodded again. It made her happier than any I love you ever had. It was the first time. His heartfelt confession had quietly shaken something loose inside her. Her eyes grew hot, and in the end a tear slipped down her cheek. All she wanted was to bury herself in his arms and sob like a child.
It was, after all, a perfect dinner.