The Empty Seat at the Family Table

"So what you're telling me is that you're torn over whether or not to actually go through with the divorce."

Even from Chaeyoon's tangled, rambling account, her friend Juhyun managed to distill a crisp conclusion.

"No, it's not exactly that I... hah. Okay, honestly, yes. My heart just keeps churning. I keep going back and forth, back and forth. I don't know what to do with myself."

Chaeyoon laid it all out plainly. Juhyun let out a sigh and turned her head toward the window, her lips twisting as if something about it all didn't sit right with her.

"I know. I get it. I'm frustrating, aren't I? Even I'm frustrated with me."

Truthfully, Chaeyoon herself knew it. It wasn't the divorce she was afraid of.

"It's not that I'm scared of divorce. If it happens, it happens."

It was Taejun who made her waver. She wondered what there even was to waver over—a man who had honestly confessed that he never loved her—but waver she did, and there was no helping it.

"But you remember, right? How crazy I was about Taejun back then."

"Oh, I remember. I'm the one who told you to shut up about him, remember? That name in your mouth from morning to night. I got so sick of it I dreamed about killing the guy."

Back then, that remark had nearly cost Chaeyoon their friendship. How could her friend joke about killing the man she loved? Come to think of it, that really had happened.

"To me, he was the devil back then. The devil who blinded you. A girl who hasn't even finished college announcing she wants to get married..."

Chaeyoon burst out laughing before she could stop herself—the memory of Juhyun's face at that moment, how her voice had climbed to a shriek, was too much.

But back then, truly, she had heard nothing and seen nothing. There was only one man in her world: Moon Taejun.

"Do you still love him?"

Chaeyoon turned and met Juhyun's eyes, which were fixed on her—steady, certain, leaving no room for denial.

"Yes."

It was the truth. Whatever her resolve to divorce him, she still loved that man. Enough that even if his words turned out to be a lie, she wanted to believe them.

Juhyun studied her for a long moment, then spoke.

"Then don't divorce him."

"......"

"At the very least, this time you have to stand your ground and fight it out properly, don't you think?"

Chaeyoon's eyes wavered.

"Just throw yourself at it, Yoon Chaeyoon-style. Run straight through it."

Juhyun shrugged.

"The people really making your life miserable aren't your husband—they're his family. Sure, your husband stood by and watched, but still."

Juhyun was right.

"The divorce can wait. Think about that later."

The clarity of the answer made Chaeyoon nod. It matched the conclusion she'd already reached herself.

"That's why you're my best friend. Let's get something delicious for dinner. What do you say?"

"Deal."

The two of them left the café and headed straight for the restaurant district.

Meanwhile, at that very hour, Taejun sat alone at the dinner table. He had assumed Chaeyoon was somewhere struggling on her own, but his wife wasn't home. And not a single person at the table made any mention of her absence.

"It's been ages since a meal was this pleasant. Is the food to your liking?"

Jang Hyun-ah addressed Moon Daeshik in her sweetest tones.

"It's been a while since I've had an appetite."

"Mother, you've worked so hard today. Father was saying lately he feels his strength fading."

Minjung chimed in.

"Hard work? Setting out one dinner hardly counts as effort. All I ask is for a household with nothing to fret over. Here, try this. It's braised sea cucumber, soaked until tender."

Jang Hyun-ah placed a portion on Moon Daeshik's plate.

"Though I suppose our family's atmosphere has been rather spectacular lately, hasn't it. They say one loach muddies the whole pond—this was exactly that, wouldn't you say."

Taemin sneered in Taejun's direction. The atmosphere was familiar. He had roughly anticipated this, and sure enough, here it was. It was a small mercy that Chaeyoon wasn't at the table to see it.

"You know, Mother..."

Jiyoung began, shooting a furtive glance at Taejun. Jang Hyun-ah lifted her eyes to her younger daughter-in-law.

"Isn't she just too much? You prepared a family dinner with your own hands, and how can she still not have shown up? I really think this crosses a line."

"I feel exactly the same way. I warned her in advance, and she just ignored me, pretending she never heard."

Minjung shook her head for good measure.

"Someone needs to give her a firm talking-to. This is nothing short of disrespect to this family."

Jiyoung's voice was surprisingly resolute.

"Leave it. She's not someone who'll be staying in this house anyway—her presence at a family dinner is more of an eyesore than anything."

At Jang Hyun-ah's words, Jiyoung and Minjung fell silent, as if the thought had never occurred to them.

"What do you mean by that?"

Taejun asked, looking directly at Jang Hyun-ah. Her thin eyelids rose in a slow, deliberate sweep.

"What do I mean? I mean exactly what I said."

She answered with perfect composure.

"That she has no future in this house. If you're referring to a formal move out of the family estate, then so be it—I'll do it."

"Move out? There will be no moving out while I still draw breath. Absolutely none."

"Then why not? As for why my wife couldn't attend dinner tonight, I'll explain separately later. From now on, I'll tell her to attend when she can."

"When she can?"

"If she has business more pressing than a meal, there's nothing to be done about it."

"Hah. Anyone listening would think you were the busiest man alive. A man with no job."

"The jobless are always the busiest, aren't they? She went out to meet a friend today too, I hear?"

Taemin turned to his wife, Jiyoung, as he asked.

"Yes, she went to meet a friend. Ugh, the nerve of her. She brushes off everything Minjung and I say, and then struts around demanding a divorce like she has something to be proud of. Heh—mpf."

Jiyoung clapped a hand over her mouth mid-sentence. They had agreed to keep quiet, for now, about the fact that Chaeyoon had asked Taejun for a divorce—lest it deal him any further shock.

"Will you all shut your mouths already!"

Moon Daeshik's bellow crashed down immediately. Jiyoung looked up at her husband, Taemin, her face flushing crimson. He shot her a sidelong glance of pure disdain.

"Did you hear about it?"

Jang Hyun-ah asked abruptly. She had been watching Taejun's expression the entire time.

"You show not a hint of surprise."

"He said that if she wants the divorce, he'll grant it."

Taejun replied evenly.

"And so you're divorcing her?"

At Jang Hyun-ah's question, every gaze at the table swung toward Taejun.

"No. I'm not."

Snorts of derision erupted from all sides.

"How resourceful of you."

"Spare me the mockery."

"Mockery?"

The standoff between Jang Hyun-ah and Taejun pulled taut like a wire.

"Yes. And while you're at it, stop speaking about someone who isn't even here."

"Fine. Since she was the one who raised the word divorce first, I suppose it's only right you hear it from us."

"......"

"That girl sent you divorce papers, vanished for five months, and only reappeared the day you were hospitalized."

"......"

"Were we not supposed to bring that up?"

Jang Hyun-ah asked. Taejun had no answer.

"I don't know what goes on in your head, but we will never accept that girl. How little must she think of the Chairman—and of me—to behave the way she has?"

"......"

"The Chairman wants you divorced immediately. I feel the same. And how would anyone know what she was doing those five months? For all we know, she could be carrying someone's child right this minute."

"Watch your mouth."

"Why? Did I say something I shouldn't have?"

"Chaeyoon said there were no problems between us as a couple. I'm curious, then, why she would have sent divorce papers at all."

Taejun asked, feigning ignorance of the conversation he'd shared with Chaeyoon the night before.

"You're asking us that, now?"

"I'm simply searching for any other explanation."

"Hah. A girl who leaves behind a single set of divorce papers and walks out of the house—do you really think she's a paragon of virtue? Who's to say what she was up to behind your back before that?"

Jang Hyun-ah's words had sunk to the filthiest depths.

"It seems she's been saying other things as well, using your memory loss as her pretext."

And yes—she had said other things.

The kind, gentle husband. Taejun knew better than anyone that he was not that man.

Perhaps that had always been Chaeyoon's wish. To have a husband like that, she might have prayed.

"I can hardly believe I have to say this, but..."

Jang Hyun-ah knitted her brow, as though the words themselves tasted foul.

"That girl has a man."

At her words, every face at the table froze in shock.

"I wasn't the only one who saw it, so there's no reason to hide it."

Jang Hyun-ah's gaze slid toward Minjung.

"I—I did see her, too."

The words tumbled out before she could stop them, and Minjung's face flared red in an instant.

"Well, she always did have a sly streak in her."

"Look how splendidly this family runs. Say no more—divorce her. Now."

Moon Daeshik roared. But if anyone at that table had no right to say such a thing, it was Moon Daeshik himself.