My Wife Is Off-Limits

"Watch your mouth when you speak about her."

The voice was low and taut. In an instant, the air at the table froze solid.

Moon Daeshik stared at Taejun in open disbelief. Not once in all his years at the head of the table had anyone dared talk back to him.

"What did you say?"

Taejun lifted his gaze slowly and met his father's eyes head-on. His face was always expressionless, but this time it carried a strangely chilling edge.

"She is my wife."

Short. Unbending. Final.

"You think I don't know she's your wife? Do you even know what that precious wife of yours has done?"

Daeshik's face was beginning to flush red.

"Honey, your blood pressure. Just stop. I'll explain it to our daughter-in-law so she understands."

"There's no need. Our marriage is our business. We'll handle it ourselves."

Taejun looked Jang Hyun-ah dead in the eye. It was nothing like the deference that had always lived in his gaze. His face, carved into a cold, hard line, carried a warning as clear as day: stay out of it.

"I will deal with Chaeyoon myself."

His low voice left no room for argument.

He seemed to be straining to keep his emotions off his face, but the displeasure simmering underneath refused to stay hidden.

"And what exactly do you think I did?"

Hyun-ah's frosty question was aimed squarely at Chaeyoon, whose shoulders flinched before she could stop them. The fear had seized her before she knew it.

Then, beneath the table, a hand found hers. Large and solid, it closed around her fingers.

"From now on, if you have anything to say to Chaeyoon, say it to me. I'll pass it along. Whatever it happens to be."

"Ha!"

Hyun-ah let out a scoff of pure incredulity.

"Well, look how well this household runs."

Unable to bear it a moment longer, Moon Daeshik shoved back his chair and rose. Moon Taesoo and Moon Taemin scrambled up after him.

"Haah. This whole family's atmosphere is fucking pathetic."

"Can't even finish a meal in peace anymore?"

Taemin sneered as he stood in Taesoo's wake.

"Honestly, this is too much, unnie. How could you poison the whole mood of the house like this? Upsetting the elders over nothing. Mother, please get up."

Minjung rose and helped Jang Hyun-ah to her feet, while Jiyoung carefully took her other arm and steadied her.

Flanked by her two daughters-in-law, Hyun-ah cast one last icy glance down at Taejun and Chaeyoon before sweeping out of the dining room.

Only the two of them were left at the table.

"I'm sorry. This is all because of me."

Chaeyoon apologized, her voice catching with tears she hadn't meant to let rise. None of this would have happened if not for her.

"And... thank you."

It was the first time. The first time Taejun had ever taken her side.

"Eat. You have nothing to be sorry about. And no need to thank me either. I hear I was a loving husband."

Taejun resumed his meal as if nothing had happened, and Chaeyoon, pressing down on a strange fluttering feeling in her chest, picked up her spoon and followed suit. The heavy, suffocating weight from moments ago had vanished without a trace.

The meal turned out far less uncomfortable than she'd feared. When it was done, Taejun left for work, and Chaeyoon—wanting to avoid any further collisions with the family—made her way up to the second-floor bedroom.

Back in the room, her conscience sat uneasily. Taejun had told her not to shock him, so she hadn't mentioned that she was the one who had asked for the divorce. But every member of the family except Taejun knew. They knew she had walked out and been gone for the past five months, too.

It wasn't as if she was deliberately hiding it. But watching his behavior last night, and watching him again at the breakfast table this morning, guilt had come creeping over her.

A loving, good husband.

Somehow, she'd taken those words at face value. The truth was, she hadn't said them for any particularly deep reason.

She had simply thought: I wish he really were that kind of husband.

And yet somehow, Taejun seemed to be actually trying to become exactly that.

Last night at their late dinner, he had been awkward about it, but he'd tried. He poured her a glass of water and handed it over. He asked, with careful attentiveness, whether the food suited her taste.

"Then I'll have to become a lovely, beautiful wife in return."

That part she was confident about. Though whether a wife who had announced a divorce had any business being lovely was another question entirely.

When his memory came back in full, she might have to leave his side.

No—it was a settled fact. This morning's reaction at the table made that plain enough.

"Still..."

Chaeyoon wanted to be that lovely, beautiful wife he'd spoken of.

A wife worthy of a loving, good husband.

"Even if it ends in divorce, I can still be lovely and beautiful while it lasts, can't I?"

She caught her burning cheeks in her hands without meaning to. Oddly enough, her mood had already turned giddy.

Because the image of herself being a lovely, beautiful wife for Taejun kept springing to mind all on its own.

Right. This is all so Taejun's memory comes back faster. The sooner it does, the sooner I can get my divorce.

Chaeyoon decided not to overthink it.

Good things were good. That was all.

"Is that everything for today?"

"Yes, sir. We've been adjusting your schedule with your health in mind."

Compared to before his collapse, there was almost no work to speak of. Actually, that wasn't quite true—Moon Taejun was simply the type to make work disappear. Which meant his employees were dying of exhaustion. Of course, thanks to that, the department store's revenue climbed higher by the day, and ever since Taejun had taken the CEO's seat, it had shot straight to the number one position in the country.

So even worn to the bone, the staff still welcomed it.

"Pull the sales figures for the outlets and the duty-free shops."

"For this year only?"

The department store, the outlets, and the duty-free business had all originally operated as one. But the year Taejun became CEO, Moon Daeshik had carved the outlets and duty-free shops out into a separate division—on the condition that if Taejun proved his results, they would be merged back. There had been objections from shareholders and board members alike, but Taejun had accepted without a word of protest.

"Bundle everything together—sales from three years ago through the first half of this year and last month."

"Understood, sir. Oh, but Chairman—"

"Yes?"

Taejun's eyes stayed fixed on his laptop screen.

"Are you truly all right, physically? I can't help worrying."

"I'm fine."

"Of course, sir. Then what would you like to do about the madam's bodyguard?"

The man was a bodyguard in name only—little more than a watcher.

"Tell him he's done."

There was no longer any need for it. Yoon Chaeyoon had come home.

"Ah. Yes, sir. Understood."

Finishing his report, Secretary Lee tilted his head in puzzlement as he stepped out of the office. Roughly the past year and a half—more precisely, Taejun's memories of his wife had been wiped entirely clean. Which meant he couldn't possibly remember any of the measures that had been taken regarding her. Of course, the important parts of the past year or so had been reported to him in broad strokes.

I suppose I must have mentioned it.

Taejun's secretary dismissed the thought and moved on.

Once the office door closed behind him, Taejun sat alone and found himself recalling what Chaeyoon had said the night before.

A loving, good husband.

In all his life, Taejun had never once been the recipient of anyone's tender care.

He had never been loved, and he had never loved anyone in return.

To Taejun, those soft, yielding emotions had been weakness. Weakness was flaw, and flaw was the crack that could bring him down.

So he had hidden his feelings by instinct. For him, showing less emotion was always the safer choice, the more correct one. That was why he spoke so little, too—he had pared his words down over the years precisely so his feelings would never show. Affection was a luxury. Warmth was unnecessary. Gentleness was a garment that had never fit him. That was Taejun's life entire—the shape a life had to take for him to survive it.

"You'd have to have loved someone before to know how to be gentle."

Taejun let out a long sigh.

And yet Chaeyoon's words would not leave his head.

A loving, good husband.

He didn't really know what kind of man made a good husband, either.

But this morning, Chaeyoon had seemed—somehow—a little happy about it.

The truth was, Taejun had barely managed to hold his temper. He'd known all along how they treated him, but the way they treated Chaeyoon had felt unforgivable.

He'd had a rough idea, but it seemed worse than he'd imagined.

They hadn't even let her eat dinner last night.

They're not children. It's childishly petty. It was no different from what Moon Taesoo and Moon Taemin had done to him in childhood. Back then, there had been no one at Taejun's side. But now, he could be at Chaeyoon's.

I suppose that's where I should start.

Taejun resolved to become a loving husband.