The Ex-Husband
The wind in late March was cruelly cold.
Having finished logging her class journal into the administrative system, Jae-kyung braced both arms on the sill beneath the classroom window and let out a shallow breath.
It had been about a month since she'd started work as a teacher. She'd more or less found her footing with the classes, and she'd grown quite close to her students, too. Except for one thing — the school she worked for belonged to the Eui-tae Foundation.
The moment she thought of Jin Hee-yeon — her former mother-in-law, now the de facto mistress of KE Group — a suffocating dread closed in around her.
'Live in hiding, and live with dignity. Never show your face before my son again.'
That had been five years ago. She no longer fumbled through the world like the clueless twenty-year-old she had been then. Besides, she hadn't crossed paths with Managing Director Jin — or her ex-husband — even once, as if neither of them existed in the world Jae-kyung lived in.
At this school, Jae-kyung was a short-term contract teacher, one of ten. Just one semester. Three or four more months of work, and summer break would arrive to end her contract. All she had to do was keep her head down and endure until then.
Rrrrrrr. The ring of her phone cut through her anxious thoughts — a sudden request for a meeting from the vice principal.
"You called for me, Vice Principal?"
"Ms. Seo, I think some adjustments will need to be made to your contract this semester."
"Adjustments?"
The vice principal sat behind his desk, eyes buried in his paperwork, never once meeting hers. The vagueness of his words sent a chill settling into her chest.
"With the new chairman taking office, the foundation side has been talking about cleaning up its contracts. Nothing's confirmed yet."
It was an ending that offered no reassurance at all. Surely they weren't telling her to quit on the spot? Jae-kyung forced herself to cling to the hope that everything would be fine.
"By the way, Ms. Seo, did you see the post on the anonymous board? It was about opposing the foundation's cut to the Social Consideration Beneficiary quota."
"What anonymous board? This is the first I've heard of it."
Adjusting his crooked glasses, the vice principal pressed on as though Jae-kyung knew everything already, paying her denial no mind.
"If any of the contract staff strike you as suspicious, report them. The post has been taken down already, but I hear they'll be seeking penalty fees as well, so you'd best be careful. The higher-ups are treating it as a violation of regulations. Damage to the foundation's image."
The higher-ups? Had the order come down directly from the chairman's office at the foundation? Jae-kyung's father, Seo Jun, was working on contract in the Eui-tae Foundation's security team as well. If trouble started stirring, nothing good could come of it for them.
"I really don't know anything about any of it. Surely that isn't why they're talking about terminating contracts?"
The vice principal's gaze warped with displeasure.
"If you're curious about something, call the administrative office and ask. In any case, keep up the good work. I have a meeting to get to now, so you can go."
His tone, as he kept his eyes on his documents and his face turned away from her, had gone subtly cold.
"Understood."
She left the vice principal's office, doing her best to shake off the sense of foreboding. Perhaps because of the abrupt notice, her father's text from lunch floated back to her.
Her father's bottomless debt. Her student loans. The overdue credit card, and living expenses on top of it all. Her mind, tangled as it was, ran the numbers quickly — but no interpreting or translation work had come in this month, either.
Her mouth went dry at how the jobs kept drying up. The twenty-odd certifications she had collected all through college hadn't actually helped her find work at all. She could find herself jobless overnight; if she wanted to keep herself afloat, she would have to start hunting for some other kind of part-time work.
Jae-kyung closed the book she had been reading and drew a deep breath. Maybe she was coming down with a cold — she felt chilled and weary. She had already spent a full hour sitting in the rooftop restaurant overlooking Namsan, waiting for her boyfriend.
Min-ho worked at a nearby hospital, and emergency calls came often enough that their dates had been canceled or cut short more times than she could count.
'Today's a special day, so wait for me even if I'm late.'
A thirty-six-year-old specialist — and she was his first love; a boyfriend so careful he hesitated even to take her hand. If Min-ho hadn't asked, she would have gone home long ago. The coffee in its cream-colored cup had gone stone cold long since.
Uneasy, she looked down at the dazzling neon of the Seoul night, which had darkened without her noticing, but she couldn't easily push the school from her mind. Debt that wouldn't shrink no matter how tightly she squeezed to pay it down — and debt couldn't be paid with more debt. What should she sort out first? Jae-kyung bit her lip at the tangle of her reality.
"Jae-kyung, you've been waiting a long time, haven't you?"
Min-ho hurried in on urgent footsteps, his face flushed.
"Oh — you're here?"
"Sorry. Another call came in just as I was leaving, so I'm late."
Dropping hastily into the seat across from her, Min-ho gulped down the coffee she had been drinking.
"Let's... whew. Let's get married."
Dark circles shadowed the exhaustion beneath his eyes as Min-ho panted for breath. On the table, adorned with peach-colored Juliet roses, the small case he had drawn out flipped open, and a stone-set ring sparkled shyly before Jae-kyung's eyes.
"Marriage? We haven't even been dating all that long."
It had been over a year since they'd first met, while she worked part-time interpreting at a medical conference, but they had been dating for barely three months. He was attentive and sweet on every date, yet all they had ever done was meet now and then for tea and a walk.
"What does time matter? I've just made head of internal medicine — sure, it's only a title. To celebrate the promotion, come down to my parents' place in the countryside with me this week and meet them."
"You want me to visit your family home?"
"Yeah. I sent them a picture of you, and they absolutely loved it — said you'd make such a fine, proper daughter-in-law."
Daughter-in-law? She had to rein in Min-ho before he charged any further ahead without consulting her.
"Min-ho, I... I may have to leave the school."
She should have told him about her tangled reality long ago. But she had used his punishing schedule — too busy even for proper dates — as an excuse to keep her circumstances hidden. And part of her had been relieved there was never room to bring it up.
"What? Why didn't you say so sooner? If I'd known, I would have called the school myself."
It was through Min-ho, who sat on the Eui-tae Foundation's advisory medical staff, that she had gotten the lead on the contract teaching job — but she had no wish to discuss her dismissal with him, too.
"..."
"No, actually, this works out. My parents are up in years now, and Dad's back is bad enough that he needs surgery. They need a caregiver, and an extra pair of hands for the farm. Let's just get married soon."
Min-ho reached across the table and took Jae-kyung's hand.
"You need a caregiver right now... and that's why you're proposing?"
"Kidding. Just kidding."
Min-ho broke into a wide grin, as though he found the widened eyes of Jae-kyung — ten years his junior — adorable.
"You and I are both only children, so once we're married, we'll be living with our parents anyway. Your mom isn't with us anymore, so my mother will help raise the kids, too. Honestly, we'd be the ones leaning on them."
Not one word of Min-ho's stirred her heart. Jae-kyung reached out and slid the ring case squarely back in front of him.
"The ring feels like too much — I can't accept it. I'm just not thinking about marriage yet."
"I should have proposed somewhere grander — so that's why you're let down. I did hear the setting matters a great deal to women. But you know I spent my whole life studying; this is my first relationship."
She knew Min-ho's kindness — his effort to look after her even in the midst of his crushing schedule — and it left her at a loss. A handful of light dates where all they'd done was hold hands; that was the whole of it. Could she keep seeing a man so hasty that he was already dreaming of marriage?
"It's not about the place. Really..."
She didn't have romantic feelings for him yet, and she had no intention of marrying while drowning in debt. If anything, it might be better to end things with Min-ho here and now. After all, there were still things Jae-kyung couldn't bring herself to tell anyone.
Just as she struggled to open her mouth again, the heavy footsteps she had been hearing — thud, thud — came to a stop, and a cool, low voice sounded at her side.
"Seo Jae-kyung. Save your answer for later."
The voice that spoke her name was low and calm. Min-ho and Jae-kyung looked up at the stranger standing beside their table.
A jet-black suit, straight shoulders, an unreal kind of handsome, and a face devoid of all expression. Even beneath the dim lighting, his solid build and tall frame stood out — a man strangely, overwhelmingly commanding, the kind made for expensive tailoring. All around them, gazes converged on the striking man, admiration mixed in with the staring.
"Who are you?"
Min-ho pushed up his glasses and looked the man over from head to toe; he stood there like a model stepped out of a photo spread.
"I'm her ex-husband."
In that instant — eeeee... — Jae-kyung's ears rang, painful as tinnitus. The noise around the table died away one sound at a time, and Jae-kyung, thrown into confusion, instinctively stopped breathing. Min-ho, startled, stared at her in bewilderment, his face asking whether she had heard what the stranger had just said.