Sesame Couple — Episode 3
Jaein looked the man up and down and clapped a hand over her mouth.
She couldn't believe it.
True, he looked a little gaunt, but the man standing before her was perfectly whole, limbs and all.
He'd been unconscious for a week now, hadn't he? The line of succession at Daeha Group was about to shift, people said. It was all nothing like the headlines that had poured out day after day.
"Sunbae, you're awake?"
"I'm awake, so I'm here."
Their eyes met in a look that said, couldn't you tell?
He took a step closer to her, and their gazes locked, unblinking.
"Not once did you come visit me in the hospital."
This time it was a sharper look that landed on Jaein.
"That's because……"
Not a single member of your family wanted me there.
The truth was, she'd made the trip to the hospital and turned back more times than she could count, too worried to go in.
She'd fretted about the reporters camped outside, but honestly, it was courage she lacked. She had no confidence she could face his in-laws — and she was afraid that if she saw Taeha lying in that hospital bed, the resolve she'd fought so hard to steady would simply crumble.
"Never mind. Come inside. Open the door."
He tipped his chin toward the front door as he spoke.
Jaein punched in the code out of habit, then snapped her head up.
"Wait — you're coming inside the house?"
"What else?"
His brow creased faintly, his neat eyebrows twitching.
"You want me to just stand out here forever?"
"No, it's just—"
The day she'd filed the divorce paperwork, Taeha had packed a few bags and walked out.
And in the entire month of the statutory consideration period, he hadn't come back once.
His sudden appearance was strange enough, but this easy, unhesitating way of talking to her felt foreign too.
Face betraying her unease, Jaein finished entering the code, and the door swung open.
"And who told you to change the passcode? Put it back the way it was."
With that final remark, he brushed past her and walked in.
Blinking at his retreating back, Jaein hurried after him.
"Why?"
Down the corridor and into the living room, she found Taeha already settled on the sofa.
He was leaning back, deep against the cushions, looking up at her.
"Why? Because it's my house."
"You said you were giving me this house."
In lieu of dividing their assets, Taeha had promised to let Jaein keep the newlywed home they lived in.
Since she'd never married him for his money in the first place, Jaein had agreed without protest.
He'd already paid for her father's surgery several times over, so the apartment was more than enough — it was too much.
"Did I?"
"Yes. As compensation for emotional distress, you said."
At the words compensation, Taeha's eyebrows twitched again.
"You change the front door code when you get divorced. That's just obvious. I'm the one living here alone now."
At that, Taeha finally burst into a hearty laugh.
Had she ever, in all her life, seen her sunbae laugh so freely?
Jaein's face twisted strangely. It was a scene so odd it bordered on uncanny.
'They said he had surgery — is he still in a lot of pain?'
Maybe a head injury. She stared at the man with genuine concern in her eyes.
Then he rose from his seat and approached her.
He came with an unhurried, precise stride and stopped right in front of her.
"Divorce? Did you dream that?"
He lowered his head until his eyes met hers.
"I never said anything like that."
Dark graphite eyes fixed on her.
His gaze was so straight, so utterly unwavering, that Jaein nearly convinced herself the whole divorce had been a dream.
"What…… are you talking about? Our consideration period is almost over."
Her voice, forced out through lips she'd barely managed to part, trembled faintly.
Jaein rushed to the bedroom, grabbed the documents she'd left on top of the dresser, and held them out to Taeha.
"Look at this. Our hearing date is next week. Sunbae, we agreed to divorce by mutual consent."
Was he teasing her? Or was this some kind of hidden camera prank?
Unable to make sense of any of it, Jaein just watched as Taeha scanned the papers.
He looked over the documents with a cold, detached eye, then raised his head.
"No."
"……?"
Before she could even ask what he meant—
"We are not getting divorced."
He tore the papers in his hands to shreds.
Rip. Rip. The documents, shredded into strips, fluttered to the floor one piece at a time. The moment stretched out before her eyes in slow motion.
It took several seconds for Jaein's mind to snap back to life.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
Stunned, she dropped to her knees and gathered the scattered pieces together. Seeing them already torn apart left her feeling hollow.
"Why won't you divorce me? The hearing is next week. It's over next week!"
Time had never flown like that before.
They had no children, so they'd only been given the minimum one-month consideration period, and still it had felt endless.
This marriage was finally, at long last, coming to an end. And he was saying he wouldn't let it.
"Let me say it again. I have no memory of ever saying such a thing."
"How can you have no memory? Don't you see your own signature right here?"
She picked up one of the shredded fragments and showed it to him, but he didn't spare it so much as a glance.
"Ask your mother. Does she even know we're getting divorced?"
It's not just her.
His younger brother, his aunts — of everyone in the Daeha family, the only one who hadn't been told of the divorce was probably his grandfather, Chairman Woo Byungho, away in America for treatment.
Had it not been for the Chairman's illness, they might already have been openly shopping for a new daughter-in-law.
Every elder in the family would welcome news of their divorce with open arms.
Jaein was reaching for her phone, ready to dial right that second, when Taeha wandered back to the sofa without a care.
"Right. She doesn't know. And I don't want her to."
Then he flipped an overturned glass upright and poured water from the pitcher.
Trickle. The crisp sound of water filling the glass spread through the living room.
While her own heart pounded to the point of bursting, he was utterly composed. As he always was.
"Pretend the divorce never happened. I have no intention of divorcing you."
Jaein came toward him, the water glass pressed to her lips.
"So — why? Why won't you do it?"
She stammered, flustered beyond words. It felt as though every drop of blood in her body would come boiling out of her skin.
When she'd asked for the divorce, he'd talked as if he'd let her go without a second thought.
Why was he doing this now? She couldn't understand it.
Their eyes met across the transparent glass.
Unlike her light brown eyes, which trembled without pause, he was still. Like the surface of a placid lake, without a single ripple.
He crossed his legs, then slowly set the glass down on the side table.
"Because I like you."
His smooth lips parted, and the words drifted out, echoing faintly in her ears.
She'd heard it with both ears, yet still spent a long moment wondering if she'd misheard.
'Likes me?'
What does?
Me?
Why?
The two words were a wildly improbable pairing.
No — in truth, that sentence simply could not exist.
I like success.
I like my company.
Those kinds of statements, maybe. But Seo Jaein had never been among the things Woo Taeha liked.
Absolutely, never, not ever.
"If I'm still in love with you, why on earth would we get divorced?"
Jaein couldn't close her gaping mouth. Then she shook her head in a daze.
'I've lost it. I must be dreaming.'
Because otherwise, this made no sense at all. She should have realized the moment he showed up out of nowhere spouting the word "divorce."
She must have fallen asleep in the editing room, watching the rough cut.
Jaein threw both hands up and slapped her own cheeks, trying to wake.
"Ah! It stings!"
She winced at the burning sting. It was the kind of pain that shocked you awake.
"Why does it sting? What are you doing?"
"You're the one who hit me that hard."
Taeha gave a soft laugh, regarding her at a slant.
"Seo Jaein, now that you know this is real, burn it into your brain. We are not getting divorced."
Her gaping lips trembled.
Where, exactly, had everything gone wrong?
"As long as I love you."
He had never loved her.
Not for a single moment.
Unless it was me who'd been in love with him all on my own.