I'm Not Getting Divorced

It felt as though she had just seen something she was never meant to see.

Jaein's eyebrows twitched slightly as she picked up the papers.

“Oh! PD Seo. We just came up with new promo copy for Couple No. 3. What do you think?”

“Promo copy?”

Couple No. 3 hadn't even been officially decided yet, had it?

No way.

Her heart was pounding, unnaturally so.

“You've worked hard. Honestly, when Vice Chairman Woo showed up out of nowhere, I half wondered if you'd called your husband in to smooth things over.”

Minseop sidled up beside her, chattering away, utterly unaware of her turmoil.

“But how did you even come up with that idea? Honestly, it's way better than the Gold-Thread Couple! You should've seen the Bureau Director when he took that phone call—I thought his face was going to split in two. He had an ear-to-ear grin the whole time!”

She couldn't hear a word of Minseop's endless buzzing in her ears.

Jaein simply lowered her gaze and hurriedly scanned the documents.

“Pretty good, right? Doesn't even compare to the multi-kids family. I'm already tingling with excitement over the ratings.”

Minseop beamed and gave Jaein's arm a friendly thump.

“The Bureau Director—he's in his office, right?”

With trembling hands, Jaein set the papers down and hurried toward the Director's office.

She knocked briefly and opened the door. Bureau Director Lee was there, mid-gesture, hanging his jacket on the coat rack. When he spotted her, his face broke into a wide smile.

“PD Seo! I was just about to go looking for you. Who knew our PD Seo had this kind of sense of responsibility?”

The very man who had been circling her like a wolf not ten minutes ago in the conference room now approached with the kindest smile in the world.

“How did you even think of appearing on the show yourself? And how on earth did you persuade the Vice Chairman, hm? Wow! I keep telling everyone, Seo Jaein is the pride of our Variety Department.”

“……”

“From today, you leave right on the dot. No working late. Our PD Seo is going to focus on filming for a while. I'll hire you a contract employee, too.”

So all those times she'd begged until her throat was dry for one more pair of hands, he'd pretended not to hear. One appearance on a show, and suddenly the junior staffer she never had materialized out of thin air.

She hadn't known Bureau Director Lee even knew how to speak this sweetly.

Minseop, and now the Bureau Director too—they both felt like strangers she'd never met before.

“So, PD Seo. When shall we sign the contract, hm?”

Director Lee guided the frozen Jaein over to the sofa and sat her down.

“We'll have to work around the Vice Chairman's schedule. Let me see.”

He picked up the calendar beside him and began counting off dates.

“Director, this is a bit awkward to bring up, but… my husband is quite busy, as you know.”

“Of course! I know. It's gratitude enough that he's filming at all with his schedule. PD Seo, you are my lucky charm. Ah, what a blessing you are!”

“That's why I—”

“I know, I know. If things go well this time, am I the only one who benefits? Our PD Seo will get her promotion too. I'll keep an eye on your performance review myself. Let's do this together, shall we?”

Jaein wasn't even given a chance to finish a sentence.

“Ah, right! We should have a team dinner tonight.”

Director Lee sprang up from his seat and called for Main PD Seongho. In less than a minute, the man appeared with a knock.

“You called for me!”

He said it while stealing a glance at Jaein's face.

He'd let something slip earlier, so it seemed he was nervous about it.

“Ah, Seongho. The Sesame Couple team is having dinner tonight. Let's get some hanwoo beef—help PD Seo rebuild her strength.”

“Oh, excellent. Hanwoo! I'll book a reservation right now. PD Seo really does get results, doesn't she?”

Seongho followed the chuckling Director out of the office.

Watching him go, Jaein pressed a hand to her forehead.

Just then, her phone buzzed, and a message lit up the screen.

'It did get settled, all right.'

But what was she supposed to do about it? Jaein's worries only deepened.

Just then, another call came in.

“What brings you all the way here, hyung?”

Jeonghyeon set down his coffee cup and studied Taeha, seated across from him.

It was a rare day off he'd taken. Then his doorbell had rung, rudely dragging him out of his plans to sleep in—and there stood Taeha at his front door.

“I have amnesia.”

“I heard.”

Taeha's gaze settled on Jeonghyeon, who sat down on the stool across from him. Jeonghyeon sipped slowly at his steaming cup as he looked his brother over.

“It'll come back soon, right? They said all your other memories are intact. Everything except the ones about Hyeongsu.”

At the mention of Jaein, Jeonghyeon stole a careful glance at Taeha. The look in his brother's eyes made Jeonghyeon's grip tighten around his cup.

“It's Hyeongsu-nim. Get the title right.”

“Ah, right—Hyeongsu-nim. My bad.”

Corrected on his form of address, Jeonghyeon gave an sheepish laugh. He'd been calling her Hyeongsu for five whole years; what was with the sudden formality now?

“Anyway, what's this about? You coming all the way to find me at this hour?”

Had the manners of the car-accident deserter come back with him? He's awfully touchy today, Jeonghyeon thought, reaching for a biscuit on the table—

“You owe me one. Remember?”

Jeonghyeon's fingers froze mid-reach.

He raised his head, biscuit forgotten, and his eyes locked squarely with Taeha's.

“Pay it back.”

Jeonghyeon understood at once exactly what debt his brother meant.

“Pay it back how?”

“The overseas branches. They're yours from now on. And if anyone needs to go to the States, that's yours too.”

Jeonghyeon's eyes went wide. Those were the duties Taeha had shouldered in preparation for his succession.

“Why? If Grandfather finds out, you'll—”

“Doesn't matter. Tell him Woo Jeonghyeon is taking them over.”

Taeha's tone brooked no argument, and Jeonghyeon had no choice but to agree.

After all, there was a standing promise—that he would accept any one request from Taeha, unconditionally.

Because of that debt.

Jeonghyeon picked up his cup to steady his breathing. He had just brought it to his lips when—

“The funeral must have felt pretty empty, huh?”

At the follow-up question, Jeonghyeon's head came up sharply.

One look at Taeha's distant, fixed gaze told him which funeral he meant—Hyeongsu's father, Jaein's father.

“Well… yeah, it was pretty bleak. I got there when hyung—when you told me to, but it was awfully sparse. Honestly, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have even known.”

“……”

“Hyeongsu—no, Hyeongsu-nim had it rough, I think. Dealing with all the elders in our family.”

However casually he said it now, the Jaein he'd witnessed had been treated like an invisible woman for years.

“Have Hyeongsu-nim join us for meals. Hyeongsu-nim has to eat too, you know.”

“Leave her be. She eats in the kitchen with Kim-ssi.”

“Huh? But—why? There's plenty of room at the table.”

“She's not a Woo, is she?”

Neither is Mom, and she eats just fine. But Jeonghyeon had to swallow that remark before it left his mouth.

It was a stiff, hidebound family he'd grown up observing for over twenty years.

He'd noticed Hyeongsu's face growing heavier with each chance encounter at the house, and it had troubled him a little—but he'd figured his brother would handle it, and stayed indifferent.

When he heard about the divorce, he'd simply nodded, thinking it was about time.

He knew it was the classic case of a bride living under her in-laws' roof—that the elders had made up their minds to drive her out and hounded her until she left.

Though given whose family it was, he had expected her to hold out a little longer.

“Mom seemed pretty pleased about it. I think she's planning to remarry you off.”

“……”

“You know how Mom always pushes her own picks on you. That—what's her name. The one you broke off the engagement with. She's still unmarried, isn't she?”

Jeonghyeon was fiddling with his phone, about to keep rambling on, when—

“I'm not getting divorced.”

He lifted his head at the voice that seeped into his ears.

“Huh? What?”

He was pretty sure he'd just heard the word divorce.

“I said I'm not getting divorced.”

At Taeha's words, Jeonghyeon's eyes gradually grew wider and wider.

“Whoa—why?”

“Because I love her. Seo Jaein.”

Jeonghyeon blinked rapidly.

“Well… I mean, obviously. Haha? You married for love, hyung. You two were basically inseparable since college—case closed.”

Jeonghyeon's uneasy laughter broke the long silence.

Married for love. Everyone believed that he and Jaein had been so desperately in love that they'd defied the family's opposition to wed.

What would they all say if they knew the truth—that he'd never so much as dated anyone before her?

The corner of Taeha's mouth twisted at a slant.

“You agreed to a mutual-consent divorce. And now you're backing out? Mrs. Park is going to hate this.”

The Mrs. Park Jeonghyeon referred to was his own mother—the mistress of Daeha Group, Park Junhee.

“Can you handle her?”

Hyeongsu-nim could never withstand our matriarch's temper—she fled because of it.

At the silent challenge in Jeonghyeon's eyes—just what are you planning?—the corner of Taeha's lips curled slyly.

“That's exactly why I'm going to raise hell.”

At the quiet words that followed, Jeonghyeon's eyes went perfectly round.

“From now on, everything that stands in Seo Jaein's way—I'm going to tear it all down.”

Taeha had always been utterly indifferent to the ways of the world.

He was a brother who had grown up without rebelling even once—and that he had defied the family to marry at all said everything about how much he loved her.

And yet he'd been so cold to the woman he loved that much. Whether it was because he was busy, or because something was broken between them, Jeonghyeon didn't know.

But now, his brother had changed.

As if he'd become a different person. And by a very great deal.