The Man Called Husband
The event that had always been held at DDP was taking place on Jeju Island this year.
Flashes burst from every direction, layered over the murmur of conversation and the music. Entrepreneurs, celebrities, and influencers walked the red carpet along a path staged with fresh flowers.
From the VIP seats, Yeon-ha watched them until she spotted Kevin mid-conversation with a cluster of people off to one side. He closed the distance between them with easy naturalness. In an instant, more eyes locked onto the divorced couple than onto the red carpet itself.
This was Song Yeon-ha, famous for being more beautiful than most of the celebrities present. Tall at a hundred and seventy centimeters, she possessed a figure of lavish, overflowing curves. Unlike the many who flaunted their bodies outright, she wore a solid-colored H-line skirt-suit set that carried an entirely different atmosphere.
Attention gathered on her, but Yeon-ha was long used to people's stares. She merely offered her ex-husband Kevin a brief smile. Those watching her flushed or raised their cameras without exception.
Through the reporters' shutters, every piece she wore and every detail of her styling was captured without pause. The photographs went live in real time.
"Looking good?"
Kevin addressed her in English. He had no trouble understanding Korean, but when he spoke it he was unmistakably a foreigner.
"I am."
"Yeah? Me too. Running into you like this."
"And it's a real shame. Even after the divorce, we still have to put on this show, don't we? I'd rather treat you like a stranger, within reason."
Kevin frowned into a smile. The crinkles at his eyes must have looked like genuine pleasure, because the murmur from those watching them grew louder.
Aware of it, Kevin edged a little closer to Yeon-ha.
"Can't be helped. But did something change after the divorce? I think you look prettier with longer hair. Though this suits you too, of course."
With the champagne flute in his hand, he indicated the hair swaying midway down her long neck.
"What does it matter to you."
"Hey, Yeon-ha. Can't I even say that? We cleaned it up nice and neat — let's forget it, yeah? I thought hard about coming myself. Lauren said she'd be here too."
Lauren was a classmate and friend Yeon-ha had met while studying business administration at university in the States. Lauren was also the granddaughter of Heitz, a renowned Swiss watch house, and living in the same apartment building had drawn the two women even closer. She was, by now, Yeon-ha's closest friend.
"Lauren? Did her husband come too? She introduced me to a gem dealer last time. I was hoping to say hello."
"He didn't. Said he was busy. I'm escorting her instead."
Kevin shrugged.
"Is that so?"
"You know how it is. I've been Lauren's escort a lot since we were kids. Feels a little awkward doing it again after so long, though."
"Did anyone say anything about it?"
Yeon-ha answered indifferently.
"Still, I figured you'd care, being my ex-wife and all."
"Is there anyone among our classmates who doesn't know the three of us met in college, and that you two have been like family since you were kids? Enough. Go tend to your own business."
Where was Lauren, anyway? She had barely peeled him off and taken a few steps when Kevin came up close behind her and pointed toward the center of the hall.
"Over there—"
Yeon-ha followed the direction of his champagne glass. There stood a woman with lush blonde hair in a black mini dress that looked as if a craftsman had stitched every seam by hand.
True to form as both entrepreneur and social-media influencer, Lauren looked busy posing for photos and greeting people.
"Shall we go?"
Kevin asked in clumsy Korean, offering an arm.
"I'm fine."
The moment she rested her hand on his arm to push him away—
"Song Yeon-ha."
Go Je-yoon?
The ear caught under dark hair pricked up. As Yeon-ha turned toward the voice, Kevin also turned his head, as if to confirm the man who had just called his ex-wife's name.
"You were invited too? Well — of course the invitation went out, but I'd heard you'd been turning them down until now."
Kevin's eyebrows jumped. The tone and expression Yeon-ha wore were ones he had never seen directed at him.
"Who's that?"
Kevin edged slightly closer to Yeon-ha and asked in a low voice. Je-yoon's brow tilted crookedly at that.
"Hmm, I've seen him somewhere. Was there a guy like this next to Yeon-ha? I've never seen anyone better-looking than me, haha!"
Yeon-ha had never told Kevin about Je-yoon. The same was true of Lauren.
Around the time she had grown close to them, Je-yoon had been expanding his work from Europe into the United States. His commercial had gone up in Times Square — that said everything.
Kevin, far from answering him, stared in bewilderment at Yeon-ha, whose eyes — empty of feeling only moments before — had come alive. Who on earth was the man in front of them, and who was he that Yeon-ha would be this stirred?
Even if no one else caught her reaction, he did. They had lived together for years, after all.
That man looks so familiar…
"Yun! The model! You're Yun, the insanely hot model, right? Oh! Yeon-ha, how do you know this guy? Are you close?"
"We're in the same industry, so of course I know him."
Yeon-ha deliberately kept her explanation of Je-yoon brief.
"But he called you Song Yeon-ha."
"My name is Song Yeon-ha, so he calls me Song Yeon-ha. What else would he call me?"
Je-yoon's voice sank cold. At the unfamiliar, cynical edge in his tone, Yeon-ha looked at him steadily.
Is he in a bad mood?
The worry crossed her mind, but the truth was that Je-yoon had always been rather cynical toward anyone who wasn't Yeon-ha.
Unaware of that, Yeon-ha took him in as a whole. He wore a white-toned suit, and a set of accent buttons in a subtle, complex color drew her eye. They were the same brand as the suit she was wearing.
Yeon-ha discreetly touched the sleeve of her long-armed blazer. A few other people were wearing the same brand, but she found herself tensing for no good reason.
Formality was the brand's motto, but Je-yoon had reinterpreted it — two buttons undone. Just two, and yet he looked sexier than Kevin with four open. His naturally set wet-look hair blended with the temple-like atmosphere of the venue.
As she looked at him, Yeon-ha suddenly felt the gazes around them. Plenty of people were photographing him with their phones. Mostly women. Of course they were… Yeon-ha unconsciously tightened her grip on her mini clutch.
"Are you close with Yeon-ha?"
Kevin asked then, in his characteristic slippery voice and clumsy Korean.
"We met first in a private setting, that's why."
Yeon-ha cut in with the answer in English. Je-yoon's head tilted. He looked even more displeased somehow.
"Hmm? A man who casually calls the next president of Songhwa Retail 'Song Yeon-ha'… interesting."
Kevin shrugged, as if to say that was possible enough.
"Then I'll answer privately too, Yeon-ha."
Yeon-ha couldn't have cared less what Kevin said. All her attention went to Je-yoon, who didn't look well. He isn't sick, is he…
Are you hurt somewhere? She almost mouthed the words, then pressed her lips shut because of the people with cameras all around.
"Yun, nice to meet you. I'm Yeon-ha's husband — ah, 'ex-husband,' Kevin Lee."
Husband? Fuck that.
Je-yoon, who had had his hands in his pockets, clenched a fist. The words he nearly spat out loud he crushed with his tongue and swallowed back down his throat.
Husband? Husband? Ha… crazy bastard…
Je-yoon alone knew about Kevin's affair. Yeon-ha had told him offhandedly, but Je-yoon had been forced to taste a rage like fire raging inside him. Even so, he had forced the heat down with the thought that without it, the divorce might never have gone smoothly.
The correction to "ex-husband" never reached his ears. Only the word husband floated through his mind — like a garbage island on the sea.
Je-yoon stared sharply at the hand offered for a shake, then took it. For a long time he had hated the man enough that meeting him made him want to kill him.
For no reason other than that Kevin Lee had married Song Yeon-ha.
When Je-yoon enlisted, Yeon-ha's wedding photos were released by the press. In the military he had been dragged every which way as a publicity soldier and more, without a moment to make contact. He had thought that if he kept buttering people up diligently enough, he might get a little more personal time to reach Noona.
But the sudden news of Yeon-ha's marriage had sounded like an alarm — as if to say the thing he had hoped for was a vain hope, or rather, that it was time to wake from that dream.
In the photo, Kevin Lee had planted his snout on Song Yeon-ha's lips, and Song Yeon-ha's hand rested on Kevin Lee's shoulder.
Je-yoon, who had throbbed below at the mere imagination of Song Yeon-ha in a wedding dress, had been forced to feel defeat. The future he had dreamed of vanished without a trace, like a sandcastle.
No matter how he scooped and held on with his hands, it felt as if his life were slipping through his fingers. That evening a high fever took him, and he fell so seriously ill he was rushed to a major hospital.
Even while sick he suffered through the news reports that their honeymoon had been to Cancún. All kinds of impure thoughts filled his head.
After returning to the unit he would stare at the locked gun locker in the barracks. He wanted to shoot the bastard called husband who would be rummaging through Yeon-ha's body — a body he had never even dared picture in his own mind — day and night in some private overwater bungalow.
His company commander found him like that and offered leave, but he refused.
Because if he went out, there was no telling what might actually happen.
Je-yoon's eyes dropped like a honed blade.
Kevin's hand — this fucking hand had explored every part of Yeon-ha's body. Deep, deep inside. Once the thought went that far, Je-yoon could no longer endure it.