The Bad Husband (Completed Main Story) - Side Story 5

Incheon Traditional Market.

Tae Eun parked her car in a small parking lot and hesitated for a long while before finally stepping out. Then, she looked up at the market entrance with slightly trembling eyes.

According to Director Park, Min Kyung Hoon’s office was located in a building deep inside the market—specifically, the floor just above Cheongsong Dried Seafood.

She checked the address sent by Director Park on her phone and began walking. Yet, the moment she tried to take her first step, she flinched at a squelching sensation—her attention absorbed by her phone, she’d failed to notice a puddle, and her flat shoes had sunk partway into it.

Fortunately, the water wasn’t deep, and she hadn’t fully stepped down, so her shoes weren’t soaked inside. Still, the water carried a strong fishy odor, owing to the seafood stall right at the market’s entrance.

After casting a glance toward the seafood vendor, Tae Eun skirted the puddle and entered the market. Instantly, it felt as though she’d stepped into another world—the market’s bustling rhythm washed over her in full force. People haggling over prices here and there, merchants clinging to customers in hopes of selling just one more item. Amid it all were irritation, joy, and even sorrow.

Tae Eun passed through it all. Though the mingled scents of countless varieties grew stronger with each step inward, sharply stimulating her sense of smell, she remained unfazed—it was exactly how the traditional market used to feel when she visited often with her grandmother as a child.

Then it struck her: the memory of holding her grandmother’s hand, receiving a hotteok and one skewer of odeng, that blissfully happy moment piercing through her like a chill at the tip of her nose.

Though the location was different, the overwhelming familiarity pulled her back into the past.

Perhaps that was why—a fleeting illusion surfaced: somewhere in the market, she might catch sight of her younger self, hand in hand with her grandmother.

Her already unhurried pace slowed further. She wanted to cling just a little longer to this feeling—to this present moment—and to the faint, impossible hope that she might glimpse her grandmother from the past.

But then, a familiar voice cut through her reverie with startling realism:

“Oh, I only asked for two—why are you giving me so many?”

“Goodness, how could I not give something to you, Attorney? These hotteok are just a few coins each!”

“If I accept this much, what am I supposed to live on, ajumma?”

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