The Day I Quit Being a Wife (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 15
Eun Soo cautiously looked up at Hyuk Joo’s face.
Hyuk Joo’s eyebrows shot upward immediately.
He hadn’t even spoken a word yet, but just looking at him made Eun Soo shrink into herself.
She felt like a child who’d done something she shouldn’t have—like she’d committed a wrongdoing and was now waiting for punishment. Lowering her gaze back to the floor, she averted her eyes.
Her heart pounded loudly in her chest.
“Why are you suddenly asking about the hospital expense statement?”
“……Just out of curiosity.”
“Doesn’t really seem like it’s just out of curiosity, though?”
Hyuk Joo’s voice came sharp as he pressed the question.
Seeing Hyuk Joo’s feet step closer toward her, Eun Soo instinctively stepped back—only to find herself right against the wall.
The hard sensation of the wall pressed fully against her thin back. She bit her lips tightly and swallowed hard.
In her head, she rehearsed every possible excuse she could give Hyuk Joo.
Because Mom’s hospital bills seem to be costing more than I expected.
Because I need to know roughly how much the bills are adding up to.
Though several excuses came to mind, she couldn’t bring herself to say any of them out loud. It felt like as soon as she uttered one, Hyuk Joo would immediately question her further.
He’d ask why she suddenly cared now.
So instead, Eun Soo chose to stay silent.
Was her silent, unresponsive demeanor frustrating him?
Hyuk Joo summed up the situation simply.
“Eun Soo, I know you’ve got nothing but your mother-in-law on your mind, but I’d really prefer if you didn’t worry about things like hospital bills. It’s not something you really need to know about.”
“……But it’s my mom’s hospital bills.”
“Right. And you said you’re living with me because of that, right? So were you trying to calculate how much my company is worth to you?”
He continued with a cold laugh.
“How much is it? Do you think living with me is worth less than that?”
“Hyuk Joo…”
“It just doesn’t look like you think you’re getting paid more than you deserve for the work you do.”
Eun Soo looked up at Hyuk Joo’s face, his tone laced with mockery.
His neck was flushed red, clearly burning with anger.
He seemed to think Eun Soo was reducing Moon Hyuk Joo to a monetary value. As someone who’d never been treated that way by anyone before, he appeared deeply humiliated.
Eun Soo slowly moved her dry lips.
“I was just curious. Just…”
But the words that came out of her mouth were the same as before.
She had no other choice.
Because she couldn’t possibly say aloud that the first step toward ending things with Moon Hyuk Joo was finding a way to cover her mother’s hospital expenses.
Perhaps convinced this was the kind of answer Oh Eun Soo would give, Hyuk Joo’s hardened expression softened slightly.
Seizing the moment, Eun Soo quickly filled the silence with the routines of married life.
“I’ll take your coat to the dry cleaners separately.”
Taking the coat from Hyuk Joo’s hand, she hung it on a hanger. Then she pulled out his sleepwear.
“I’ll leave it on the bed.”
“……Alright.”
“Do you want to shower first?”
“Yeah.”
Hyuk Joo stared fixedly at Eun Soo’s face once, then strode into the bathroom with long steps.
Eun Soo stood still, gazing blankly at his sleepwear left at the foot of the bed.
She let out a quiet sigh, picked up the sleepwear, and placed it on the shelf in the powder room just outside the bathroom. After grabbing her own change of clothes, she headed to the bathroom in the second-floor living room.
She turned on the hot water and began to wash.
She shampooed her hair and lathered her body with soap.
The memory of how flustered she’d looked in front of Hyuk Joo over something as trivial as a hospital statement made her let out a hollow laugh.
It had been her own insistence to get married in the first place.
So no matter what Hyuk Joo said or did, Eun Soo had no right to complain. After all, it was a marriage she’d entered into with the promise not to interfere in his affairs from the start.
A heavy weight settled in her chest.
She rubbed her palms over her tight chest throughout her entire shower.
She couldn’t understand why she kept imagining the invisible bruise on her pale skin growing darker and darker.
The gallery hosting the celebration party was bustling with crowds.
Since it was a gallery opened by the wife of one of the presidents from Myeongjin Group’s affiliates, Eun Soo had attended the party just to pay her respects. As she turned to leave after offering her congratulations, a call came through from an unknown number.
Her rule was never to answer calls from unfamiliar numbers.
Her mother-in-law had always told her that picking up such calls only invited unnecessary headaches.
Eun Soo almost ignored it, but found herself pressing the answer button without thinking.
Unable to hang up immediately now that the call was connected, she spoke.
“……Hello?”
— Is this Eun Soo’s number?
“Yes, this is Oh Eun Soo.”
— Goodness! It really is you, Eun Soo!
Recognizing the caller’s familiar, cheerful voice, Eun Soo quickly stepped away from the crowd to a quieter spot.
“Aunt Yoo Sun, is that you?”
— Yes! What on earth happened while I was away in the States? I heard your mom’s been hospitalized? Ugh, I ran into some friends at lunch today and couldn’t believe it. No, let’s meet up and talk properly.
Aunt Yoo Sun, who’d been rattling off words without pause, let out a sigh.
“I can’t right now, but I’m free in about an hour.”
— That’s fine. Just tell me where’s convenient for you. I’ll come to you.
Eun Soo gave her the name of a nearby café.
When Eun Soo offered to send the address, Aunt Yoo Sun insisted she’d find it herself and, right up until hanging up, kept repeating how unbelievable the whole situation was.
Aunt Yoo Sun had been one of her mother’s closest friends.
They’d lived in the same apartment complex since Eun Soo was little, until Aunt Yoo Sun moved to the U.S. when her son entered middle school.
After that, she’d kept occasional contact with Eun Soo’s mother, but at some point the communication had stopped altogether—or so Eun Soo had heard. It seemed Aunt Yoo Sun had only just learned about her mother’s condition through other mutual friends.
Of course, she’d be shocked—after all, the last time they’d parted, her mother had been perfectly fine, and now she’d been bedridden for years.
Eun Soo stopped a passing gallery staff member.
“Could you please tell the gallery director I’ve got another appointment and need to leave early?”
“Yes, Mrs. Moon.”
After leaving the gallery, Eun Soo gave the driver the address of the café where she was meeting Aunt Yoo Sun.
Though they’d agreed to meet in an hour, Aunt Yoo Sun had already arrived. The moment she spotted Eun Soo entering the café, she sprang up from her seat.
Aunt Yoo Sun pulled Eun Soo into a tight hug and patted her back.
“Goodness! How hard this must have been for you all alone! While I was struggling just to get by and lost touch… Oh dear, what are we going to do?”
“I’m fine.”
Seeing Aunt Yoo Sun wipe away tears from the corners of her eyes, Eun Soo forced a smile.
Perhaps because of her admission about struggling to get by, the Aunt Yoo Sun in Eun Soo’s memories—who had always seemed so glamorous—now felt much more down-to-earth.
“How’s your mom?”
“She’s… just the same.”
“Is what I heard really true?”
“What?”
What had Aunt Yoo Sun heard from the other friends?
“That awful woman Go Joo Kyung and your father.”
“……”
“Is it true? Are they really living together now?”
Eun Soo slowly nodded.
She’d suspected the news had already spread thoroughly among her mother’s circle of friends.
After all, it hadn’t just been her mother who’d witnessed her father’s affair with Go Joo Kyung that day.
She’d sometimes wondered—if her mother had been the only one to see it, maybe the shock wouldn’t have been quite so devastating.
But seeing her husband’s infidelity alongside a friend must have made the betrayal even more crushing.
“Mi Kyung told me those two didn’t even flinch when they saw your mom collapse like that. She said if it hadn’t been for her, they would’ve just let your mom die right there. It gave me chills!”
Aunt Yoo Sun gulped down the juice she’d been drinking.
“I also heard your husband is someone really powerful. Tell him to make sure those two pay dearly for what they’ve done!”
“……”
“They’re the ones who put your mom in this state! How shameless can they be? Didn’t they start living together right after your mom collapsed?”
Eun Soo didn’t say a word.
Suddenly, she felt deeply sorry for her mother.
How heartbreaking it must be to know that something she’d wanted to keep hidden was now being treated like juicy gossip among her friends.
At first, her mother’s friends had grieved her misfortune as if it were their own. But as her mother’s hospitalization dragged on, their visits grew fewer and their calls to Eun Soo eventually stopped altogether.
Then, once they heard somewhere that Eun Soo had married Moon Hyuk Joo, the heir of Myeongjin Group, they all suddenly reached out again at once. Visits to her mother’s hospital room became frequent again.
It was all because of the power Moon Hyuk Joo held.
Eun Soo felt they were like a pack of jackals circling her mother, hoping to scavenge something. So she’d asked Hyuk Joo to restrict hospital access—only those he explicitly approved were allowed to visit.
“Eun Soo.”
“Yes?”
“You can’t just let those people go unpunished. Okay?”
Eun Soo quietly looked down at Aunt Yoo Sun’s hand tightly gripping hers.
Aunt Yoo Sun’s eyes quickly welled up with tears as she continued.
“I should’ve done something back then to end things between them, no matter how hard your mom tried to stop me…”
“What do you mean?”
Eun Soo asked, eyes wide with shock.
Aunt Yoo Sun’s words implied her mother had already known about the affair between her father and Go Joo Kyung.
“Those two have been involved since long before you were even born. Your mom found out and wanted a divorce, but… sigh…”
Eun Soo, hearing this for the first time, covered her mouth in disbelief.
“I told her I could find a way to survive on my own, so she should just get a divorce right away—but she couldn’t, because you were sick. She had no choice but to rely on your father to cover your medical expenses.”
“……”
“For nearly twenty years, she pretended not to know—even though she was fully aware her husband and her trusted friend were betraying her. She told herself as long as she acted like she didn’t know, she could just keep living. But after seeing it herself with Mi Kyung, how utterly must her pride have shattered?”
Eun Soo was speechless.
This truth was so utterly different from everything she’d believed about her mother.
Her father’s affair with Go Joo Kyung had been going on for a very long time, and her mother—though ready to divorce—had been forced to stay because of Eun Soo’s medical bills.
“They say a daughter inherits her mother’s fate.”
The words of a household helper, spoken casually once upon a time, suddenly echoed in her mind.
Her mother couldn’t leave her husband—because of Eun Soo’s hospital bills.
And Eun Soo couldn’t leave hers—because of her mother’s.
Both of them were holding on through rotting, suffocating pain.
Eun Soo bit her lips hard, trying to suppress the tears threatening to spill.
“……Auntie, I actually have another appointment today.”
“Oh? Alright. I’d still like to see your mom sometime—if you’re okay with it, just let me know later. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“You must be busy—go on ahead. I’ll be in Korea until the end of this month.”
“I’ll contact you again soon.”
Eun Soo left the café and got into the car waiting at the entrance. When the driver asked for her destination, she named her father’s company.
“Please take me to Myeongjin Apparel.”
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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The extreme miscommunication is getting on my nerves now.
I wish he could actually say what he fully means for once
Hyuk Joo does not mess around. When dealing with someone like this you have to be direct!