“Even though I love you this much.”
Seoyoon’s heart dropped.
Taejun didn’t hesitate for even a moment.
He was looking at her as though he were stating the most obvious fact in the world.
Seoyoon forced the corners of her mouth into a crooked smile.
“You remember me from three years ago.”
“So?”
“I might be different now.”
“You don’t seem all that different.”
“What do you know?”
“At least, you don’t seem like someone who would make me want a divorce.”
Seoyoon couldn’t answer.
The problem wasn’t her.
The one who had changed was Kang Taejun.
“People’s feelings change.”
“Mine too?”
“They must have. That’s why you said you wanted a divorce.”
Taejun’s face hardened.
Seoyoon didn’t want to look at that expression anymore, so she turned away.
“You can use your old room. If you need anything, let me know.”
“Can’t we sleep together?”
Seoyoon spun around.
“What?”
“We’re married.”
“We were a couple on the verge of divorce.”
“We haven’t gotten divorced yet.”
“That’s why you should sleep separately.”
Taejun looked dissatisfied.
Before he lost his memory, he hadn’t even cared which room she slept in.
But now he stood there as though he had been treated unfairly.
“All right.”
His willing retreat only made Seoyoon regard him with greater suspicion.
When Taejun went into his room, Seoyoon headed for the bedroom as well.
Only after closing the door did the breath she had been holding escape in a long exhale.
Even though I love you this much.
Those words kept echoing in her ears.
Once, they were words she had been desperate to hear.
They were also words she had eventually given up on after waiting for them in vain.
She never thought she would hear them now.
Especially not from her husband, who had forgotten everything.
Seoyoon sat on the bed and covered her face with her hands.
“This is so cruel.”
Even she didn’t know who she was saying it to.
A short while later, someone knocked on the bedroom door.
“What is it?”
Taejun’s voice came from the other side.
“I’m hungry.”
Seoyoon checked the time.
It was a little after eight in the evening.
“Order delivery.”
“I don’t know what to eat.”
“Whatever you want.”
“The kimchi stew you made.”
Seoyoon’s hand stopped.
“Why do you suddenly want that?”
“I used to like it.”
He had.
During their newlywed days, Taejun had especially loved the kimchi stew Seoyoon made.
On the day he returned from a business trip.
Late at night after a company dinner.
As long as that stew was on the table, he would quickly finish a whole bowl of rice.
But at some point, Seoyoon stopped making it.
There was no one coming home to eat it, no matter how long she waited.
“We don’t have the ingredients.”
“I saw them in the fridge.”
Seoyoon opened the door.
Taejun was standing right in front of her.
“Why are you opening someone else’s fridge?”
“You said this was my house.”
“I said it was our house. I never said it was your house.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
It was the same argument again.
Seoyoon glared at him, then eventually headed into the kitchen.
“Just today.”
“Thank you.”
His voice as he followed behind her sounded strangely cheerful.
Seoyoon took out a pot and said, “Go rest. Why does a patient keep wandering around?”
“I’ll help.”
“Do you even know how to cook?”
“I was good at washing dishes.”
Seoyoon scoffed.
“When was that?”
“Not anymore?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You have to come home to wash dishes.”
Only after the words slipped out did the kitchen fall silent.
Taejun said nothing.
Seoyoon didn’t turn around as she chopped the kimchi.
After a while, Taejun quietly asked, “Did I not come home often?”
“No.”
“How often?”
“Once a week. When you were busy, you didn’t even come home then.”
“Leaving you alone?”
The tip of Seoyoon’s knife stopped against the cutting board.
“There’s no need to feel sorry now. You don’t even remember it.”
“Even if I don’t remember, I’m the one who did it.”
At those words, Seoyoon slowly raised her head.
Taejun neither smiled nor made excuses.
“I’m sorry.”
Seoyoon stared at him for a long time.
It was an apology she hadn’t heard even once over the past few years.
It was what she had waited for so desperately, yet it brought her no joy at all.
“Don’t apologize.”
“Why?”
“You don’t know anything.”
Seoyoon looked away.
“It’s worse because it feels like someone who knows nothing is apologizing on his behalf.”
Taejun’s mouth fell shut.
They finished the meal in silence.
Taejun emptied two bowls of stew.
He said several times that it was delicious.
He was exactly as he had been before.
When Seoyoon reached for the dishes after the meal, Taejun took them first.
“I’ll do it.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You’re hurt.”
“I hurt my head, not my hands.”
Taejun really did start washing the dishes.
Seoyoon sat at the table and watched his back.
His sleeves rolled up as he washed the dishes.
Even the way he turned the water on too hard and soaked everything around the sink was exactly the same as before.
Then one of the plates slipped from Taejun’s hand.
Crash.
Seoyoon jumped to her feet.
“Are you okay?”
Taejun looked down at the broken plate.
In that instant, his face contorted.
“Kang Taejun?”
Taejun pressed a wet hand to his head.
Seoyoon hurried over and grabbed his arm.
“What’s wrong? Does your head hurt?”
“Just a moment…”
Taejun closed his eyes.
His ragged breathing fell over Seoyoon’s head.
“What came back to you?”
“What?”
“You broke a plate.”
He continued with difficulty.
“And I got angry.”
The color drained from Seoyoon’s face.
It was that day.
The day she had prepared dinner alone and waited for him on their wedding anniversary, only to break a plate.
Taejun had returned at dawn, and the first thing he did upon seeing the wrecked kitchen was get annoyed.
That was the first time Seoyoon had thought she wanted to end this marriage.
Taejun slowly opened his eyes.
“Seoyoon.”
His face, pale and rigid as he clung to the fragment of memory, had gone white.
“That day…”
His low, subdued voice continued.
“Was that our wedding anniversary?”
Seoyoon couldn’t answer.
Taejun’s eyes slowly crumbled as they followed her silence.
“It was.”
He slowly lowered his wet hand.
“Is that why you were crying?”
Seoyoon’s fingertips stiffened.
It seemed he remembered even that.
“No.”
“I think you were crying.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You’re lying again.”
Seoyoon bit down hard on her lip.
That day, Taejun had seen her sitting amid the broken pieces of the plate and hadn’t said much of anything.
He had merely gone into the bedroom, saying that he was tired and they could talk later.
“I don’t know why I did that.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not.”
Taejun’s voice was firm.
“You were crying, and I just went inside.”
“It’s not something you need to feel sorry for now.”
“Stop talking about the current me and the me from back then as if we’re different people.”
“You are different.”
Seoyoon’s voice rose.
“At least, you’re completely different from the person I knew.”
Taejun’s face hardened.
Seoyoon bent down to pick up the broken pieces of the plate.
Taejun hurriedly grabbed her wrist.
“You’ll cut your hand.”
“Let go.”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“What is someone with a headache doing cleaning?”
“Then we’ll clean it up together.”
His hand didn’t let go easily.
His warm body heat pressed against her wrist.
Seoyoon stared down at his hand for a while before saying weakly, “You told me you wanted a divorce that day.”
Taejun’s grip tightened.
“On our wedding anniversary?”
“Yeah.”
The expression disappeared from his face again.
“After getting angry over a broken plate.”
“You said we should end things.”
Taejun couldn’t say anything.
Seoyoon slowly pulled his hand away.
“So don’t carelessly apologize just because you remembered.”
“Seoyoon.”
“I remember everything, including how cruel you were.”
Seoyoon left the kitchen without another word.
The moment she closed the bedroom door and leaned against it, the tears she had been holding back fell.
Only Taejun remained alone in the kitchen.
For a long time, he stared down at the broken plate.
Then he took the divorce papers, folded in half, from his pocket.
Beside his wife’s signature was unmistakably his own.
Taejun stared at it and muttered under his breath, “Why did I…”
At that moment, a voice pierced sharply through his mind.
*You’ll never know until the very end.*
Taejun’s face hardened.
It was the voice of an unfamiliar man.