Handling imported goods in the dostic market alone wasn’t enough. He needed sothing overwhelming—like Taejin had.
Taeseok found it, and he acted.
Among the parachutes left behind by the U.S. military, he bought up the ones that were torn and damaged and processed them into industrial materials. He turned them into cover cloth and outdoor packaging materials, then repeatedly sold them back to the Arican military.
Taeseok’s business grew terrifyingly fast in a short ti.
With the weight of his na behind him, he seized goods that flowed in as free aid from the United States and the UN. He bought up every factory capable of reprocessing them.
“President Gi is truly incredible! Absolutely great!”
“If the war left behind any gift at all, wouldn’t it be our President Gi?”
The so-called upper class who used to lord their power over Taeseok were now desperate to curry favor with him.
Taeseok drank.
And drank.
And drank again.
Every day was a continuation of parties. Glittering nights stretched on endlessly.
Days filled with laughter and music.
Fine liquor, expensive liquor, all that damned alcohol poured down Taeseok’s throat. He couldn’t sleep unless he was drunk.
Every ti he faced Taejin, an unbearable sense of inferiority surged up inside him. Whether he liked it or not, Taejin—Huijae’s husband—was the one who could give wings to Taeseok’s business right now. He had no choice but to et him.
He thought he had gained so much by now.
Yet sohow, there were still so many things he didn’t have.
Each ti he faced the man, it beca harder to suppress the impulse rising inside him.
Do you love her?
How much?
More than ?
More than the man who rolled across the ground with a gun in his hand and thought of nothing but her?
He wanted to grab him by the collar and demand an answer. He wanted to shout, asking who the hell he thought he was, standing there as her husband.
But sotis, the affection he glimpsed in everyday monts tornted Taeseok even more.
“What are you looking at?”
“Ah, my apologies. I thought it might suit my wife very well.”
“...President Lee, you must be a devoted husband.”
“There’s no helping it. Isn’t a man simply a creature who wants to give his wife things she would like?”
Whenever Taejin paused to look at clothes hanging in a boutique, whenever he bought cakes from a hotel bakery, Taeseok would involuntarily imagine another man’s wife wearing those clothes and gently pressing a fork into that cake.
Things he could have done for her himself... no, things he had wanted to do.
That was what made it even more miserable.
Taeseok began buying gifts with no one to give them to.
It was strange. The more the house filled with won’s belongings, the emptier his heart beca.
As days passed, Taeseok’s nerves grew sharper.
“Taeseok!”
“...Unless it’s urgent, don’t bring it up right now. I’m busy.”
“Well, that is... ah...”
“Leave.”
“...Alright. I’ll handle it myself...”
Even though he lived a life where he signed docunts with expensive fountain pens, walked forward with people following behind polished shoes that glead, and had others light his cigarettes for him, his chest felt hollow.
Huijae felt that sa emptiness sowhere inside her as well.
Beside a table piled with piano sheet music Taejin had personally bought for her, she tapped the keys absentmindedly.
A beautiful lody filled the wide living room.
Right after eting Taeseok again, she had been happy. How could one even express the joy of seeing soone they had longed for still alive and well?
But after that?
Whenever she went sowhere with her husband, she heard people talking about Taeseok. Every ti she heard soone say he would be the best husband in Seoul, it felt like a crack forming in her heart.
This shouldn’t happen.
It really shouldn’t...
Every ti she saw him speaking with another woman.
Every ti he showed expressions she had never seen before.
Every ti his back disappeared into the distance.
She wanted to call his na.
Just like before.
She didn’t even know what she wanted to do. She simply wanted to say his na.
Taeseok.
Just like that.
“It seems you’ve grown fond of the piano.”
Taejin had returned ho. Seeing Huijae sitting on the piano bench, he smiled gently.
Loosening his tie with one hand, he approached and sat close beside her.
“I’m curious what piece my wife has been practicing.”
“My skill is still lacking. It would be embarrassing to play it for you.”
Huijae reached to close the piano lid, but Taejin lightly stopped her hand and began pressing the keys with practiced ease.
It was , the piece that had played at their wedding.
“Well now. I’ve neglected practice for too long. My skill has rusted quite a bit.”
So Huijae wouldn’t feel embarrassed, Taejin deliberately made a couple playful mistakes.
Every ti he played a beautiful phrase, the arm beneath his shirt brushed close to Huijae’s.
The warmth was gentle.
“Shall we practice piano together from ti to ti? You can grow fond of it, and I can restore my rusty skill.”
He was the kind of man who poured love over her dry heart.
Not overflowing, but never lacking either.
Huijae nodded with a smile.
Behind the affectionate couple, the wedding photograph hanging on the wall glead unusually bright today.
[The Great Garland Gallery]
[Taejin is a real Bentley, n like that don’t exist, this side is the one and only]
[Since it’s co to this let’s just have the three of them live together LOLLLLLL]
[Hey story addicts tell honestly, are you saying it’s fine if it’s adultery as long as it’s beautiful?]
[They completely ruined my Huijae character damn it, sick of female characters being thrown away just to save two male characters lolol]
“Honestly, up to this point it felt like Han Yeoreum had an overwhelming victory.”
“People thought she couldn’t beat child-actor Huijae.”
The reporters at Daily dia were now watching the broadcast live.
Ever since they had gathered to watch episode one together, it had beco an unspoken rule to watch every broadcast day together while chatting nonstop.
The reunion clip of adult Taeseok and Huijae surpassed one million views in a short ti.
But it still couldn’t compare to the child-actor scenes.
Both views and comnts overwhelmingly favored the child actors.
“Everyone thought that—right! B.U.T! There was a reason Eun Baekhap ca out with her teeth clenched.”
However, writer Ahn flipped the scene into a masterpiece here.
* * *
Hanamura was still Hanamura.
Not long after Huijae returned to Korea, he barged in recklessly.
“So. The child?”
His gaze imdiately dropped to Huijae’s lower abdon.
“Still nothing? Even now?”
“....”
At monts like this, Huijae rembered the circus elephant she had once read about in a book.
If a young elephant was captured ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) and chained at the ankle when it was small, it would live its entire life bound by that mory even after the chain was removed.
“You stupid girl! Do you think I married you into that family for nothing? If you just give birth to a son, all their property will beco yours! And yet you’re still so lazy, tch.”
The mory of being beaten still hurt.
The mory of being locked in a dark room was still frightening.
The mory of starving was still terrifying.
The mory of resentful eyes piercing her still stung.
“It is a woman’s duty to continue the bloodline! Right now Robert only looks at you, but how many years do you think that will last? n, you see—”
“My husband will be ho soon.”
That was the greatest courage Huijae could muster.
“His mood has been poor lately. He won’t like guests appearing without notice.”
Using her husband’s na to drive her father away.
Even knowing how miserable and pitiful it was, she had no other choice.
It still felt as if chains clinked around her ankles.
“Tch. Without a child you can’t even control your husband. Just a woman living in the house like livestock.”
Hanamura placed his hat back on his head and turned away, leaving only a one-sided notice that he would return properly in a few days.
— Please just die already TT__TT
— Sokhwan, it’s ti to show your psychopath side, go all out with Hanamura
— Cover our baby Huijae’s ears... our baby must never hear such awful words T_T
— Why is the acting so good, every ti I watch I feel my fists shaking damn it
“Madam...?”
Huijae sat motionless for a long ti with a cup of cold tea in front of her.
At last a servant called her na.
Huijae suddenly stood.
“I’ll go out for a mont.”
She refused even the driver and drove out alone.
Her small hands gripping the steering wheel trembled.
No matter how many tis she rode cars, ships, or airplanes, she was still walking in place.
Her whole life had been inside walls.
Just then, as her emotions clouded her vision, soone suddenly appeared in front of her.
Screech—!
She slamd on the brakes with a loud screech of tires.
She had clearly hit soone with the car.
“Just now... there was... a person...”
Huijae had buried her head against the steering wheel.
Her chin trembling, she slowly raised her face.
It was a remote place. No one had seen what happened.
If she wanted to run, she could.
But after steadying her breath, Huijae opened the car door without hesitation.
“Ah...”
A woman lay collapsed beneath the hood.
Huijae rushed toward her.
“Are you alright? I’m terribly sorry. I’ll take you to a clinic right away—”
“I just fell over because I got startled. And... the car looks more expensive anyway...”
The woman rejected the chance to demand compensation without a second thought.
Though she said she was fine, she clearly wasn’t. Blood ran from the scrapes on her hands and knees.
Huijae took a handkerchief from her pocket and began tending to her.
“The car doesn’t matter. I’ll take you to a clinic and compensate you for the trouble.”
“I don’t have ti to go to a clinic. Just give a little money for dicine. I have to go to work...”
If she missed even a single day of work, she might struggle to eat the next day.
As Huijae wiped the blood with the handkerchief, she noticed the old scars on the woman’s knees.
“Why are you looking at like that?”
The fallen posture.
The scars on the knees.
The familiar dialect.
Huijae imdiately realized who the woman was.
The mory had remained like a knot in her heart for so long that she couldn’t possibly fail to recognize her.
“Did you perhaps live in Jinhae before?”
“...I did.”
She was the girl who had once been slapped by Hanamura after running an errand for Huijae’s shoes.
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