TAMC 06

Chapter 06

“About that time. When you had the accident, Department Head.”

“……”

“You remember? When they asked whether I was Jung Sunwoo’s wife, the accident call came to me first.”

Maybe it was because of what he had said earlier that afternoon—that she was his person—that she had gotten carried away.

That must have been why she kept talking to him even though he wasn’t answering.

Jaye thought Sunwoo would never answer her, no matter how long she waited. But her prediction was completely wrong.

“It was probably because my number was the most recently dialed.”

“Department Head, did you know my number?”

“You think I wouldn’t know my wife’s number?”

Jaye knew Sunwoo’s phone number, but she had never once contacted him.

She had always been careful not to bother him with unnecessary calls or messages, and she never created situations where she needed help from him as her guardian.

On the other hand, to Sunwoo, a person named Shin Jaye was an unnecessary existence that made little difference whether she was there or not, so she naturally assumed he didn’t know her number.

“Really? You really knew it?”

Jaye sat up in bed and leaned toward Sunwoo.

She knew it was rude to bother someone who was trying to sleep, but she wanted to know whether what he had said was really true.

“What do you mean it was in your recent calls?”

Could it be that when he was having the accident, he had wanted to hear her voice?

She knew it was nothing more than speculation and a pointless thought, but Jaye still allowed herself to hope for something ridiculous.

“Are you not going to sleep?”

Sunwoo frowned as he looked at Jaye, but she didn’t move as she looked down at his face.

“I’m curious.”

Sunwoo let out a short sigh, then sat up in bed and picked up the phone from the nightstand.

Her number was saved in his phone under the name “Wife.”

“Look. It’s your number, right?”

“It really is? Then did you actually call me that time?”

“Yeah.”

Sunwoo gave a short answer and lay back down.

He seemed ready to go back to sleep, but Jaye was curious about why he had called and what he had wanted to say, so she couldn’t let him fall asleep.

“When? I didn’t even have a missed call from your number. Why did you call me?”

“Are you not going to sleep?”

Although she knew her husband was looking at her with annoyance, Jaye was unusually persistent tonight.

“I’m curious. Why did you call me?”

“That morning, I saw you walking to the bus stop. I followed you and called.”

“Ah……”

He was talking about what had happened when she had gotten a ride in Sunwoo’s car to school.

“I was going to tell you over the phone to get in the car and go, but the driver honked the horn. You turned around, so I hung up immediately.”

He had probably hung up before the call could even connect, which was why it hadn’t appeared as a missed call on Jaye’s phone.

“I see.”

“Can I sleep now?”

“But, Department Head.”

Jaye grabbed his shoulder again.

“What is it now?”

Although Sunwoo answered as if she were bothering him, he still turned onto his side to face Jaye.

The two of them were now lying on the bed facing each other.

“When I heard about your accident, I rushed to the hospital. But you really went too far when you kicked me out as soon as I arrived. I could have gotten the dermatological treatment the next day.”

“I know. You could have gotten it the next day.”

“No. You told me to leave as if you didn’t even know me.”

Jaye had never talked this long with her husband before, but perhaps because he had been taking her side repeatedly over the past few days, her heart had become strangely excited, making her do things she normally wouldn’t.

“I didn’t know, so you kicked me out of the hospital like that. Do you know how hurt I was?”

“You really only know one side of things and don’t know the other.”

Sunwoo reached out and covered Jaye’s eyelids with his hand.

“!”

It seemed like he was telling her to close her eyes and sleep, but the pleasant scent of soap coming from his hand had the unfortunate side effect of making her heart beat even faster.

“W-What do you mean I only know one side and don’t know the other?”

“You would have been eaten alive by Mother if you’d stayed there.”

“Ah…… Then were you taking my side?”

Instead of answering, Sunwoo turned over and pulled the blanket up.

“I’m sleepy. Let’s sleep.”

“Department Head.”

Jaye tried to speak to him again, but Sunwoo raised a hand to stop her.

“You sleep too. I’m closing my eyes.”

“Yes……”

Five minutes after turning away from her, Sunwoo fell asleep, breathing steadily.

Afraid that she might wake him, Jaye couldn’t even turn over. Instead, she simply memorized the sight of his back in her heart.

They had lived as husband and wife for three years, but in two months they would separate and live as strangers for the rest of their lives.

People said that the head of Samjung Group was the kind of person even the President could not easily meet.

Given that, there was no reason for an ordinary civilian like her to ever see him again after he left her behind.

Once they separated, they would probably never meet again for the rest of their lives……

“Department Head, why did you marry me?”

That was why she asked the sleeping man the question while looking at his back.

Sunwoo was a man who hated superstitions.

And yet, in the end, he had put aside his objections and accepted her as his wife.

“You hate shamans that much. And I’m a shaman’s daughter. You could have refused until the very end……”

She hadn’t asked because she had any special expectations.

She knew very well that the difference between their circumstances was like heaven and earth, and that the two of them could never be together.

She was simply curious about why he had made that choice.

“You know, Department Head. Even so, I think I was incredibly lucky to become your wife, even if it was only for a short while. You changed my life.”

Jaye watched Sunwoo’s body rise and fall rhythmically as he breathed, then closed her eyes.

“Sleep well.”

After tossing and turning for a few more minutes, she eventually fell asleep.

When Jaye’s soft breathing began to fill the room, Sunwoo opened his eyes and stared into the darkness above him.

Jaye’s questions had been bothersome, so he had pretended to be asleep, but it wasn’t as though he was comfortable sharing a bed with another person for the first time either.

Because he hadn’t been asleep, Sunwoo had heard every word Jaye had said.

She had thought she was talking to herself, believing her words would never reach him.

But every single one of them had reached Sunwoo.

‘Department Head, why did you marry me? You hate shamans that much. And I’m a shaman’s daughter. You could have refused until the very end…….’

Just as Jaye had said, he could have refused and said that talismans were nothing but nonsense.

If he had done so, Okhyun would have given up as well.

But Sunwoo had agreed to that ridiculous plan and accepted Jaye as his contract wife.

Because he pitied her.

Two years and eleven months ago, Jaye, with her young and innocent face, had begged him to accept her as his wife.

It had been the coldest day of that winter.

In a mountain hermitage deep in the forest, she had been wearing a purple sweater that looked as though its threads had been unraveled and knitted back together several times.

Her cheeks were red and chapped from the cold as she spoke.

‘Please…… Let me leave this place.’

Sunwoo’s gaze fell upon the white hand she had held out toward him.

Her hand was so pale that he could see the veins beneath the skin. She was painfully thin, and he simply couldn’t bring himself to turn that hand away.

Sunwoo, who had been pretending to sleep, turned toward Jaye.

Looking at Jaye sleeping with her eyes closed suddenly reminded him of the first time he had met her two years and eleven months ago.

Very few people among Sunwoo’s ancestors had lived long lives.

Sunwoo’s grandfather had died before reaching fifty, while his father had barely made it to sixty before passing away.

His grandfather had died during a time when medical science was still underdeveloped, but the sudden death of Chairman Jung Geuncheol had sent a considerable shock through Samjung Group.

When Sunwoo’s father, Chairman Jung Geuncheol, died, Sunwoo was only nineteen years old.

Ten years after his father’s death, when Sunwoo was twenty-nine, his mother called him over and brought up the subject of his father’s death.

“There was a famous Bosa-nim in Naju. About fifteen years ago, she performed a fortune reading and said your father would have difficulty making it through the samjae he would encounter when he turned sixty.”

Sunwoo sighed at the mention of a shaman.

After her husband’s death, his mother had traveled all over the country searching for shamans reputed to be powerful, praying for the safety of the remaining members of the family.

Including relatives from his mother’s side, the family spent hundreds of millions of won every year on fortune-telling and gut rituals to determine their fortunes and misfortunes.

“If we had listened to the Naju Bosa-nim back then, we might have been able to prevent your father from dying like that…… That’s why, Sunwoo.”

“If you’re going to tell me to go to a gut ritual, I’ll leave right now.”

As Sunwoo stood up, Okhyun hurriedly grabbed him.

“Please listen to your mother this time.”

“……”

“I found the spiritual daughter of the late Naju Bosa-nim. Apparently, she’s been living in seclusion in the mountains, cultivating her spiritual power, and her divine abilities are supposed to be unbelievably strong.”

“What does finding her spiritual daughter have to do with me?”

“Aren’t you entering samjae this year?”

At that point, Sunwoo didn’t even know whether he was entering samjae.

He had never imagined that something called samjae could drastically change his life.

“Let’s go see her together, Mother.”

“I told you that if you were going to tell me to go to a gut ritual, I would get up and leave. I’ll be going now.”

Sunwoo had gone to a gut ritual only once before, when his mother had said it was being held to pray for his father’s peaceful passage into the afterlife.

What he had seen there was a shaman crying as she clung to him, claiming that his father’s spirit had possessed her, while his mother and relatives offered her envelopes of money every time she did so.

Disgusted by the sight, Sunwoo had never set foot in a gut ritual again.

“Sunwoo, please listen to your mother.”

“Mother, please stop……”

“I can’t live without you. Do you know how I gave birth to you……? When I was told that something bad had entered our family and that every child conceived would die in the womb, I prayed for three whole years to have you.”

When Sunwoo cut her off at the mention of going to a gut ritual, Okhyun eventually broke down in tears.

“Your father couldn’t make it through his samjae. If something happens to you during your samjae too, I won’t be able to live. If you listen to your mother just this once, I’ll never ask you to go to a gut ritual again.”

For Okhyun, who firmly believed in folk beliefs, the very word samjae carried enormous fear.

And when it came to her son, she was a woman who never knew how to compromise. Sunwoo realized that no excuse would work anymore.

A few days later, Sunwoo went with his mother to visit the spiritual daughter of the Naju Bosa-nim.