Chapter 16

“You said before that no matter who you introduced to me, you thought they would be too good for me. What did you say yesterday?”

“Ah, yes, yes. I thought no one would be good enough for you, Director, no matter who it was. But after seeing Madam, I apparently stopped thinking that way. He said Madam looks incredibly young for her age and is extremely beautiful, and that the two of you look very good together.”

Sunwoo clicked his tongue inwardly.

Looks young? Jaye did not merely look young for her age. She looked far too young for her actual age.

“Anyway, I guess everyone sees things similarly. I was really surprised when I first saw Madam, too. You think Madam is really pretty as well, don’t you, Director?”

“Well…”

At those words about Jaye being pretty, Sunwoo shrugged.

“She’s so beautiful that I sometimes wonder if that’s why you got married so quickly, almost as if you snatched her away…”

Was Jaye really that pretty?

Sunwoo had never carefully examined Jaye’s face even once.

Just then, the elevator arrived at the underground parking lot.

“Let’s just go to work.”

“Ah, yes, yes. Director. The car is waiting over there.”

Sunwoo stepped out of the elevator and walked toward the car parked ahead.

Friday was a day with no classes.

Now that she could comfortably focus on organizing the house, Jaye wiped the dust off the newly delivered furniture and learned how to use the appliances.

Even though she had done her best to organize everything yesterday, there was still a lot left to do.

Unwrapping all the small decorations and cooking utensils one by one and putting them in their places was a task in itself. Even the dishes had to be washed once before she could arrange them in the kitchen sink.

“Stainless steel pots have to be wiped down with cooking oil before using them?”

Jaye was not accustomed to housekeeping, so every time she did something, she had to search the internet first.

When she had lived at the hermitage, she had helped her mother with kitchen chores, but the cooking utensils and ingredients they had were limited.

At most, she had used dried mushrooms to add flavor and seasoned things with salt. But after coming out into the world, she discovered that there were all kinds of cooking utensils and seasonings.

If she were living alone, she could simply continue eating the way she had at the hermitage.

But unexpectedly moving out with Sunwoo meant that she had suddenly reached the point where she had to properly manage a household.

“If I’d known this would happen, I should have learned how to cook properly while I was still at Unamjae…”

It was tiring, but her heart was still full.

She had never even had a room of her own before, yet after coming here, not only did she have her own room, but this entire spacious house belonged to her.

Seoul was crowded and complicated no matter where she went, but this house and the little garden in front of it were her own private space.

And for the time being, she would be living in this space alone with Sunwoo.

As a show-window couple, she had never once allowed herself to have even the slightest expectation about married life with him. Yet yesterday, while they organized the house together, they had spent time just like any ordinary married couple.

“We just need to put that wall mirror up, right? Where should I drill into the wall?”

“Here!”

“I don’t even know what I’m doing, drilling holes in the wall like this. Should I just call a contractor and have them do it?”

“If you can’t do it, I’ll do it!”

“How could I make you do that? I’ll just do it myself.”

Sunwoo had never done any of this kind of manual work before.

He kept saying he couldn’t do it, that it was annoying, that this was his first time doing something like this. Yet he still hammered nails into the places Jaye wanted and hung up mirrors, clocks, and other things for her.

All the people from the Samjung Group who came to deliver the appliances had seen him like that.

“I thought Director was a cold and blunt person, but he seems different at home.”

The female employee who said she worked in the logistics department kept coming to Jaye’s mind.

Perhaps because her words sounded almost as though Sunwoo treated Jaye specially.

After finishing the kitchen, Jaye opened the windows and began cleaning what she had not been able to finish the day before.

She had been cleaning the floor for quite some time when the phone she had left on the cabinet in the living room vibrated.

[What happened to you, Shin Jaye? You skipped all your classes?]

It was a text from Minjung.

Rain or snow, even when she had severe menstrual cramps or came down with a bad cold, Jaye never skipped school.

So naturally, Minjung found it strange that she had been absent.

[What do you mean, what happened? It’s because of yesterday.]

[Heyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[You know, Minjung. Actually, I moved yesterday.]

[You moved? Did you move out with your husband?]

The reason Jaye had been unable to attend department gatherings was because she lived with her mother-in-law. Because of that, everyone in her department already knew that Jaye was married.

She could have hidden the fact that she was married, but she had entered the university with help from her husband as the daughter-in-law of the Samjung Group. For that reason, she had already met the university president and the head of her department, so she could not hide that fact.

[Yeah. I finished moving yesterday.]

[Seriously? So that’s why you skipped class yesterday?]

[Yeah!]

[Amazing! Aren’t you having a housewarming party?]

[My husband isn’t having one either, so it’d be kind of weird for me to invite my friends over by myself.]

[Ask your husband to have one together and invite both of your friends.]

[It’s kind of hard for me to say something like that.]

[Hey. If I had your face, I’d ask my husband to pluck the moon and stars from the sky for me.]

[What are you talking about? I have to clean, so I can’t text for long.]

[Pictures! Show me some pictures of your new house!]

[Okay, okay! Just a second!]

Jaye held up her phone and looked around the house.

Ever since she had started living in Seoul, she had taken pictures of all the new foods she tried for the first time, all the places she visited for the first time, and every beautiful and wonderful thing she encountered.

Yet after the appliances and furniture had arrived, she had not taken a single picture of the house.

The thing she liked most about Seoul was this house, and she hadn’t taken any pictures of it…

“Let’s see…”

Jaye lowered her phone and slowly looked around the house filled with the things she had chosen herself.

One entire wall of the living room consisted of windows.

Since it was a south-facing penthouse in the tallest apartment building in the area, sunlight streamed in from sunrise until sunset.

The light passing through the floor-to-ceiling windows cast patterns across the white leather sofa.

There were cushions in different colors arranged on the sofa, along with a beautiful marble-patterned coffee table.

Behind them was the white-toned kitchen.

There wasn’t a single corner that wasn’t beautiful.

When Sunwoo had first told her he was giving her this house, she had wondered whether she should really accept something like this.

But after filling it with things she had chosen herself, she found herself wanting to live here forever.

Jaye took a picture with the living room and kitchen both fitting into the same frame and sent it to Minjung.

[Wow! The house is so pretty!]

[Wait, I’ll show you something even better.]

Jaye turned around and faced the rooftop garden visible through the balcony windows.

Compared with Unamjae, it was a tiny garden, but she knew very well how difficult it was to find a house in Seoul with a garden this size.

Whenever she looked at the garden that was entirely her own, all kinds of wonderful ideas flooded her mind.

Once she saved enough spending money, she would buy a red wooden table and put it in the garden.

If there weren’t any red wooden tables being sold, she intended to buy some paint and paint one red herself.

And if she bought a parasol to go with it, it would be perfect.

After a few years, when the small trees had grown thick and lush, her mother, who had lived in the mountains, would surely love this place too.

“It’s really nice…”

She took several more pictures of the garden visible through the balcony windows.

All the leaves had fallen, and the grass in the flowerbeds had turned yellow, but when she captured the yellow grass and the clear blue autumn sky in the same frame, the contrast in colors was beautiful.

As soon as she sent the pictures to Minjung, a reply came back.

[It’s a penthouse! Amazing, amazing! When the weather warms up, let’s put a barbecue grill out there and grill some meat!]

Looking at the garden again after reading Minjung’s message, Jaye realized there was more than enough space for a table and a barbecue grill.

By the time the weather warmed up, Sunwoo would probably have already moved out of this house.

But by then, she would bring her mother to Seoul, too, and just as Minjung had suggested, she could invite her over and grill meat on the rooftop.

Perhaps if she lived like that, neither the divorce nor Sunwoo’s absence would hurt as much as she imagined.

Just imagining a future without Sunwoo made the back of her throat ache, but it was something that had been inevitable from the beginning.

Jaye forced the corners of her lips upward and changed her mood.

[Okay. Just like you said, let’s put a grill out there and grill samgyeopsal!]

[Ooooooooooh!]

Minjung’s reaction made Jaye feel considerably better.

Then another message came.

[But Jaye, your husband must be insanely rich.]

Everyone knew Jaye was married, but most people did not know that she was the wife of the heir to the Samjung Group.

[The living room and the garden alone… You’d need at least 1.5 billion won to buy a penthouse apartment in Seoul.]

To prevent confusion, the university had also kept that particular detail a secret.

[I heard it was purchased through a housing subscription, but I don’t know the details. I still haven’t finished cleaning, so I’m going back to cleaning.]

Jaye ended her chat with Minjung there.

There were still plenty of places throughout the house that needed her attention.

“All right. Let’s finish the rest of the cleaning.”

For Sunwoo, who had left home and fallen out with his mother for her sake, Jaye wanted to be the perfect wife for the remaining month.

After moving out, while Jaye was doing her best to fulfill her role as Sunwoo’s wife, a change occurred in Sunwoo’s circumstances.

“Did you not hear from Unamjae today?”

At Manager Park’s question, Assistant Manager Kim Eun-ji, who was sitting in the secretarial office, shook her head.

The secretarial office of the head of the Strategic Management Division normally operated with three people, but Director Yoon Min-gyu, who had been involved in the accident together with the Director, was currently on medical leave.

Under normal circumstances, the Strategic Management Division was so busy that two people alone could not possibly handle the workload.

Yet right now, even Manager Park Hee-chan and Assistant Manager Kim Eun-ji had plenty of free time because there was hardly any work left for them.

Unamjae’s Madam had ordered that all reports coming to the Strategic Management Division be stopped.

The Strategic Management Division, created after Chairman Jung Geun-cheol’s death, did not belong to Electronics, Trading, Construction, or Automobiles. Instead, it was the operational headquarters of the Samjung Group, deeply involved in managing those four affiliates and more than sixty subsidiaries.

Hundreds of documents and consultation requests passed through the department every day.

Yet with a single word from Madam of Unamjae, it had been reduced to little more than a hollow shell.

Madam of Unamjae had launched a Coordination Planning Office to replace the Strategic Management Division.

She also ordered the representatives of each affiliate to conduct their business consultations through the Coordination Planning Office, instantly turning Jung Sunwoo, the head of the Strategic Management Division, into a mere figurehead.

Creating an organization to replace the Strategic Management Division meant excluding Sunwoo from everything happening within the group.

And tens of thousands of Samjung employees had learned about it.

“Excuse me, Manager…”

Manager Park raised his head and looked at Assistant Manager Kim.

“Director moved out recently, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

“Did he perhaps move out without getting Madam of Unamjae’s permission? I mean, could there have been some conflict between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law…?”

At Assistant Manager Kim’s words, Manager Park’s expression became serious.

He could not simply dismiss her words as absurd.

The very day after they moved out, an order had come down from Unamjae to temporarily establish the Coordination Planning Office and have it take over the work of the Strategic Management Division.

And it had already been going on for a full week.

Manager Park Hee-chan rose from his seat with a grave expression.

“I think I need to have a talk with the Director.”