Chapter 79: Would You Still Stay?

“So now I have to feed you too?”

No. This wasn’t an act of tenderness.

With his mouth stuffed full of food, Go Ha-jin had no choice but to chew and swallow before he could protest.

“Are you… taking your frustration out on me right now?”

“What are you talking about? If I were, the spoon would’ve gone flying at your head instead of into your mouth.”

As if he had expected exactly that reaction, Chae Woo-seok ignored Go Ha-jin’s grumbling and piled another mountain of food onto the spoon.

“I told you before. I can’t stand people picking at their food.”

If he tried to take that bite, his mouth might split open.

No, it definitely would.

The spoon was heaped with enough rice and side dishes to rival the size of a fist.

Fortunately, instead of prying his mouth open and shoving it in, Chae Woo-seok simply thrust the spoon into Go Ha-jin’s hand, though the threatening look in his eyes clearly ordered him to eat.

“You don’t have to keep pretending you’re okay. If you’re having a hard time, you can say so. Times like this, it’s fine to let yourself fall apart a little.”

Chae Woo-seok possessed a strangely remarkable talent.

He spoke lightly and acted on impulse, true to his personality, but not everything that came out of his mouth was nonsense. Sometimes a weightless sentence carried genuine sincerity, or steadied someone on the verge of collapse.

This time, it was the latter.

How could he possibly be okay?

He was only pretending.

Even now, Chae Jae-yi was probably on her way back to Korea. She might have already told Chae Il-joo everything she knew.

Whenever he imagined that possibility, one dark thought led to another without end.

The trip to the seaside still lingered in his mind, allowing him to at least pretend to be calm. Keeping himself busy helped dull those feelings, which was why he had thrown himself obsessively into finding things to do.

“…I really am okay right now.”

Without elaborating, Go Ha-jin simply opened his mouth wide and stuffed in the overloaded spoonful. There was so much that chewing alone felt exhausting.

He wasn’t lying.

He truly did feel okay.

And that, too, was strange.

Whenever Chae Woo-seok appeared, all the tangled thoughts filling his head vanished as if washed away. Like animals fleeing from a predator into darkness, they disappeared without a trace.

It was especially true whenever Chae Woo-seok pulled some outrageous stunt.

There was no room for intrusive thoughts when irritation demanded all of his attention. He would exhaust himself getting angry at Chae Woo-seok’s reckless behavior.

Yet afterward, his heart always felt lighter.

The ugly thoughts would eventually creep back in and gnaw at him again, but even if only for a moment, Chae Woo-seok gave him room to breathe.

That much never changed.

“You said you were starving, so why aren’t you eating?”

“Did you just swear at me? That sounded awfully heartfelt.”

“…No? Why would I?”

‘Caught.’

After laboriously chewing and swallowing the enormous bite, Go Ha-jin couldn’t help feeling annoyed.

The man who claimed he was starving enough to die wasn’t eating at all. Instead, he sat there with his chin propped on one hand, watching Go Ha-jin without blinking.

“You’ve got two spoons in your hands and you’re saying that? Don’t you think that’s a little shameless? So greedy you won’t even let your husband eat.”

Only then did Go Ha-jin notice that he was indeed holding two spoons.

One was originally his.

The other was the one Chae Woo-seok had forced into his hand.

After making him hold it against his will, he now had the audacity to say something so ridiculous.

“H-Husband… could you maybe not call yourself that…”

“Why not? Legally I’m your husband. What else should I call myself?”

It really was strange.

Go Ha-jin and Chae Woo-seok did practically everything a real married couple did.

They occasionally went out to eat.

They shared meals at the same table.

In the mornings, Go Ha-jin sometimes picked out Chae Woo-seok’s clothes.

On his way home from work, Chae Woo-seok would occasionally bring flowers or little gifts.

If their schedules aligned, they came home together.

And then there was… that part of married life as well.

Even so, hearing their relationship defined by a specific title made him recoil for reasons he couldn’t explain.

It was simply embarrassing.

“Husband, husband, husband…”

And of all people, Chae Woo-seok saying it.

“…Just eat your food already.”

“Our Ha-jin hyung really gets embarrassed over the strangest things.”

“Our.”

“Ha-jin hyung.”

Go Ha-jin silently cursed the heavens for failing to give humans eyelids for their ears.

Instead, he buried himself in his meal.

If he exchanged another word with Chae Woo-seok, he was convinced he’d break out in hives.

Only then did Chae Woo-seok finally begin eating, thinking to himself how difficult it was to feed someone who was already fully grown.

****

“Phew… Chae Jae-yi noona will probably be here tomorrow morning, right?”

Tonight’s conversation felt different from usual.

As always, they sat across from each other at the table beside the bed.

But instead of light beer, they had chosen strong whiskey.

Both Go Ha-jin and Chae Woo-seok felt that something heavier suited the mood.

Chae Woo-seok slowly swirled the glass, without so much as a single cube of ice, before taking a sip.

His expression never changed, as though he were drinking water rather than liquor, almost as if he enjoyed the burn sliding down his throat.

“She should be. She boarded the plane, after all. Unless something unexpected happens, they’ll bring her straight home. She made such a fuss about going overseas for volunteer work that they won’t want anyone seeing her.”

“I suppose so.”

He hadn’t really expected a different answer.

It was only wishful thinking.

“But there’s something I just can’t understand.”

Chae Woo-seok drained the remaining third of amber liquid in one swallow before looking at Go Ha-jin with an expression completely unlike the one he’d worn at the dining table.

“…What is it?”

There was no particular emotion in it.

The playful façade had simply disappeared, leaving behind the ordinary Chae Woo-seok.

Even that was enough to make Go Ha-jin tense.

Clink.

Clink.

The ice tapping against his own glass echoed the discomfort in his chest.

This silence felt oppressive.

It wasn’t like the quiet they had shared in the car while watching the sunrise together.

“Why do you work so hard?”

“…What?”

Chae Woo-seok was genuinely curious.

Why did Go Ha-jin always look as though the world were about to end?

“Seriously. Even if your identity gets exposed, it doesn’t really matter to you, does it? If anything, wouldn’t that be a good thing? You could just walk away. You never wanted this marriage in the first place.”

To be honest, if their fraudulent marriage were exposed, Go Ha-jin had nothing to lose.

Chae Woo-seok, on the other hand, could suffer consequences beyond imagining.

Yet somehow it was Go Ha-jin who was desperately trying to preserve the secret.

Someone with nothing to lose.

How could that not raise questions?

Why?

“Well…”

For an instant, Go Ha-jin felt as though something had struck the back of his head.

Why had he never considered that before?

Chae Woo-seok was right.

The moment Chae Woo-seok discovered his true identity, the scam had already failed.

The possibility of earning large sums of money along the way had existed, but that had always been secondary.

If his secret were exposed now and he were thrown out of the house, he wouldn’t truly lose anything.

As long as Chae Woo-seok didn’t decide to harm him, he could simply treat it as an extraordinary experience and move on.

“If this marriage falls apart… there’s no way you’d just let me go, right?”

“Ah.”

No.

Even as the words left his mouth, Go Ha-jin couldn’t believe them himself.

Maybe before the wedding.

But now he knew.

Chae Woo-seok would never hurt him.

Not even if everything collapsed.

“Well, I suppose that makes sense. You scare easily.”

Apparently satisfied, Chae Woo-seok accepted the explanation.

Go Ha-jin couldn’t answer.

A casually tossed pebble had landed in his heart, sending enormous ripples through it.

No matter how many excuses he came up with, none explained why he was trying so desperately to protect this secret.

“And… I like living here. Even if it gets stressful sometimes…”

That wasn’t enough either.

He truly was happy here.

In many ways, this life resembled the one he had dreamed of for years.

But that alone couldn’t explain it.

“I’ll give you that. You’re greedier than most people. Is that all?”

“And…”

Nothing else came to mind.

Go Ha-jin merely nodded faintly.

Chae Woo-seok refilled his glass and emptied it in a single gulp, exhaling a warm breath across the table.

“Then let me ask you this.”

The atmosphere turned cold.

Only moments ago, his expression had seemed ordinary.

Now his eyes looked as though winter itself had settled inside them.

Go Ha-jin found himself wishing the annoying joking tone would return.

“If I told you I wouldn’t blame you for ruining the marriage…”

“…”

“And I’d make sure you had enough to live on for a while…”

“…”

“Then would you be fine with getting divorced?”

Ah.

So that was what he meant.

That his usefulness had come to an end.

Only then did Go Ha-jin truly understand what Chae Woo-seok was asking.

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