Tae Shin is a simple boy with simple dreams, who likes to hide his half-forgotten past into the shadows of his low self-esteem. Kim JaeHwan is a sole heir to a gigantic multi-billion conglomerate, who likes to reminisce the ghosts of his happy child...
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After a year of marriage, HwaYoung had come to know JeongSuk. In the evenings, she cooked for him, hoping to please, with heaps of white rice and boiled carrots, just as he liked. He liked his rice and broth mixed up in one bowl, and he detested the taste of eggplants. Everyday, he would rush out, with his briefcase in his hand and he buttons of his shirt done the wrong way and HwaYoung would stand in front of him, patient, careful, re doing the buttons of his shirt and fixing his tie while he went over the thick stack of Gwangpo Bridge collapse case victim's file for another time.
"Have a good day," HwaYoung said when he sat down on the doorstep on their house to tie his shoelaces. He didn't reply, for there was a gimbap roll stuffed in his mouth. Yet, HwaYoung didn't mind.
At nights, when she laid side by side to him, he recalled everything about his day. What he thought, what actually happened and what he would have liked it to happen, and HwaYoung listened to it, without a thought. As if she wasn't there and JeongSuk was simply talking to a pillow. At first, she liked to think it as a conversation and said things in between, only to be met by JeongSuk's ridicule and narrowed eyes. But little by little, she grew quieter.
Strangely, JeongSuk seemed less and less handsome each day HwaYoung saw him. As if he wasn't the same person she had once wholeheartedly liked.
They had a small house in a less privileged locality. A one storied bungalow with a small parking and space for a few potted plants. The living room was spacious enough for a set of couches and a medium sized television set, which was gifted to the couple by JeongSuk's father who had initially wanted to buy them a house but could not, because of JeongSuk's vehement protests. There were also a few porcelain vases kept on the drawers as decorations, gifted by the people JeongSuk defended and won cases for, who claimed them to be precious artifacts of the Goryeo dynasty.
There were two bedrooms and one of them was converted into JeongSuk's study, which HwaYoung rarely frequented. Only to dust and clean, which was also frowned upon by JeongSuk, for the man seemed to make a culprit of his wife for every little piece of paper he lost. At first HwaYoung defended herself and pointed out the mess he made out of the habitat he lived in, but then, when she realized that he wasn't even listening to her side of the argument, she stopped speaking.
The kitchen was the only part of the house she liked. It was large, as large as her bedroom, with big counter tops and with a small, cemented backyard of sorts where she lovingly tended to her plants. She had an oven, fixed in one of the kitchen walls. HwaYoung had no maids, and her house was small, she didn't go out much, she didn't have many friends, and so she fixated all her mind and energy in honing her cooking skills and with time, they just seemed to match a level owned by professionals.
"You can open a restaurant," said SeGye, whose infrequent visits pained HwaYoung. But she didn't blame her best friend, she couldn't blame her best friend. She had a child, and she couldn't divide her time between her son and her work.
