Reason for Marriage - Chapter 25

After waking up from her nightmare, Minju could not fall asleep again due to her various thoughts, and greeted the morning with open eyes. She was in a condition as bad as her chaotic dream.

While she was simply preparing for breakfast in the kitchen, Sang-yeon came down and offered something to Minju.

“I forgot to give this to you yesterday.”

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing much… Open it.”

Minju roughly wiped her wet hands on her apron and opened the package.

‘I don’t think I saw this when I was organizing his bag yesterday. What is it? He didn’t forget my present even though he was busy? I didn’t even know that and I almost felt disappointed by myself.’

However, Minju’s expression, who was excited about the first gift from her husband who had been on a business trip, suddenly darkened. In other words, she failed to control her facial expression.

“I picked the wrong gift…”

Sang-yeon, who saw Minju’s awkwardly twitching facial muscles, said.

“Oh… No, thank you. I’ll use it well. This is famous, right?”

“I bought it because I thought you were passionate about cooking these days. When I was in Germany, I thought that I would buy one of these.”

Among many things, Sang-yeon chose knives. A set of knives from a German luxury brand called Twin Knives. It was a perfect full package product with flashing stainless steel knives of all kinds, scissors, and even a sharpening knife.

When she saw a knife sharp enough to cut down even a thin piece of paper, Minju’s last night dream came to her mind and she had a cold sweat.

‘Let’s think of last night’s dream as bad luck. I had such a dream yesterday to receive these knives as a gift today. It’s better now. Thank God.’

“You’re asking me to cook a lot of delicious food with this, right? I need to work harder.”

Minju smiled as bravely as possible.

“Next time, I’ll think of something you would like more.”

Sang-yeon hugged Minju’s shoulders and kissed her forehead lightly. However, from Sang-yeon, who came close, Minju saw traces of her dream last night again.

At first glance, there was a clear kiss mark on his neck visible through the collar of his shirt, it was a wound that looked like a tooth mark or a bruise in the shape of a lip.

Minju’s pupils lost focus and trembled anxiously. She felt like fragments of the nightmare that she did not want to think of kept intervening between reality.

What was that wound? Did they make love last night? Minju could not remember well.

‘No, I think he slept right away because he was tired after dinner? Does that mean it’s not a trace of me? Then President Seo and Sang-yeon rolled around in the same bed?’

Minju could not know how far she remembered, how far she dreamed, and how far she imagined. Her mind was not clear enough to separate the tangled images. Nothing was certain, so she could not ask Sang-yeon recklessly.

Minju, who was deep in thought, was mesmerized and forgot the twin knife in her hand. Without any time to be surprised, the knife fell to the floor. It almost hit Minju’s foot, but fortunately, the knife moved away from Minju and accurately landed on the wooden floor.

“Minju-ssi!”

Surprised, Sang-yeon called Minju’s name. Startled at the same time, Minju came to her senses and looked at her hand. It was only then that she realized that she had let the knife fall.

It was not what Sang-yeon intended, but the knife Sang-yeon gave almost hit Minju’s foot and made her see blood. Minju blamed Sang-yeon for gifting her a knife rather than her carelessness.

“I wasn’t careful. That was close.”

“It’s okay since you didn’t get hurt, right? Let’s sit down and eat. I have to go to work.”

It was a sharp, harsh voice.

After eating and drinking, Sang-yeon went out to the garage to go to work. Instead of his usual car, he climbed into Hye-ryeong’s white Mercedes-Benz on the passenger seat, and opened the glove box. After fumbling inside, what he found was none other than a small voice recorder.

It was clear that she went out, but to monitor Minju, who kept erasing the black box’s records of the car, Sang-yeon hid a small voice detection recorder deep in the car before leaving for his business trip.

He bought this product after seeing its description saying that the battery could last up to 7 days and that continuous recording was possible. Although it had the function of detecting voice and recording it on its own, Sang-yeon just pressed the recording button on the night before leaving for his business trip. Because he could not trust the machine.

The business trip was scheduled to take about 130 hours, with 5 nights and 6 days.

It was far less than 168 hours, the maximum consecutive recording available time in the product description, but Sang-yeon returned to Korea a day earlier than originally planned. He was never in a hurry because he missed Minju.

As expected, the recorder was turned off. Perhaps the battery had run out.

Sang-yeon took out his laptop from his bag with an annoying face and connected the recorder. And he clicked on the recording file on the laptop screen to play the end of the timeline.

“Who are you? Why are you in Seo Hye-ryeong’s car?”

It was a man’s voice.

“I told you earlier that I’m Hye-ryeong’s friend.”

“Don’t lie. The house address you wrote down is the same as Seo Hye-ryeong’s address. In addition, you came with Seo Hye-ryeong’s car and now you’re investigating her! Tell me who you are. Hurry up!”

A man who knew well about Hye-ryeong?! Then?

“I told you before. There’s really an unavoidable situation.”

“What’s this situation? Why did you come to the hospital room where Seo Hye-ryeong was hospitalized and overturned everything? Don’t deny it. I just checked the CCTV.”

Hospital… Choi Minju went to the hospital where Hye-ryeong was hospitalized.

And she met Dr. Kim Myung-hoon, Hye-ryeong’s doctor.

Soon after, the cell phone rang in the recorded file. It was a phone call from Sang-yeon himself.

“Hello? Of course, I’m at home.”

“I guess you don’t remember?”

“How can you drink so much that you don’t remember? Are you all right?”

“What do you mean? I just wanted to talk to you, so I called.”

“Aren’t you supposed to come back tomorrow?”

“Oh, okay.”

“No way, I’m happy. Come safely.”

He heard Minju’s phone ending the call.

“Was this Park Sang-yeon?”

Dr. Kim Myung-hoon heard Choi Minju’s call from the side.

“There seems to be no reason for me to answer your question. Please stop.”

The recording stopped there.

Damn it! Sang-yeon almost threw away his laptop because he could not control his rising anger.

He was certain that the man that Minju met was Kim Myeong-hoon, the director of the Evergreen Hospital. How far did Kim Myeong-hoon know about the relationship between Choi Minju and him? What did stupid Minju say to Dr. Kim? And what did Dr. Kim say to her with his viper tongue?

Sangyeon felt his blood boiling just by imagining it.

‘Ah, this is why I should have taken her to Germany. Now I have to organize everything here… Well, it can’t be helped. As long as he knows about Minju, it will be inevitable to revise the plan.’

Sang-yeon closed his laptop and got out of the car after putting another charged micro recorder in the glove box.

It was 9 in the morning, and it was the time for the helper to visit the large and lonely mansion without fail. Minju, who was lying on the sofa and sleeping for a while after seeing off Sang-yeon, who left for work at 8 a.m., heard a dog barking.

“The helper?”

“Oh my, Madam was sleeping here. You were not in your room.”

“What is this dog?”

“My daughter came to visit me without notice, saying she was going on a trip, and left her dog at my place. He’s old and sick, and needs to take medicine on time, so I had no choice but to take him with me…”

The lady explained the situation while looking at Minju.

“What’s his name?”

Minju asked affectionately, making eye contact with the dog.

“It’s Lunji. Nu-Lunji.”

The Pomeranian, who had yellow and abundant fur, looked at Minju with his unique cute face and moist eyes.

“Is it okay to bring him here just for today?”

“Of course. The house is big and empty.”

“Thank you, Madam.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Lunji, come here. Come and play outside.”

The helper sent the dog to the garden as if she did not want to cause trouble.

“You can just let him play inside.”

“No, he’s always at home, so it’s good for him to step outside and run around.”

“I see.”

“Don’t just stay at home too much, Madam. You have to go out and get some sunlight and meet people, otherwise it will hurt your body and your heart.”

The lady’s sweet words made Minju’s heart melancholic.

Where was Jerry right now?

Minju recalled Jerry, her cat, who had yellow fur like Lunji. She sat in front of the piano to shake off her longing for Jerry, her situation trapped in the house, and the nightmare of last night. Then she began to play Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

As she was playing this song that Bach composed and presented to treat the rich count’s insomnia, Minju slowly relaxed and felt sleepy. Just as she was turning the last page of the sheet music, half sleeping, she suddenly heard the scream of an old woman.

‘Damn!’

It was an unpleasant sound loud enough to wake her up.

Minju stopped playing and looked out of the window in the living room. In the corner of the garden, Lunji was barking like crazy, and the helper was fussing around without knowing what to do.

Minju slowly opened the door and went out to the garden. A chilly wind blew. The dry grass of winter crumbled helplessly under her feet. As she took one or two steps toward the lady and Lunji, a dark and ominous feeling wrapped around Minju’s whole body.

“Madam! Don’t come. Please go inside.”

The lady beckoned to the approaching Minju. Nevertheless, Minju could not stop walking as if she were possessed by something.

“No, you can’t. Don’t look! Madam, please…”

The lady begged, but it was not enough to stop Minju. There was a small hole dug by Lunji in the corner of the garden, and inside was a rotten, dead body of a cat. Jerry, who Minju was looking for so desperately, was there.

“Jerry-ya, why… Why are you here?”

Minju was confused because she could not believe it even after seeing it.

“Madam, please go home. I will take care of it. Come on.”

“Madam, what’s wrong with Jerry? What?”

When faced with overwhelming and unbearable sadness, Minju began hyperbreathing again. The faster the interval between inhalation and exhalation was, the more difficult it was to breathe, and the more she tried to breathe, the more she heard a beep sound in her ears as if a signal had gone out.

Only then did Minju realize why she could not find Jerry. Jerry had completely disappeared from this world.