episode_0096

“We broke up a year ago.”

Kim Taehyun suddenly spoke up.

This was a cafe with a nice view not far from the wedding hall. After leisurely waiting for Manager Kwon to finish his meal, I left the hall after already exchanging pleasantries.

As I was about to leave with Kim Taehyun after parting ways with Manager Kwon, he asked, “Chief, could you spare me a moment?”

His expression seemed urgent and desperate, so I couldn’t just ignore it.

So, I nodded and drove to a nearby cafe on the way home.

As soon as I got my coffee and sat down, he started speaking.

“I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if I could take responsibility for this person.”

It must have been a conversation with the bride at the wedding hall.

“Why?”

“I was a bit clueless. I just didn’t have confidence in myself. I loved cooking, but it’s not a job that brings in a lot of profit, right? There were a lot of practical difficulties.”

“What kind of difficulties?”

“Well… that…”

Kim Taehyun briefly met my eyes, then lowered his head, pondered for a moment, looked up at the ceiling in frustration, and then smiled wryly.

“Haha, this is something. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, Chief… Just listen.”

“I had a lot of debt at home. In fact, being a chef was too idealistic of a job for me to choose.”

It was too matter-of-fact to call it a rambling, yet too full of regret to dismiss it as a report. Kim Taehyun began to slowly unfold his own life story that he could only silently listen to.

It was a story of poverty that was often seen in the media. It wasn’t much different from that.

A poor household, a father who was constantly busy trying to solve the repeated failures, a mother who silently endured the father’s tyranny. Regretful words of empathy that popped out in adolescence.

As soon as he became an adult, he ran away from home and started living alone. He graduated from a vocational school, started working right away, and a while later, his father collapsed.

“He had liver cancer. Well, he drank every day, so it wasn’t surprising at all.”

“About 4 years? He fought the disease and then passed away. Honestly, I thought it was a relief. That man who had tormented me and my mother all his life, it would have been better if he had just died. My mother still took care of that man who had made her life miserable, saying that it was the human thing to do… I was lost and confused.”

The increasing medical bills and debts, the resentful husband who had tormented him throughout his marriage, the mother who cared for him, and the days lost in between his own determination.

And then he met her by chance. A meeting he couldn’t resist at the urging of a senior chef. He met her at that place he went to out of obligation to fill the numbers, where Kim Taehyun met her.

“You probably can’t imagine it now, but I was really sensitive back then. Oh… sensitive sounds too weak, I just lacked courage. Yes. Haha.”

He exuded an air of annoyance consistently, while she looked at him as if he was consistently amusing.

When I left with my senior for a smoke break, I asked her why she seemed so well-off. As the child of a wealthy family, she must have been pampered all her life, given that even parents’ status affects their children. Thinking about this made me feel a tinge of resentment.

I struggled with poverty and was born into an unfortunate family, so I felt deceived by her attitude, as if she found my situation amusing or interesting.

Deciding to leave abruptly, my senior’s carefully arranged meeting was completely ruined. It was a total mess.

After that incident, my seniors never asked me to join them for a meeting again.

However, surprisingly, there was one couple from that ruined meeting.

“Oh… they were persistent.”

It was none other than Kim Taehyun, the one who caused the meeting to fall apart.

At first, he thought she was teasing him about his poverty and unfortunate family background. So when she first contacted him, he cursed at her.

Even after being beaten up by his seniors for not coming to his workplace to eat, not waiting in front of the restaurant for him after work, and even being physically assaulted in front of them, he couldn’t help but share his most vulnerable side with her, and their relationship, which began out of curiosity, had turned into one where they shared even their weakest moments.

“But why isn’t it a Happily Ever After?”

“Well… it’s reality, isn’t it?”

Indeed. The world we live in is not like the beautiful world in novels. There is no living happily ever after. Marriage is not the end of life, and even if modern people achieve their dream of owning a home, the next day is reserved for going to work.

A being that can endlessly accept oneself may seem welcoming and precious at first, promising to spend a lifetime together.

“But at some point, it became burdensome.”

His poverty, his humble family background, his social status. They were too different from hers. It was unacceptable.

Despite his efforts, he felt like he couldn’t reach her, but she continued to accept him.

“It was hard. It became unbearable.”

Every day felt like he was making a big mistake. But she accepted him, saying it was okay. He would rather get angry. He would rather resent her.

“She’s kind.”

“She is. She’s too good for me.”

In the end, his dream of becoming a chef and the existence of her who could fully accept him were too much for him.

“So I ran away. From cooking, from her.”

He quit his job, broke up with her, blocked all contact, lived like a recluse, and after his father passed away from cancer, he had to find a job to pay off the medical bills and support his mother, which led him to his current job.

“Actually, when I saw her in a wedding dress, smiling so brightly, I was honestly happy in a way.”

Seeing her so happy despite the pain he caused her felt like a form of redemption to him.

“Everything seems… complicated.”

Where would a person with no backstory be? But the truth is, what seems like a trivial matter is something that everyone will experience at least once.

Perhaps the overwhelming emotion that has taken over most of his life is not disappointment. After all, children… especially sons, tend to resemble their fathers. People who vow not to become like their fathers often find themselves becoming just like them, leading to even greater disappointment.

Therefore, there was also a concern that he might fall into despair like his father and waste his life.

“Well… I really… I don’t even know why I’m telling this exaggerated story to you, Director. I’ve only known the truth for about a week now.”

After finishing his story, his face seemed somewhat relieved, but at the same time, he looked confused.

“Hmm… I think I know.”

Kim Taehyun raised his head and met my eyes.

He didn’t ask, but I could read it in his eyes.

‘What is it?’

“Taehyun, do you think I’m unhappy right now?”

At my words, Kim Taehyun made a puzzled expression, as if wondering what nonsense I was talking about.

“It seems to me that Taehyun avoids getting involved with others as much as he considers himself unhappy. It’s as if he thinks that unhappiness will transfer to others if he gets close to them.”

In fact, he had left his girlfriend for that reason… no, he had run away from her, and he didn’t form unnecessary relationships with others at work. At least that’s how it seemed to me.

“If what you’re saying is true, shouldn’t you also keep your distance from me, Director?”

“Does it seem to you that I am as unhappy as you are, Taehyun?”

“…What?”

“My wife cheated on me and we got divorced, and about a month later, I underwent gender reassignment surgery due to TS syndrome. Well, it’s not the kind of pain that you’ve suffered your whole life like Taehyun, but objectively speaking, isn’t it a kind of unhappiness similar to yours?”

“Ah, yes. That’s right. Yes.”

“So, without realizing it, you probably thought the same way. Oh, that person is as unhappy as I am.”

I was actually quite depressed. For about two months.

“He felt sorry for me. Taehyun did. Arrogantly.”

Who is he to pity someone who can’t even control their own life?