Deal Breaker - Chapter 83
“Are you being for real?”
For a moment, Hyeji was tempted and asked back, then immediately glossed it over.
“Ah, no. That’s not it. Do you like kids? Have you ever honestly thought you wanted one?”
“Honestly, no.”
“Then did you suddenly start wanting one?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the child I had with the woman I love is already right in front of my eyes. Sometimes you only realize, once you see it, that this is what you wanted.”
Is that so. Come to think of it, Hyeji also only realized she wanted this child after seeing, with her own eyes, that she had ordered tea instead of coffee.
“And taking responsibility as a father is only natural, so why do I have to justify that? Do you really find me that untrustworthy as a husband and a father?”
“Yes.”
“Please breathe before answering.”
It was unfair.
“What exactly did I do wrong for you to find me untrustworthy?”
He wasn’t the kind of playboy Hyeji had imagined, bringing different women around for one night stands, nor was he someone who made a child and then pretended it wasn’t his, ending up on a list of criminals for unpaid child support.
“It’s not that you did anything wrong, Director. As a boss, you’re someone I truly respect, and as a person, you’re warm and genuinely good. But as a man, I don’t know you. I don’t know you, so what am I supposed to believe in?”
“But everyone gets married and lives with that kind of risk. Who goes around tapping every stepping stone twice to see if it’s really safe before crossing?”
However, Hyeji was the type to keep tapping until the stone wore down.
“No. In the first place, I don’t understand why having a child means I should rush into marrying a man I barely know. Divorce isn’t as easy as resigning from a job.”
“That’s from your perspective, but have you thought about the child’s perspective? You grew up being discriminated against as an illegitimate child yourself. Do you really want our child to go through that too?”
“That just means the people doing the discriminating are lacking as human beings. It doesn’t mean my child or I are somehow inferior.”
“……”
When Noh Hyeji was his secretary, he liked that concrete mental fortitude and monk-like detachment. But when she used that as an impenetrable wall as a woman…
“Noh Hyeji, this is driving me crazy.”
“Me too!”
“No… don’t get angry.”
Hyeji grabbed her own hair with both hands, then suddenly seized Kanghyeon’s cheeks as he tried to calm her.
“You think taking responsibility as a father is obvious, right? You think you’ll feel that way forever, right?”
The hand against his face was cold. Kanghyeon had a feeling that something difficult was about to come out of Hyeji’s mouth.
“When I was little, I once overheard my mom talking late at night while drinking with a friend.”
A child is a blessing. Thank you. I love you. Let’s get married. Those were things Hyeji’s biological father had also said. But in the end, he abandoned Hyeji. Twice.
“At first, he probably meant to take responsibility too. But as time passed, I started to feel like a burden. He didn’t say he’d take responsibility because he truly wanted me. It was like a box of chocolates you don’t want to eat but accept anyway because of social pressure.”
Hyeji withdrew her hand from his cheek, bit down briefly on her own lip, then spoke again.
“Do you remember when you said you’d enjoy the chocolates you got from Nuri-ssi, and then immediately gave them to me?”
“Why is that coming up now?”
“I don’t want my child to become an annoying box of chocolates someone takes on out of obligation.”
“……”
Two stories that seemed completely unrelated were, to Hyeji, a single story.
How am I supposed to untangle this now. My head hurts.
I’m different. I wouldn’t do that. Even if I said it like that, there’s no way she’d believe me.
Hyeji judged all men in the world by the standard of her biological father. That was inevitable. Kanghyeon, who had never given that man a single thought or emotion before, suddenly felt resentful toward him for having ruined young Hyeji’s view of men.
If he’d known him personally, he would have wanted to send him telepathic spam twenty four seven.
She was a woman nicknamed “the monk” for always sounding as if she’d attained enlightenment about everything. Even when people slandered her, calling her the daughter of a single mother or saying she wasn’t guiding but selling her body, Hyeji wouldn’t bat an eye. Yet she could never forget what her biological father did. The wound must have been enormous.
Kanghyeon lowered the hand that had been covering his forehead and looked straight at the woman standing before him. Hyeji was holding her belly with both hands, as if protecting the child inside from him.
Now that he looked at it that way, Hyeji was being defensive toward him to keep her child from experiencing the pain she herself had endured. It also meant that right now, to Hyeji, the child mattered more than their relationship.
So our five month old child matters more than me, who’ve shared everything with you for six years? How annoying.
But it’s our child. That makes it achingly tender too.
That was why Kanghyeon couldn’t bring himself to resent Hyeji outright.
