Decoupled • KTH ✔

Chapter 37

Taehyung

The call is, in fact, from Maya, and I end the call with a text message that I'll call back later, and I divert my gaze back to the woman in the room. She is deceived, hurt, angry, disappointed, and I have nothing in my capacity to help ease the situation.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a brief while and reflect upon why I resorted to seeking Maya's company and warmth, and my mind replays at full speed every moment in these few months where she held me, comforted me, reassured me and gave me strength and confidence.

The answers to all the questions in my mind and Jang-Mi's mind are dancing at the tip of my tongue, but spilling them out might put us in a place from where there is no return to our original lives.

Am I ready for it? What about our daughter?

Taehyung, you can't undo anything now.

I don't think much before I exhale deeply and open my eyes to look at Jang-Mi.

"I've been with Maya for a while now, and I have feelings for her," I confess, my voice coming out much lower than usual. "But if you think that it's only for sex, then it isn't true. Sex was the last thing that I wanted from her," the calmness of my tone agitates Jang-Mi as I observe from how she clenches her fist and how her jaw tightens before she quickly composes herself, and then her shoulders relax.

"So if it isn't for sex, then what is it for?" Her question hangs in the air for a while, followed by a few seconds of deafening silence.

"She was there for me when I needed her. Maya listened to me, consoled me, helped me relax and believe in myself. She encouraged me, made me feel important and loved, and she didn't belittle me and my efforts," my answers fly out without hesitation, clueless about where this confrontation is headed to, and my heart begins racing with each word I say; my voice sounds extremely nervous, my hands turning clammy and shaky.

Jang-Mi furrows her brows and tilts her head to one side casting me a judgemental look, and I exhale before I continue speaking.

"It was an emotional need more than anything else...something that I couldn't get from anyone else," my eyes drop to the floor before I comb my hair with my fingers and raise my head back to look at her.

"So, did you really think that among the two of us, only you had emotional needs?" She nods a few times looking down at her clasped fingers.
"I haven't been the kind of wife you expected me to be, and I know that. But neither have you been the kind of husband that I wanted you to be," her eyes lift to look at me standing rooted on the spot and nervously chewing the corners of my lips.

Before I could ask her for an explanation about why I haven't been a good husband in her perspective, she cuts in with a question.
"How serious are you about her? And this thing between the two of you? Whatever you decide to call it..." she asks with a straight face.

"Very serious," is all that manages to come out of me—however, it is the truth.

"So, leaving her is out of the question then, yeah?" I'm totally surprised by the sudden calmness and steadiness in her voice which is greatly confusing me at this point.

I nod my head, feeling a swirling of various emotions within my chest, my stomach wrenching and making me want to throw up.

"I'm leaving today with Areum. After this, we really can't reverse things between us," she states even more calmly, trying to leave things hanging and walk past me, but I grab her wrist and stop her in her tracks.

"What do you mean you're leaving? Jang-Mi, where will you go and why would you take Areum with you?" I turn around to look at her, still firmly holding her wrist, making her eyes land on mine.