[2] The Substitute Wife

EPILOGUE

Park Jimin and Rosè Jang had agreed a week ago to take Little Peanut to a new children's theme restaurant for dinner.

At four in the afternoon, Rosè Jang placed her cell phone on the table in the living room and went to the dining room to get some milk for the four-year-old Little Peanut.

Rosè Jang's phone rang and, to help her mother, Little Peanut ran over with the phone in her hands, saying, "Mommy, your phone is ringing."

With her own hands occupied, Rosè Jang merely cocked her head to look at the screen. When she saw that it was the reminder for dinner, she took note of the time but didn't take the phone.

As Little Peanut had already begun reading, she roughly understood that the screen indicated that she would be going out for dinner with her parents that night.

When she remembered, though, that only her mother and herself were at home, she looked up and asked, "Mommy, does daddy know about this?"

Park Jimin had agreed to the date with Rosè Jang and, because he was not one to make an empty promise, Rosè Jang acknowledged her by saying, "Daddy knows."

"What if daddy doesn't know?" Jang Soobin  had just taught Little Peanut how to make a phone call not long ago and, right now, she was extremely interested in making one. Thus, she asked Rosè Jang, "Mommy, can I call daddy to remind him?"

"Sure," said Rosè Jang.

Feeling pleased with herself, Little Peanut held onto the phone, walked to the living room, and stood next to the TV to call Park Jimin while the TV program Pleasant Goat and Big Bad Wolf was on.

Park Jimin was on a phone call with someone when Little Peanut's call went through, and an automated female voice said, "I'm sorry. The number you have called is busy..."

Daddy is busy...

Little Peanut hung up the call with disappointment.

Rosè Jang noticed that Little Peanut was upset when she passed the milk over to her, so she asked with concern, "What's wrong?"

"When I called daddy just now, a big sister answered the call and said that daddy was busy..." Little Peanut then saw the milk and she immediately began happily drinking it, forgetting that she was upset just a second ago.

Other than Yoongi, Park Jimin's long-term assistant, no other person ever had access to Park Jimin's phone, and the phone number Rosè Jang used to reach Park Jimin was his private number.

Why would a woman answer the call?

Rosè Jang inadvertently felt suspicious in her heart, and the more she thought about it, the more uncomfortable she felt, so she called Park Jimin; his phone, however, was turned off.

A woman answered the call earlier on and now his phone is turned off? Could it be that Park Jimin is...

While she knew her imagination tended to run wild, Rosè Jang's heart still felt insecure. Every now and then, she would trying calling Park Jimin but even at six o'clock, the time they had agreed to meet for diner, Rosè Jang still had not managed to reach him.

...

An urgent issue had cropped up at work, and Park Jimin didn't return home until eight o'clock.

After entering the password, he pushed open the front door and hollered, "Dear?"

A pillow crashed into him before he could enter the house.

Park Jimin was quick to react, and he managed to dodge the projectile but, before he could figure out what was going on, blankets then hit him followed by handfuls of clothes.