The Divorced Man Has Returned

#4. Don’t pretend you know.

Hayena.

She, with her short, dripping hair, was looking at me and her poems with her expression full of contempt.

Her me, her gaze met her, and she shook her head and went down her stairs.

Is this the kind of reaction I had when I saw the poem? Or there was no way to determine whether it was by looking at the other students passing by us.

Embarrassed, I stopped the conversation and, with a blank expression, looked in the direction where Jena disappeared, Sihwa tapped my shoe.

“Choi Inwook.”

There was a bit of annoyance in her voice.

“…Oh! Okay! Why are you asking me to go home with you?”

“It’s the same way.”

Do you think that is the reason…?

When I made a face that I didn’t understand, Sihwa grabbed my wrist and started moving down the hallway.

The attention of the surrounding students was focused on us.

[Huh. Great. Are you already dating?]

[Wow. But you’re a woman. Who are you?]

[It’s Yoo Shihwa…! Can’t see it at the entrance ceremony?]

[Then who is the boy?]

[I don’t know. But is it certain that a woman is better?]

[Wow… I think I’m better than him.]

Look at this. Students. I hear it all.

And in your previous life, you have been married three times to women you can’t even get over.

…I’ve been divorced three times.

It’s as if we’re immersed in our world and are treated like people who can’t hear anything, at least not me at all.

He seemed to go crazy because he was concerned about the reactions around him.

After Sihwa left her academy building, she released my wrist.

“Choi Inwook.”

She stopped and called my name.

“Huh?”

“You…”

She hesitates for a moment.

As she brought her here on her own terms, I wondered if there was anything she would hesitate about.

“What am I?”

“Do you like a woman like Yun Ha-rin?”

Cool.

Sare was heard at her unexpected question.

“Who is Harin Yun?”

It’s still the second day of entering the academy.

It was not at all strange that he did not know the names of all his classmates.

In fact, I could confidently say that I knew Harin better than anyone in the academy, but I kept my mouth shut and pretended not to know her.

I wanted to ask more.

Sihwa, who came to me out of the blue, knew my name, and she knew Harin’s name as well.

Maybe the poem is…

Like me…

“Yes? You mean you don’t know?”

I think you just laughed.

Is it because of the mood?

There was no way Sihwa would give a smile to a man he had seen for the first time.

“Okay.”

Sihwa turned her body round and round and went towards her back door.

“…Isn’t that direction towards our house?”

“Oh. This is our house.”

From n̲o̲b̲l̲e̲m̲t̲l̲.̲c̲o̲m̲

No. So, did you say that it was the same road from the classroom to the building entrance?

The more I listened, the more I got so excited that I couldn’t speak.

Even in her previous life, Sihwa was quite arrogant and she was a person who was not very conscious of the eyes of others.

But there was also an aspect of her that made her sit at the top of her hunter position.

She wants her own goals. If there was anything she wanted to achieve, she was the one who achieved it in some way.

“See you again.”

She walked forward with her back on me without looking at me.

This life is something. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was very different from her last life.

* *

The way home.

I vaguely remember what I did in my first year of the academy, but I couldn’t clearly remember what kind of incidents and what was fashionable this year.

Actually, it was enough to use the Internet to find it, but I liked going to bookstores.

It was because I could see the interests of all kinds of people at a glance just by looking at the newsstands of the bookstore.

At the time when A-Tube was popular, books related to video editing filled the shelves, and when people who realized a lump sum with bootcoin appeared here and there, investment-related books were sold like crazy.

[Welcome]

When I entered the bookstore, I scanned the bookshelf in front of me as I always did.

Certainly, I could feel the information accumulating one by one about the year I returned.

I was looking through the titles of the books while tracing my memories, and a familiar silhouette of a young lady caught my eye.

She glanced around, hesitated for a moment, then jumped and stretched out her arm to pull out a book high on the bookshelf.

Despite gaining considerable momentum, her hand could not reach the book, and she turned her head to find someone to help, perhaps not on her own.

“Can I help you?”

If it was someone else, I might have gone too far, but I couldn’t.

Because she…

The person who was my last wife. The person I am most sorry for at the moment.

Because it was Hayena.

* *

[Once. I could have endured it twice.]

Jena spoke to me with her cold face.

[No matter how many times you’ve been divorced. Even if you can’t have children. I was confident that I would love you.]

Jenna was my last hope.

Before I met Jena, I had already been through two divorces and could not keep my sanity.

After the divorce with Sihwa was revealed in the media.

I declared a halt to hunter activities and went on a trip.

I couldn’t afford to live in the city where Harin and Sihwa lived.

I wanted to live in a place where no one knew me.

It was Jena that I met in a rural village where I had never heard of such a place name for the first time.

Jenna was the owner of a small coffee shop alone in a quiet village.

I don’t know if she knows who I am or not, but she always greeted me, unwaveringly, on the spot to drink her coffee.

It was a small store with less than 10 customers a day and would have had little income, but Jena did not take a day off from business.

Is it because he was always there without asking me about my identity?

In the store where only the two of us were left, we started talking slowly.

At first, it was just a casual conversation.

The weather is nice. This village is a place where autumn leaves bloom beautifully.

I was drawn to these conversations and visited her shop every day.

It’s been one year since I started my life on the run.

I handed her one question that she was really curious about.

[Mr. Jena.]

[Yes?]

[The fact that Jena is an S-class hunter. Did you know?]

[Yes.]

She responds so calmly.

I wondered if what I really knew was right.

[Really?]

[Really. Actually, I graduated from Hunter Academy in the same year as Inwook?]

[But why did you pretend not to know?]

Is it because I’m pitiful? Did you think he was a pitiful single man who had been divorced twice?

Jena tilted her head.

[Is that important?]

It was an answer I could not have imagined at all.

And maybe that’s what I really wanted to hear.

The title of S-Class Hunter. My miserable marriage history.

A person who looks at me as a single person apart from those things.

[Ah. By the way, I also graduated with an S-class. Hehe.]

Pooh.

I almost spit out the coffee I was drinking.

From n̲o̲b̲l̲e̲m̲t̲l̲.̲c̲o̲m̲

No. I came all the way down here due to unavoidable circumstances, but if that saying is true, then Jena doing this here was an act of tremendous damage.

[But why here…]

[Because this was the life I wanted. It was also my dream.]

I thought I was living a much more dazzling life than myself.

After spending another year in her village with Jena, I made up her mind to confess her heart to her.

[Mr. Jena.]

[I have something to tell you.]

[What is it? Between us. Haven’t we already run out of things to talk about?]

The story of Sihwa and Harin I, who definitely opened her heart to her. Household affairs. Most of the stories were told, including the sagas that were active during the hunter activities.

Except for one thing.

[I am unable to have children.]

With her trembling heart, I showed her my most painful wounds.

[A.]

It was her sigh, as if the last puzzle of the stories I had told him had been solved.

[I love you. Jena. But before I tell you my heart, I feel like I have to talk…]

I closed my eyes tightly.

I already knew that we had a crush on each other, but I came back after chewing the cud again and again that I might be rejected.

From n̲o̲b̲l̲e̲m̲t̲l̲.̲c̲o̲m̲

Nevertheless, it was a very trembling moment.

[Me too. Mr. Inwook.]

She accepted my heart with a bright smile, as if it was raining.

With a smile like a warm spring day, I shed tears of joy or tears of relief.

[Mr. Inwook. Are you crying?]

She smiled and hugged me.

[I love you. Mr. Inwook.]

And so I married her and her third wedding in a small church in her modest village.

I bit my lip.

It felt like blood was coming out of my bite because it was so tight.

[Yenaya…]

[I… Endured a lot. Even if you hug me in my sleep and call me Sihwa. I’ve been patient He pretended not to know.]

Jena’s wrath was more like a chilling frost than a blazing flame.

[But this was hard to bear.]

Jenna picked up my phone.

And the names of people who remain in your social media account search history.

Harin Yoon.

You Shihwa.

[I never meant to contact them…]

It was sincere.

I just want to see if they are living well. Are you happy That was the only thing I was curious about.

Jenna grinned.

[You’re not stupid.]

Actually, I knew.

But if you don’t make excuses like this, I will… Again…

[I’m sorry. Never. I will make sure this never happens again.]

[Choi Inwook.]

Thumping.

I could feel my heart beating fast.

I prayed that Jena’s lips would not move.

I feared those little cherry lips more than any other monster.

So I was the first woman who loved me unconditionally. I lost Jena.

* *

“Is this the book you are looking for?”

I took out the book Jena was trying to pick up.

Actually, it was after she was 30 that I met Jena, so this was the first time I saw her at the academy.

“Thank you.”

Jena nodded her head to me and she immediately moved her steps to the other side.

“Hey… I think we’re academy students like us… Maybe your name…”

Wondering what kind of person Jena was when she was young, I tried to talk to her slightly.

But, was Jena, who was kind, a future figure?

Jena turned her head and answered me.

“Don’t pretend you know.”