Chapter 5

One night while he was working late, I knocked softly on his door and played the part of a waitress. “Excuse me, honey, I just juiced some watermelon. Want a glass?”

He looked both surprised and delighted. “Wifey, you can get me to do stuff like juicing fruit!”

“I’m not a giant man-baby. You’re so busy with work. I want to do some things for you too.”

His eyes flickered, like he was genuinely moved.

I started paying attention to what he liked to eat, buying groceries carefully, learning recipes online. Then I’d wait for him to come home and try the dishes on him.

When he walked in the door and saw the food, he was stunned. “You made this?”

I nodded.

“That’s amazing! Huh? Why are there two portions?”

“One’s what I cooked. The other is takeout. Mine turned out all black. I think I added too much soy sauce. I was afraid you wouldn’t like it…”

“How could I not like it? If you made it with your own hands, of course I’ll love it…”

That night, he didn’t touch the takeout. He finished every bite of my too-salty, over-browned dish.

I heard him get up several times during the night to pour water in the living room. I secretly laughed to myself.

He was so adorable, such a genuinely lovable man. Even if he didn’t love me, someone willing to coax me like this was something you couldn’t find even if you searched the world with a lantern.

Not long after, he brought home another pile of pink radishes. He washed them over and over, carefully peeled them, sliced them into neat, even pieces-meticulous in every movement. My heart felt sweet watching him.

But once that batch of “Feixiacui” finished pickling, he divided it into three glass jars, ready to take them out.

“Who are those for?” I asked.

“Oh, a client tried Feixiacui last time and really liked it. I promised I’d bring him a few jars.”

A faint disappointment pricked at me. I realized his earnest efforts weren’t something reserved just for me. Even for people who were “just work contacts,” he poured in the same care and consideration.

And I, without noticing, kept hoping that in his eyes, I could be a little more special than everyone else.

I started clinging to him for a drink before bed.

Alcohol turned everything soft. It made the tips of his ears flush pink, his eyes gentler than ever, and it gave me the courage to act spoiled.

“Have one more drink with me.”

He smiled helplessly. “You don’t hold your liquor well. Don’t drink too much.”

But last night, we both got drunk.

He climbed into my bed with a kind of hungry aggression, none of his usual restraint left. His rough, heated breaths spread like a forest fire devouring the sky, sweeping through my world, shaking everything until it all collapsed and fell.

So he could lose control too.

So he could go crazy too.

I almost felt like that wasn’t him.

At dawn, he turned back into that watertight “good husband” again, as if the man who had kissed me until I couldn’t breathe last night was just an illusion the alcohol had conjured.

Was that really him last night?

Over dinner, everything seemed normal.

I took out the strange button I’d found and laid it on my palm. “Honey, you left something in my room last night.”

His chopsticks froze mid-air. He frowned at the button, then suddenly smiled. “Oh, that’s my coworker’s…”

“Your coworker’s? How’d it end up on my bed?”

“I picked it up in the office area yesterday. I don’t even know whose it is. I stuck it in my pocket and figured I’d ask around at work today, but I forgot. I’ll ask tomorrow.”

He took the button from my palm and slipped it into his pocket like it was nothing.

“Oh, so that’s what it was. I was thinking about it all day. It didn’t look like one of your buttons at all. I even started wondering if last night… Last night, it just didn’t feel like you!” I tried to sound casual, but my face was already burning.

He suddenly tensed up, his voice unconsciously rising. “Of course it was me! How could it not be me!”

Then it was like he scared himself. He forced his tone back down into his usual gentle cadence. “I’m really sorry about last night. I lost my composure after drinking and made you go through all that, didn’t I? I really shouldn’t have drunk that much…”

“Enough!” Anger burst out of me before I could stop it. I slammed my hand on the table, making the water in the glasses splash. It was like a fire I’d been holding in forever suddenly rushed up from my stomach to my throat. “Suhang, what is wrong with you? Do you have to be a fake person? Can you talk to me like a human being? I don’t want to marry a perfect robot. I want the real you! The you from last night actually felt alive!”

“I’m sorry!” He stared at me, stunned, something complicated flashing in his eyes-something that looked like excruciating pain and helplessness. The pain seemed to have a crushing weight that made him duck his head.

I realized then how reckless my words had been, how they might have hurt him. He wasn’t wrong. I was the one at fault, the greedy one.

“I’m sorry, honey…” I meant to apologize, but tears welled up from sheer grievance, and suddenly I couldn’t even speak clearly. “I…I’ve fallen in love with you!”

His whole body went rigid. He lifted his head to look at me, and the eyes behind his glasses flashed.

But a second later, it was like my words burned him. His gaze fled, not knowing where to land.

He reached a hand toward me, then drew it back, then finally, cautiously, pulled me into a light embrace.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear again.