Marry My Husband

Chapter 1: Two Pairs of Shoes at the Front Door

Note:

YONDER is a new app from the creators of Wattpad and WEBTOON. This story has been published by the official YONDER profile on Wattpad with the contractual consent of its author.

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"What a load of crap, right up until the very end," a woman muttered.

She lay in the corner of a six-person cancer ward and was in the midst of staring at her phone. Her call had already gone straight to voicemail four times—that last attempt being the fifth. Her sunken eyes stared at the cracked screen, then flicked up to the tiny date in its top right corner: April 10th.

At worst, she had three months to live; six at best. Twelve, the doctor had said, if there was a miracle.

These projections—all shorter than she'd hoped for—were an approximation of what was left of her life. And she hated them. They were too convenient, like the doctor had started at three and multiplied up from there. Maybe he'd thought the possibility of more time would reassure her, even if just a little. It hadn't. She knew she was sick, knew she would die. The causes behind her illness were numerous: a poor diet; lack of exercise; overwhelming stress, not to mention the soju she drank every night to ease herself of it. The main culprit, though—the cause of all those causes—was her husband. The same husband who wasn't even answering his phone right now.

It wasn't like she was calling him to nurse her, nor was she trying to get in a final goodbye. She had no expectations for such things in the first place. All she wanted was for him to pay for her medical bills with her money that was in his possession. Which might've also been the reason her husband had kept ignoring her messages for the last several days.

She donned a lint-covered cardigan and left the hospital, pretending to be stepping out for a walk. The cherry blossoms which had bloomed while she fought alone against cancer—or rather, while the cancer cells mercilessly ate away at her from within—drifted down onto her head.

It was already spring.

"Taxi!"

Luckily, she was able to flag down a taxi as soon as she reached the main street.

Looks like I just used up the rest of whatever luck I had left.

Pushing her disparaging thoughts aside, she clambered into the taxi and gave the driver directions to her destination.

"Oh dear. You must be very ill, miss," the taxi driver said while glancing at her through the rearview mirror.

Maybe, she realized, a hat and thick glasses hadn't been the best choice of disguise when it came to hiding her shaved head. Plus, part of her hospital gown was sticking out from under the worn cardigan. She met the driver's eyes through the mirror and shrugged.

"...I suppose so."

Truth be told, it would be more strange for someone to look like this and not be sick.

"Ah, don't worry. You're gonna feel better soon. Give it another ten days or so and I'm sure you'll be able to jump outta bed like it's nothin'. Anyway, it's spring now, isn't it?"

It was a dialect that was hard to understand for people born and raised in Seoul. However, the woman was familiar with it, and she felt a sense of longing at the manner of speaking.

A longing to return to her hometown, where she'd lived with her dad as a child. He'd been the kind of dad who'd done anything for her and made her feel invincible.

If I didn't leave Busan, then...would I have been happy?

The woman reminisced. It felt good to, even if the past would remain just that.