Sooah stood alone in the quiet of their shared home, the silence pressing down on her. Jaemin had left early, as usual, for his work, and the house felt empty in his absence. It had been a long week of quiet moments and increasingly distant interactions between them. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss—there was an ever-growing distance between them, one that neither of them had addressed.
With nothing else to do and a sense of restlessness gnawing at her, Sooah decided to spend the morning doing something productive. She made a cup of coffee and wandered through the house, tidying up the living room and then moving toward the bedroom. As her eyes fell on Jaemin's walk-in closet, an impulse struck her.
She had never truly explored his space, his side of the closet. For months, she had lived with him, but she had never dared to pry too much into the private parts of his life. His world had always seemed like an enigma to her—so controlled, so meticulously arranged, but distant. Yet today, a quiet curiosity stirred within her, and she found herself gravitating toward the closet.
Opening the door, she was met with the same orderliness Jaemin was known for. Every shirt, every jacket, was neatly hung. His shoes, arranged by color and type, gleamed in the soft light. But there, at the back of the closet, tucked away behind rows of neatly folded clothes, was a small, nondescript drawer. She had never seen it before.
Her heart raced as she pulled it open, surprised by the resistance it met. It wasn't locked, but it was clearly hidden away—just out of sight, tucked under a pile of documents and old receipts. The drawer slid open with ease, and Sooah hesitated for only a moment before pulling the contents out.
What she saw made her stomach twist.
First, there were a few official-looking envelopes, their contents sealed. She flipped through them quickly, her eyes catching words like "asset," "property," and "investment." She paused, taking a deep breath, as she picked up a folder labeled "Harvard MBA – summa cum laude."
Her fingers trembled as she flipped through the papers inside, each document more shocking than the last. Sooah already knew Jaemin had attended Harvard, but she had never known the truth. She had always believed he barely scraped by, that his admission was due to the family's connections and donations, not any real academic achievement. But as her eyes scanned the words, her heart dropped.
Summa cum laude—the highest distinction, an honor that not many students achieved. She had never imagined Jaemin, the boy who had seemed so lost when she first met him, had accomplished this. She had never thought of him as someone capable of such academic rigor.
Her hand instinctively reached for the next document, her eyes already wide in disbelief. It was Jaemin's passport—American, not South Korean. Her breath caught in her throat. He's American? She had no idea. She'd always assumed he was still a South Korean citizen, especially after the years they had spent together. But this—this was something else entirely.
Then, her eyes fell upon several property deeds, statements of assets, and lists of stocks. The sheer value of the documents in her hand was overwhelming. Jaemin had wealth—real, independent wealth—apart from the inheritance from his chaebol family. This was something entirely separate, something she had never known about. She felt the floor beneath her shift as the weight of the discovery settled into her chest. What had he done?
The more she read, the more questions piled up. Jaemin's business dealings were extensive, his investments carefully planned and carefully hidden from her, from everyone. It was clear now that the three years Jaemin had spent away from her and their marriage had been more than just time spent alone for "thinking," as he had told her.
It was a life—his life, one he had built on his own, without her, without the influence of his family. He had created something entirely separate, completely independent of his past, and she hadn't known any of it. She hadn't known who he had become during those years.
And then, as she kept reading, she found something even more shocking—his degree certificates, his achievements, everything that he had kept hidden from her. There was a gap in the narrative she thought she knew. The Jaemin she had married, the man who was cold and distant, who seemed so different from the boy she had once known, was now someone she could barely recognize.
Tears stung her eyes as realization hit her all at once. Jaemin hadn't just "changed." He had rebuilt himself from the ground up, shedding everything that had come before. The broken, lost boy she had once loved wasn't the man standing before her now. This man was a stranger—a man who had been through unimaginable hardship and transformation, a man who had purposefully hidden parts of himself from her. A man who had deliberately chosen to become someone else entirely.
Sooah dropped the papers onto the bed, the weight of the secrets she had uncovered settling heavily on her heart. She felt a mixture of disbelief and betrayal. Jaemin had never trusted her with these truths. He had kept them hidden, even from her, the woman he had married.
A sudden realization came to her: He had never shared his past with me. He had never let me in completely.
Her chest tightened. She needed answers. She had to understand why Jaemin had kept this all from her. What had happened to him during those three years? Why hadn't he told her about all of this—his accomplishments, his wealth, his transformation?
As she stood there, looking at the passport, the documents, and the man who was now a stranger to her, Sooah understood one thing: Jaemin had chosen to rebuild himself in the shadows. He had buried his past, and in doing so, he had buried the truth of who he had become.
The question was—what was she supposed to do with this newfound knowledge? Would she confront him? Would she demand answers? Or would she let the secrets stay buried, the walls between them growing higher with every passing day?
One thing was certain: everything she had thought she knew about Jaemin had just shattered. And she was no closer to understanding the man she had married.