Pairing : Husband!Choi Seungcheol x F!Reader TW : children ; adultry ; divorce ; angst ; Word Count : 3.1k
The breakfast table was full of life as your daughters sat around it, laughing, joking, teasing each other playfully as you and your husband watched on in adoration. Neither of them knew how hard it was for you to continue smiling, the continue playing the role in this act that you had called your life. Of course, you loved them, you adored them, you devoted your life to them from the second they were born… But the man who sat at the other end of the table, wearing the same smile as you, the man that you had vowed to devote your life to… You didn’t love him, not anymore, not the way you used to, you just couldn’t.
The house was empty now, at least it felt that way once your girls left for school. Even with Cheol sitting across from you at the table, it just felt empty, and it had been feeling that way for the last two years now. “I can’t keep doing this… It’s not fair to them, it’s not fair to me.” You murmured, your fingers tugging at your rings to slip them off, but his hand immediately shot across the table to stop you.
“It doesn’t have to be like this… It was a mistake, I know it was… I’ve been regretting it and I always will, but I haven’t done it since. I love you, Y/N… Only you. I love our family, our girls…” His thumb brushed along the diamond facet that adorned the ring that he had placed on your finger almost ten years ago now. “I know that you’ll never forgive me… And I don’t ever expect you to, but I don’t want to throw this away. Even if not for us… For the girls…”
The girls, who had been your only reason for staying the extra two years anyway, but you couldn’t keep pretending, it was getting harder and harder with each passing day. “I can’t even look at you… Not the way that I used to…” You choked out, sliding your hand out from underneath his. “Every time I see your face, when I wake up next to you… All I can see is… That day… I can’t forget it, and I can’t forgive you…” You took a shaky breath, exhaling it in a soft sob. “I can’t keep pretending to live every single day like nothing is wrong. I can’t trust you… It’s unbearable… I don’t even want to look at you.”
His hands slid back across the table as he leaned back in his chair, his eyes glossing over with unshed tears. “I… I’m sorry…” He whimpered, almost folding into himself as he slumped forward. “Y-You’re my wife… my everything… I don’t want to live without you, without our girls…” His bottom lip trembled as stared at the silver band that wrapped around his own finger, engraved with both of your initials. “I love you… you know that…”
You shuddered at the proclamation, three words that used to have your heart fluttering whenever you heard him say it, but now it only hurt you. You just couldn’t believe him. “Please don’t say that. Don’t tell me you love me.” You sighed, shaking your head before letting it drop down into your hands. “I think it would be best if… if we just got a d-“
His eyes widened as his head whipped up at you. “Don’t say the D word… don’t say that. We don’t need that.” He whispered it as if just the beginning letter of the word were nothing but filth. “What would it do to the girls? Think about them…”
You groaned loudly, tired of it, the constant back and forth and then the settling that you’d do when your daughters were brought up. “Stop using them against me, Cheol!” You frustratedly sighed, running your hands through your already tousled hair. “I’m sure they’ll understand enough, at least until they’re older and I can tell them the real reason.”
“The real reason?” He posed, leaning back in his chair, his shoulders slumping as his eyes stared down at his hands folded in his lap. “My secretary… she was nothing to me. It was… It was a slip up, a mistake. It just… It happened, and I don’t… I don’t want the girls to know about that. I want them to think that we loved each other, we just… we couldn’t be together anymore…”
“That excuse will only create more questions.” You mumbled, leaning back in your chair just as he was. “They have the right to know the truth about you, about what you did to me, how you ruined this family.” You let out a huff, but when you inhaled, it was like a new breath of fresh air. It had been so hard to hold that in for so long, and now you finally got it off your chest. “I won’t tell them now though, not yet, and it’s not for you, it’s for them, to protect their innocence.”
“Please, just… Just one chance.” The plea fell from his lips in a single breath, one lost attempt to salvage his marriage, his family, but it was already gone, he just needed to come to terms with it, much like you had to when you had caught him in the act. “I-I… I fired her after you caught us… I haven’t even spoken to her since that day. I don’t want anyone but you. I haven’t been with anyone that isn’t you in two years… I swear on everything, it’s the truth.”
Your lips were drawn in, and the hardest part was that you knew he was being honest, you knew that ever since that day, he had been nothing but faithful… But there was doubt lingering in your mind and in your heart about just how faithful he’d stay. “That memory… What I saw… It will always be with me. I can’t forget that…” The lump in your throat was painfully swallowed down as you slowly slid the rings off your finger and placed them on the center of the table. “I can’t… The trust… It’s not there anymore. I love you, but not the way I used to. I simply love you because you’re the father of my children, but nothing more than that. I want you to be happy, I want you to be healthy, I want you to be safe… But I don’t want to be with you, not anymore.”
Those words were the hardest to get out because that was the end, it was the end of everything, the end of all the years you had put into being with him, all the times you shared together, all of the family vacations, lazy weekend mornings walking out of bed and seeing him in the kitchen attempting to make breakfast. It was the end of family holidays where the four of you were together and happy… Although the end had come two years ago, and even though he was still there, it was simply prolonging what you knew had to be done.
It had been over the moment you stepped into his office, a bag of carry out in your hands, a familiar flutter in your stomach whenever you thought about seeing him. You were going to talk to him about the upcoming trip that he, you, and the kids would take while they were on spring break, a trip that you were looking forward to surprising the girls with. You never thought that you’d find him and his secretary caught in the most intimate of acts in his office. You remembered the way your heart sank, your stomach dropping just as fast as the bag of food you had been carrying. You didn’t even care that the contents of the bag had spilled out across the freshly steam cleaned carpets, you had lost all sense of your appetite anyway. That had been the end, and no amount of apologies or gifts, no amount of I love you’s or notes written neatly in apology cards would ever make up for the pain and the heartache he had caused you that day. It was over.
“Mr. Joshua is taking us to Disney during summer vacation, did mom tell you that?” Hyeri looked up at Cheol as he stood at the checkout line at the store. He both loved and hated visitation weekends. He missed his girls dearly during the week, and every single evening spent alone was just another reminder that he had ruined everything because of his selfishness and his carelessness. He loved when Hyeri and Yuri would be dropped off at his place, and he’d relish in the hugs they’d give him, he’d listen intently to the stories they’d tell him about how school went that week and all the things they were learning. But he hated hearing about Mr. Joshua, the man in your life that had taken his place, the man that was soon to be your husband and the step-father of his girls. “He even said he’s gonna get us into the castle. Yuri is super excited!”
It took everything for him to not be upset about it, only because he didn’t want the girls to be upset with him for not being excited with them. Surely they didn’t understand that this Mr. Joshua character was a threat to Cheol and he hated even the utterance of his name. “That’s… That’s wonderful, honey. I’m sure that you and your sister will have a great time.” He rustled her hair before grabbing the bags of groceries off the ledge of the checkout counter before grabbing both his daughters hands and walking to the car. “So… Where do you think we should go this summer? We can go to the beach or to a really cool amusement park… What do you think?”
No, he wasn’t trying to one up your new fiance, he was simply trying to figure out something fun to do with his children during their summer vacation. It’s not like he felt like he was losing his daughters to some guy that he only met a couple times during their birthday parties. Nope. “Well, Mr. Josh said that there’s a beach there too. It’s in like… California or something.” Yuri said, climbing into the backseat and clicking her seatbelt before pulling out her phone, just another thing that your soon to be husband had gifted his daughters with.
“California? Like… In America California?” Cheol stammered out, pausing at the back of the car as he piled the groceries in the trunk. “Your mother never told me about that… When… When was she going to tell me?” He couldn’t wrap his head around it, and while he was happy that his daughters were so excited for the trip, he couldn’t help but be agitated about the obscurity of all the details and how much he didn’t know.
“I don’t know…” Hyeri mumbled, her face, much like her sisters, glued to the phone in her hand. The sight irritated him, they were only 12 and 10 years old, they shouldn’t even have devices like that. “I really wanted to go to that arcade though, the new one, with the laser tag. That looked fun.” She mused, and Cheol made sure to remember that while also trying to control his irritation as he closed the trunk and climbed into the driver's seat. He needed to talk to you, and he needed to talk to you as soon as possible.
“Alright, you two go play for a bit while I start cooking dinner. Think of a movie for us to watch before bed too.” Cheol called out after the girls as they ran into the house, but much to his disappointment, they went into their separate rooms and he was sure that they were just going to be on their phones until he called them for dinner. The only good thing about it was that he could call you and not have them listen to him. He quickly pulled out his phone and slipped in an earbud, dialing your number and waiting for you to pick up.
“Hey… Is everything alright? Are the girls okay? It’s not time for their goodnight call… What’s going on?” Your panicked voice came through in his ear after the first ring, and he could hear the sound of someone, a man, most likely Joshua asking what was going on in the background. “Hello? Cheol?”
He cleared his throat, taking one last glance at the girls' rooms to make sure he was in the clear before speaking. “When were you going to tell me about this California trip? You can’t just take vacations like that without telling me about them… Especially not out of the country, Y/N.” He ranted, running his hands through his hair as he angrily started pulling groceries out of the bags. “You might be enjoying your life and living it up with your new man right now, but they’re my kids too and I’d like to know where they’re going and what they’re doing.”
The sound of a heavy sigh from your end came rushing through his earphone like a gust of wind. “For Christs sake, Cheol. We just talked about it this morning before you get them. I was going to tell you when it was actually set in stone, but right now we don’t even know when we’re taking the trip. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t make it seem like I’m the bitch right now for finding someone who not only loves me, but loves our girls enough to want to take them on vacations and do things with all of us as a family.”
Family… The word, whether you knew it or not, was like a gunshot wound right through his chest. Family was something that he had always wanted, something that he had gotten, but he had taken it for granted and lost it in the blink of an eye. It should be him taking you and his girls on trips to California, taking his girls to Disney for the summer, but it wasn’t, and never would be. All he could feel was anger about it, anger and regret. “Yeah, he loves them so much… That’s… That’s why he got them those phones that they’re attached to now. Won’t even get off them to play like normal damn kids anymore. He’s father of the year though, right?”
“Good God, is this really what this is about?” You muttered, and the sound of it, the way you sounded so annoyed, yet your voice was still so beautiful, it hurt him even more. “They got the phones in case of an emergency. They weren’t even supposed to take them over your house, so you can take them away if you want, but when they come home Joshua and I will have a talk with them about it. And if this is about you being worried about Josh one upping you as a dad… You’re being ridiculous. Hyeri and Yuri love you, more than anything. You don’t have anything to be worried about. Just enjoy the weekend with the girls, get them off their phones and spend time with them… That’s what they want. Okay?”
He took a shaky breath, his body hunched over the counter and his hand covering his mouth as he let out broken sobs that he tried to muffle in his palm. “I miss you… I miss you so much. I miss being home with you and the girls, I miss life with you, with my family… I love you… I can’t stop loving you… I don’t want to be with anyone if it’s not you…” It had been two years since the divorce, since you packed up with the girls and left to live in your own apartment. His heart completely shattered that day, and the only time it ever feels even half mended is on the weekends when he has Hyeri and Yuri, but having to let them go is like feeling that heartbreak all over again. “You said you wanted me to be happy, but I’m not… I’m not, Y/N. I feel like I’m dying… My life is nothing without you and the girls in it… How could you move on?”
Your own ragged breaths, as if you were crying as well, were heard through the earphone. Were you crying? Did you miss him too? “Please don’t do this… You don’t know how hard it was for me to let go of everything that we had. There’s memories of you constantly, memories that I’ll never be able to get rid of. I miss what we had before the incident, I love the you that I thought you were… I’ve never fully moved on, and I know that I never will… But I couldn’t stay with you. I needed to be with someone that I know I can trust, that I know won’t hurt me… I needed to move forward… But I never moved on. You need to move forward too.” He heard the deep breath, the way it got lodged in your throat before you had to clear it to speak again. “I have to go, okay? Tell the girls I love them, and try to get them off their phones. Play a boardgame or something with them… They miss you all week… Don’t waste the time you have with them… Please? Goodbye, Cheol… I’ll see you Sunday night.”
And with that the call was ended, and he was left crying more than he had been before. Just another revelation that it had been his fault that he lost everything, that you were now moving forward in your life with a new man, a guy that would most likely end up closer to his daughters than he ever will be. He was the better man, a man that Cheols daughters could look up to, a man that wouldn’t hurt his family the way Cheol had.
Life had gone on for you, for his girls, but for him, he was stuck in the past, living over and over the day at the table when you had ended things for good. It was the day he finally realized just how badly he had messed up, and just how great the loss was. He felt it then, and he was still feeling it now as the silence surrounded him in the house that was once a home for his family, a house that he refused to leave. There was no happiness, and there never would be. He’d never get you back, he’d only see his girls on the weekends…. How could his life ever go on when the only things that gave his life meaning he had carelessly thrown away?