I fixed myself a meal and ate alone.
My wife said she was busy and would eat later, and my daughter claimed she was on a diet and wouldn't be eating.
As I washed my dishes, a thought suddenly struck me.
"Is this really a family…?"
This wasn't what I had imagined a family would be like.
"How did things end up like this?"
I had no idea.
My wife, once more passionate and fiery than I, had cooled over time, becoming a workaholic who valued her job over love. My daughter, who used to trail behind me calling, "Appa, Appa," now holes herself up in her room and never shows her face.
What on earth had turned my wife and daughter into these people?
"I really don't know…"
If it were because of something I'd done wrong, I could understand, but I hadn't done anything wrong.
To keep the peace, I was always the one to back down when an argument arose. I did whatever the two of them wanted.
I never cheated, and I can say with absolute certainty that I never once neglected my family, not for a single moment.
"So this is how different ideals and reality are."
Perhaps it was because I lost my parents at a young age.
Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of having a happy, close-knit family.
Recalling the faint, happy memories I had with my parents, I wished to build a family just like that one day.
When I married her and we had a daughter so precious I couldn't bear the thought of anything hurting her, I thought my dream was coming true.
I believed we would have a happy life, gathering to eat while laughing and chatting, going on outings together.
An inexplicable sense of betrayal made me shudder.
"Hoo…"
As my thoughts deepened, so did the night.
Dawn arrived while I was still sitting at the kitchen table.
I considered having a drink by myself but quickly shook my head.
My wife hates the smell of alcohol.
If I wanted to sleep beside her, I'd have to give up drinking.
"Guess I should get to bed…"
After a quick shower, I headed to the master bedroom. My wife, who had been in the study, was already asleep on one side of the bed.
She was wearing a light slip.
The sight of her sensual figure through the fabric made me swallow so hard my Adam's apple bobbed.
People say your sex drive dies down as you get older, but I have no idea why mine keeps surging.
Then again, with a woman like that sleeping before you, maybe it's only natural for anyone to become a slave to their desires.
The peak rising below my waist told me I couldn't just go to sleep like this.
"Honey… are you asleep?"
"Yes… You should get some sleep too."
A plain answer that cut off my sticky question.
Undeterred, I climbed onto the bed and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't be like that… It's been a while, how about it…?"
My hand crept forward over the blanket, inching toward the full breasts hidden beneath her thin nightgown.
Just as I reached my destination…
"What are you doing, really."
My hand was swatted away with a cold voice.
She pulled the covers tighter around herself and turned her back to me.
"I have an early meeting tomorrow morning."
"Right…"
I see.
I wonder if she knows.
She's been using that same line for nearly seven years now.
The brief flicker of excitement was instantly extinguished.
I carefully got up, trying not to wake her.
I took out the bottle of whiskey I had glanced at earlier and went back to the kitchen.
Someone was already there.
"Daughter…?"
My daughter stood there with a scowl, her arms full of snacks she'd rummaged from the fridge.
The look on her face screamed, 'Ah, shit. Busted.'
Before I could say a word, she ducked her head and scurried away to her room on the third floor.
"..."
An indescribable feeling tightened its grip on me.
She said she wasn't eating because of her diet.
"So she just didn't want to eat with me."
I hadn't even had a drink yet.
Why did my stomach burn?
Today, we cleared an A+-rank dungeon that had appeared in the middle of Gangnam.
The dungeon's environment was a hot and humid jungle, so everyone except for me—who is unaffected by such conditions—had an incredibly tough time.
After a formulaic interview with the reporters gathered in front of the dungeon, I went over to my resting team members.
"You all worked hard!"
"You too, Captain."
"Great work, sir!"
Their expressions were slowly coming back to life.
"I'm treating tonight, so how about a round of drinks?"
I shouted, thinking this was the perfect chance.
"Ah, sorry. It's my wedding anniversary today, so I promised I'd be home early."
"I'm supposed to eat out with my family tonight, too."
"My girlfriend…"
All I got were rejections.
When we were younger, an after-party was mandatory after clearing a dungeon.
Even if I didn't want to go, they'd insist it wouldn't be the same without the star of the show, and we'd all go out drinking until the sun came up the next day.
"Oh, right… Ahaha! I was supposed to have dinner with my family too, wasn't I!"
I forced an awkward laugh and told a lie so they wouldn't feel uncomfortable.
One by one, they all left, until I was the only one left in the vast, empty space.
"I guess no one has time for that anymore."
It was a fresh realization.
We had all gotten older, become adults.
We became someone's husband, someone's wife, our children's father, their mother.
Everyone had a family now.
The time when we could all gather to laugh and talk was, I suppose, gone.
Everyone was growing and adapting to a new world, but I felt like I was the only one stuck in place.
I thought of my changed wife and daughter.
"Maybe… I'm the problem."
It occurred to me that their changes were natural, and that I, the one who hadn't changed, might be the problem.
What was that saying? In a village of one-eyed people, the one with two eyes is the freak.
Suddenly, I was overcome with an intense desire to run away from this place.
A private bar in Gangnam.
A place for the upper class, impossible to even enter without a membership.
"My, it's been a while."
"It has."
I smiled sheepishly and followed the madam into the room she led me to.
I came to drink alone since I had no one to drink with.
I wanted to have soju at a street stall, but I was too well-known for that.
If I were seen drinking alone in a public place, the next morning's headline would read:
[S-Rank Hunter Son Si-woo, the Guardian, Spotted Drinking Alone at a Street Stall. Is Something Wrong?]
That had actually happened once before.
The article's content was even more ridiculous.
It claimed my relationship with my team members was terrible, or that I was having trouble with my wife.
All sorts of rumors of discord lit up the internet.
They say you can start a rumor with a single sentence, but you need dozens of documents and pieces of evidence to refute it.
Everyone had a hard time clearing up that mess.
As I was vowing to never drink alone again, my wife gave me a membership to this place.
She asked me to drink where no one would know if I wanted to drink by myself.
Personally, I had hoped for a response like, 'Let me know when you want to have a drink.'
"Hunter Son Si-woo, I think you live your life holding yourself back too much."
The madam, whom I'd seen every now and then on my visits, said unexpectedly as she placed a drink on the table.
"I do?"
"Yes. Just look at the other S-rank hunters."
There are five S-rank hunters.
Two of them are my wife and me.
Two of the others are a few years younger than me, and the way they live is quite a spectacle.
They rent out entire clubs every day to party with women.
Then, a few months later, some woman turns the world upside down by announcing she's pregnant.
Last year alone, three women claimed to be carrying one of their children.
Two of them were lying, and one was telling the truth, I think.
"They might be a bit flashy, but they live their lives doing everything they want to do."
She was right.
Those two are indispensable talents in this country, and whether they know it or not, they're too busy living their own lives to care what the world says about them.
"I was very impressed by an answer one of them gave a while back."
"What… Ah, that."
A reporter once asked one of the two during an interview.
It was something along the lines of what he thought about the internet buzzing over his promiscuous private life.
His answer at the time was quite plausible.
"Was it… 'My life is too short to worry about what others think'?"
"Yes, that's it."
His confidence was remarkable, a declaration that he wouldn't care about others' opinions in order to live his own life to the fullest.
My perception of him, whom I had previously thought of as just a promiscuous guy, changed.
He wasn't just a promiscuous guy, but a promiscuous guy with his own philosophy.
"I think that's how one should live."
She quickly added, "Ah, I don't mean you should surround yourself with all sorts of women."
She gave me a wink.
"I mean you shouldn't miss out on the joys of life because you're worried about what others think."
Her hand came to rest on top of mine on the table.
Her long index finger lightly scraped the back of my hand.
"What do you think…?"
A sensual, thick temptation.
She was beautiful.
Large eyes that sent out sultry gazes, a captivating mole under her eye, porcelain-white skin, and a voluptuous body that oozed sensuality even when still.
She was more than I deserved for a one-night stand.
Her upper body leaned toward me.
The top of her tight dress parted slightly, revealing deep cleavage that captured my gaze.
"How about somewhere a little more private and quiet…?"
Her explicit words tickled my ear.
I carefully pulled my hand out from under hers.
"I appreciate the offer, but I'm sorry."
"Ah…"
Leaving her disappointed gaze behind me, I left the bar.
"It was a pretty decent place to drink alone…"
Tsk.
I have a feeling today will be my last time coming here.