With her legs crossed and her posture relaxed, it was damning for Wendy as she watched Irene calmly take a sip of her coffee, looking as ethereal as she normally does, as if she hadn’t just dropped the biggest bomb on Wendy; she was frustrated and confused, to the point where she wanted to scream at her spouse. But really, what could she even do? How do you react calmly to being told of divorce by someone you considered your soulmate? How do you react calmly to the possibility of separation by someone you’ve known practically all of your life?

Wordlessly, Wendy reaches for the stack of papers Irene had presented her just a few moments ago. “How long have you been thinking about this?” She asks, eyeing the detailed clauses and descriptive paragraphs, the bolded underlined ’Irreconcilable Differences’ the highlight of the entire thing. It sends another pang through Wendy’s heart, and feelings of unfairness and contempt well inside her. 

“Months.” 

“We’ve known each other for twenty years. Together for ten, engaged and married for five. Yet it only took you a few months to decide this?” 

“Correction, our engagement was neither our choice. And we were never really together-”

Wendy flinches. “Don’t.” She snaps. “Don’t say that when you so clearly know about my feelings.”

Irene looks up at her under hooded eyes, looking like she’s about to say something before sighing, deciding in that split second that her words would cause more issue than value. She takes another sip of her coffee, thinking about how she should go about this. Irene understands the fear of something new, but she never told Wendy to fall for her; she gave no encouragement for such a thing. Irene had made it clear since the day they exchanged vows that their relationship would stay beneficial, that is all. Did her words, or her countless rejections during past confessions didn’t say that enough?

“What do you want me to say, Wendy?”

Without even thinking, Wendy replies: “Why?”

Irene purses her lips. “I suppose it is relevant.” Swirling her cup, she exhales, this moment having been imagined time and time again in her mind. 

“I met someone.” 

The moment she said that, the penthouse stilled. Quiet. It was too quiet. For a residence that the Wendy Son occupied - the cheery, outgoing girl who everyone instinctively gravitated towards - it was soundless. Everything stopped. And maybe, if you listened close enough, you could hear the sounds of Wendy’s already broken heart shatter into the tiniest of pieces. 

“Oh.” 

Shock from heartbreak is the most excruciating pain. Yes, she remembers this pain well. She remembers the heartbreak that renders one completely speechless, motionless, a slow painful death. The most cruel experience, for how could one withstand a pain that only leaves you so barely alive? 

And she hates it. Wendy hates how that’s all she could say. And how unfair it was, to have known Irene for so long, trying to win her heart for two decades only for someone Irene has probably only known for a few months, if not a year at most, to beat her to it. 

Just… What was so wrong about her that Irene never gave her a chance?

Not wanting to wallow in despair, she gathers what courage she has left to form new words, this atmosphere so thick she might just choke on it. “Is… Is there a chance you might change your mind?”

"We shouldn't live like this, Wendy." Irene sighs, for what felt like the umpteenth time, as if it's her heart she's breaking. “You deserve someone who loves you, and I’m…” Her voice trails off, stopping the eye contact, looking at everything but Wendy, stopping her words before clearing , rethinking. 

“.. Someone is out there, waiting to love you, but that person simply isn’t me.”

She wonders if the months Irene spent thinking did the thought ever occur to her about what she would think. What she’s got to say about all this. But at this point, Wendy chalks it up that Irene never thought her opinion mattered. Yet, in spite of herself, opens. “Could it not be you?”

“It will never be me.” 

Wendy lowers her head, nodding a little, feeling the back of her eyes sting, but she refuses to cry. “You are quite unfair, my love.” Her voice wobbles, but she manages to hold herself together, putting on a small smile instead, a polite expression her default, as she’d been profusely taught before; ‘even in the most volatile situations, one must always smile.’ After all, her other option is to cry, and she’d rather not. She’d rather feel anything than more pathetic.

“Since you’ve been thinking about this for months, you must’ve thought this through. What about the company? Our parents married us off for the sole reason of making this empire happen.”

“Of course. To lessen whatever scrutiny will come for you, I’ll take the blame. I’ll surrender my share and you’ll own everything yourself. My only request is that you finance my business until it’s stable.”

Wendy scoffs. Their union was treated as a holiday, they were practically nobility in this world. Scrutiny is a given no matter whose fault the media will paint it to be. But the part about finance irked Wendy. “You know I love you, and yet you’re telling me to finance you until your company is stable so you can finance your happily ever after with someone else? It’s a little shameless of you.” 

“I know, but financing me wouldn’t cost you much. I’m giving up this empire to you, in exchange for some way to employ myself. Do you think anyone would consider hiring me once everyone knows that I divorced the Son’s only heiress? Everyone would think of me as their enemy.” The younger has to bite her lip to stop herself from saying anything rash; it is still appalling even after 5 years, how Irene had the ability to completely ignore one half of her sentence. Did Irene not get how Wendy was more devastated by the news of divorce than her giving up her shares?

“So you’re doing this so you don’t have to worry about having no investors, relying solely on public income once your company is stable? That’s a dangerous road to take, since inconsistency no matter how big a brand is is very common. You could file for bankruptcy weeks, even days after I pull out.”

"Investors will run towards me once they see my business thrive despite everyone's assumptions. Besides," Irene couldn’t stop the little smirk from forming on her lips. “I have a knack of proving myself, no?” Wendy hates that she can’t even refute her; hell, 20 years is a long time. Wendy once thought that in that time frame anyone could fall in love with anyone if they spent that much time together. It stands that Irene has never failed to prove her wrong.

When Irene finally puts her cup on the table, Wendy is at the end of her wits. Emotionally tired from all the excitement of seeing Irene and then being drained dry of every shred of happiness she had left after Irene mentioned divorce. And she seems to have really thought it through. Nothing much to say anymore, Wendy sags.

“Did you calculate about how I’d react to this too?” She asks weakly. “I’ve got nothing to gain from this. You’re an excellent partner, and you handle Son&Bae Corp. amazingly. I’d lose more than gain if I consent to this divorce. Have you thought about if I don’t agree?”

Irene stares at her. It eats Wendy alive, because she knows that Irene knows.

“You would never do that.”

Wendy scoffs, although she’s disheartened. “Are you sure?”

Her wife smiles a little as her answer and whether it was out of pity or sympathy, it breaks Wendy all the same.  

“You know, and yet you’re doing this.” Closing her eyes, she exhales, smiling bitterly.

“You are a cruel woman, my love.”

° ° ° ° °

Every woman who knew Wendy Son during college knew that despite having an unintentional spotlight on her, she was a magnet. To all kinds of people. Many freeloaders, friends, snakes, admirers - a full spectrum of people, and yet none of them is even a pinch as notable as the one and only Joy Park.

Irene and Wendy themselves both attended the same college, and everyone who knew better had always considered both off limits. It was Wendy's surprise that Irene was the one who announced their engagement when she previously assumed they would keep it a secret. But no proclamation of such a thing could stop the mighty conqueror. 

And here was the most ironic part. Wendy had always vented to Joy whenever she complained about not having Irene's attention, or Irene never giving her the light of day. But Joy had no one to vent to whenever Wendy never gave her any. In a dramatic twist, the playgirl everyone thought no one could tame was enamored by the only person she couldn't have. So to burry her feelings, Joy decided that the more time she spent trying to feel something for other girls, the less time she'll have to feel something for Wendy. Yet if Wendy requested, Joy would give her all the time she'll ever need. 

That's why at exactly 7:30 AM, in a hotel in the middle of major Seoul, there lay a tall figure, hair disheveled, eyes puffy, and body void of any sort of clothing. Joy groans, woken up by the sound of a message notification from her phone. Her head is pounding from the tremendous intake of alcohol the night before, courtesy of the heavily bite-marked lady beside her. Joy is just about ready to bite the messenger's head off, having dared ruin her sleep when she so badly needed it after a night of endless rounds. 

"Who the is sending me messages so early in the morning?" She hisses, assuming it's one of the many girls she's left on read, or sometimes even just not opening their message at all. However, the moment her eyes read Wendy's name, she leaned up, mind suddenly cleared. The fast motion caused something in her back to pop, and she groans in both pain and relief. Last night's festivities left her quite sore; plus it didn'