QBSLB 02

Chapter 2

. Enemies Meet as Husband and Wife

At that, the woman widened her eyes in disbelief, then pointed at me, stammering.

“W–W–What? A, a, ajumma? Did you just call your mother-in-law an ajumma?!”

I let out a hollow laugh and shot back,

“What are you talking about? That ajumma is my mother-in-law?”

At my words, both the maid standing beside her and the ajumma gaped, their mouths hanging open.

Clutching the back of her neck and fuming, the ajumma shrieked hysterically at me again.

“Did you really lose your mind after hitting your head? Aileen Morgans!”

“Who’s that supposed to be…? Wait. Ajumma. What did you just say?”

“Y–You keep calling me ajumma! Have you really gone insane?!”

Her screeching no longer reached my ears.

Aileen Morgans?

Morgans?

That Morgans?!

“Crazy!”

“Oh my! Now she’s even swearing…!”

I jumped out of bed, rushed past the ajumma, and ran to the mirror in the corner of the room.

Even in my utter shock, the woman in the mirror was stunning enough to make me gasp.

Soft silver hair that looked like it would melt at a touch.

Clear, blue eyes.

A slender, delicate body with gentle curves.

“Look at those eyelashes. No—this isn’t the time for that…!”

This was no moment to admire how pretty I was.

With a bewildered expression, I grabbed the mirror.

The reason I was so shocked to hear the name “Aileen Morgans”—

was because Morgans was the name of a family that appeared in the novel The Saintess and Her Three Men, which I had read not long ago.

The Morgans were the name of a count’s family that would later be annihilated as the price of rebellion against the Crown Prince.

Which meant—

I had become the daughter-in-law of a stupid villain family in a novel.

And someday, I’d be standing beside that so-called mother-in-law, getting our heads chopped off at the execution grounds!

“This is insane. How could something like this happen…?”

Clutching my head, tightly wrapped in bandages, I screamed,

“What on earth is happening to meee—?!”

Before opening my eyes, I had been in a café.

A café I had opened with the money I’d scraped together after working as a barista for ten long years—
me, an orphan who’d started with nothing.

Sitting across from me was my husband, whom I’d married just six months ago.

But today, something about his usually gentle expression felt off.

With a cold, indifferent face, he parted his lips and said,

“Let’s get a divorce.”

My mind went blank, my ears ringing.

“…What?”

“A divorce. Let’s do it.”

The curt reply that came after my shaky question was ice-cold.

His expression remained blunt.

“What do you mean…? How can you say something like that, here of all places?”

“Have some pride as a man. It’s marital property anyway, so transfer it under my name.”

For a long time, my husband and mother-in-law kept persuading me—
bordering on gaslighting.

In the end, unable to withstand it, I even handed over this café—
the place that was practically my soul.

And now, in this very place, he was saying this to me?

“I said let’s get a divorce. Are you deaf now, too?”

He replied irritably.

I tried to persuade him again and again, but he wouldn’t budge.

Looking at him—like he’d become a completely different person—I finally gave up.

“…Fine. Then give the café back.”

My voice trembled at the end.

Ten years.

Ten whole years of working as a barista, dealing with every kind of awful customer, to save up enough to open this café.

My lifelong dream.

But—

“Oh, this? I sold it.”

He answered casually, taking a sip of the coffee I’d brewed.

“You sold it?! This café?!”

“Yeah.”

The shock hit me like a blow to the back of my head.

And then, belatedly, I realized.

His attitude had changed a full 180 degrees.

“So from the beginning… you approached me because of this?”

I’d had no dating experience, having devoted myself entirely to work.

And as an orphan, I honestly had nowhere to place my heart.

When he approached me and gave me unconditional love, I fell for him completely—blinded by it.

“If we allowed someone like you, an orphan, into our family, you should be grateful!”

I’d even endured my mother-in-law, who harassed me every single day because of that.

“So this is the result of all that patience…”

Tears threatened to fall.

But I refused to cry in front of him, so I hurriedly left the café.

In my hand were the divorce papers he had shoved at me without hesitation.

I stood blankly in front of the café—no, the café that used to be mine—
and saw my husband’s back disappearing into the distance.

He was walking arm in arm with a woman I’d never seen before, looking affectionate.

Had he been cheating? Since when?

Or maybe she was someone he’d been dating even before marrying me.

If so, then all of this had been a carefully planned crime.

“Ha ha…”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

Why was life always this unbearably bitter—only to me?

It had always been that way.

That was also why I’d fallen so deeply in love with coffee.

My lonely, desolate life had changed completely one day when I was nineteen—

all because of a single cup of warm coffee I drank at a small café.

It was a tiny café I’d wandered into by chance after an especially exhausting day.

A place I’d entered on a whim, resentful that I’d never even been able to afford a cup of coffee like everyone else—
almost as if it were my last stop before giving up on life.

“Oh my, miss. You look terribly upset.”

“……”

“Did you know? A true barista can move a person’s heart through coffee.”

“What are you talking about…?”

And then, a cup of drip coffee offered by a barista with a gentle face.

Maybe because my life had been so bitter—

the pitch-black coffee I tasted for the first time was strangely sweet.

To someone like me, who’d never known familial warmth,
the cozy, fragrant aroma of coffee felt as warm as a mother’s embrace.

Seeing the surprised look on my face, the barista spoke gently.

“Sometimes, the scent of coffee can be a greater comfort than any words.”

“Hic… sniff…”

In front of that barista, I ended up bursting into tears mid-sip.

From that day on, I lived like a maniac—working part-time during the day and studying coffee at night.

I earned my barista certification, and even took first place in a famous barista competition, beating out overseas-trained professionals.

“I worked that hard… so why…?”

Why was my life—unlike coffee—nothing but bitterness?

Half out of my mind, I wandered aimlessly.

Blaaaare—!

A loud horn blared somewhere nearby.

My vision was blurred by the tears pouring down my face.

And then—

Crash!

My body was struck and flung into the air.

The divorce papers my husband had handed me fluttered through the air.

In that eternal split second, I remembered a conversation my husband and I once had, back when he was still kind.

“They say marriage is between enemies from a past life.”

“Enemies?”

“Yeah. And if you become enemies again during married life, you’ll meet again as spouses in the next life, too.”

“Then let’s live happily and make sure we never meet again in the next life!”

Back then, I’d thought it was just a joke.

But in the end, after a short marriage, we did become enemies.

So—

“See you again… for sure.”

As my consciousness faded from losing too much blood, I ground my teeth and thought—

In the next life, we’d definitely meet again.

And then—

I’d make him pay.