Dreaming of Kimchee

This story starts with a single woman reminiscing on her past affair with a married man. She called him her boyfriend and he would call her precisely at 10:00 p.m. At night she would read magazine articles about having affairs and how they are really only temporary. She read only 5 percent of people like her end up getting married, thankfully she was a lucky one. He left his wife and family for her, but it was not what she had expected. They have been married for 2 years and she had lost the excitement. He didn't eat breakfast or talk much, just walk out the front door for work and leave her at home. During the last part of the affair, she bought a bigger apartment with her sister to test her and her lovers love. She did not want to buy a hotel to fool around in just because of her sister and everything worked out, as if her sister was not there. She liked living with her sister because she helped her not be so stressed. All she was longing for was a routine relationship, someone to sit down and chat with after a long hard day, but was virtually impossible to do with a married man. He missed dinner a lot, but he was always considerate about it. He would tell her to go out and have fun with her sister, but this feeling would come over her and she was unable to react to anything. She missed her simple life with her sister, but she chose this life. One day she ran into his ex-wife. She told her that once a cheater, always a cheater because he cannot resist. The new wife told her to stop obsessing and the ex-wife slapped very hard across the face. This is causing her to have a lot of guilt. He husband came home one day after a long day of work and brought her some kimchee to help her with her headache. They sat down on the couch together and instantly her headache was gone, she said it was true love that had made the fogginess go away. The phone rang and her husband answered it, she assumed it was for him so she went to grab a few more beers. It was his ex-wife who called to tell him she is marring a man younger than she is. His new wife was relieved because she feels they can finally start to live their life. They went to bed together, and she had taken an icepack to help with her fever. He complained that it smelled of kimchee. The two realized it was her icepack and didn't much mind. She had gotten up to pee from all the beer and when she came back into the room he was wide awake. When she asked him what was wrong, he replied he had just had a weird dream about kimchee. The two laughed because she had had the same dream.


I'm not proud of either one of them for having an affair, but they are kind of a cute couple. I thought he wife was a little crazy, but I would be too if my husband left me for a much younger woman. I found it interesting that his ex-wife knew he was having an affair but did not do anything about it. I'm guessing it is not the woman's right to ask for a divorce in Tokyo, since they are still sexists. I would not trust someone who has already cheated on his wife even if it was with yourself. Who's to say he won't do it again, because chances are he already has another in mind. Tokyo is teaching me a lot of good life lessons.