The End of a Fake Marriage

Chapter 01. Unbelievable Dream

‘Did he love her?’

On his deathbed, Alexander Chambler relived the past.

‘Renee Chambler, no, Renee Hazlin.’

‘…Did he love her?’

The blue eyes of a man who was once bluer and brighter than Lapis Lazuli hovered somewhere in the distance, clouded with a misty haze.

He first met Renee in July, when the sun was hot. He was going through terrible growth pains every night as he grew taller and taller.

Whitehall, the pristine white sands and azure waters he’d been drawn to by his grandfather.

A girl with short golden-brown hair ran up to him with her back to that jewel-like sea and pushed him away.

“Hey, what are you doing?!”

It was Renee.

A time when it was just the two of them. A childhood of innocence and destruction, where they fought countless times, made up a few times, and oozed into each other.

She had been his best friend, his sister, and at some point, his longing. But their future together, the one they thought they’d have every summer, was cut short by his mother’s sudden death. Death had changed him forever.

He pushed her away, feeling like his guts were being ripped out. He didn’t even know the words, and he was forced to push. On such topics…

“Hi. Do you remember me?”

“……”

In a moment of need, he’d returned to her after eight years without a second thought. How he’d felt when he met her out of thin air and saw her orange eyes flutter.

“Yes. Pretty, good, I guess. …I see you haven’t forgotten me either.”

“You don’t seem to be in a perfect place. Can I lend you a hand?”

“……What?”

“In exchange, you marry me, Renee Hazlin.”

“What kind of bullshit do you think you’re doing, showing up out of nowhere…?”

“The period is two years. I will prepare the contract myself. There will be no loss.”

‘What was Renee’s expression at that time?’ That small, pretty face distorted with surprise, embarrassment, and slight disgust and insult. After two years, which felt neither short nor long, they finally became a married couple. Unlike when they were young, every time they ran into each other, they were eager to tear each other apart, and those two chaotic years flew by in an instant.

“Please be happy, Alexander. I will be happy too. …Take care.”

Since then, Alexander never saw Renee again. He also never tried to find her on purpose because he believed it was the right thing to do.

But now, the reason that day came to mind was: “…Seeing you like this feels really awkward.” It was because of a young man who had come to see Alexander and had asked for her name.

Alexander lifted his heavy eyelids and looked at the young man with bright blond hair and piercing blue eyes, standing idly at his feet.

‘No, could this even be called young?’

A sweater with the Brighton College logo embroidered on it. Towering height, excellent physique, and a scruffy face that looked about eighteen.

“Who are you?”

“Actually, I hesitated a lot before coming here. I’m sure my mother will criticize me, but…”

Mother. It was a young man who called her mother. He let out a sigh mixed with laughter and slowly opened his dry lips.

“Re, Renee… Cough?!” He tried to ask how she was doing, but his damaged lungs wouldn’t allow him to complete the sentence.

The young man waited for Alexander, who was coughing, to calm down, and then slowly and clearly spoke the news about Renee.

“My mother passed away a year ago from pneumonia, which she had been suffering from for a long time. It was a very cold and sad winter for me, but she smiled and closed her eyes, so I am no longer sad.”

At that moment, Alexander felt something break inside his chest.

‘…That you died. You died before me.’

He had hoped that they would meet at least once by chance. Even if it was from afar, even if it was just him, he thought he would be able to see her at least once. But like a stupid fox sitting under a tree with its mouth open, he let her go without taking any chances.

‘Ah, Renee. Renee…’

Every damn time it thunders. Every time lightning flashes. Every time an unknown calico cat runs across the roof, I think of you. I tried to trick myself into thinking that it wasn’t true and that I never thought about it, but it wasn’t the case. He never forgot her, not even for a moment. Why? Why?

Think, Alexander Chambler. Think.

“My mother sometimes told me your stories.”

At the man’s words, Alexander opened his blurry eyes. The young man was looking at him with a soft smile. Two very similar blue eyes met in the air.

“…Stubborn, had trouble sleeping, refined taste but… somewhat vulgar preferences.”

The young man blushed and smiled awkwardly as he said the word vulgar. His innocence and sincerity were evident at that moment. As Alexander quietly took in the sight of him, his heart tightened with a vague premonition. The more he talked with the young man, the stranger he felt. He wanted to ask.

“Who are you, really? Is there a reason you came to find me, even if it’s late…”

‘…?!’

At that moment, a pain surged through Alexander’s chest as if it would tear it apart. A rough cough burst from the sick middle-aged man’s mouth. The young man quickly approached and gently patted his back. As his warm and tender touch enveloped the struggling man, the familiar scent of soap, longed for half a lifetime, wafted through the young man.

“Darn it. Not now. Not now…”

He had lived his whole life unable to die. Although he could not hang himself out of pride, it was true that he had beaten his life so harshly that he almost invited death. It was painful, as if his intestines, pickled by strong alcohol, dozens of medications, cigarettes, and smoke, were being torn apart. It was always the death he had been waiting for. But his damned body turned out to be more stubborn than he thought, and Alexander, at some point, began to breathe as if out of habit, forgetting even why he wanted to die in the first place. If only I had known it would be like this, for you…

‘I will not let you go like that…’

I am out of breath in my blood-filled lungs. Cold despair was squeezing his lungs.

“I don’t know if you will believe it, but your mother… …”

The man’s voice scattered like echoes in his pain-ridden ears.

“She always missed you. Until her last breath.”

His weary heart sank heavily, overlaid with layers of regret, clawing at his soul repeatedly. He wanted to say something to this young man. Anything, any words. Alexander Chambler’s reputation as a wise and sharp insight was, at this moment, lighter than dust and laughable.

“I came because I wanted to ask you a question. Have you, by any chance, also met my mother, I mean, Renee Hazlin?”

The young man took a slow, deep breath. As if he were asking the most important question of his life. Then he asked in a careful and polite tone.

“…Did you love her?”

“Love…?”

The only thing that comes to mind as death approaches.

‘Why did I let you go?’

‘Why did I ‘give up’ on you?’

As he thought about her, Alexander’s breathing became increasingly rough. He looked at the young man with a distorted face as a poignant emotion pierced his heart.

“Okay… I think your answer is in those eyes.”

The young man bowed politely; then awkwardly put on the hat he was holding. There was a somewhat relieved face.

“I apologize for intruding. I think it’s time for me to leave.”

Alexander, who was panting, urgently opened his mouth. An unpleasant voice came out as if it was scratching his lungs.

“Your name, your name…”

“Tell me.”

The young man, holding the doorknob, slowly turned around to look at him. A faint, sorrowful smile flickered in his complex blue eyes.

“…Heinz.”

The moment the young man uttered his name.

Thud!

It felt as if a rock had fallen onto his chest, and the man’s breath caught in his throat.

“Heinz Hazlin.”

He opened his eyes wide, but he could hear nothing, smell nothing, and feel nothing.

“Goodbye, …sir.”

His breath stopped. Life faded away. Red flashes danced across his blurry retinas. Through his dimming vision, he saw the back of Heinz Hazlin walking away from him. And soon, that image merged with the back of Renee, who had turned away from him.

‘Ah, Renee. Renee.’

Alexander Chambler thought again.

‘Did I love her?’

Only when death was right before him could the foolish Alexander Chambler finally offer a truthful answer.

‘Yes.’

‘I……I loved you to death, Renee.’

***

Beep!

“Gasp!”

With ringing in his ears, Alexander gasped for breath roughly and sprang to his feet. His heart and lungs expanded and contracted frantically beneath his heaving chest, like someone who had just survived being submerged in water.

“Ugh, gasp! Gasp! Cough! Ugh, ack!”

Coughing frantically, he stuttered and grabbed the back of his neck with his trembling hand. Fortunately, he could feel his pulse pulsating vigorously, as if he was struggling.

‘What?’

With a white face, he hurriedly looked around. The narrow, rattling fuselage, the thick smell of cigarettes, and the strong scent of whiskey hit his olfactory senses in a familiar way

At that moment, his stupidly frozen head began to work properly. On his way back to Kaliba after a three-month business trip. While looking at the documents, he fell asleep and woke up.

‘So, that was just…’

“…a dream?”

As if grasping the situation, a heavy silence settled heavily within the cramped cabin. He sighed with disappointment, furrowing his brow in frustration.

“Crazy.”

To think that all that vivid and terrifying sense of death was nothing but an illusion that he created.

“…Even if I dream it, it’s a completely different dream.”

Unlike her face, which seemed to be filled with elegance and dignity, what poured out between her lips was a raw curse. He sighed, got up, massaged his stiff neck, and opened the small window.

The strong wind tangled his cheeks and hair as the train rattled along. Even though it is only the beginning of summer, the notorious scorching sun of Kaliba heats up the bedside. Leaning against the window, he searched for a cigarette pack that had been thrown carelessly on the narrow table littered with documents. He scratched the few remaining matches to start a fire and took a long drag on the cheap cigarette. Cloudy smoke, like the devil’s breath, rushed in as if it was encroaching on his body and head.

‘Heinz Hazlin.’

Even give it a name.

“Isn’t it a very detailed setting?” Renee, who secretly gave birth to a child, and me, the idiot who realized at the moment of death that he loved her. Even the third-rate novels piled up in stock on Redditch Street would have been more interesting.

‘Where on earth did that stupid delusion come from?’

Chuckling to himself, he inhaled the smoke deeply until his cheeks hollowed. Renee was the kind of woman who could wake up from sleep and spit curses at him with her eyes wide open. While not necessarily hateful, he was definitely an awkward presence to her.

‘Why wouldn’t he be? After eight years, he suddenly appeared, suggesting a marriage deal like some trashy old acquaintance.’

‘No, can he even be called an acquaintance? An old acquaintance… well, not even that much.’

Chuckling self-deprecatingly, he exhaled the smoke deeply, reminding himself of the name of the woman who was still, for now, his wife. Renee Hazlin. …No, for now, Renee Chambler.

As the train swayed gently, in the distance, he saw the pointed spire of the grand cathedral in Kaliba where they had held their wedding. Closing his eyes to avoid the sharp sunlight piercing through, he recalled the purpose of this return journey. About seven weeks later, on August 31st. The expiration of the contract. He was… on his way back to get a divorce.