06

FLASHBACK

The day I left the country was the most painful time of my life. Earlier that day, I received a letter from Kim’s lawyer that he was filing a case against me, and that was to nullify my marriage to Yen. I didn’t want to make it hard for them, so I decided to run away, thinking I could forget her easily.

I had been sleepless for who knows how long, and words were not enough to describe the pain I was struggling to overcome. Yet, even if the pain was too much and I was tempted several times to slam my car into a post or pull it over a cliff, something was always holding me. And that’s my reluctance to let Yen live in guilt.

Yet, I had set her free and didn’t want her to be responsible for my misfortune if ever I let my sorrows kill me.

However, even if I had set her free willingly without a fight, it still hurt like hell. I didn’t even know how I’d survive for a day. I couldn’t seem to live without her, but it would be selfish of me to hold her back from where she’s happier.

I am with a huge flaw – and I couldn’t make her happy.

What shattered me first was when I learned she married Kim in the second year of our relationship. Not just to some acquaintance, but Kim Mori, the CEO and owner of Kim Yuan’s Microelectronics, Inc.

I didn’t know about her marriage with him at first, but I found it out when she worked for Mr. Kim Mori. I noticed later that there was something in the way Mr. Kim looked at her that I began to suspect. She often went home late and had many excuses. And all her alibis always linked to dinner meetings or out-of-town trips with Mr. Mori.

I started hiring people to stalk them, and one of them was working for Mr. Mori in the same building where they both held their office. I knew it was wrong, but I was dying to know the reasons behind Yen’s strange behaviors.

Until I learned what truly happened. And that their marriage happened when she got an offer to work in Japan. It was shortly after our second anniversary as lovers.

It turned out that her job offer was not only about the opportunity but a planned move. Mr. Williams, the owner of Quicksend Remittance who was her employer, was not just her boss, but her biological father. He was looking for Yen for several years until someone led him to her.

One night, when Mr. Williams threw Yen a party to introduce her to his corporate world, she met Mr. Kim Mori. And that was how their relationship started and how Yen first betrayed me. They fell in love, got married soon, and even had twins. But Yen never told me about it, even with a simple message. I was like an idiot, patiently waiting for her to come back.

After a year of their marriage, something happened. She had a fight with Kim that made her furious. She went out to a bar with a friend, not knowing that her friend sold her to her long-time suitor, Josh Herra. She was almost raped – thankfully, Kim arrived to save her.

Too scared by what happened inside when Kim fired his pistol against Josh Herra, she ran out of the room, not expecting that a worse evil awaited her.

James Mori, Kim’s cousin whose name always linked to womanizing, caught her and threw her inside a room. Whoever may have witnessed how it happened and how it came that Kim got misled, I knew it was because it all happened in James Mori’s territory. Instead of looking for her inside the premises, Kim hurried away, chasing Josh Herra’s men, whom he may have thought as the ones who took Yen away.

The most unthinkable thing then happened – James Mori and his men successfully molested her. Perhaps, she was not yet fated to be ruined forever because a waiter insisted that we should check what happened in that room.

It was such a coincidence that I was at the same place with an investigation team to monitor James Mori’s illegal activities. And the waiter was right when we checked the establishment’s CCTV. I saw Yen, to my horror, coming out of the door almost naked. And I saw how James Mori caught and forced her inside the room.  My team and I ran to rescue her, but we were too late.

I may have rescued Yen, but something horrifying happened to her – she could not recognize me anymore. That must be so traumatic for her, and I didn’t want Yen to suffer from shame and media exposure anymore. Not until her memories are back.

I asked my team to keep this thing a secret first. Thankfully, they agreed, and that also meant hiding all the pieces of evidence of the incident.

They entrusted Yen to me and allowed me to take her back to the Philippines through our private plane. I knew there would be consequences for withholding the truth, but I couldn’t care less. Yen’s privacy was more important to me.

I brought her to a hospital directly, had her undergo hymenoplasty, and pretended I didn’t know about her rape incident. No one else knew about her misfortune in Japan, except for my team who helped us and Maezy, Kim’s mistress, after Yen disappeared.

I thought her dissociative amnesia would heal right away, but it didn’t. And the memory loss was extensive – she didn’t remember anything that happened in Japan. Fortunately, she recognized me later, her family, and everyone else; except for Kim, her father, and everyone she met in Japan.

Since I didn’t know that she was already a married woman, I proposed to her. We then got married, bought a house, established a chain of coffee shops, and lived normal lives. I didn’t bother to know what happened to her in Japan – all I cared about was the present and that she was with me.

But one day, Kim appeared, claiming her back as the wife he married in Japan. I could have fought back in court, but I chose not to. Through my discreet investigations, I already knew their secret affair, and I saw how happy Yen was whenever she was with him. Kim made her truly happy, while I couldn’t.  And that happiness wasn’t about wealth alone because I could also provide it for her. It’s all about my flaw.

And my flaw is that I go limp in bed, depriving her of the full sexual satisfaction a woman has to have.

Three years have passed after I left the country, and I’m sure Yen vaguely remembers me. However, she took something away from me, and that’s my capacity to love again. And the day I stepped out of our matrimonial house is the day I swore I’d never hooked up with any woman again.