Chapter Text
Jake Kim is such a sweet and chill guy. His jokes can be so cringy, but he pulls them off thanks to that aw-shucks, boyish smile of his. Whenever he talks, he just charms the pants off you (literally).
He’s also a broke boy so being a househusband is the perfect job for him.
You’re his first and only love. He’s carefree, but once he gives you his heart, that’s it. You’re it. He saw the kind of husband his father was[1] and aims to be his antithesis.
However, as much as he rebels against his dad, Jake is still Gapryong Kim’s son.
He can’t help but get involved with other people’s business. It’s not that he’s nosy—well, he’s definitely a gossip, but that’s a separate matter—rather, he has a hero complex. He has been late to almost every date because he can’t say no to those who need help; he was late to your first date because he chased down a thief to return a lady’s purse; he was late in picking you up from work because he gave an elderly couple a ride to their house; he was late to your anniversary dinner because he helped change a stranger’s tire.
He was late to your wedding because there was a fight between several thugs and he had to stop them from ruining a shop. He arrived at the venue with his hair ruined and his tux covered in blood (thankfully, not his). Samuel called him an idiot with a scoff. Sinu Han shook his head, but everyone knew he would’ve done the same. Jerry Kwon prostrated in front of you on behalf of Jake, begging you not to leave. The girls from Big Deal were a chorus of scolding.
But you just smiled and combed Jake’s hair back into place before asking the officiant (Sinu Han) to marry you.
It’s not that Jake doesn’t prioritize you, and it’s certainly not because he doesn’t love you enough. He is simply a man who can’t help but help. You know this, so you can’t get angry—or at least, you can’t stay angry with him.
Unlike many of the Lookism husbands, he’s unabashedly verbal with his affections. There is no shortage of “I love you’s” with this man. He says it when he greets you good morning while handing you a bowl of steamed rice; he says it when he’s dropping you off at work; he texts it at least once a day; and he says it before you go to bed.
Speaking of rice, he struggles with cooking. He’s good at cleaning and fixing stuff, but cooking is still a mountain climb. He’s not completely hopeless—he can cook eggs, fry them, boil them… He’s good with the basics of eggs. He can also cook rice and pasta—just add water. However, he has a hard time with more “complex” recipes like stew. Fortunately, he’s very charming. The housewives in the neighborhood see his cluelessness as an opportunity to be…friendly.
All too often, you’ve come home to see your husband outside your house, smiling but also discretely trying to avoid getting touched by several middle-aged wives. They’re not attempting to grope him, they just want to put a hand over his shoulder or back, but Jake doesn’t want to give you even one thing to worry about.
When he sees you approaching, his smile brightens several kilowatts more and he wastes no time sliding an arm around you. He likes to kiss you in front of the other wives because: 1) he loves kissing you, 2) it tells the world that you’re both happily married and therefore, off limits, and 3) see reason number 1.
The housewives swoon every time you and Jake “show off.” (A tiny part of them is also a bit jealous, maybe even resentful.)
Jake isn’t a jealous person. He’s confident in himself and in his relationship with you. That’s not to say that he doesn’t get wary of how some guys look at you with that look, the look every man has when he’s found someone he wants by his side. So what does he do? He’ll say something to make you laugh then pull you into a hug and kiss you for those guys to see.
He also writes you love notes (some are corny funny, few are funny funny, but a lot are spicy funny) on Post-Its and leaving them in random places: on your phone screen, on a pair of chopsticks, on the bathroom mirror, on your forehead, on his boxers. It’s a game you look forward to everyday.
It’s never a dull moment when you're by each other’s side. But you both agreed that you can’t be glued at the his all the time, so every third of the month, or when your respective friends ask you to hang out, you two spend time separately.
When Jake’s out with his friends, he resists the urge to pay for everyone’s meals, which he did a lot in the past, but it’s not just his bank account anymore. He’s learned to be very careful with money, so he doesn’t eat or drink as much as he used to (though to be honest, it’s also because he misses you and wants to go home as soon as he can).
It should go without saying that any and all seduction attempts simply do not work on him. Now that Jake himself is married, the distance between he and his father grows even bigger. He just doesn’t get his dad.
Jake already married the light of his life, his best friend, so how can he look at anyone else?
Friendship is one of the most important foundations of a relationship, and that holds the truest in your marriage with Samuel Seo. He doesn’t just love or trust anyone, but you’ve been with him through thick and thin, you’ve seen him at his worst, witnessed his most horrible decisions, and still loved him. You chose him, you continue to choose him, and he will never let you down.
Once he is yours, he is yours. He’s been with many girls in the past because of Gapryong Kim’s philosophy about how “real men love their ladies,” but when he realized his feelings for you, everybody else is a blur to him because you shine the brightest.
He has a lot of insecurities. He trusts you with his everything, but he’s suffered so many rejections in the past that it’s hard not to be doubtful of the future. Marrying you calms his fear of being abandoned and tempers his jealousy, but not by a lot.
He loves being your husband, but he struggles being a househusband.
Men who’ve amassed wealth have a hard time understanding the concept of being loved even without their many privileges. Their money plays a huge part in their sense of self. Even though you’ve literally been with him through his bad days, Samuel still can’t help but worry that you would leave him when he loses everything.
Due to his background, it’s going to take a lot of convincing for him to agree to be a househusband. It’s a little bit due to pride, as there is still a widespread belief that men should always be the main provider and he wants to be a good man for you, but it’s mostly because he’s already experienced poverty. He knows what it feels like to worry about when he’s going to eat again, knows what it’s like to go days without taking a bath because his mom couldn’t pay the water bill—and if life screws him over somehow, he can handle that hopelessness. But he never wants you to go through that.
Samuel would only be a househusband once he has saved enough (which would be a LOT, think of your parents’ life savings and multiply it by a billion crap loads), and even then, he still has multiple passive sources of income because he feels useless when he can't contribute financially. (And as much as he loves and trusts you, he hates being dependent on anyone, even you.)
Like many homemakers, he is the bookkeeper of the house. He is very responsible with money, not just with his, but your own savings as well (you both agreed to have separate accounts in addition to a joint account). He will sit you down and break down your monthly expenses for you and help you with taxes. It’s not him being condescending, it’s his way of taking care of you.
He’s no cheapskate though.
He’s not very vocal about his affections. Instead, he prefers showering you with presents, which is why it’s so important to him to have money of his own. You can use money from his personal account, his personal card, and he doesn’t care—just inform him so he can pay the bills.
In addition to bookkeeping, he is a pro in maintaining the house.
He took care of himself and his mother[2] alone, so taking care of you and the home you two share is a piece of cake. He loves it too, because it’s one of the ways he can express his love.
Also, once he settles as a househubby, he seldom leaves the house. He doesn’t have friends. (Well, he has Jake, but Sammy’s too tsundere to admit that.) He spends his days reading and working out, waiting for you to come home.
You worry about his mental health a lot so every now and then, you ask Jake to drag him out of the house. You don’t inform Samuel about the surprise dates, but you both know that he already knows that you’ve talked with Jake, but he’s secretly happy with the arrangement so he never brings it up.
As you can probably tell, Samuel tends to overcompensate in the marriage.
Even as a househusband who never asks you to lift a finger at home, he still insists on maintaining multiple sources of income (all of which you have legal rights to), buys you things all the while refusing to take money from your separate account.
Have you seen his narrow-minded pursuit for approval? Whether it be with Gun Park or Gapryong Kim, when Samuel puts his mind into something, he obsesses over it, he devotes everything he has into reaching his goal. That’s how he is in your marriage—always competing with an invisible foe. Always acting like he has to prove that you didn’t make the wrong choice saying ‘yes,' over and over and over.
You have to sit him down, hold his face between your hands and remind him that he doesn’t have to try so hard with you. Then he’ll melt into your arms all over again.