It’s with exhilarating pleasure that the husband bidded his wife goodbye at the airport. She was leaving for a vacation. To where he did not remember, only that she would be gone for a week, which was enough time for him to relieve the pleasure of his old bachelor life. His genuine happiness irritated his wife. She chastised him and reminded him again of the house chores. He nodded absently, and forgot everything she said after her plane took off.

The first day was the paradise he had expected. He woke up without the sound of the alarm clock, without the icky morning coddles, without the nagging of his overstrown underwear and his misplaced cup. “Misplaced cup, damn that woman, as if it were a crime,” he thought. To make a point of it, he displaced the cup two inches from its designated place by the sink. He cocked his head—no police siren sounded outside—and declared himself a victory. 

It’s the third day when he noticed he started drinking again. First, it’s a bottle to celebrate the return of his bachelor life. Then it’s two bottles to celebrate the return of the booze. Then it’s three bottles to cope with the intense guilt that came with the relapse into his old habit. The day bled into the night, the night as exciting as day. Last, when he woke up and found himself half naked on the floor. Sweating and retching over the sink, he knew that he had gone too far. 

“How did all these come about?” He thought. He scratched his head and picked up the empty bottles strewn across the floor. Despite his hangover, he remembered two years ago he had said the same words to the doctor who diagnosed him with jaundice. “You should curb your drinking,” the doctor had said, and mercilessly threw him into rehab with a bunch of crazy heads. When he returned home after ten days, his room had been scrubbed clean by his wife—girlfriend at the time—who, deciding to help him stay sober, had moved in with him. A schedule was taped behind the bathroom door, which the doctor prescribed and she had him religiously follow: three cups of water in the morning, one cup at night, always brush teeth, always cuddle before bed… Her presence had filled his most vulnerable time at night. When the withdrawals hit hard, she would take him out of the house. They would walk around the park till his urge died. Then they would go home, watch a bad soap opera, and of course cuddle to sleep. Thinking about this, he smiled and hummed the theme song of the soap opera as he cleaned up his mess.  

He greeted his wife with the same genuine happiness when she arrived back from her vacation. “I thought you would not like to see me,” she chuckled. “I thought so too,” he replied, “but it turned out otherwise.” The husband took the luggage in, took his wife out for a fine dinner. They walked around the park twice, and at night, watched the latest episode of their Korean drama show. Nestling in his chest, she told him how she missed him and how he did everything great at home other than a tiny thing that the cup is supposed to line with other cups along the sink. “I know I can count on you to put it back, just as you had done with my life.” he kissed her on the forehead and cuddled her to sleep.