I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles whitened, the leather creaking under my fingers. The car’s engine hummed steadily, but inside my head, it was a roar. Her words from the dinner table still echoed—sharp, cutting, delivered with that stubborn fire she seemed to save especially for my family. My jaw ached from clenching it through the meal. I had tried to let it slide, for the kids, for appearances. But then my mother’s face—tight with offense, my father’s pointed silence—made that impossible.

"You have no respect," I said, my voice low at first, the kind that meant danger. "None at all, Kaori." I didn’t look at her; I kept my eyes on the dark road ahead. Her reflection in the passenger-side window shifted, but she didn’t answer right away. That was worse.

I slammed my palm against the wheel. "Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me? For our family? In front of the children, no less."

Her head turned, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her expression—calm, but edged with steel. "Humiliating for you, or humiliating for them? Because I won’t sit there and smile while they pick apart everything about me. My hair, my dress, the way I hold Nara, even the fact that I let Jaeyun get his own juice—"

"That’s called tradition," I snapped, cutting her off. "They’re guiding you. They want you to fit in."

"Fit in? You mean disappear. Become some decoration to make the Choi family look perfect in their dinner photos."

My teeth ground together. "They are my parents. They built everything I have. Everything we have. You don’t get to talk back like some—"

"Some what?" she bit out. "Some woman who refuses to be told she’s not good enough for your name?"

The silence after that was thick, broken only by the faint snuffle of Nara in her car seat behind us and the rhythmic breathing of Jaeyun, asleep against his booster straps. Their innocence made the weight in my chest heavier.

"You think this is about you," I said, forcing my voice down, though the anger still burned hot. "But it’s about the example we set. They’re watching us, Kaori. They’re learning how a wife should treat her husband’s family—"

She laughed, short and humorless. "If that’s what they learn, then God help Jaeyun’s future wife."

My hands flexed on the wheel. Part of me wanted to end the conversation there, to drive in silence and let the cold night air from the slightly open window swallow our words. But another part—frustrated, aching—wanted her to understand.

"You make me choose," I said finally. "Every time, you make me choose between you and them."

She didn’t answer right away, but when she did, her voice was quiet. "No. They make you choose. And you always choose them."

The words hit harder than I expected. My throat tightened, but I said nothing. The city lights flickered past, blurred streaks of white and amber. Somewhere between here and home, we’d have to calm down, paste on tired smiles, carry sleeping kids to bed. But in this car, in this moment, there was nothing but the divide between us—wider than ever, stretching out like the road ahead.