My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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My Husband Lives Inside a Painting 001
“You’re a demon, aren’t you?”
I could no longer pretend not to see it, so I finally spoke the words I’d been holding back.
“I won’t break our contract just because of bad luck, but please be honest with me.”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
It was a carefully aimed question, but the man answered with a light scoff.
“Yep. I’m your husband, after all.”
…….
“Hmm? Dear.”
As if he’d been waiting for this moment, his words fell smoothly from his lips. I shifted my gaze and studied him carefully.
Two pointed horns jutted from the top of his head.
A tail stretched long, shaped like an arrowhead.
“Anyone with eyes can see you look like an ordinary human. Right?”
How very reassuring.
I exhaled and spoke.
“I have eyes too, Kamiu.”
Not that it mattered.
“I know. So what?”
…….
“Want me to kiss your eyes?”
‘This won’t work. There’s no reasoning with him.’
I sighed openly.
I felt I’d have better luck talking to a wall shaped like a person.
How could anyone be so shameless? At this point, it had to be a gift.
This man is my husband. My husband, who chose to end his own life two months ago.
It was extraordinary enough that he came back to life inside the canvas I painted, but he’d become a demon on top of it.
‘Is this reality?’
Either I’d gone mad, or the world had. Either way, one of us wasn’t sane.
“Yep. More than that.”
The man, who’d drawn close without my notice, cast his shadow with the sunlight at his back.
Between strands of cherry-blossom-pink hair stirred by the breeze, clear blue eyes gazed directly at me.
“Won’t you do it again today?”
“……You mean the walk?”
“Yeah. I’ve already gotten ready for it.”
A Red Ribbon dropped onto my lap with a soft thud.
When I looked down and then back up, Kamiu was calmly tying the other end of the ribbon around his own neck.
“……Are you serious?”
“Huh? About what?”
The Red Ribbon.
It was something my late husband had prepared for me, someone who dreaded physical contact with him.
Not so I’d use it like a dog leash!
“It’s supposed to be tied around the wrist, not the neck.”
I tried to point it out clearly and calmly, but he paid no attention whatsoever.
“But I like it this way better. It feels more like a proper walk.”
“It’s vulgar.”
“That’s what makes it better.”
…….
To be clear, my husband in life was nothing like this man.
Ortega’s Angel. The perfect groom. A golden ticket through any formal meeting.
Those were the nicknames that had followed Kamiu around. But…….
“Who should I kill this time? Your family? My friends? Or Belladonna?”
“Belladonna is your mother.”
“Oh, right.”
……Sigh.
Looking out over the Flower Field stretched endlessly before us, toward the blue sky beyond, I found myself reflecting on the past.
‘How did things come to this?’
Yes. When I think back on it, all of these strange events began that day.
……The day I lost forever the person I loved most.
Chapter 1. My Husband’s Funeral

Her husband’s body was discovered.
The funeral was conducted with great ceremony. Perhaps even more splendid than our wedding.
“Belladonna, I’m truly sorry to hear such news.”
Even with the eldest son dead, the Ortega Duchy’s standing remained unshaken. If anything, it seemed to have grown more solid.
“If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to say so. And do make sure to eat properly. Do you understand?”
“Sob… sniff…!”
The nobles who attended the funeral descended upon Belladonna like a pack of hyenas that had caught the scent of prey, offering their condolences. Warm sympathies were exchanged, but to my eyes it was nothing more than a well-rehearsed theatrical performance.
‘Is there even one person among them who grieves sincerely?’
A cynical laugh nearly escaped me, but I caught myself. I composed my expression.
‘…No, that’s hardly fair of me to judge.’
Pushed to the edge of the dark crowd, I stood alone watching the old priest’s hollow eulogy, lost in thought.
“…….”
Yes. My husband’s death had dealt me quite a considerable shock.
A memory from my Past Life, something I’d forgotten, suddenly surfaced.
Happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
—The opening line of a novel called Anna Karenina.
But honestly, I still didn’t quite understand its meaning. And there’s a reason for that.
‘You’d have to have lived in a happy family to know.’
I’ve had two families, and both were unhappy.
‘…Or rather.’
Is it three now?
“Kamiu of Ortega, the eldest son and the pride of his lady wife Belladonna, was in life a temperate and virtuous man. Though called to his eternal rest sooner than most, we shall long remember the exemplary life he left behind as a testament to his virtue.”
When the tediously long eulogy finally ended, sturdy laborers emerged carrying the coffin, walking slowly forward.
The old priest cleared his throat twice, then continued in a measured voice.
“According to custom, we should now open the coffin and proceed with the memorial rites. However, at the request of the family, we shall forgo this today.”
At the family’s request. I hadn’t been involved, so this was surely Belladonna’s doing.
And I knew why.
‘Because her husband’s face cannot be shown to others.’
Because his cause of death was…….
Rumble—
“…Ah.”
As if to bid farewell to the departed, the sky opened and rain poured down like a broken dam.
“An umbrella…”
Timed perfectly with the sudden downpour, my mother-in-law Belladonna collapsed over the coffin that lay in the sunken grave.
What followed was an unbearable wail that rang louder than the rain itself.
“Look at Belladonna. Who would have thought that iron-hearted woman could weep so…”
“Well, she loved her son dearly. What did you expect? Tsk.”
“But there were rumors of suicide… is it true?”
“Hush! Don’t speak such things!”
I gripped the umbrella in my hand tightly, stubbornly fixing my gaze straight ahead. My lips pressed firmly shut.
“Oh, Kamiu…! How could you, how could you leave me like this! Sniff…!”
The dark whispers of the crowd. The hideous wailing of Belladonna.
‘Ah, what a noise.’
It was then.
That this theatrical mourning became unbearably irritating.
“I’m surprised you thought to step outside dressed like that.”
“…I apologize.”
“I know your birth is lowborn, but now that you’ve become one of the Ortegas, you should at least maintain a modicum of propriety.”
Belladonna.
This woman who always spoke of noble dignity, today hadn’t even bothered to properly pin up her hair.
It was a truly slovenly sight.
‘…No, I suppose it’s natural when one’s son has died?’
But I shed no tears, so shouldn’t that mean this weeping woman who’s abandoned her composure is simply ridiculous?
Yet when I looked around, everyone but me was a mess.
Even some distant great-aunt I’d never seen before was dabbing at her eyes. Even those who hadn’t shown their faces once in the entire year since I married into this house were standing in the rain, umbrellas cast aside, mourning his death.
‘So why do I feel nothing? Has my capacity for tears run dry?’
The question came naturally, and I found my answer just as quickly.
…Ah.
That’s right. I had never loved Kamiu.
Not even a little.
To draw a conclusion: it felt as though a stone that had been pressing down on her chest all this while had suddenly tumbled away.
‘At last I’ve returned to normal. Yes, this is how it should be.’
She no longer needed to be drawn along by Kamiu into brilliant sunlight for an outing. There would be no need to endure that inexplicable flutter in her heart whenever she caught sight of his fresh smile.
In other words, she had finally recovered her peace.
‘At last, tranquility.’
Yet that night, after the funeral had ended, it was only in the solitude that followed when she finally understood.
Her first life, cut short at the age of twenty-five by a blow from her birth father’s Green Soju Bottle.
Her second life, born as the eldest daughter of a baron’s house while carrying memories of that Past Life, forced to endure another form of misery.
And now, the life that began with an Arranged Marriage to Kamiu.
“My lady, I wish to know you better. So please, do continue to steal my time away.”
Passing through three cold seasons, she had come to know this truth: the only happiness she had ever possessed was this man alone—Kamiu.
My Husband Lives in a Painting
A Novel by Kiki and Pekki
Author
: Kiki and Pekki
Publisher
: Kwon Tae-wan, Woo Cheon-je
E-book Publication Date
: 2026-09-10
Price
: 100 Won (Episodes 1–5 provided free)
Provided by
: CL production
Address
: Room 203, Ace Artisforum, 62 Digital-ro 31-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul
UCI
G720:N+A014-20260901115
This book has been published as an e-book by KWBOOKS in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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