Values in MySQL 8 document store are being escaped when stored, but not unescaped when retrieved

Question

I have PHP 8 and MySQL 8 running using the xdevapi. Everything is working well with it, but I am running into an issue storing data in a document in a collection.

I have the following methods in a class:

use YYY\DatabaseDS;

final class Draft
{
    private mysql_xdevapi\Collection $collection;   

    /**
     * @param DatabaseDS $pdo The database connection.
     */
    public function __construct(
        public DatabaseDS $pdo,
    ) {
        $this->collection = $this->pdo->getCollection('drafts');
    }

    /**
     * @param string $draftID The primary key for the draft.
     * @param array  $data    The SOW data in object format
     * @return void
     */
    private function updateDraftData(string $draftID, array $data): void
    {
        $doc = json_encode($data);
        $this->collection->replaceOne($draftID, $doc);
    }

    /**
     * @param string $hash The identifying hash for the draft.
     * @return array
     */
    private function getDraftStructure(string $hash): array
    {
        $results = $this->collection->find('hash = :hash')
            ->bind(['hash' => $hash])
            ->execute();

        return $results->fetchOne();
    }
}

I also have a document similar to this one:

{"name": "Alfred", "age": 42, "job": "Butler/Maid"}

When saving the document, the value for job is being escaped so it looks like Butler\/Maid. The problem comes when retrieving the value. I would expect the value I retrieve to be identical to what I saved to the document, but the escaped value is still there. If I save it again, it saves as Butler\\\/Maid escaping everything another time.

Is there a way to retrieve the value without having to manually change it back? Or am I going to have to look at going back to using multiple database systems again?