Blog

Chapter 28: Love’s Rainbow – August 12, 2025

Jungkook’s hand embraced Yunyeong’s as they ambled through his grandparents’ backyard towards their secret garden.  A bag slung over her shoulder, she was carrying their infant in her free arm. Jaedeok was sleeping peacefully, nestled close to his mother’s heart.  Jungkook was making good use of his other arm too.  He was cradling their slumbering daughter against his chest. 

Every time he bent his head to plant a kiss on the top of hers, the dark hairs from her little waterspouts tickled his nose.  Yunyeong watched a huge grin erupt in the middle of his face each time their daughter’s hair teased his skin.  Then it would fade to be replaced by an expression of such ineffable tenderness that her heart would skip a beat.  She was truly thankful for this beautiful man and the two precious children he had given her.

A few moments later, Jungkook released her hand to open the gate to their hiding place.  Yunyeong set her feet upon the gray stone path as she headed towards their bench.  A moment later, she eased her burdens as she sat down on one end of that lovely seat.  Jungkook settled himself next to her as his daughter’s prone body slid down into his lap, her head coming to cushion itself against his torso. 

As Yunyeong glanced at their daughter, she giggled.  “That can’t be a very comfortable position.”

Confused, Jungkook frowned and sought clarification.  “What?”

“She is nestled up against your abs, Kookie.  I know for a fact that all your guys are still in there,” she whispered teasingly.

A puff of air escaped his nose as he too laughed.  Then he sobered as he thankfully acknowledged that his “guys” no longer scared her.  He still remembered that first day when she’d told him to put his shirt back on.  He hadn’t understood her discomfort in his presence then.  But the day had eventually arrived when she had trusted him enough to spill her blackest secret to him.  She’d truly let him into her heart that day.  After which he had spent months leading her slowly and sweetly down the road to healing. 

As his eyes slid along the planes of their son’s sleeping face, Jungkook recognized that Jaedeok and Jangmi were a testimony to just how free Yuni had become.  She had embraced the healing that Jungkook had hidden in his heart for her.  They had found a place of peace and pleasure in each other’s company.  He smiled at her now as his eyes lifted to kiss her beautiful countenance.

“I can hardly believe it’s been six years since you first unveiled our garden to me in all its beauty.” 

Yunyeong glanced around at the lovely landscape bursting with color.  She inhaled deeply as her head filled with the lush perfume of her favorite flowers.  Jungkook had built her an oasis.  Six years later, she was still reveling in it.

Suddenly, she gasped, “Kookie!  Look!  A rainbow!” 

Yunyeong lifted her hand to point up into the sky hanging over their garden.  A resplendent rainbow shone in that cerulean dome, suspended over their salubrious sanctuary.  The smile lighting up her face rivaled that rainbow in beauty.  For a few moments, Jungkook was so captivated by her joy that his eyes clung to her countenance instead of seeking out the object of her awe.  His gaze slid over radiant face, her emerald eyes still lifted in wonder as they studied the seven shining colors displayed in the heavens.

Then her eyes shifted to meet his.  “Isn’t it beautiful, Kookie?”

He nodded his head, though he hadn’t even looked at it yet.  As her eyes embraced his, she found herself breathless.  It was the expression in his gaze that had stolen that breath.  She stared into his great, obsidian depths for a few moments, happily losing herself there.  Then a sweet smile slid across her face as she asked with amusement, “You didn’t even look at the rainbow, did you?”

He lifted his eyes then.  To the heavens.  And stole their light.  All seven of their rich colors.  For a moment later, they were illuminating his face with her joy.

“Kookie,” she whispered then, “I have a gift for you.”

Surprised, he glanced back down at her.  He watched as she reached into the bag she’d set down next to her hip on the end of the bench.  But she realized that her gift was too big to unearth with only one hand.  So she simply picked up the bag and dragged it over to Jungkook’s lap.  As it came to rest on his knees, she beamed up at him.

“Open it.”

He glanced down into the bag and pulled out a rectangular box that had been wrapped in rainbow paper.  He laughed as he studied it.  Clearly, the seven colors had been sketched upon its white surface by a tiny hand.  Waxy red and orange trails meandered and intertwined with green and blue patches.  Yellow scribbles were overrun by indigo and purple squiggles. 

His nose twitched as he asked, “Did our daughter help you with this present?”

Yunyeong bobbed her head.  “She sure did.  She spent several minutes coloring that paper with her crayons.  Just for you.”

His eyes filled with tenderness as he glanced down at his sleeping Jangmi.  “Perhaps I should wait to open it until she wakes up.”

“No.  The gift inside is from me.  Just try not to rip the wrapping paper.  When she wakes up, you can tell her how beautiful her drawing is.”

“Just like her eomma’s,” he whispered, his eyes alight with his affection for Yuni.

Jungkook spent a careful minute slowly pulling the tape off the paper.  When he had finally freed it all, he lifted the colorful page and folded it gently before putting it back into the bag.  Then he reached down to pick up the box.  As he turned it around, a grin suffused his face with light.  For he was gazing down at seven beautiful books nestled inside that cardboard bookcase.  His eyes slid along the septet.  Each spine was a different color of the rainbow.  His gaze, beginning on the left, slid to the right through crisp crimson, fiery orange, glowing gold, a deep forest green, a bright cerulean blue, rich indigo, and finally a vivid violet.  His eyes read the septet’s title, Love’s Secret Garden.

“Your books!  It’s the entire series!” he exclaimed. 

She nodded her head as he unearthed the first one.  It was entitled simply, The Rose.  Its crimson spine bled onto the white cover.  In its center was a painting of their beautiful garden.  The focal point was a ravishing, red rose.  As he opened the cover, his eyes fell to its inside page.  In her lovely script, Yunyeong had signed his book.  She began to read its inscription to him.

“To Kookie, the love of my life.  Your light rescued me from darkness.  The seven colors of your love for me continue to illuminate my world with wonder.  Nothing is gray to me anymore.  The only obsidian left in my world is your beautiful eyes.  The only white, the blinding beauty of your grin.  I love you.  With all my heart.  Forever.  You gifted me a garden.  I will always love you for that precious gift.  You designed a sanctuary for my soul.  Let’s spend the rest of our lives living in the secret garden your love built for me.” 

Then she had signed it, “Jeon Yunyeong.”  She hadn’t published any of her books until after she’d taken his name.  She had found that very fitting.  And quite right.  She would never have unleashed her words on the world if not for Kookie.

As his eyes met hers, she spoke, “You gave me the courage to let my voice be heard, Kookie.  I will always be grateful for the strength you’ve lent me.”

He had no words for her, so he simply smiled at her.  As his rays wrapped around her, he bent towards her and sealed her lips with a kiss.  But as she deepened that kiss, he found he did have some words.  Perhaps her generous gift had lent them to him.

He murmured against her lips, “Yuni, I have always seen your true worth.  You are worth a thousand secret gardens to me.  I’m so happy that you picked up your pen and shared all the beauty hidden in your heart with me.  And with the world.  Never stop writing, my love.  Never stop expressing your heart.  For it too contains the seven colors of love’s rainbow.  And I, for one, love to be splashed by them.”

As a tear slid down her cheek, she brushed another kiss across his arresting lips.  And captured the fire he’d hidden in his soul for her.

“You know,” he remarked a few minutes later, “your colors are lighting up someone else’s world now.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him.  “What do you mean?”

“These beautiful books.”  The pad of his thumb caressed the cover of her first book.  The one she’d written while Kookie built her a garden.  “Someone has been living in a black-and-white world, Yuni.  But she picked up your book in a store and read it.  And it flooded her life with your colors.” 

His gorgeous, obsidian eyes embraced hers again.  And she had to acknowledge that the colors of Kookie’s love for her were so strong that, of course, they would bleed into someone else’s universe and enlighten it too.