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Chapter 30: Her Superpower – September 19, 2025

Vanilla.

Myeong woke up to its comforting aroma filling their apartment.  The cry of a newborn baby then besieged his ears before his eyes even opened.  But the first delightful thing to touch any of his senses was that sweet smell.  His favorite one. The fragrance of vanilla. 

It led him to the kitchen.  Where he found his darling wife teaching his daughter how to make the cookies whose perfection had always eluded him.  He was suddenly grinning from ear to ear as his fingers snagged a cookie off a wire rack. 

Haewon turned towards him.  “Hey, buddy, what do you think you’re doing with that cookie?”

His eyebrows rose in innocence.  “Isn’t this the taste test?  My olfactory nerves were insisting that this was the right room for the contest.  I am in the right place, aren’t I?”

A bright smile suddenly lit her face as she responded, “Yes, you are most definitely in the right place.” 

She walked towards him and slid her arms around his waist as he bit into the cookie.  His eyes closed reflexively as the tantalizing flavor of rich vanilla extract exploded on his taste buds. 

“Oh, yeah,” he moaned.  “That’s the cookie I spent nearly a decade trying to bake.  You got it right in the first try.  You are absolutely amazing.  Maybe your superpower is baking.”

As he opened his eyes to smile down at her, he slid his free arm around her and drew her close.

“My superpower?” she queried as a chuckle vibrated her voice.

“Hmm.”  He was munching on the cookie again.

“Myeong, what are you talking about?”

“Your life story is like something out of a graphic novel.  The hero dies to save you and leaves you his heart.  Such a tale always comes with a superpower, doesn’t it?  I figured that Eunho’s heart must have given you one.”

“It did.”

He just stared at her.  “Well…what is it?”

“Life.”

He smirked at her.  “I know that much, but I’m convinced you got something else too.”

Later that day, as his girls were preparing for tonight’s party, once again he thought that perhaps he had discovered Haewon’s hidden power.  He was wandering down the hallway towards his bedroom when he passed his wife and daughter in Dahui’s room.  He stopped in the doorway to witness Haewon patiently unwinding their daughter’s curls.  In utter astonishment, Myeong watched as the woman miraculously tamed the unruly mass. 

She was teaching the girl how to fix her own hair.  But he could tell by the look on Dahui’s face that she was delighting in having her eomma dress her long locks.  They were finally halfway down the girl’s back now.  Myeong reflected upon his daughter’s striking beauty even as he wondered if detangling temptuous tresses counted as a superpower.  In his book it did.  He still rememembered the many painful evenings he and Dahui had endured while he tried to tame those crazy curls by himself.

But that evening as they gathered with friends and family at Nari’s grand mansion to celebrate a double adoption, Myeong continued to watch his wife with wonder.  It was only as he observed the tenderness with which she held their son – and the brilliant light in her eyes as she cooed down at him – that Myeong realized he had finally found the answer to that old question of his.  Myeong had discovered it.  Haewon’s superpower.

It was love.

––

Haewon stood in Nari’s hall holding her tiny Eunho close to her heart as she gazed down into his adorable face.  Then her eyes strayed to her daughter’s dark head.  The girl was bent over whispering into her cousin’s ear.  Ajin suddenly giggled, drawing Haewon’s attention for a second.  But soon she had bent her gaze upon her children again.  The two namesakes.

Tonight they were celebrating their adoptions with friends and family.  Myeong and Haewon had officially adopted Eunho at his birth, but the paperwork they’d filed for her to adopt Dahui as her daughter had not been finalized until yesterday.  So they had decided to plan the celebration of both adoptions for this evening.  Dahui was now truly Haewon’s daughter in every way that counted.  Myeong and Haewon also finally had the son their hearts had craved.

But this young mother found herself remembering the past again.  Two lonely individuals who had each spent their lives craving one thing.  Love.  Eunho had taken a destructive path in an attempt to hide from the pain his appa’s rejection had birthed in his heart.  Dahui had pursued a relationship with a kind man and been blessed with his affection for the remainder of her days.  Still, that gaping hole in her heart had persisted in bothering her.  The question of her identity had continued to ache like a too-loose tooth that refuses to let go. 

Haewon prayed that she and Myeong would prove capable of providing those two little namesakes with a better foundation for the future than either of their elders’ parents had given them.  A broken girl had given away her baby to parents who had been clueless about the importance of lavishing their love and affection on a young girl.  After pouring her affection upon her son, a sickly eomma had left him behind to a violent man and a bitter woman.  Neither Dahui nor Eunho had been given much to work with.

But Myeong and Haewon were working together to raise their own Dahui to know her true worth.  The great value she held in their hearts.  They both were striving daily to communicate to her her preciousness to them.  Now they were also joining forces with Bada to lavish their love on a little boy who would grow up under the attentive affection of not only an eomma and an appa but also an adoring, elder sister and a devoted birth mother.   Hopefully, by working together, they could all redeem the life of that tiny innocent.

If only someone had done that for Eunho.

Haewon sighed with sadness.  Heejin glanced over at her and noticed her distress.  She crossed the room to the tiny woman.

“Hey, sis.  What’s wrong?”

Haewon looked up in surprise.  Heejin had never referred to their relationship before.  “I was just thinking about your brother.”

Heejin eyed her for a moment.  “Your love redeemed him, you know?” she remarked suddenly.

Haewon’s eyes widened in astonishment.  “What?  How did you know––?  I was just thinking about how no one’s love had rescued him from his horrible childhood.”

“It’s not true, though, Haewon.  Your love for him changed him.  I saw it happen.  It was real.”  She lifted her hand and set it over Haewon’s heart.  “Any time you doubt that, just remember: the evidence lies here.”

Tears flooded their eyes in that moment as they met.

“Thank you, Heejin,” Haewon whispered.

Still…she hoped her own children’s path to wholeness was more peaceful than either the elder Eunho’s or the motherly Dahui’s had been.

As Heejin turned away from her, Haewon felt a strong arm snaking around her waist and drawing her near to a tall man.  Tall for her anyway.

“My love…are you all right?” Myeong purred into her ear as he bent his head low.  Close to hers.

She nodded.  But then she blinked, and her tears coursed down her cheeks. 

“I was just hoping that our children have an easier path than the ones we named them after.”

“Ah.  But, of course, they will, darling.  You see, I’ve discovered that you do have a superpower.  Actually,” he raised his head, “you have several superpowers…baking…detangling hair…” He grinned at her.  “Captivating an entire classroom full of children…All amazing superpowers.  And very needed.  Especially by this appa.  But tonight I discovered what your main superpower is.  And it’s the most powerful one you could possess.”

She wrinkled her brow at him.

He bent and kissed her on the nose before whispering, “Love.  And love, my dear, covers a multitude of sins.  It also, when perfected, casts out all fear.  Our children – Eunho and Dahui – are two of the most blessed kids on the planet.  They are going to grow up strong and compassionate.  All because you entered our lives.”

More tears slid down her cheek.  “And because you did too, Myeong,” she whispered.

He smiled at her as their daughter came running up to them.  “Eomma!  Appa!  Can I stay the night at Ajin’s tonight?”

“See?  That is one happy, little girl,” Myeong breathed into his wife’s ear a moment later after they had granted Dahui permission to sleep over at her cousin’s house.

Haewon beamed up at him.  “And I am one happy, little eomma.”

Just then, baby Eunho stirred in her arms and opened his eyes to gaze up at his mother.  She smiled down at him.  Then she unwittingly echoed the words of another eomma.  Words that had continued to reverberate in her son’s heart long after she was gone.  Words that would ring in this little one’s heart forever too.

“I love you, Eunho.”