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Chapter 11: A Fairy Tale Ending Complete with a Chocolate Moose? – November 9 – 14, 2020

The next day Jin appeared at their door, a box in his hand.

“Minhyuk, I didn’t forget you,” he murmured to the little boy as he entered the living room.  “I saw this when I was visiting the candy shop.”

Of course, he didn’t mention that he had gone there purposefully just to find a certain something for a particular little boy.  He also didn’t bother to tell them that he had special-ordered it.

Minhyuk stared up at the large box.  Large for a box of candy, that was.  His eyes grew round.

“That’s a box of candy?” he breathed in awe.  “The whole thing?”

Jin grinned at him as his eyes met Yura’s.  “Why don’t you open it and find out?”

“If it’s a whole box of candy, you may not eat the whole thing tonight,” Yura reminded her son sternly.  

But her eyes were smiling when she glanced at Jin.

Minhyuk took the box with a quiet, “Thank you.”

He opened it and peeked inside.  His face lit up.  “I think it’s chocolate.  Is it chocolate?”  He glanced up at Jin.

Jin squatted down next to him.  “Here.  Let me help you.”  

He reached inside and grabbed the white plastic tray and pulled it out.  To reveal the special surprise.

Yura gasped and started laughing.

Minhyuk furrowed his little brow for a moment as he looked at it, then he suddenly exclaimed, “Is that a chocolate moose?!”

Jin nodded his head.  “Can you believe it?!  I found a real chocolate moose!”

A wide grin on his face, he glanced up at Yura.

“You just happened to find it, did you, Jin?” she asked, dryly.

But then a light of such brightness passed over her face that Jin blinked.  He saw her eyes fill with tears before she turned and walked towards her bedroom.   He smiled down at the little boy.

“Minhyuk, do you want me to cut you a piece off to eat?”

The little boy hugged the chocolate moose to his chest.  “No!” he cried.  “I don’t want to eat it.  It’s the only chocolate moose there is!  I want to save it.”

Jin smiled again.  “I thought you might say that, so I got you these too.”  He pulled a little bag from his pocket and handed it to the tiny boy he now thought of as his son.  “But eat only two.”

His little face lit up with joy as he accepted the chocolate candies.  “I want to give Eomma one too!”

“Let’s wait a little while.  I need to talk to your eomma right now.  Want to watch an educational program?”

Minhyuk slid him a disappointed glance.  “Not an educatial program, Mr. Jin!”

Jin chuckled.  “What then?  Pororo?”

His little head bobbed up and down.

Jin settled him on the couch with his program and his chocolates before heading for Yura’s bedroom.

He slipped through her open doorway and crossed the room.  She was staring out her window as tears streamed down her face.

“How did I find you again?  How is it that you can still love me?  And adore my son the way you do?  You are the kindest of men, Jin.”

He walked up behind her and slid his arms around her waist from behind.  He drew her up against him.  And bent to kiss her shoulder once.

“You didn’t find that chocolate moose at the candy store, did you?  You had it specially made for Minhyuk.”

He didn’t even bother to answer her question.

“I love you, Yura.  I have never not loved you.  Not since the first moment of second grade.  You stole my little seven-year-old heart, and you never gave it back.  I don’t want it back.  I just want you.”

She continued to sob.

“I don’t want to waste any more time, Yura,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Marry me.  This weekend.  I don’t need a big wedding.  I just want you.  And I want to start now.  Undoing all the damage Seungbin did to you: body and soul.”

She stilled.  

It was the fairy tale.  What he was describing.  After all this time and all the dirty water that had flowed under their bridge, Jin still wanted to give her the fairy tale.  The very thing she’d never deserved.

“He lied to you.  He battered your soul with lie after lie.  You never drove Seungbin to sleep with those other girls.  He didn’t leave you because you were lesser.  He left you for them because you were greater.  You were too good for him, and he knew it.  

“Had he really loved you, he would have done everything in his ability to make you happy.  He would have never looked at another woman.  He could never have allowed himself to sleep with one.  I know.  Because I’ve loved you my whole life, and even when you left me, I couldn’t really look at another girl.  I certainly couldn’t have taken one to my bed.  

“He shouldn’t have been thinking of his own needs but of yours.  You were carrying his child, for goodness’s sake!  He should have pampered you.  Adored you for suffering so he could have that adorable son.  And to threaten him,” Jin was fuming again.  “If this were the Middle Ages, I would find a sword and run him through for breathing out one breath of a threat against that beautiful, little boy.

“And another thing: I know I’m going to enjoy myself in your bed, so put all those worries out of your head.  Right now.”  He bent his own head and brushed his lips across hers, lighting a fire in her belly.

“Marry me this weekend, Yura.  Please.  So I can indulge in the fire you set in my soul.”

She giggled against his lips.  “Jin, are you sure?”

He nodded.  “We’ll marry privately.  We can have another ceremony on Valentine’s Day for all our friends.  Okay?”

She gazed up at him.  Then she glanced at her bed. “Can we take that bed with us when we move in with you?”

“Absolutely.  I’ve been waiting years to enjoy you in that bed.”  He gazed down at her intensely.  “Definitely worth the wait,” he mumbled before his lips captured hers again.

—

The next night he was waiting for her when she stumbled through the door.   She glanced up, surprised.

“Where’s Minsu?”

“She took Minhyuk back to her apartment so we could have a little alone time.”

She smiled sadly at him.  “I’m sorry, Jin.  I’m just beat.”

“Come,” he rushed to her and swept her off her feet.  He carried her into her bedroom and deposited her on her big bed.  “You get comfy.  I’m bringing you dinner in bed.”

“Dinner in bed?” she scoffed.  “Who ever heard of dinner in bed?”

“I just invented it,” he declared as he strode from the room.

A few moments later, he entered carrying a tray.  Full of food.  On two plates.  He put the tray over her lap and sat down next to her.  She glanced at all the food.

“Jin!  This looks amazing!  Did you make it all?”

He nodded.  “For you, my queen.”

Then he leaned towards her and kissed her.  “Come now.  Eat up.  You must keep your strength up.  You’re marrying me on Saturday, and I expect you to entertain me in this bed that night.”

She burst out laughing.  “Jin!  Sometimes you say the most outrageous things!”

“It’s because you’re so beautiful, my dear.  You make me want you.  So come on.  Feed your lovely self.  I expect you to gain a pound tonight.”

She sniggered as she gazed at all the delicious food he’d made for her.  “If you keep feeding me like this, I’m bound to gain more than a pound.”

“Excellent!  I think I would adore a fat wife.”

She giggled as she shook her head.  But on the inside of her heart, his sweet and silly words were cascading like healing waters down the raw flesh Seungbin’s cruelty had exposed.

Jin continued to sweetly tease her as they shared his excellent food.  When it was all gone – he had insisted she eat every single bite that he didn’t eat – he took the tray from her.

“Feel better?” he asked.

She nodded and leaned her head back against the wall.  She closed her eyes.  “Immensely.”

He set the tray at the end of her bed.  Then he climbed off of it.  She had the sense that he had come to rest on the floor next to her side of the massive bed.  She opened her eyes and was shocked to discover him kneeling next to her bed.  Gazing up at her with such a hungry look in his eyes that her stomach flipped over.  As she met his gaze, a slow smile stretched across his face.

“I love you, Yura.  Will you marry me on Saturday?”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a box.  He opened it and set it in the middle of his palm before holding it up before her face.

She gazed down at a flawless solitaire engagement ring.  A big one.  Was that half a carat?

She stared at that gold band and that sparkling stone of perfection.  

Every girl’s dream.  

The thing Seungbin hadn’t bothered to furnish her with.  If he had, she could have sold it to take care of her son when she found the courage to leave the man whose seed had produced him.  But who had never been his appa.  This beautiful man on his knees in front of her was Minhyuk’s true appa.  And her one true love.

Her eyes met Jin’s.  As tears slipped out to fall down to her shirt.  She nodded as she sobbed.

He took the ring and slid it over her finger.  She gazed down at it with shock in her eyes.

“Jin, it’s a perfect fit.”

“You’ve always been my perfect match, Yura.”  

He stared down at that ring on her finger.  “Still a perfect fit after all these years,” he mumbled to himself.

Shock hit her.  “What did you say?”

He glanced up into her eyes.

“It still fits you.”

“What do you mean?  Still?”

“I bought this ring for you one month before we graduated high school.”

“You what?!”  

She couldn’t breathe.  She really couldn’t.  She inhaled sharply.

He nodded.

She gaped at him as she took several deep breaths.  “You kept it all these years?”

He nodded.  “I guess my dream of you never died.  I always doubted Seungbin would take good care of you.  I think I always hoped you’d find your way back to me.  That when you tired of him, you would seek me out.”  

He gazed down at the ring as his thumb caressed it along with her finger.  “I just could never bear the idea of selling it.  That would have been accepting the death of my life’s dream.”  His eyes pierced hers.  “You.  With me.  In my arms.  As you were always in my heart.”

“Oh, Jin,” she whispered.  

She began to sob again.  Because this was the fairy tale.  She was getting the second chance she’d prayed for so many times.  The one she hadn’t really believed in.  The one she’d known she didn’t deserve.  The one in which Jin redeemed all the years she’d lost.  When he turned back time to that day in the hallway when he’d begged her to marry him instead of Seungbin.

It was now as though she had said yes then.  He had just slid his ring on her finger.  He’d promised to be an appa – a good one – to her son.  And he’d insisted they marry in a few days so that they wouldn’t waste any more time.

“You’re really giving me the fairy tale.”

He grinned at her.  “Complete with a chocolate moose.”

She laughed.

Jin was true to his word.  After they married, he took them all out for dinner at a fancy restaurant.  Including dessert.  Of course, Jin ordered them chocolate mousse.