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Chapter 3: Repentance & Forgiveness – October 20-29, 2020

A couple weeks later as she stepped in front of the door to Jin’s classroom, he approached her.  

“Yura,” he spoke hesitantly.  “I’m sorry to ask this, but is there any way you could come in next week and help with the classroom party on Thursday afternoon?”

She sighed.  “I’m sorry.  I have to work.”

He nodded.  He didn’t want to ask it.  He never wanted to be in the same room with Seungbin ever again, but he really needed help.  And none of the other parents were free.  He had asked every single one of them.  

“Could your husband come help?”

Her eyes collided with his.  “You need help so badly that you’d ask Seungbin to help you?”

“It’s just a lot to handle by myself.  Parties are less structured than the regular class days.  I would just really like some backup.  But I understand if neither of you can come.”

She paused for a moment.  “Let me speak to Minsu.  If she can babysit for me that night, maybe my boss would let me off for a couple hours in the afternoon.  With the understanding that I’ll make up the hours in the evening.  I’ll let you know.”

It was only after she left that he questioned why her husband couldn’t watch their son in the evening.  He shrugged.  Maybe he worked late too.

—

But the next morning, she disappointed him.  “I’m sorry.  Minsu can’t watch Minhyuk that night.  I’m so sorry.  I just – I don’t have anyone else – and my boss won’t let me bring him to work with me.”

He considered her.  “So you would be able to take the afternoon off if you had a babysitter for the evening?”

She nodded.  “Yeah.  I checked with him before I asked Minsu.  He said it was no problem as long as I make up my work that evening.  Stay till it’s done.”

“I’ll do it.”

Perplexed, she frowned at him.  “What?”

“I’ll watch him so you can work.  I can come by your house and babysit until you – or your husband – gets home.”

—

He was shocked when he drove up to the apartment building.  Yura was practically living in a state of squalor.  How had this building not been condemned?  Was it even safe to ride the elevator to the ninth floor?

As he stepped off of it, he walked down the hallway towards her tiny apartment and knocked on the door.  He was appalled.  He had believed Seungbin would take better care of her than this.  Didn’t he work construction?  And she worked too.  Did he have a gambling problem or something?

Jin rapped on the door.  A moment later, as it swung open, he heard her hollering after Minhyuk, “Don’t open the door.  Wait till I come out!”

But the tiny boy had already opened the door and was beaming up at him.  

“It’s Mr. Jin, Eomma!”  Then he grinned even wider and informed him, “We’re going to have so much fun tonight!  Eomma made brownies!!  And she said we can eat one!”

Jin laughed as he remembered their shared love of all forms of chocolate.  “Have you ever had your eomma’s chocolate mousse?”

Minhyuk’s eyes widened, and he spoke in a hushed tone, “Eomma has a chocolate moose?” 

Jin nodded.  “She used to make it for me when we were in high school.  It was the most delicious dessert I ever ate.”

The boy’s eyes grew rounder.  “You ate a moose?  But how?  How did you get your mouth around it?”

Jin furrowed his brow as he tried to translate the little boy’s words.  But just then, Yura walked into the tiny space.  She was shrugging into a jacket.  She had a waitress’s uniform on.  

“Mr. Jin, thank you so much.  I should be home by nine.  This one,” she ruffled Minhyuk’s hair, “goes down at seven thirty sharp.”

“Eooooommma.”

She cut his tantrum short.  “Not one more word, or I’ll stay home, and you won’t get to play with Mr. Jin.”

The little boy sealed his lips shut even as his eyes grew round as saucers.

Jin smiled at him.  “When did I become as popular as you?” he whispered to her.

Her eyes met his, and something deep and dark shifted in them.  “A long time ago,” she murmured.

Why was that look in her eyes devastating him?  He blinked, and she was bending to give her son a kiss.  Jin watched him throw his arms around her.  It was clear that they had a special bond.  

A moment later, she was gone.

“Mr. Jin!  Can we have our brownies now?” The little boy was bouncing up and down.

Jin chuckled.  Then he headed to the tiny kitchen.  Everything about this place was tiny.  How did three of them fit in here?  After they’d eaten their brownies, he talked Minhyuk into giving him the grand tour of his home.  Jin saw photographs all over the apartment.  Pictures of Minhyuk.  As an infant.  A toddler.  A preschooler.  And photos of him and Yura.  But, curiously, there were no pictures of Seungbin.  Not a single one.

But later, as he entered her bedroom, he found one of himself.  It shocked him.  She’d attempted to hide it.  But he’d found it anyway.  

After he’d put Minhyuk to bed, his curiosity had gotten the better of him.  He’d entered her bedroom.  And been shocked to find a twin bed taking up the small space.  A twin bed?  Surely, no one shared it with her?

Shocked, he had allowed his eyes to peruse the room.  Searching for any sign of Seungbin’s presence.  He’d walked up to her nightstand.  A picture frame was lying flat on its face.  He picked it up to right it and was shocked to see himself staring back at him.  He stood for several long moments staring down at that photograph.  It was his senior picture.  

Why did Yura have his senior picture on her nightstand?  

He replaced it.

And where was Seungbin?  Had he left them?  Is that why she was living in this crappy, little apartment?  

Jin’s heart broke again.  He had thought that she had inflicted all the pain that was possible on him already, but…it wasn’t so.  The thought that that cretin had left her to raise a child alone – the thought that she worked her fingers to the bone to provide for that delightful, little boy, and the best she could afford was this place – it broke Jin.

His heart was swamped by waves of sorrow.  

Why hadn’t she taken him up on his offer way back then?  She could have married him, and that darling, little boy would have grown up calling Jin, Appa.  He wandered out to the living room and sat down on the beat up, old couch.  He set his hand down and lost it in a hole.  And he began to sob.

How long had she been alone?  Why was she alone?  And why hadn’t she told him?

—

She’d left him the very first time he’d hit her.  And her heart had fractured in two.  But she’d realized later that it had only been half a heart to begin with. She’d left the other half with him.  With Jin.  The first man she’d ever loved.

She’d wanted to go home, but she knew her parents were disappointed in her.  They couldn’t believe she’d married him.  They would tell her that she was just getting the life she deserved.  After what she had done.  They’d be right, of course.  

But…she wouldn’t stay with a man she feared.  For the sake of her tiny son.  She had to get him to safety.  She had packed a bag and picked up her six-month-old son and questioned to whom could she run.  Having no idea, she’d left the house anyway and headed for an old neighborhood.  One she hadn’t visited in over a year.

She still remembered the first time she’d discovered who her husband really was.  It had been three in the morning.  She’d been eight months pregnant.  With his child.  She’d awoken to find him gone.  His side of the bed rumpled but empty.

She’d slid from the bed to search for him.  She’d crept silently out into the living room.  Then she’d nearly puked as she heard his tender voice raised in a gentle whisper.  He was speaking to someone on his phone.

“Hey, baby, it’s all right.  I’ll see you tomorrow.  I miss you too.  I can feel your lips under mine right now.  My hand sliding up your thigh…”

She cut off the memory.  He had gone on to describe in lurid detail all the things he’d wanted to do to that other woman in her bed.  Silently, she had slipped from the room and headed for the bathroom.  Where she’d leaned over the toilet and thrown up.  Absolutely certain that all those bits floating in the toilet bowl were the shards of her broken heart.  

She had given up Jin.  For this.  

What a fool she had been.  Now she was stuck in a loveless marriage with a philanderer.  If only she could go back to that day in the school hallway.  Jin had warned her.

“Please,” Jin had pleaded with her.  “Please don’t rush into a marriage with that guy.  Get to know his true character before you tie the knot.”

But she hadn’t listened to him.  She’d married Seungbin three months later.  Before she was really showing.  

If she had it all to do over again, she’d go back and make a different choice.  She’d choose Jin.  She’d beg for his forgiveness.  

Better yet, she’d go all the way back to the day Seungbin had been weeping in the stairwell.  She’d ignore his tears and walk on by.

—

She was exhausted by the time she arrived at home.  And knowing she would have to face Jin was even more trying.  She sighed as she slid her key into the lock.  It was nine o’clock on the button.  As she opened the door, Jin met her.  Again in that small space.

“Thank you so much, Jin, for watching Minhyuk.”

“You don’t need to thank me.  You did me a favor, remember?  And he’s a delightful, little boy.  I will gladly babysit for you any time you need a sitter.”

Her eyes met his.  But it hurt too much to stare into those chocolate depths, so she averted her gaze as she set her purse on the floor and began to shrug off her jacket.

“Yura.”

His tone alerted her.  

Here it comes.

“Where is Seungbin?”

She swallowed.  And strategically avoided his eyes.  She leaned over to hang up her coat.  But as she tossed it over the hook, it fell down to the ground.  She bent to pick it up and tossed it across the hook again.  For the second time, it missed its mark and slid down to the floor.  With a resigned sigh, she bent again.  She was so tired.  But Jin beat her to it. 

“Allow me.”  

She wouldn’t look at him, but she let him hang up her jacket.  She leaned against the door.  She couldn’t head into her apartment.  Jin was blocking the way.  She was confined in that narrow space with him.  And trying not to burst into tears.

Why did he have to be Minhyuk’s teacher?

But in the same breath, she knew she would have thanked God that he was.  There was no one on earth she would have trusted her son to more than Jin.

“Yura.  Where is your husband?”

“I have no husband.”

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Since when?”

“Since I left him.”  She was talking to the floor.

He opened his eyes.  “When did you leave him?”

“When Minhyuk was six months old.”

He closed his eyes again as his heart shattered once more.  How many times could a heart break?

“Why did you leave him?”

“Because you were right!” she cried out.  “All right?  You were right!  Are you happy now?” 

She made a move to brush past him.  But he reached out a gentle hand and grasped her wrist as he placed his body between her and the next room.  He pulled her hand up to his chest until her fingers were splayed over his heart.  She could feel it drumming under her palm.

She glanced up at him.  

His voice broke.  “Why on earth would you ever think I’d be happy your husband made you miserable, Yura?”

“Because it’s what I deserved.”

“No,” his voice was just a breath.  “You deserved the fairy tale.  That’s what I wanted to give you.”

“Instead I chose the curse,” she breathed.

Her face was just a few inches from him.  So close.  Yet so far away.  He could feel the fractures in her heart.  Would they always separate her from him?

“There’s always room for redemption.”

Her eyes met his.  The pain flooding them stole his breath.  

“Is there?”  She shook her head.  “No, Jin.  I don’t think there is.  There is only misery.  An odd sort of penance for my sins against you.”

“I forgive you,” he breathed.  Unhesitatingly.  

She stilled.  Her eyes closed.  And tears began their slow journey down her cheeks.  Then she began to sob.  Great, soul-shaking sobs that terrified her shoulders too, making them quake.

“Yura,” he breathed and pulled her into his arms.

She collapsed against him.  And wept for all they had lost.

“You’ve been living like this since you left him?  What?  Four years ago?”

She nodded.  “Minsu moved us in with her for a while in the beginning.  Until I made enough to get my own place,” her muffled voice spoke to his chest.

“Why did you leave him?”

She went still.

“Yura.”

Jin’s stillness was even more terrifying than Seungbin’s rage.

“He hit me.  Once.  I left.  That was the last straw.”

Understanding dawning, he murmured into her hair, “What was the first straw?”

She winced.  She didn’t want to admit how right he’d been, but she lacked the strength to resist him tonight.  “All his women.”

His arms tightened around her.  “Were you ever – for one moment – happy with him?”

“How could I be?  I broke your precious heart!”