Chapter 5: The Treasure Within – January 14, 2023
“Yuni,” Jungkook slid his arm around his very pregnant wife and drew her near to him. “How are you and Jangmi doing this morning?”
He was whispering in her ear. Giving her shivers. Yunyeong smiled and rolled towards him. Her heart was overflowing today. She had Kookie. And she enjoyed lying in this bed with him. Delighting in him. And allowing him to delight in her.
Her life was a gift. A beautiful gift. After a very dark and lonely season. A ray of light had entered her world and fought for her. His name was Kookie. And he made her so happy.
In addition, any day now she was going to give birth to their daughter. A beautiful rose that had grown up in the secret garden of his love for her. If their baby was born today, she would share a birthday with her cousin, Seulgi. Yuni was hoping for today. To have her daughter share a birthday with her twin’s daughter would be so much fun.
Now Yunyeong answered her adorable husband. “We’re doing good.” She yawned. “I slept well. She’s such a peaceful baby.”
“Mmm. Like her eomma.” A smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
“And her appa,” she murmured, a matching smile lighting up her face.
He leaned towards her and kissed her for several blissful moments. Yunyeong reveled in the touch of his lips against hers. She felt completely cherished in Kookie’s embrace. She slid her hand up to tangle her fingers in his midnight hair. She enjoyed its silkiness as her skin slid across it. Her lips curved into a smile beneath his own. After another moment, they drew apart.
“So, Kookie, when I become a world-famous author and illustrator, shall we retire to your grandparents’ farm so we can spend our days lazing about our garden?”
“Lazing about? Don’t you mean so you can sit in our garden and paint beautiful scenes for more books?”
She chuckled. “Perhaps. But what will you do to pass the time?”
A wide grin illuminated his countenance. “Why, play with Jangmi, of course. I’ll chase her about the garden and pick apples with her. I’ll carry her around on my shoulders. Then she’ll be able to reach the choicest apples. And we’ll plant more rose bushes. We’ll spend the day cutting roses for you. And I’ll teach her to beat Tae at MIRᴙOR, of course.”
She laughed. “Of course.” The corners of her mouth quirked upward. “What a delightful dream.”
“It is. But I’m perfectly content to work a regular job and come home to my two beautiful girls each night here at your eomma’s house too. There’s plenty of room now that Yunseok moved out. Jangmi will most likely enjoy sharing a room with her cousin. And Tae and I can play video games together whenever we like.” He smoothed out his expression on the last sentence, but she could see the teasing glint in his eye.
She giggled. “And I love living near my sister and my parents.”
“I know you do.” An understanding light flowed from his eyes.
“Kookie.” His name was just a breath on her lips. “You love me so well.” She kissed him again. “I need to help Yun prepare for Seulgi’s party today. Ohhh!” Her eyes grew wide.
Jungkook’s followed suit. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Just a little cramp. It’s probably nothing.” She stretched and yawned. “Oh, Kookie, I wish to be lazy today, but Yun needs my help. I promised I would bake a cake for the party.”
“Why would you promise that in your condition?”
She giggled. “Don’t you know? All the best cakes are made by women preparing to go into labor at any moment.”
“Hmm. Or, perhaps, they’re made by her husband?”
Her face softened. “Are you offering to bake the cake for me?”
His eyes lovingly traced her captivating face. The one that had caught his attention the first moment he’d seen her. His gaze riveted to her eyes. Where he could see her soul. Yuni shone out of those glorious orbs. Her sweet spirit had always been visible – and discernible – to him. It set her apart from her twin who, upon first glance, looked very similar to her. But there was quite a difference between these two wonderful women, and Kookie was glad he’d ended up with the quieter one. She’d been hiding her delightful self down deep where only the most skilled of gardeners would know to dig to find the treasure buried beneath the hard surface.
“Just tell me what to do.”
She reached down and laced her fingers through his. “How about you just help me? We’ll do it together,” she whispered.
“Even better.” He smiled.
—
“So, is it odd that our little rose is going to be born in January when the snow is on the ground?” Jungkook murmured as he slid his arms around his wife and drew her close.
They were standing in the kitchen waiting for the timer to alert them that the cake was done baking. They’d washed all the dishes and cleaned off every counter. They’d even made the frosting. All that was left was to cool the cake before decorating it.
“No. I think it’s very apt, Kookie. You coaxed this reluctant bloom to break through the hard ground and show her face to the kind sun once again.” She smiled up at him.
“She was worth all the effort I made too,” he beamed down at her.
“Ugh. Are you two being mushy again?” Tae asked as he stumbled into the kitchen. Rubbing sleep from his bleary eyes.
“And what if we are?!” demanded Jungkook. After he raked Tae with a suspicious glance, he accused him, “You were up late playing MIRᴙOR without me again last night. Weren’t you?”
“How else am I going to beat you and Yun? It’s totally not fair. The woman has a terrible advantage over me now that she stays home all day while I go to work!”
Yunyeong laughed. “You do realize that she’s taking care of Seulgi all day long, don’t you?”
Tae gave her a doubtful glance. “No. I think you’re taking care of my daughter while she plays video games.”
Yunyeong quirked a dark eyebrow and bent to whisper in Kookie’s ear, “He’s not wrong. That has happened on more than one occasion.”
“Ah-ha! I knew it!” Tae exclaimed.
Jungkook barked with laughter. “At least, I don’t have to worry about that. You don’t like video games.” He tweaked his wife’s nose.
“Nope. Not really.”
Just then, the timer dinged, but Jungkook was distracted from it by the frown on his beloved’s face. “What’s wrong, Yuni?”
“I’ve just been fighting off some cramps for the past hour.”
“Cramps?”
“Hmm.”
“How far apart are these cramps?”
“About five minutes.”
Jungkook grinned. “Our little rose is about to come see us!”
She smiled shyly up at him. “I think so. I just wish she wasn’t so thorny! I’ve been uncomfortable for an hour now.”
“What?!” Yunseong exclaimed as she entered the kitchen carrying a happy Seulgi. “You can’t miss your niece’s birthday party!”
“I can if it means I’m bringing my own daughter into the world. Besides, this process will most likely take hours. Seulgi took her time, if I recall correctly.”
Yunseong beamed down at her adorable daughter. “Indeed, she did!” she laughed. “All right. I’ll relax. The party’s in three hours anyway. “I doubt very much you’ll be holding a baby by then!”
“Not unless I’m holding yours,” Yunyeong grinned at her tiny niece.
Yunseong frowned. “She’s not a baby anymore. She’s a big one-year-old!”
“Come, my love!” Jungkook spoke in dramatic and flourishing fashion. “Let me whisk you away to the living room couch!” He bent and swooped her up into his arms.
“Kookie!” she exclaimed, both shocked and embarrassed.
The timer blared again.
“Uh. Is anybody going to get the cake?” Tae asked.
“You can do it,” Jungkook threw over his shoulder at him as he carried his wife from the kitchen.
Tae stared at the oven like it was a spaceship that had just landed in the kitchen. His mouth skewed to the side, and his eyes grew large. “And just exactly how am I supposed to know if it’s done?”
Yunseong laughed. “Really, Tae! How are you so unskilled in the kitchen?”
“What? We have a chef back home.”
“Here.” She dumped their daughter into his arms before crossing the kitchen to open the oven and rescue her daughter’s birthday cake.
“Thank God, your eomma and your auntie know how to cook,” Tae murmured lovingly into Seulgi’s ear, “or else you and I would starve.”
The toddler beamed up at her appa before reaching up to slide her little fingers along his cheek.
Tae’s whole expression softened as he gazed down at her. He bent his head and whispered against her ear, “I love you, Seulgi. Appa loves you so much. Happy birthday, darling.”
Yunseong removed the cake from the oven and set it on the stovetop. But she turned in time to catch the vulnerable look of adoration lighting up her husband’s countenance in that tender moment. And her heart shifted violently in her chest. She didn’t often weep, but she caught herself wiping away a tear as she watched the love of her life gently adoring her daughter. The one she’d created with another man. But no one would ever know it because Tae loved her like she had always been only his own.
—
Several hours later, Jungkook felt his wife tense. She was sitting on the couch within the circle of his arm. She’d been tensing every couple of minutes. “Yuni, is it time for me to take you to the hospital?”
“I think so, Kookie.” She glanced at him, and he could tell that she was nervous.
He squeezed her shoulders, pulling her even closer. “It’ll be all right. You’re going to do great.”
“I hate pain, Kookie.” He could hear the dread in her voice.
“I know. Let’s get you to the hospital. Perhaps they’ll have some lovely drugs there to relieve the pain.”
They did. Thank God. Once Yuni was dilated far enough, a kind doctor relieved her pain with a needle in her back. Jungkook cringed as he watched the whole process, but soon Yuni was smiling at him again, so he felt relief swamping him. He didn’t like seeing her in pain. It hurt him worse than experiencing the pain himself would have.
A few hours later, their daughter entered the world on her cousin’s first birthday. And Yuni beamed. Her dream had come true. The two little girls would share more than a room now.
Yunyeong lay in her bed, cradling her precious baby in her arms, as her eyes traced the sublime features of that tiny one.
“I was wrong, Kookie.”
“About what?”
“When you first showed me our garden, I said that nothing else in my whole life would ever be that perfect again. But I was wrong.”
As she gazed down at the beautiful face of their precious daughter, Jungkook smiled.
“She is, Kookie. Jangmi is absolutely perfect. As perfect as our secret garden. The one you designed and built just for me.”
“Yes, but this time I needed your help to create perfection,” he murmured, his grin challenging the sun for brightness.
An hour later, as Yunyeong settled back against some pillows, she glanced sideways at her adorable husband. He was holding their tiny daughter and gazing down at her with a look of such indescribable tenderness on his face that Yunyeong felt tears streaming down her cheeks.
A few years ago, she had been hiding in her room, trapped in the ice of a dark secret that no one knew. Nobody had even attempted to unearth it. She’d suffered twin traumas four years apart, the death of her beloved appa and the rape of her body. The first had led to the second because she’d been so broken over the loss of her adoring father that she had sought the affection she had then missed in the arms of another man. But that damaged man had possessed no care for her soul. He had desired only her body. He had forcefully taken what he wanted when she had deemed herself too precious to throw herself away on a guy who hadn’t committed his heart to her.
She’d blamed herself and hidden away in a black-and-white world. But she’d watched color exploding in the lives around her. Deep down, she’d desired someone to love her enough to color her world too. Then, Kookie had appeared. He had seen her. And her despair. He had fought for her, pulling her from her pit of loneliness, and colored her world with his own rainbows. He’d planted his love for her in a garden of his own fashioning, and the sweet, little babe in his arms was the harvest of that precious adoration.
His gentle eyes left his daughter’s face to seek out his wife’s. But he was alarmed to disturb tear stains gleaming there.
“Yuni?” he questioned softly.
“Do you have any idea how very happy you make me?” she whispered. “You have the most precious heart of anyone I have ever met.” Her eyes embraced his. “I love you, Kookie. Now. And always.”
Tears were shining in his eyes too now. “I love you, Yuni,” he breathed. Then his gaze left hers to caress the face of their tiny darling. “You’ve given me the most precious gift possible. A priceless treasure. Our beautiful Jangmi.”
He bent his head and kissed the face of their blossoming rose as the rising sun of their affection for each other illuminated all three of them.
