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Nia was trying to bring her life back to normal. That started with babysitting Jisung again.
“Are we going to see the babies again today?” Jisung asked after he’d retrieved Yeontan.
“Not today, Sungie. Is there anything else you’d like to do?”
“Can we go shopping?”
“Sure! Where would you like to go shopping?”
“I wanna go to the bookstore!”
That seemed like an odd request coming from a five-year-old, but Nia wasn’t about to argue. The bookstore was a nice place to hang out.
The bookstore that Jisung wanted to visit was downtown, so the two of them took quite the drive. The tiny roads were lined with shops and boutiques and cafes of all sorts, and Nia kept a tight hold on Jisung’s hand as they headed toward the bookstore.
“Have you been here before, Sungie?” Nia asked.
“Yeah! Eomma brought me here! Mrs. Man always gave me cookies!”
Nia nodded. “Are they good cookies?”
“Yeah! They’re veryyyyyyyyy good. They have big chocolates in them!”
“Oh, that does sound very good.”
The bell over the door rang as Nia and Jisung entered the bookstore. Sure enough, the place smelled like cookies. Something about this place seemed familiar, but she wasn’t sure why.
Jisung took off running nearly the moment they walked in the door.
“Mrs. Man!” Jisung stood on his toes. “Do you have the cupcake book?”
The lady sitting at the front desk didn’t appear to be very old. Nia would’ve guessed she was around the same age as her, but she couldn’t be sure. The lady smiled down at Jisung.
“I’ll go look for it.”
“Can I have a cookie?”
Mrs. Man looked to Nia for permission. Nia nodded.
“Sure, buddy. You can have a cookie,” Mrs. Man replied before handing the tiny boy a cookie.
“Can Auntie Nia have one too?”
“That’s ok, Sungie. I don’t need a cookie.”
“Ok…”
Nia glanced around the bookstore as Jisung and Mrs. Man when to the back to find the book Jisung wanted. The place was dinky, but it seemed familiar. Right down the block was the coffee shop she and Taehyung had always visited, so she supposed that maybe the two of them had been here before as well. But…when?
She wandered around, eventually finding a corkboard at the back with pieces of paper pinned to it. She scanned them before finding a note with what she recognized as Tae’s handwriting.
I read the titles of the books here and I wonder why the authors chose to name them that way. The Beginning of the End. It truly is for me. It is that way for the characters in this book too, or did the author just think it was a creative title?
Nia frowned as she stared at the note. She remembered something.
“The Beginning of the End?” Nia laughed. “It’ll be the end of the beginning for us soon.”
“Will it be?” Tae asked as he flipped through another book he’d picked up the shelf. “I think we’re no where near the end of the beginning yet.”
“The beginning is over once we get married, right?”
“Of course not. That’s where the beginning really starts.”
She smiled. Now, she realized that their marriage really had been the beginning.