#9

‘Yejin!’

Yejin turned towards where the source of the voice came from only to see Mrs Kim approaching them. She took a step away from Jongin and put on a smile on her face as she got closer to her.

‘Hi, Mrs Kim.’ She greeted her and was surprised when the other pulled her into tight hug.

‘How are you, dear?’ Mrs Kim asked as they pulled away. ‘You’ve grown into such a beautiful lady.’

Yejin felt her cheeks redden at her words and unconsciously her hand went to her cheeks as she looked down, embarrassed. ‘Thank you.’

Mrs Kim cooed at her cuteness and patted her arm lovingly.

‘I’m sorry I fled away the other day and didn’t get to greet you properly, Mrs Kim.’ Yejin apologized.

‘Don’t be! It’s fine!’ Mrs Kim shook her head. ‘How’s the wedding plans going?’

‘Everything’s in place. All that’s left is the big day itself.’ Yejin explained and she peeked at Jongin to find him and his son both staring at her. She averted her gaze back to Mrs Kim and smiled. ‘Are you coming to the wedding?’

‘Oh, can I?’ she asked. ‘I thought the invitation was only for Jongin.’

‘Of course you can!’ Yejin chuckled. ‘It would be a pleasure to have you there, Mrs Kim.’

‘How sweet of you, dear. I’d love to go!’ Mrs Kim replied. ‘But, I didn’t bring any appropriate attire to attend the ceremony since I didn’t know I could.’

‘There’s still time for you to find one.’ Yejin told her. ‘The wedding’s not until this weekend.’

‘I guess so,’ she turned to Jongin to see her son shaking his head slightly at her. ‘I don’t think Jongin would want to follow me around looking for it.’ She said before turning back to Yejin. ‘What about you? Would you accompany me to find one?’

Yejin was taken aback by her request and stuttered to find a reply but thankfully Jongin cut in to help her. ‘I’m sure she has so many other things to settle, mom.’ Yejin nodded slightly with an awkward smile plastered across her face.

Mrs Kim nodded in understanding. ‘I guess that’s true. Never mind then, I thought that it’d be nice if I could spend time with you since I’m here. It has been a long time since I last met you and I don’t know when I’ll get to see you again but it’s fine. I understand.’

Her words had left Yejin with a guilty feeling in her heart. She knows she should probably not do this, but then the woman had always been nice to her. She stared at Mrs Kim’s sincere smile and then at Jongin who was staring at her, clearly not agreeing with the thoughts that are in her head at that moment.

He had always been able to read her without a problem.

Don’t do it, Yejin.

And she had always been able to read him back.

Yejin turned back to Mrs Kim and flashed her a smile. ‘But, I’m free today if you’re okay with it?’

Mrs Kim’s face brightened at her words and she immediately grabbed Yejin’s arm and linked it with hers. ‘Wonderful! Let’s go grab some lunch first!’

As she dragged her along with her, Yejin’s eyes met Jongin’s who was staring at her with a frown on his face and Yejin had only shrugged her shoulders as a reply.

‘Why is grandma pulling your friend with her, appa?’ Taeoh asked.

Jongin let out a huge sigh and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know, Taeoh. I don’t know.’

Jongin followed behind his excited mother and Yejin as they walked out of the hotel lobby and he shook his head at the sight. He can only hope that his mother was not thinking of doing anything stupid.

Yejin sighed as she pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call she just had. Hani had called her up, panicking, asking her where she had disappeared to and Yejin felt bad for leaving without saying anything to her. She had completely forgotten about Hani after Mrs Kim appeared.

‘Is everything okay, dear?’

Yejin turned to her right and nodded her head as she smiled. ‘Everything’s fine, Mrs Kim. That was just the wedding planner asking me where I went since I was at the hotel earlier with her.’

‘Ahh,’ Mrs Kim replied as she nodded slightly. ‘I hope I didn’t cause any problem by kidnapping you.’

‘No, you did not.’ Yejin giggled and let Mrs Kim linked their arms together again.

She had always felt extremely comfortable around Mrs Kim to the point where she had even considered her as her second mother back then. When she was still with Jongin back in college, Mrs Kim would sometimes come to the college bearing homemade lunches for them and would sometimes even take Yejin out for coffee when Jongin was still in class.

And when her mom had gotten sick that one time, Mrs Kim was there to comfort her to the point where Jongin had sulked saying that his mom stole her away from him.

She was not going to lie. She really did miss this.

After Mrs Kim had paid for the very beautiful dress that Yejin had picked out, they both made their way out of the shop to meet up with Jongin and Taeoh again. They were just walking in silence when Mrs Kim had suddenly stopped her and pulled her to sit at a bench near them, making Yejin turned to look at her curiously.

‘Are you okay? Is anything wrong?’ Yejin asked worriedly.

‘I’m fine,’ Mrs Kim smiled and then grabbed Yejin’s hand and set it on her lap with her other hand on top of it. Yejin just stared at her, waiting for Mrs Kim to say something.

‘You probably knew by now the reason why Jongin left,’ she started and Yejin’s eyes widened at her words. ‘And I’m so sorry that you had to go through that, Yejin.’

‘Mrs Kim…’

‘I want to apologize on my late husband’s behalf. He was out of line to do so and I hope you can forgive him.’

Yejin stared, wide-eyed and slowly nodded her head. ‘I-I do. I-I mean, I have forgiven him.’

Mrs Kim smiled gratefully at her and squeezed the hand she was holding. ‘Thank you, dear.’ She said and Yejin smiled back in return.

‘And I want you to know that, even though you’re not with Jongin anymore and will be Sehun’s wife soon, you can still come to me if you ever need anything.’ She raised her hand and cupped a side of Yejin’s cheek. ‘You’ve always been like a daughter to me, Yejin.’

Yejin leaned into her hand and nodded with a soft smile on her lips. ‘I will, Mrs Kim. Thank you.’

‘Alright, come on, let’s go find the boys. I don’t trust leaving Jongin with Taeoh for too long.’

‘What?’ Yejin giggled. ‘Why?’

‘Once when Taeoh was only one or two, he had brought the boy to the arcade and played that killing zombies game for two whole hours.’ Mrs Kim explained as they walked. ‘How can you expose things like that to a child?’ She huffed. ‘And a couple months back, we took Taeoh to the playground near our house and I left for a second to go buy some ice cream for us but when I came back, Jongin was the one on the swing and Taeoh was pushing him.’

Yejin laughed her heart out at the story as she shook her head, completely imagining the scenario in her head.

‘That is really something only Jongin would do.’ Yejin said and Mrs Kim chuckled agreeing with her.

Despite what the ladies were thinking, they were actually lounging in an ice cream shop, both of them with a cup of double scoop ice cream in front of them. Jongin was amusedly staring at his son gobbling up the dessert and would laugh silently behind his hand at how messy Taeoh’s face is with ice cream around his mouth.

‘Is it delicious?’ Jongin asked and Taeoh nodded excitedly and shoved more ice cream into his mouth. ‘Eat up, Taeoh.’ He said and ruffled his son’s hair.

Jongin had just finished his ice cream and was simply enjoying looking at his son when he spoke up.

‘Where is your friend, appa?’ Taeoh asked as he looked around the shop. ‘Did she leave without saying goodbye to me?’

Jongin raised an eyebrow at his son. ‘She’ll come back soon. Why? Do you miss her?’

Taeoh nodded with a pout on his face and Jongin couldn’t help but smile even though he was not expecting Taeoh to grow attached to Yejin in such a short period of time. But then he should’ve expected it.

During lunch, when Taeoh had gotten comfortable with Yejin’s presence, the boy had only paid attention to her and would even feed her spoonfuls of his meals even when Yejin would decline politely. Yejin had played around with Taeoh and that had only made him cling even more to her.

‘Do you like aunt Yejin, Taeoh-yah?’ Jongin asked.

Taeoh’s face brightened as he nodded his head and his eyes were sparkling as he replied to his dad. ‘She is really nice! And she lets me play with her and she is really pretty too!’ Taeoh said excitedly. ‘I really like her. Do you think she likes me too?’

Jongin chuckled. ‘I think she does.’

‘I want to marry aunt Yejin.’

Jongin who was sipping on his drink, choked on the water. He coughed as he looked at his son’s hopeful face and he couldn’t help but to grin even though he was having trouble breathing at the moment.

‘Can I,