TEN YEARS LATER

Jisoo rolled her wrists around, trying to get the tightness out of them. 

She stared at the giant pages of digital text on her computer screen and read what she had just typed. Then he grimaced and deleted the sentence, rewriting it in reverse grammatical order. Still not write. She hit backspace and tried replacing one of the words with another. 

She was spending too much time on this one sentence. She highlighted the words, changed the font color, and then opted to keep going with plans to come back to that section later. 

The rest of the chapter came out of her brain without much hesitation. Her heart started pounding the way it always did when she achieved her flow state. She didn’t even notice when Jinyoung walked in and set a plate down beside her keyboard. He leaned against her desk and crossed his arms. Jisoo typed in a final period before looking up at her husband. Jinyoung had a stern look on his face.

“If you don’t eat this sandwich, I want a divorce,” he said. 

Jisoo sat back in her chair and cocked a brow at him.

“You say that every time I sit down to write,” she joked. 

“I mean it this time,” Jinyoung said, moving her keyboard out of the way and pushing the plate closer to her. “Step away from the word processor, come eat.”

“I can’t, I’m in the zone,” Jisoo said. “If I stop now, I’ll lose momentum and I won’t get it back and my next check-in is in a week.”

“You still have to eat this sandwich,” Jinyoung said. Jisoo looked down at the plate and saw that there was half of a sub sandwich on it. She looked between the food and the words she had typed up on the page. She had a rhythm going. If she stopped to eat, it would interrupt her flow state. 

“You don’t know anything about how writing works, do you?” Jisoo said, squinting at him. Jinyoung narrowed his right back at her.

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I do know how pregnancy works, and I’m not gonna let you starve our baby.”

Jisoo’s smug grin disappeared. Right. She was four months pregnant. She always seemed to forget about that when she sat down to write. Her hand instinctively went to her belly, which wasn’t completely swollen yet, but a baby bump was definitely there. Jinyoung tilted his head and Jisoo sighed, admitting defeat. She reached for the sandwich and took a bite from it. There was extra relish tucked between the two slices of bread. She’d developed a strange taste for pickles when she got pregnant with their first child, so Jinyoung figured it would be a safe choice.

Jisoo chewed begrudgingly.

“You did this to me,” she grumbled through a mouthful of bread and lettuce.

“You started it,” Jinyoung smirked. 

Jisoo blushed, taking another bite out of the sandwich and remembering that she had been the one to initiate that time. Jinyoung was about to say something else, but his words were cut off by the sound of rapid little footsteps running at them.

“Mama!” shouted a very excited toddler that was running full speed at Jisoo. Jinyoung crouched down and caught his son before he could crash into his mother. 

“Yah, Jisung,” he said sternly, turning the boy to face him and giving his arm a firm shake. Their son had developed a bad habit of sprinting at his mother and jumping at her, sometimes hitting her stomach with his head. Now that she was pregnant again, they were trying to put a stop to it.

“What did I tell you?” he said. “You can’t run at Mama’s tummy like that. You might hurt your baby brother.”

“Or sister,” Jisoo snapped. Jinyoung gave her a challenging smirk and then turned back to his son.

“Jisung,” he said. “Do you want a baby brother or a baby sister?”

Jisoo leaned forward, trying to catch her son’s eye. “Think about this for a minute, Jisu—”

“I want a brother,” said the little boy, stuffing his hand into his mouth. Jinyoung smiled triumphantly and then turned back to Jisoo with a smug grin. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I hope you know he only loves you because you give him sweets,” Jisoo said. “You bought his love.”

Jinyoung was unfazed. “It was for sale. I wanted it.”

Jisung wriggled out of his father’s grip and walked over to Jisoo’s lap. She wiped a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth. 

“Can we eat the cake now?” he asked, grabbing a fistful of her skirt. 

“Is everyone ready?” Jisoo asked, looking at the door as if she could see the rest of the guests through it and around the corner of the hall. Jisung started hopping excitedly.

“Yeah, I’m ready!” he said, smiling.

“Alright, let’s go light the candles, then,” Jisoo said. “But we all have to sing, first. Do you know the song?”

“Yeah, I know it!” Jisung said, sprinting into the hall. Jisoo turned to the computer one last time to save her draft and then she shut the monitor off. Then, she stood to follow Jisung into the hallway.

“Sandwich,” Jinyoung said. Jisoo skidded to a stop. She turned to retrieve her sandwich.

Out in the living area of the apartment, everyone else was participating in birthday festivities. 

“Jisung! Come open our present first!” Jackson said, waving a wrapped box in the air and taunting Jisoo and Jinyoung’s first born. Beside him, Jennie was trying to get their daughter, Jamie, to eat something other than the brown sugar pancakes that Jisoo had set out for the children. 

Jinyoung’s older sister had two sons and a daughter slightly older than Jisung. She and her husband were sitting on the sofa with Jinyoung’s mother, who had brought along her boyfriend. Jinyoung’s other sister was out on the terrace having a smoke break with Wonpil.

“Ooh, is it time for cake? Yummy!” cooed Rose, who was talking to Doyoung. Everyone and their mother except Rose seemed to know that Doyoung had a crush on her. They were hoping that sometime this year, they would finally put all their hearts to rest by asking her out. Doyoung caught Jisoo’s eye as she walked toward the refrigerator to grab the birthday cake. He gave her a shy smile.

Lisa’s mother had come to visit, and the two of them were talking to Wonpil’s fiancée, who was not Wendy, but rather a girl named Mijoo, a stand-up comedienne whom he met thru Dara since Mijoo had been booked to put on a show a couple nights at the bookshop. Dara, meanwhile, was standing somewhere between the terrace and the couch, talking to Jisoo’s father. 

“Cake! Cake!” Jisung chanted, jumping onto a chair and excitedly hitting his hands against the surface of the table, calling the other children to the kitchen. Jisoo cupped her hands around and called the rest of the guests over to the table, too.

“Jisung, watch your hands!” Jisoo said. “Don’t touch the candles, that’s fire, it’s hot!”

“I want two pieces!” said one of Jinyoung’s nephews.

“Don’t touch the cake yet, we still have to sing!” said his niece. 

Jisoo was just positioning the cake in the center of the table, trying to make sure none of the kids burned their hands on the candles.

“I want cake, too!” shouted Jennie’s daughter, Jamie.

“Ooh, it’s strawberry!”

“Rose, don’t you start, too,” Jisoo snapped. 

Jisoo finally got all four candles lit and the family gathered around the table. She sighed. It really shouldn’t have taken this much struggle to get these people around a table to sing “happy birthday.” When they finally got around to it, Jisoo felt like she’d accomplished a huge task. 

“Alright, everyone ready?” she said. “Okay, go!”

Jisung sat back in the chair and beamed as everyone sang “happy birthday” in unison. Jisoo stood back and watched. Jisoo loved when he smiled. She remembered holding him for the first time in the hospital. He was so little and fragile and her heart broke into a million tiny pieces at the sight of him. Through the post-birth haze, she looked at her son and felt sick with joy. 

It was him, the little boy with the big ears, crinkly eyes, and his father’s gummy smile. The little boy she saw in her mind’s eye all those years ago. He was finally here. He was finally hers.

And he was four years old today. 

Jinyoung’s elder sister and mother were the first ones to bid their goodbyes when the party began to wind down. His mother’s new boyfriend had work the following day, and she didn’t want to impose on them by asking to spend the night, even