19. ALWAYS MY LOVE

The next three weeks passed by quickly with puppy's help and care. And it was time for Minho to leave. Minho came on his last evening in Daegu to meet my daughter, a meeting I allowed only on the condition that he'd not say or do anything to upset Minki. I did not want a repeat of other night. He should be mature and responsible enough to abstain from emotionally blackmailing a little girl.

When he left, Minki waved him goodbye from my arms. Everyone sighed in relief. I whirled her around till she smiled and then laughed loudly. I pretended dizziness and put her down, asking her to carry me instead.

Everyone wanted to go out for ice cream. I messaged to puppy.

Dear Puppy if free ice cream place

Yeobo toki try keeping me away

He came in his uniform straight from the station, coincidentally he was leaving for home when I texted. Even puppy and I had ice cream in celebration. When Minki wondered why we were so happy, puppy answered for us, "it’s because I love you Minx."

She giggled at that and replied, "You are a silly puppy Jonghoon ajeossi."

He squeezed my arm to stop me from admonishing her. "Come here Minx. Silly puppy wants to your face."

She squealed and ran from her seat. He ran after her and picked her up, tickling her. Imo and Soo were grinning and Jiyeon looked longingly at them. I quietly tickled her side once. She jumped from her seat. It turned into a tickling match. We didn't care that everyone was staring at us. We were happy. It was like a shadow had lifted from us, freeing our spirits.

Imo called uncle and he asked her to invite everyone for dinner. Imo called umma and the plans were set in motion. Imo dictated puppy a list and after dropping her and Soo home, he and I went shopping with Minki and Jiyeon. I took the list from him while he gave rides to the girls through the aisles. Other shoppers rolled their eyes but kept silent. I bowed in apology to everyone in general. Because of his uniform no one said a word when the girls insisted on pushing him around too. It took us a long time and a phone call from imo to finish shopping.

At home puppy wanted to help us cook. Imo put the girls to wash vegetables and gave the task of chopping onions to the puppy. She winked at me and whispered that she just loved to see a grown man cry. He sat at the table with the onions and stared at them.

"Do you think they will chop themselves if you stare at them long enough puppy?"

"Help me toki. I have never cooked."

I got another knife and showed him what to do. Soon we were crying together. The evil females of the house were laughing at our expense.

Puppy whispered, "You go help imo with something else, I will finish up myself."

I shook my head.

"Toki I promised you I will never make you cry. I can't see tears in your eyes even if it’s because of these stupid onions. I will cut all the onions for us in future too." I squeezed his shoulder and went to get the vegetables. He stared as I cut them up prettily. Minki and Jiyeon had been herded out of the kitchen and they stood nearby watching me. Minki climbed into puppy's lap. I created some decorative designs for the final presentation. They stared wide eyed as I converted tomato skins into roses, onions into lilies, lemon skins into swirls and carrot slices into different flowers.

“Toki you should become a chef or a food stylist.”

“Puppy this is no great art. It’s just a hobby. I will teach you too.”

“Oppa you must teach me and Soo unni first. Umma come and see what oppa has created.” Jiyeon yelled in my ear.

While everyone oohed and aahed, I got a set of my clothes for puppy and he went to wash up. Imo, Soo and I got into serious cooking. Imo had gone all out in her menu planning. We began finishing dish after dish. On the girls’ insistence I whipped up their favorite cake for dessert. As we reached its decoration part, everyone arrived and Jongin insisted on participating too. I drew two lines on the cake, dividing it in four parts and assigned each one to all of them and gave them the decorating stuff. Jjong and Taemin were assigned to supervise Minki and Jongin, otherwise we knew all we’d see would be a finger-poked cake.

Umma and Kibum came to help too. The table was set. With the food ready, we took the snacks into the family room for everyone. Appa wanted to drink first. He invited Jonghyun to join but was informed he didn’t drink. I realized there were still many things I didn’t know about Jjong. Uncle put on some music.

Appa wanted to know the reason for the sudden dinner. Uncle laughed and said he was in the mood to dance with his wife as it had been a long time. Imo blushed. All of us cheered them into showing us some couple dances to their favorite songs. Taemin insisted Kibum should do girl dances. Kibum made Soo and all the kids dance with him to Fin.K.L’s Now. The results were pretty hilarious.

Kibum pulled me to dance on our old favorite Candy. We sang and danced with everyone clapping us on. Kibum rapped while I sang. It was surprising that we could still dance and sing in sync with each other. The kids joined us too and showed their cuteness all through the song.

This fired up Taemin and he searched around till he found his old favorites. Soon the music of JAM by Michael Jackson filled the house and Taemin began dancing like he hadn’t danced in a long time. Age had only made him a better dancer. He followed it up by singing and dancing around Kibum to the beats of The Way You Make Me Feel by MJ again. He kept replacing ‘baby’ with ‘Kitty’ to make it clear to all that he was singing it only for Kibum.

Puppy caught my eye and began lip syncing “The way you make me feel, you really .” I shook my head at him. I had always found the lyrics of that song to be really hot. He just grinned at my discomfort. His eyes promised a ‘later’ to me.

Suddenly Kibum came and sat beside me imploring me to save him from Taemin. His blushing face that he hid behind my shoulders told me the whole story. The elders were laughing away at Tae’s mischief. I whistled and cheered Taemin for a little sister for Jongin to complete the family. Kibum began hitting me from behind. Jongin climbed on my lap to peep behind me and stared at a red Kibum.

“Umma you are so red. Just like a tomato. Dotty come look.”

Minki climbed onto my other thigh and peeped over my left shoulder at Kibum. Both of them began pinching Kibum’s cheeks to see if they could go any redder. Teamin continued dancing and singing. He could dance the whole night to MJ songs. He pulled me off my seat and asked me to dance with him.

I grinned at him. When the song had released in 1987 we had made up our own dance routine for it. It took only a moment to get into the groove of dancing our old routine. I realized how much I had missed dancing. Kibum was staring open mouthed as even he had never seen me dance beat to beat, keeping step with Taemin before. We danced to more MJ songs that we had created our own dance routines to – Smooth Criminal, Beat It, Bad, Billie Jean, P.Y.T. and Dangerous.  Everyone was staring at me by now. I had not danced like this in years. Appa began dancing with us to They Don’t Really Care about Us. I put on another old time favorite British band of mine – Queen. Tae and I began grooving to Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

Appa put on All for Love and asked Tae and me to sing with him for old time’s sake. Lee men put on quite a show for everyone with our powerful singing. Kibum was the most taken aback because he had never realized how good the three of us were at singing and that too English songs. Puppy just looked at me in admiration. Imo asked me to sing Bryan Adams’ Everything I do. I looked at my puppy, closed my eyes and sang its first few lines.

Look into my eyes, you will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart, search your soul
When you find me there
You’ll search no more

I couldn’t sing it any further. I wanted to save that song for another day, another time, a more private time. It was a song that made me think of puppy’s confession and I couldn’t bring myself to sing the rest of it in front of everyone. I opened my eyes and saw puppy looking at me. I let my love show in my eyes before looking away.

Imo asked Jonghyun to also dance. The puppy refused to dance but agreed to sing one of his favorite songs. His choice of song took my breath away, Always My Love by HOT. I could only hope that my heart did not show in my face. I looked at him and excused myself to go get some water. Minki climbed into his lap. He began singing and his beautiful voice reached me perfectly well in the kitchen. I stood still, mesmerized by his promise of love ringing through the house.

The moment your pretty eyes came to me, everything in the world stopped
Carefully, I'm going towards you
I worry because you are still young
Sometimes, I draw beautiful world in your eyes and I'm happy
You don't have to say I already know
At the end of the time where everything stopped, when only our world exists
One sentence I hid from you until now
I love you
Stay by my side like this

Now, I'll tell you the truth
My heart waited so long
I know your lightly shaken heart
In front of you, I'm lacking everything
But just stay by me forever
You don't have to say I already know
At the end of the time where everything stopped, when only our world exists
One sentence I hid from you until now
I love you
Stay by my side like this

Even if my lifetime ends, my everything is by your side
Now, it looks comfortable like everything in the world is mine
With you, in this world which stopped, none of the words can substitute my heart
I love you
Stay by my side like this
I found the love
I found the love in you
I want to say that my heart will always be for you
I'll be always there for you
Always. Always my love

Everyone exploded into a round of applause for him. I splashed water on my face to calm myself down. I quickly put a few glasses of juices and water on a tray and carried them out for everyone, offering water to puppy first. Kibum asked Soo to show a dance. Soo agreed only if Kibum danced with her. They began dancing to I am your Girl by SES. All the kids joined them. I went to the kitchen again and texted puppy.

u sing very well

I sang only for u

I know

I meant it

I know

always my love

always

why did you stop singing

I can’t sing it in front of all

Will u sing it for me

Yes only for u

Imo came into the kitchen and found me staring at my phone. She pinched my cheeks, “Stop texting him.”

I finally let myself blush.

“He confessed so nicely Jinki. Did you accept or not?”

I nodded and blushed harder. I couldn’t tell her I had accepted over three weeks ago.

She pulled me down by my cheeks and kissed my forehead. “Be happy Jinki. You deserve it.”

Puppy came to the kitchen, “I am thirsty.”

Imo looked at him and laughed, “You just had water Jonghyun.”

“I want more water imo.”

“You mean you want more Jinki.”

“No, no, no imo. I am really thirsty for Jinki.”

“What?” I gaped at him.

He realized what he had said and quickly went into the bathroom to get his face back to its normal color.

Imo doubled up in laughter. I glared at her, “Stop having fun at my expense.”

“Toki has a lapdog now.”

Jonghyun called out from the bathroom, “I heard you imo. I will have my revenge.”

Imo called out, “Revenge of the lapdog.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. Puppy reappeared, under control, and grinning.

“Imo one day I will carry my toki away from you. That will be my revenge.”

“May God give you strength to carry him throughout your life. Let me know the date, I will have his bags packed and ready.” Imo made even her blessing into a joke.

The easy banter continued even after umma joined us. I was sure the two sisters will exchange notes later on over the phone. I watched my puppy laugh and tease umma and imo.

For a brief moment his eyes met mine and the warm glow in my heart grew brighter.

I felt my long-silent heart begin to beat once again.