Soondeok’s diary

The sun that’s been hiding behind the clouds for days is finally out again! What a great and lovely birthday present! Perhaps it’s because it’s my birthday that I’m up already, Eun’s still sleeping, he must be exhausted. We had a snowball fight yesterday you see, and we played outside in the snow for ages, sliding down the hill was just thrilling in this season! It was so fun, I didn’t know he could throw the snowballs so well! He must’ve played quite a lot with his brothers back in the palace. We built ourselves lots of snowmen too, we even made a little snow hut in our backyard with the snow there. The snowing here is much heavier than in the city indeed, just a few days ago, the snow piled up all the way up to my knee! We couldn’t walk so we just waddled through the snow when we needed to, Eun would take my hand of course. Mother sent me a birthday present yesterday, it was really kind of her, I miss her so. I miss daddy too, I hope he’s well. Wait, I think the prince is awake.

------------------------------------------

‘Deok ah~~~~’

‘Oppa, you’re up so early!’

(Soondeok sits on the edge of the bed but then Eun suddenly pulls her into the blanket and gives her a big generous hug)

‘Happy birthday my Soondeok~ Happy birthday dear, did you sleep well last night?’

‘Yes I did.’

‘Why’re you up already? Too excited about your birthday?’

‘I suppose so, I don’t even know why myself.’

(Eun kisses her on the forehead)

‘It’s cold outside, let’s stay here a bit longer, hm?’

(Soondeok wiggles closer to Eun)

‘Alright Oppa, whatever you say.’

(Eun pats her on the shoulder gently with his eyes closed, he’s still quite sleepy)

‘Deok ah…did you open mother’s present yet?’

‘Not yet, I’ll open it later. I want to open it with you.’

‘Why? It’s your present…’

‘Still…’

(Eun kisses Soondeok’s hair)

‘My little dove, what do you want to do today? It’s your birthday, you decide.’

‘Well…I don’t know…what should we do?’

‘Ya, Deok ah, I’m asking YOU!’

‘It doesn’t really matter to me, what we do, as long as we’re together I suppose anything is fine.’

‘Wa, Soondeok ah, come on! You’re not making things easier for me!’

‘Let’s think about it later…we’ll think of something.’

(Eun smiles)

‘Let’s take a walk after breakfast then, I’ll show you a place I know.’

‘Ohh~ Nice! I love hiking! Let’s prepare some food like last time! We can stay up on the mountain all day! That’d be great!’

‘Well, maybe not all day, Deok ah…and it’s not in the mountains, it’s…somewhere else.’

(Soondeok gets on her elbow in excitement)

‘Really? Gosh, now you got me all curious! Where is it, Oppa?’

(Eun winks at her)

‘It won’t be a surprise if I told you now, would it my darling?’

‘Oppa~ Please?’

(Eun softly squeezes Soondeok’s nose)

‘Not now, honey, later.’

(Soondeok pouts a bit)

‘Okay, I get it. I’ll wait then…’

(Soondeok’s hands can’t help but start fooling around)

‘Ya, Park Soondeok, what do you think you’re doing, young lady?’

‘Oppa, where did your muscles go? You had a tiny one right here before but now it’s gone.’

(Eun laughs)

‘Ha! You can’t possibly expect it to still be here after all the food we’ve eaten! Think about it! That day when we went to the market, remember? Boy we ate a lot that day! And then the New Year party last night, we had lots then too!’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘If you like it so much, maybe I should start dieting.’

‘No! Oppa, don’t, I hate it when you go on a diet…remember that time when you were on a diet? Oh, when was it again? After my father came over and-’

‘Ah, I remember.’

‘Yeah, that time, you didn’t eat anything but kimchi and chicken for days…I don’t want you to do that again.’

‘But then I won’t have muscles. You’re okay with that?’

(Soondeok pushes him a bit)

‘Ya, Oppa, I didn’t marry you for your muscles, did I? I mean, think about it! If I cared about muscles at all, I would’ve married anyone from father’s troop instead!’

‘True on that.’

‘Besides, I like your tummy now, it’s soft~’

(Soondeok blows on it cutely)

‘Ya~ Stop it, it tickles!’

‘I used to do this to my nephews, they loved it so much! Oh, but then there’s this one time when I blew on Luhan’s tummy and when he giggled he farted right in my face! It was hilarious!’

‘I can imagine that!’

(Eun smiles at her wife then sits up at last)

‘Come on honey, let’s get up. We have a whole eventful day ahead of us!’

(Soondeok kisses Eun on the lips all of a sudden)

‘Deok ah, what was that?’

‘Think of it as a gift for me.’

(Eun twitches his eyebrow)

‘Oh honey, if you’re taking a kiss as a present, a peck is not enough. This is what I call a present.’

(Eun brings Soondeok to himself and kisses her lips passionately, both giggling intermittently as they share their morning kiss rolling about on bed)

--------------------------------------------------

Eun’s diary

Will she like it? I hope she’ll like it, my present I mean. She’s in the kitchen preparing some food for our day right now. I’ve spent days on this project, I hope she’ll like it.

I can’t believe it’s been a year already. Last year for her birthday, I remember I promised to be her husband for one day as her birthday present. How foolish of me back then, I believe I already started to like her at that time, it’s just that I wouldn’t accept it, that’s all. Perhaps it was of my pride, that I won’t allow myself to fall in love with someone whom I claimed to loathe before.

I love her, I love her so much, it seems that life can’t get any better. Every morning as I wake up I’d see her smile at me, see her coming upon my call, see her being just there for me – it’s like a perfect dream I’d never want to wake up from. But I suppose I was pulled back to reality every now and then. Grandpa kept up with his nagging several times after that conversation we had, even at the New Year party he kept persuading me to listen to him and sleep with someone. Even my uncles started to pressurize me last night – gosh! When will they just give up? It’s starting to get annoying. They keep asking me when I’ll have kids, when I’ll get myself another wife, so on so forth, I hate it. It’ll be fine if they just did it to me, but they did it to Soondeok as well, they kept asking her when she’ll have kids, it hurts me to see Soondeok being under my family’s pressure like that. She didn’t complain, but I know it hurt her, and I feel bad for not being able to help her feel better. All I could do was to comfort her with my words afterwards, but the scar in her heart is still there, I’m afraid.

----------------------------------------------

‘Deok ah, don’t open your eyes yet.’

‘Are we there yet?’

‘Just a bit more…right, here! Stand here, keep your eyes shut!’

(Soondeok bit her lips with excitement)

‘Okay, Deok ah, you can open them now!’

(Soondeok opens her eyes and stay speechless)

‘Oppa…this…’

‘Tada! You like this spot?’

‘Yes…but…where’s this place?’

‘First answer this, do you like this view?’

‘Yes, of course! This wide field, I love it, and we get to see the mountain range here, and I bet the sight of sunset here will be marvellous! But…where’s this place?’

(Eun grins with joy)

‘Deok ah, this will be where we live in!’

‘What do you mean, Oppa?’

‘Honey, I bought this piece of land! It’s ours! And I plan to build our residence here!’

‘Daebak! Really? Oppa really??’

‘Yes Deok ah!’

(Soondeok jumps up with excitement and hugs Eun, both of them squeal and hop around in each other’s arms)

‘You like it here?’

‘Like it? Oppa, I love it! How did you pick this place? How did you buy it? I mean, when did you do it?’

‘I’ll keep it a secret, Deok ah, and it really doesn’t matter anyway. But that’s just one part of my surprise, here’s part 2!’

(Eun pulls out an envelope and gives it to Soondeok)

‘Can I open it?’

‘Of course! It’s yours!’

(Soondeok pulls out the paper from the envelop and open it up.)

‘Oppa! This…’

‘You didn’t think I was paying attention, did you?’

‘Wow! Oppa, you actually drew the design out? And with such precision! I would’ve never been able to drew a floor plan like this! How long did you spend on this?’

‘A very very long time. This, the exact place we’re standing on, will be the main entrance. Now look at the floor plan. Here, didn’t you say you want to add a bath to our room? Look, I added one here. And see here, we have 3 blocks of house – one for us, one for mother and one for guests.’

‘Oppa, why would we need that many rooms for guests? It’s not like we’ll have many visiting us anyway.’

‘Just in case, who knows? It can become our children’s room too.’

(Soondeok nodded silently)

‘Deok ah, you alright?’

‘I…yeah, it’s just that…how wonderful it’d be…to have all those rooms filled with kids?’

(Not wanting the mood to go down, Eun tries to cheer her up again)

‘Deok ah, here, see this? It’s a stable, it’ll be right over there. And here’s our storeroom plus library.’

‘A library?’

‘A big one! You can put in lots and lots of books!’

‘Really?’

‘I’ll make sure of it! It’ll be the best library you’ve ever had! And here’s the kitchen, it’s a big one, this corner will be just for us to use so we can cook together without interrupting the maids.’

‘Oppa, you really want to learn how to cook?’

‘Yep.’

‘Alright, it’ll be nice.’

‘And here’s the yard, we can practice archery here. See this? We’ll place the board there so the sunlight won’t blind us when we stand here, even during sunset. And up there, there’s actually a small creek, and there’s a well here so the maids won’t have to go far off to fetch water. And this place is not too far off from down town too!’

‘Wait, what’s this?’

‘Ah, this? It’s the servant’s quarters, I plan to open up more rooms so they can rest comfortably if they need to.’

‘How thoughtful of you, Oppa! I can’t believe you’ve actually come up with such a thoughtful plan!’

‘I just drew what you said…with a bit of my own idea…’

‘Oppa, you should be a designer! You’re pro at it!’

‘You think so?’

‘Definitely! Oppa, what about our room? Did you design that yet?’

‘Well, not down to the detail yet because I’ll like to design it with you.’

‘Aww~ Oppa~’

(Soondeok kisses him on the cheek)

‘Oppa, this birthday present is just too much, I can’t accept it.’

‘You deserve it, my angel. After all that you’ve been through because of me…’

‘Oppa…’

‘They’ll start working on it once the weather permits. So what say we move back to the capital when spring’s here? And suppose it takes them 9 months or so to build it, then we can move back here by next fall or winter!’

‘That’ll be great, Oppa!’

‘Ah~ Next year, on your birthday, we’d be inside our new house celebrating your birthday, hm? Mother would be here too and, who knows? Maybe we can invite your father over too!’

‘Really? You’ll invite papa?’

‘He’s not that scary to me anymore.’

‘That’d be awesome! If…if nothing goes wrong this year…’

‘What can possibly go wrong, honey?’

‘You’re right…what can go wrong? Then…when will we start adopting kids?’

‘Hm?’

‘Since I can’t have any…and since…you keep refusing to sleep with someone else…I suppose that’s the only option we have.’

‘Let’s not talk about that now honey.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know, it’s just…it kinda spoils the mood a bit.’

‘Oppa, we’ll have to talk about this sooner or later. And since we’re at it, why not talk about it? How many kids should we adopt? Since we have lots of rooms, we may as well fill them all up!’

‘Ha! Deok ah, now hold on a minute, you know how hard it is to raise kids?’

‘So? I’ve got plenty of experience raising my nephews. Oppa, let’s have 12!’

‘Ya! You kidding me? 12? You want to turn our house into a market or something? I thought you didn’t like the idea of having so many kids!’

‘That’s because I didn’t want to give birth to so many back then! But since we’re adopting, I don’t see why not? Let’s make it 6 boys and 6 girls! Here, for the rooms, we can divide it half like so, half as boys’ room and half as girls’ room!’

‘Wa, can you imagine it if we were to travel back to the capital together? Boy, what a sight!’

‘You can take care of the 6 boys while I take care of the 6 girls, what’s so hard about that?’

‘Ya, Deok ah, you seem to have forgotten. Remember that time we took your 3 nephews out? Boy, that was exhausting, and it was only 3! How’d you expect us to take care of 12?’

‘Well, I suppose some older ones will take care of the younger ones.’

‘Still…why don’t we just start with 4 first? That’s more manageable. At least we have one hand for each child when we go out! One on left, one on right, like this.’

(Eun pretends to hop around with two kids holding onto his hands.)

‘Fine, 2 boys and 2 girls first!’

‘Then I suppose we’ll have to add a playroom here on the floorplan…and a playground for them to play outside too! Deok ah, what about a nice big slide? I’ve always wanted to have a slide in my house!’

‘Oh yes Oppa! And swings! We need swings on a tree! Let’s see…’

(Soondeok looks around for a strong tall steady tree)

‘Oppa, this one!’

(Soondeok runs over to a tree)

‘Oppa, let’s tie a swing here on this branch! And that tree! That tree seems nice, we can build a tree house there! Oh Oppa, this is so much fun! Let’s go back!’

(Soondeok pulls on Eun’s arms)

‘Where…where are we going?’

‘Back home! Let’s keep designing our new house! I’ve just got an idea! Come on!’

-------------------------------------------

(Soondeok yawns)

‘Deok ah, look at you, let’s sleep.’

‘Yeah, maybe we should…I didn’t even realise it’s night time already…but look Oppa, look at this! I can already imagine it! Oh if only time will go by faster! I can’t wait to move in!’

‘You’ll need to work hard to live on and witness it, Deok ah, so take care of your body, hm? Let’s sleep now.’

‘Alright. Wait, I didn’t even open mother’s present yet!’

‘Right, I’ll get it for you.’

(Soondeok opens the box)

‘Wow! It’s so pretty!’

(Soondeok takes out a see-through silk dress from the box, admiring it with wide open)

‘Oppa! This is just too pretty! I can’t wear this! I’m afraid I’ll ruin it.’

‘Oh honey, it’s meant for you to wear it. Mother would’ve wanted you to wear it, and the colour suits you.’

(Eun holds it in front of Soondeok and try to look at the match)

‘Yep, you’ll look great in it, Deok ah. What say you wear it tonight?’

‘You sure it’s okay?’

‘Well, I won’t expect you to wear something this y out anyway.’

‘You’re right. I’ll go change now.’

(Soondeok comes back after changing, spinning around the room)

‘Oppa~ You like it?’

(Eun blinks hard as he tries to hide his amazement, his wife looks beautiful, too beautiful.)

‘Soondeok ah…’

(Eun walks over to her and looks at her from top to bottom, front to back)

‘Oh honey…’

‘What…what’s wrong, Oppa? Does it…not suit me?’

‘Oh my Deok ah, when did you get so beautiful? Are you an angel or something?’

(Soondeok spins again)

‘An angel? Really?’

(Eun gently squeezes her cheeks)

‘Indeed, my angel. Come on, let’s sleep.’

(Both of them gets in bed.)

‘Thank you so much for this gift, Oppa, really. I love it!’

‘Mother gave it to you.’

‘No, I meant the house…thank you…so much.’

‘I’m glad you like it.’

(Soondeok stretches a bit on bed, she’s tired from sitting up all day long at the desk with Eun, discussing their new house’s floor plan. Eun suddenly embraces Soondeok from behind.)

‘Happy birthday, my dear~’

‘Thanks, Oppa.’

‘Oh Soondeok ah…my Soondeok~’

(Eun slowly pecks Soondeok behind her neck, softly, but the hint is obvious enough. Soondeok tries to not pay attention to it by chuckling it away, yet this is making Eun start to kiss even more vigorously, seeking for some kind of attention.)

‘Ya, Oppa~ I thought you told me to sleep. How am I supposed to sleep with you kissing me all over?’

‘Oh? Kissing you all over you say? I didn’t do that yet, you want me to?’

‘ert!’

‘Come on, Deok ah~’

(Eun whispers into Soondeok’s ears)

‘Don’t you know why mother sent you this dress? You look y right now, honey…Besides, talking about kids today…made me want to make one tonight~’

‘You know it’ll never happen, Oppa…’

‘Still~ Honey, say you want it. Please? Help me~’

(Eun cuddles Soondeok the way she likes it, finally Soondeok gives her answer.)

‘My my, you do know how to make yourself irresistible, don’t you?’

‘So… it’s a yes?’

‘But I’m a bit tired, Oppa.’

(Eun kisses her on the cheek)

‘Don’t worry honey, I’ll do all the work, I promise. You won’t have to move a muscle, I promise.’