After Somin’s wedding, Jihyo and Jongkook spent a few days joining the celebrations. None of the guests except for their close friends and family knew who they were, and Taehyun listed them as his own guests as Lord and Lady Kim. 

Thankfully, the celebration was not in Daegaya, and while the name of Jihyo had been known to the other polities, only those from Insung’s palace personally knew her. It was the only interaction Jihyo braced herself for, and when she saw Insung, despite her apologies, the man had been kind enough to give her his regards. Jongkook stood protectively beside Jihyo the entire time, but it was an entirely amicable conversation.

The wedding celebrations lasted for about three days, and, even though the newlyweds had secluded themselves and Kwangsoo had already gone back to Silla to look after Sunbin, Jongkook and Jihyo opted to stay in Goryeong to enjoy the remainder of the banquets. 

In the daytime, Jongkook, for his part, took the trip as an opportunity to widen his network, and to scour more resources he could trade in Jindo. Jihyo, on the other hand, got lost in the libraries in Goryeong, finding interesting books and writings that she wanted to continue studying and teaching in the future. In the evenings, they would join Taehyun and his wife in the celebrations. This time, Jihyo allowed herself to thoroughly enjoy the makgeolli, and when they would retire to their own quarters even later into the night, she would instead get intoxicated with Jongkook’s kisses and touches. It was their first trip as a newlywed couple after all, and while they settled into a comfortable domesticity immediately in Jindo, there was something different about traveling to Gaya together as a married pair.

After they arrived in Jindo in the winter, they had to spend a considerable amount of time in the only inn on the island. It was run by an old woman, whose children had already moved to the main island. She also had an open kitchen, and given that it was near the docks, business was easy. 

By a of luck, Jongkook found that there was a lord that was looking to sell his house on the island. It was a bit like the summer palace, albeit much smaller, with only four different quarters with a small courtyard in the middle, a kitchen, and a storage room at the back. Jongkook felt that it was perfect for them and for his business. 

He brought Jihyo to look at the rundown property, and explained what he planned to do with it. “So there are four quarters. I was thinking, one will definitely be for us. We can convert two quarters to become our own offices. And then we can reserve the other one for our child,” he said. 

She seemed bothered by this, and upon Jongkook’s prodding, she admitted her concern, “I love how near this place is to the shore without being too close to the docks. But the number of quarters… this is just sufficient for one child.”

He laughed at that, and she stared at him in disdain. He picked up on her reaction, and asked, “So I’m guessing you want more than one child?” He drew her into a tight embrace, his arms going around her waist, and he playfully tapped her nose. 

“Why? Do you not want a lot of children?” she looked up at him warily. 

He kissed her passionately, and she was almost blown away, but he cut it short and said, “Of course I do. The process of making them… that’s something I would never not want.” He punctuated his sentence with a wink. Jihyo’s cheeks flushed as she remembered the nights they have shared together, when Jongkook comfortably broke through the boundaries he kept sacred before they were married.

Then he took her hands and said, “But they will take some time. And I’d like to think by the time we have our second child, we would have had enough money to already expand this property. The plot of land is wide enough anyway to build adjacent rooms and quarters. We can even build a school like what the Seonsaengnim had in the village.”

It was really all the words she needed to agree with him, so he purchased the property, and they spent the first month making a few repairs to the place. Jongkook also began his business, and started to trade some items from Silla and Seongsan Gaya to the merchants in the market. It turned out that reviving his contact with the Sangdaedeung and consistently staying in touch with Taehyun were good decisions, as they managed to help him remotely in his business by linking him to suppliers from the main island.

Soon enough, the storage room at the back of his house was filled with metalwork and other manufactured goods. While there were some challenges, Jongkook already saw returns on his money. They were still reliant on the money he brought with them to the island, but the progress of his trade was exponential, and he knew that soon enough, probably after a year, he would be able to pay back Taehyun for the additional gold and silver he was given.

The amusing thing about their life as newlyweds was Jihyo’s initial struggles in maintaining the household. In the beginning, they had no servants, and she and Jongkook had to take their meals at the open kitchen daily. He insisted he didn’t want her to work to take care of him, but soon enough, Jihyo grew antsy about accompanying Jongkook everywhere, taking spontaneous trips to the beach by herself, or staying alone at home doing nothing but writing letters to Kwangsoo. 

She decided that, until they managed to find servants, she would want to be a homemaker. She sought help from the old woman they lived with, and spent her days assisting in the open kitchen so she could learn how to cook. Jongkook was staunchly against this at first, but knew better than to try to control Jihyo. 

The experience at the open kitchen made Jihyo feel better. She applied what she learned at home, and was rewarded by Jongkook’s genuine compliments about her cooking. Beyond that, she also met more people from the village, specifically the parents of the farmers and merchants who shared their concerns about their children. 

“How about you Lady Kim? When are you and Lord Kim going to have children?” this would be the question she would get from the other mothers, as Jihyo played with their children. 

“Soon enough. We’re not rushing it. We just got married last winter,” Jihyo would nonchalantly say, even if deep inside, she was also excited to be the mother of Jongkook’s children. 

But in the last few months, she still had her courses, and while she was frustrated in some way, Jongkook also reassured her that their time would come perfectly. “It’s fine,” he would say with a grin that would turn mischievous. “I’d much prefer to have you to myself in the meantime anyway.”

Still, Jihyo was restless, and it didn’t help that Jongkook had managed to hire a household servant, a young woman named Jihyun, along with the ones he hired to help in his business. Jihyo had nothing left to do in the house, and she spent her time reading the books Jongkook bought for her. One time, she caught Jihyun peering at her as she was going through a new novel, and asked, “Do you need anything Jihyun-ah?”

Jihyun quickly waved her hands, and began to move away, but Jihyo stopped her. After trying to coax out the truth, Jihyo found that Jihyun had been interested in reading, but unfortunately, much like the other young people in the village, she was not literate.

This gave Jihyo a renewed sense of purpose, and she allocated a time of the day to teach Jihyun. Then, she talked to the other villagers about what she had been doing with Jihyun, and offered to teach their children the basics of reading and arithmetic as well. At first, the mothers refused, feeling embarrassed that a noblewoman was offering to look after their children, but Jihyo managed to convince them by saying that she was really not looking to do anything else.

Jongkook helped Jihyo convert her office into something that resembled a classroom. Soon enough, the handful of children and teenagers who joined Jihyun for her daily lessons grew in number, and it was almost as if Jihyo had established her own school. That became her routine