I wrote this one a while ago - I think it's cute.

#91 – Ring

Kibum smiled at the obviously nervous man, trying to alleviate some of the stress that the other was clearly feeling.

“Hello David.” He shook the tall man’s hand and they started walking towards the parking lot.

Kibum was in America, preparing to walk Jinae through some of the designs that he had come up with for her wedding dress and take some measurements.  She had some extra work tonight though and needed to stay late so David had offered to pick up his future father-in-law at the airport. 

Kibum almost wanted to snicker at the man’s tense shoulders as he stiffly drove down the streets of Jinae’s neighborhood.

They were caught in some heavy traffic leaving the airport though, so by the time they actually made it to Jinae’s, the woman had already beaten them home. 

“Appa!” She had squealed, throwing her arms around the man tightly.  “You made it!”

“Of course I did Angel!” Kibum whispered back.

“Your Pops wanted to come too…but with his retirement and everything…” Kibum trailed off, stepping back and taking in the image of daughter.

“Yeah, I know, the AP wants to milk him for every story he’s worth while they’ve still got him.”  Jinae smiled.  She had been proud of her father when he had finally decided to leave journalism behind him.  In his early forties he had started writing fiction novels in his spare time, a couple of pages a week or snippets scribbled onto napkins that he had managed to find at one of the billions of events he attended for his children.  He had reached some mild acclaim, all of it of course, under a pen name – he would never want anyone to buy his books solely because he was the author.  But now he was leaving behind the world of journalism and the career that he had held ever since he graduated from university, and he was going to focus his attention on writing his books. 

“Thank God he only has another few weeks,” Kibum sighed, “maybe I’ll get to see him for longer than a few minutes a day then!” he joked. 

*****

Over the next few days, Kibum and Jinae poured over drawings and fabrics, Kibum continually tweaking designs and concepts. 

There was one thing that Kibum knew though, no matter what dress he put his little girl in, she would be beautiful on that day.  Just seeing her shine now, talking about the wedding, gushing over David’s proposal, he could already see that it would be a grand affair that day, and she would be the beaming centerpiece.

“So, we’re nixing the train on this one, but leaving the veil long?” Kibum double checked.  Right now they were tweaking all of his designs, and he would re-draw them all tonight and build up concept models on his computer for her to look at to narrow down her choice. 

“Yeah, sounds good!”  Jinae poured over the sketches like they were the Bible, unable to tear her eyes away. 

*****

Kibum sighed; David had to get over this awkwardness around him, especially if he wanted to become a true part of Jinae’s family. 

“For the millionth time,” Kibum joked lightly, “Just call me Kibum, or Key, but Mr. Kim is too formal, not when you’re going to be my son-in-law in less than a year.”

The lanky man sputtered for a moment before stuttering, “R-r-right…right…”

Kibum rolled his eyes.  “So, Jinae tells me that you are in charge of the rings.  They’re going to be a surprise to her on the day of your wedding…” Kibum trailed off.

He had thought that it would be an easy enough topic to discuss in the car as the man drove him back to the airport to head back home and get started on the design that Jinae had finally decided on.

He had thought it would be okay, but the man’s grimace when Kibum brought up rings was not something that he could just let pass.

“What?” He asked, suddenly concerned.  “What’s wrong with the rings?”

David sighed, “I was going to use my grandmother’s wedding ring.  It’s supposed to go to the eldest granddaughter, but we’re all boys in my family, so we all decided that whoever was the first one to get married, they would get to have the ring to give to their wife.”

“You were going to…what happened?”

“When I went to get it out of the curio, I noticed that the center stone was missing.”  He heaved another sigh, “It must have been damaged somewhere along the way and now I can’t find the stone to have it reset.  It was a beautiful sapphire…my grandmother’s birthstone.”

Kibum thought for a while, “A sapphire huh?”

“Yup, it was beautiful too…”  David ducked his head for a moment, “I can’t tell my family that it’s broken, and I can’t afford to buy a new stone, it’s going to be scrimping just to pull the wedding together...” David took one look at Kibum and spoke up again before the older man could even open his mouth, “You are not paying for the wedding.  Jinae and I will figure something out.”

Kibum nodded, “That’s all well and good, but what about the ring now?  What do you tell your family?” 

David sighed once more, “I was supposed to take care of it.  When I don’t give it to Jinae at the wedding they’re all going to know that something is wrong…” he groaned.  “They’ll either figure I broke it or lost it, which makes them made at me, or that Jinae didn’t like it, which makes them think that she is snotty, but I know she’s not!” He added with a rush, as though suddenly remembering that he had one of Jinae’s fathers in the car.  “I just don’t know how I’ll take the disappointment on their faces when I have to tell them what happened…”

“How big is the setting?” Kibum asked casually.

“Not too big, my grandfather couldn’t afford anything like that when he was getting the ring.” He brought the car to a stop as traffic stalled on the freeway.  “Here,” he reached over and popped the glove compartment and pulled out a small manila envelope and handed it to Kibum, “The ring is in there, you can see for yourself.”

Kibum gently opened the flap and tilted the envelope, causing the ring to tumble out into his awaiting palm.  It was a thin silver band, with two small diamonds sitting on either side of an empty gap.

“And that’s where the sapphire was?” He asked, lighting running his finger along the ring, allowing it to ghost over the missing stone. 

“Yeah, I don’t even know when the stone would have been lost.” David’s voice was pained.  Not only could he not carry on the wishes of his grandmother, but her most important possession was damaged and seemingly unfixable.

“You know, Taemin gave me a ring once, an engagement ring, it had diamonds and sapphires embedded into the band…”

“Sounds beautiful,” David said when Kibum let the silence drag on too long.

“It was. It was so incredibly beautiful.”  He snorted lightly, “Too bad I destroyed it though.”

David quirked his head and look at his future father-in-law, “Destroyed it?  How?”

“I was working at the design firm then.  I was in the work room, pressing a dress and it slipped off of my hand and got crushed under the metal.”

Kibum reached under his shirt and pulled out a thin silver chain, and cupped the lone blue sapphire stone that grace it. 

“This sapphire was the only bit of it to survive.”

Kibum suddenly tugged at the necklace, breaking it off his neck and snapping the chain. 

He ignored the startled David and gently laid the stone in the empty setting and smiled ruefully.  “Perfect fit.” He said simply.

He placed the ring and the necklace into the envelope before closing it up and placing it back in the glove box.

“You go and get that ring fixed now, Jinae will love it.”

“But..sir…I can’t take your sapphire, it was a gift from your husband…”

Kibum rolled his eyes.  “First – ‘sir’ is even worse than ‘Mr. Kim.’ Cut that out!” He mock snapped at the man.  “Second, this sapphire was a gift from my husband, the same way that the missing one was a gift from your grandmother’s husband.  Consider it another way of passing down your family heritage through time.  The pasts of both of our families can come together in this one ring, for the future of your family.  No one needs to know that anything happened to the ring.”

“But…” David wanted to protest some more but couldn’t come up with a good excuse.

Kibum reached over and patted one of David’s hands where they sat on the steering wheel.  “I help out my children,” Kibum said, “just like any parent, and you’re going to be my son soon enough…”

They road in a comfortable silence the rest of the way to their airport, and Kibum thought that David’s shoulders might have been just a little less tense than they usually were around him. 

*****

Many months later Kibum and David shared a secret smile as Jinae showed off her ring at the wedding reception. 

“It was his grandmother’s ring, isn’t it spectacular?”

“It’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen,” he had told his daughter with complete sincerity. 

“It reminds me of that necklace that you used to wear.  Where is it?  I haven’t seen it in a while…”

“Oh,” Kibum said startled as Teamin tried to laugh silently next to him, having been told about the whole scenario after Kibum returned home.  “Um, it broke…and I kind of lost the stone…”

“Oh, that’s terrible,” Jinae looked sad for him.

“It’s alright,” Taemin stepped in, “I’m sure, someone else is enjoying it now.”

And Jinae was guided off to greet some more of their guests, while Taemin just laughed at his husband and swirled him off to the dance floor. 

Let me know what you think!  :)