I felt her stiffen when I finished, and when she pulled back softly I couldn't look at her in the eye. I was too ashamed. I couldn't bear to see the disappointment in her eyes nor the anger upon learning that the husband she'd been living with had been lying to her all these years.
"Yunnie, look at me," she said softly, and when I didn't, I felt her soft hands cup my face and lifted it so we could look at each other in the eye. Seeing her face after my confession, I was surprised to see nothing there – no anger, no resentment, no disappointment. The only thing I could see was the silent request behind her huge doe eyes for me to answer her questions truthfully which I vowed I would.
"Why did you tell me this now?" she asked and I sighed heavily.
"Ian is back. I know he wants you back." Pathetic as I was, I took her hands in mine and kissed them as I pleaded. "But I don't want to give you back. I don't want you to leave me."
My wife studied my face for several seconds with an unreadable expression and then…
And then she smiled.
The gentleness in her eyes somewhat calmed my aching spirit, and put a balm into my broken heart. Everything would be alright. I could see it on her face. She wouldn't leave me. My family wouldn't be destroyed, and my love would stay with me forever.
"I won't leave you. I will never leave you," she said softly. Happiness overflowed in me and I pulled her into a tight embrace. I just couldn't believe my luck. "I love you. I love you. I love you," I told her over and over again as I showered her face with kisses. We both laughed and cried at the same time with our silliness but we didn't care. We were both so happy. Finally, with all the secrets out in the open, we could start anew, a clean slate where we would make lots and lots of new memories together…
~
The night was deep and the pregnant woman on the bed stirred as a rustling sound by the door awoke her. Jaeyoung frowned as she rolled her sleeping husband to the side so she could get up and walk across the room to open the door. "Mom?" the small child behind the door called out to her, and she smiled as she ushered him inside. "What's the matter Binnie? You can't sleep?"
Her young son nodded as he patted his stomach. "My tummy hurts."
"Oh?" Jaeyoung frowned as she made her son sit at the edge of the bed. "What did you eat today?" Her husband had taken their son out to the amusement park today, she knew. She wondered what Yunnie fed the little boy to make his stomach hurt.
"I ate pizza and ice cream," Moonbin answered and Jae's eyes widened. "Pizza and ice cream?" She quickly turned to her sleeping husband as she made a mental note to scold him tomorrow. Sighing, she opened the bedside table drawer and took some medicine out. She gave Moonbin some sodium bicarbonate for his indigestion, and led him back to his own bedroom and stayed with him until the medicine took effect.
"Is your tummy okay now?" she asked, and her son nodded his head as he yawned. "Goodnight sweetie," she murmured as she gave her son a peck on the cheek and left the room.
Going back to their bedroom, she eased herself next to her husband, and studied his face. She knew that today had been a tough one for her husband, confessing to her like that.
But it wasn't an excuse to feed Moonbin pizza and ice cream. Naughty daddy!
With a mischievous smile, she decided to give her husband his own medicine. After all, Jaeyoung had a little secret of her own to confess – a secret she'd been keeping for years, from that fateful day five years ago when she accidentally tripped and fell from the platform she was standing on as she was trying her wedding gown and hit her head on one of the chairs.
"Lee Yunho, wake up!" Jaeyoung playfully pulled at her husband's nose making Yunho open his eyes groggily. "What's wrong love? Do you want to eat?" he asked sleepily which made his wife chuckle. For the past months in her pregnancy, she had been waking her husband in the middle of the night to make him get food. This time however, she wasn't craving for anything except to give her husband his just desserts. "Yunnie…" she called again and Yunho reluctantly sat up.
"What do you want me to get love?" Yunho asked as he scratched his sleepy eyes and Jaeyoung chuckled some more. "Nothing Yunnie. I just want to tell you that I didn't have amnesia – well not since three days before our wedding. I married you with all my memories intact," she announced and watched in amusement as Yunho stopped scratching his eyes and turned to her wide-eyed. "What?"
"Nothing…" Jaeyoung answered sweetly as she turned her back on Yunho and pretended to sleep in spite her husband's constant pestering.
No, she wouldn't tell him yet that she had been hearing rumors about Ian's transgressions long before the accident, and the reason why she went to the office that day years ago was to break it off with him.
No, Jae wouldn't tell Yunho yet that as she was falling out of love with Ian, she was falling in love with his gentle cousin – and no, she wouldn't yet tell her husband that after she had recovered her memories, she still went through the wedding because even before the accident, she had been wishing that it was Yunho she was marrying instead of her fiancé.
Also, she wouldn't yet tell Yunho that today, when Ian showed up, Jaeyoung gave him a piece of her mind and told him to behave if he wanted to reconnect with his family.
"Love! Don't sleep yet. Explain to me," Yunho pleaded but Jaeyoung ignored him. "Goodnight Yunnie..."