CW: Mature content (please skip the marked parts if uncomfortable!)
Thank you to dear Claire_ry for the beautiful cover photo! Author's note coming up soon :)
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Seven Years Later
Spring in Seoul was almost unreasonably beautiful that year. The wind blew in mellow gusts across the city and the sun came out to shine nearly every day, except for the mornings when light showers came down so gently, the raindrops clinging to the leaves seemed like dew.
Life went on in all its forms: from the tiniest butterflies which flitted from flower to flower, to the humans who went about their lives busily, with their everyday worries and their effervescent joys.
At the Conrad Seoul, it was the day of the Seoul Times' International Business Awards. Chairs were set up in neat rows across the ballroom where Se-ri and Jeong-hyeok had waltzed together so many years ago. Today, though, it was morning and the wide windows of the ballroom were cast open, letting in the flower-scented breeze from the gardens outside.
The chairs were already beginning to fill up with familiar faces: some from the VAST group, some from Se-ri's Choice, and some even, surprisingly, from Queen's.
One of these was Han Jeong-Yeon, Se-ri's mother. She's one of the first to arrive, but carefully sits several rows from the front, too hesitant to move forward. She doesn't want to be imposing.
Sitting quietly in her row, Han Jeong-yeon reflects on how much closer to Se-ri she had become in the past few years. And with a small smile, she remembers how it all came about.
***
A memory:
It was a few days after Se-ri and Jeong-hyeok had returned from Jeju Island. Jeong-hyeok had initially offered that they stay in Jeju for a romantic getaway. But Se-ri had wanted to return home, and so they had their own staycation in her apartment. And in the end, Jeong-hyeok thought that it was just as well they didn't go sightseeing in Jeju. Because for the first few days, they didn't get out of bed much anyways.
They had a lot of reacquainting to do.
In between the reacquainting, Se-ri and Jeong-hyeok did small things together, which they'd never had the luxury to do in the stress of their fake dating. They went grocery shopping, went for coffee, did laundry together.
In the early mornings, they took short walks in the park near her home, Se-ri's hand in Jeong-hyeok's, her head by his shoulder. In the park, the world was quiet, and for a few glorious moments, it felt like the universe belonged only to them.
Jeong-hyeok always had thought that Se-ri was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, but in that week after they got back from Jeju Island, he thought there was a new glow to her: in her soft skin, in the dark tresses of her hair. Se-ri was simply alight with happiness. That was, except in one regard.
"Omma has called so much," Se-ri says one day, looking at her phone with a guilty expression. "Maybe I should call her back..."
She's standing in their kitchen, wearing one of his gray dress shirts like a long dress. She bites her lip as she scrolls through her phone, a deep furrow coming between her brows.
"My parents have been calling, too," Jeong-hyeok admits. "I just told them that everything was fine and I would catch up with them later."
"Really?" Se-ri asks quizzically. "They actually accepted that? They didn't want to know more?"
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