Forgotten Night

Epilogue

20 June 2022, 8:20 Pm (Three Years Later)

My stomach still hurt a bit. And I still felt a bit weak. But none of that mattered. Because I was looking down at the most beautiful, most precious thing on earth. Hyun had his hand around me, supporting me, as we looked down to the cradle that carried a tiny baby.

"Doesn't she look a bit like me?" Hyun asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I think she looks a lot like you." And I was glad that our baby looks like Hyun. She came out of me but looked like him. And no one can argue that Hyun has the better DNA for good looks than I have.

As I kept staring at our baby, my eyes kind of got wet. I was scared. I turned and buried my head in Hyun's chest. I no longer try to hide my feelings from him, let it be feelings of any sort. "What happened?" he asked.

"What if I can never be a good mom?" I asked him. I was never confident about being a mom. I had never forgotten my first baby, the unborn one.

"You will be," Hyun reassured me.

"How do you know?" I asked him. "I don't have any experience in it. And I am a cold person. I may be too strict with her. What if she feels under-loved?"

"You can be strict." He said. "Just be yourself. Be strict, coz that is the way of showing care and concern and love for you. But trust me she will never feel under-loved. Because I plan to shower our baby with all the love in this world. I can be the best dad in the world and spoil her all the time."

I smiled. Because I could totally picture that. He will totally spoil her with love. So someone needs to be strict in the house. It will be like having two kids. Someone needs to be an adult and scold them both on the naughtiness they do. I sighed at the thought...

Hyun turned his eyes back to look at our baby. "But isn't she a bit too tiny?" He asked.

"She is normal size. 3.2 kg is normal." I said.

But he was looking at her with fascination. "Just coz her fingers are so tiny." He touched her tiny finger. "It's so so cute." True. And since she looked totally like Hyun she was really beautiful. I almost did not want to show her to anyone and wanted to keep her to myself. We had not even taken a photo of her yet.

We had posted about the birth of her online though, like 'blessed with a baby girl' and that is all. Half the world had congratulated us and was happy for us. There were comments like 'their baby will be so adorable' etc. Our old malicious rumours were now long lost memory. Everyone now considered us a normal loving couple. And people were honestly happy for us.

Hyun's acting career had taken a huge leap after that movie he did with Kim Ki Ryul khamdongnim. The movie was really critically well acclaimed and it won several awards in Cannes. Hyun even won many awards for best acting in the country. And after that many directors sought him out to do their movies. Though there was a bit decline in the industry because of teh pandemic, TV screens never took a break.  And Hyun was still a very well respected and yet popular actor now. He had left his old agency when his twelve-year contract ended and went to a better one with a more humane CEO and who could promote his acting career more. He did not want to stay back in the old agency when he heard about the truth from me about how Taepyonim had talked about YuJin Oppa. When he left, he took TaeHo with him. TaeHo is his personal manager now and he is doing well. He even has a girlfriend now.

Yuri was working as the first assistant of a really popular Webtoon writer now and earning fairly well even when she was still in college. Mom had stopped working in the restaurant she was working in and had been helping me in my café since last year. My café was going well since it followed all the social distancing rules and offered delivery services. Mom and Yuri still lived at our old house, but we frequently visited them.

"I still want to name her 'Bhyeol'[/byol] though," Hyun said all of a sudden. We had been fighting about the baby's name for a while. Hyun wanted to name her 'Bhyeol' which means 'Star' in Korean.

"It's a childish name. She will hate you when she gets older." I told him again.

"Then how about Bhyeol-Nim?"

"That's tacky."

"Han-Bhyeol?" he asked.

"Han-Bhyeol feels okay enough. But it's a common name." I said. It still means 'the first star' one 'one star'.

"I don't care that. 'Kim Han Bhyeol'. It feels really okay, okay? I am going to name her that. Coz she is a star to me. And I want to call her 'Bhyeol' as a pet name."

Well, it's not a bad name. "Okay," I said. "Han-Bhyeol it is." He bent down to the bay and called her in a soft voice. "Bhyeol aa... I am your dad." He looked really proud. "Dad will protect our Bhyeol forever....For life."

"Mom too..." I promised her. "Mom will also protect and love Bhyeol for life."

Bhyeol moved in her sleep as if she understood us. Hyun stood up to keep staring at her with me in awe. I still could not believe that she came out of me. She was so beautiful. We both loved her so dearly already. And with the addition of Bhyeol we were a complete family.