The Way I Loved You

Resolution

Feeling energised by her time with Hyunwoo that morning, Haein decided to do something productive with her newfound energy. Nowadays, she was gradually starting to feel the effects of her illness, from random headaches to the exhaustion that seemed to suck the life out of her bones. It had been a while since she'd felt this normal and she wanted to make full use of this little window of freedom.

That was how she ended up in his room, rearranging and tidying up his things for him. Since she'd been occupying his room, she thought it was only right that she did some housekeeping for him too to earn her keep. Besides, she loved getting small glimpses of his childhood and the life he lived before marrying her.

As their dating era had been rather short, she hadn't really gotten the chance to spend time with Hyunwoo before he got sucked up into the hurricane of the corporate world. It never failed to fascinate her when she saw pictures of him in casual clothes, sitting in a tree with his friends or playing football in the fields. It was a completely different image from the Hyunwoo in fancy Italian suits and expensive watches.

If there was something Hyunwoo didn't have a shortage of, it was childhood photos. He had photos from when he was in kindergarten, when he was in school, and even pictures of him when he was barely able to walk. She couldn't help but trace his adorable little features, wondering if their baby would've inherited any of them.

What would it be like if fate hadn't been cruel to them? Maybe there would be another pair of feet running around in their house, a girl with his adorable smile or a boy with his athletic affinity. For the hundredth time, she imagined what it would be like to have a family with him, to be a unit like the rest of her family. Although she'd never explicitly mentioned it to Hyunwoo before, it had always been her dream to start a family, to have children that she would love unconditionally, children who would love her back.

Ever since she was a child, she wanted to have her own loving family, one that would fill the gap in her heart left by her mother. It was high up on her bucket list of things she'd always wanted to do after she secured her place in the line of succession, but it seemed like she would never get to do it before she died. The realisation made her heart pang with loss, wishing that she could've done something over the past three years to repair their relationship instead of taking their time for granted.

Wishing to distract herself from upsetting thoughts, she decided to look through his drawers instead, curious to see what else she would find that gave her more insight into Hyunwoo's personality. There were a couple of notebooks, each looking a little older than the last. Over time, he had transitioned from simple notebooks made of paper to cloth notebooks, and eventually leather. It reflected his growing maturity and his success as a lawyer after he graduated from university.

Curious to see what they could contain, she opened one of them, instantly greeted by his familiar scrawl that adorned the pages. Were those... dates? He had written numbers at the top of each page, and Haein soon realised that they corresponded to dates of the year.

This is a diary.

Her stomach flipped at the realisation. In her hands were Hyunwoo's inner thoughts, the things that he probably didn't tell anyone else. Would she be invading his privacy if she took a peek? Definitely. But she couldn't clamp down on her curiosity, her fingers itching to flip through the pages.

I wouldn't be intruding too much if I don't read everything, right? I'll just read one entry. What harm could it do?

She looked at the date again, realising that it must be from his high school years. A thought popped up in her mind. Did he write an entry on the day they met? If that interaction meant so much to him that he'd kept her mp3 player, he must have written an entry here.