"You Lost Now You're Mine"

Chapter 44

Jimin paused at the doorway to his room and mentally prepared himself before entering. After a few seconds, he opened the door and stepped inside. His mom was seated on his bed, a book in her hands. Jimin recognized the book to be the one he’d left on his nightstand. When he entered the room, she looked up and offered him a small smile as she set the book aside.

“Jimin...it’s nice to see you.” She said as Jimin closed the door and leaned against it. He nodded to her in acknowledgment but otherwise remained silent. He didn’t know what to say and he could tell she wasn’t sure how to start their conversation either. He could also see how sad she was that this was how they were meeting each other. Usually, when Eunji went away on a long trip, Jimin would be the one to pick her up when she returned. And once they saw each other, Eunji would hug Jimin so tight Jimin would have trouble breathing. Even so, he enjoyed those hugs and kind of wished they could have one right now. Of course, this time was different though so that kind of scenario wouldn’t be happening.

“I know you’re upset with me… but please… sit next to me?” Eunji requested, her eyes filled with sorrow and pleading with Jimin. Her whole body was rigid and tense indicating her uncertainty about the situation. Her shoulders were slumped forward indicating her weariness. And it was obvious she was close to tears even if she wasn’t crying quite yet. He could see she was hurting from his lack of response to her and Jimin did feel bad for that. He’d been worrying so much about their confrontation and now that it had arrived, he couldn’t bring himself to keep up this cold act. He let out a small sigh and walked over to the bed and sat down to her left. Without another thought, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into her shoulder. His mom seemed surprised by the sudden action as she tensed up for a second. But her arms wrapped around him within a second and she squeezed him tightly, kissing the crown of his hair before resting her head against it. They both sat there hugging for a minute before Jimin felt something wet land on his head.

“Are you crying?” Jimin asked with his face still buried in her shoulder.

“Hmm… I.. I wasn’t sure if...if you’d still let me hold you...I was afraid you’d take forever to forgive me.” She said beginning to sniffle slightly.

“I haven’t forgiven you,” Jimin responded but not as harshly as he thought he would. “I just don’t like seeing you sad… You’re unfair, you know I can’t stand seeing you sad and you’re using that against me right now.”

“I swear it’s not on purpose… I just can’t help myself… it hurts to think you wouldn’t let me hold you anymore...that you’d pull away from me and hate me.” She replied holding onto Jimin a little tighter.

“...I’ve said it before I could never hate you...I’m just upset and feeling a little betrayed...Mom” Jimin said hesitating a little at saying the word mom.

Eunji pulled away and looked at Jimin surprised that he’d actually called her mom. Jimin didn’t say anything else instead he reached out and swiped at her tears recalling how she’d done the same thing to him whenever he’d cried in front of her.

“That’s...that’s going to take some getting used to..” she finally whispered out reaching up and taking a hold of Jimin’s hands and bringing them down into her lap.

“Do you not want me to call you that?” Jimin asked softly, after all, he still didn’t know the reason she’d kept it a secret for all these years. Maybe she never told him because she didn’t want a son, but Jimin kind of doubted that that would be the reason. Eunji had played the role of a mother ever since Areum died so it was highly unlikely that she didn’t want Jimin as her son.

“No that’s not it… I’ve always wanted to hear you call me mom… I just never thought it would happen. I never planned to admit it. I planned to take that secret to my grave.” Eunji responded lightly squeezing Jimin’s hands.