kim jongin imagines (hiatus)

reconnected

this is a continuation of the last one :)

today is mine and jongin's first daughter's 18th birthday and although she is technically not our daughter anymore, we are having our own celebration as we do every year. we have two more children now, our son who's 10 and our daughter who's 7, and they both know about their older sister and understand why she doesn't live with us. jongin and i promised ourselves that when our kids were old enough we'd tell them that we had a daughter that we gave up for adoption. they were confused at first, obviously, but eventually seemed to understand. i was glad that they seemed to accept it because if our daughter decides she wants a relationship with us one day, we want them all to get along.

around noon on the day of her birthday, our home phone rings so i walk over and answer.

"hello?" i said.
"hi, (y/n), it's hyejin," the person on the other line says.
"oh," my eyes widen, "hi hyejin. how are you?"
"we're great, how are you guys?"
"pretty good, thank you. what can i do for you?"
"well, you know it's minyoung's 18th birthday today, of course."
"yes, we're having our own little celebration."
"oh, good, that's very nice. so, for her birthday, minyoung has asked for one big present that i think you can help with."
"sure, what is it?"
"she wants to meet her birth parents."
"oh, wow."

i don't quite know how to reply at first and when jongin notices that i'm suddenly silent, he gives me a confused look.

"i know it's probably a lot," hyejin says, "but she's an adult now and she's said that she wants to meet and talk to you guys about what happened."
"alright, uh, let me talk to jongin and i'll call you back in a minute."

she agrees so i hang up and walk back over to jongin in the living room.

"what was that about?" he asks.

"minyoung wants to meet us," i say. his eyes widen but in a second, whatever shock was on his face turns into pure joy.

"she does?"

"yeah. do you want that?"

"of course i do. i want to finally see her in person again."

his excitement is slowly rubbing off on me and i find myself feeling the same way. we haven't seen her in person since the day she was born so it would be really nice to actually get to meet her.

"okay then, i'll let hyejin now," i say. i call her back and tell her the good news which she seems really excited to hear. she says that she and her husband will bring minyoung over in about an hour so once we've hung up, jongin and i quickly rush around to make sure our house is tidy enough.

there's a knock on the door just over an hour later and the second i open it, i'm taken aback by how beautiful the girl is who's standing there. she looks exactly like jongin and i feel my heart swell with pride and love immediately.

"mom?" she asks. i almost start to cry just hearing that one word.

"yes, that's me," i reply. "come on in, your father is waiting in the living room."

i lead her through the house and when jongin finally sees her, i can see that he reacts the exact same way i did. seeing them staring at each other is like watching jongin look in a female fun house mirror of himself. she seemed to inherit almost every facial feature from him, with the exception of her nose which resembled mine more, and it was obvious they were both shocked at their similarities.

"well, there's no doubting you're mine," jongin jokes, making minyoung laugh gently. i walk to stand beside jongin and min young suddenly pulls us both into a hug which we gladly return.

"it's so amazing to meet you," she whispers.

"it is for us too," i say. "we haven't seen you in 18 years."

when she pulls away, the three of us sit on the couch and she folds her hands in her lap.

"do you mind if i ask some questions?" she asks.

"of course not, go ahead," jongin replies.

she smiles and takes a deep breath before asking the first. "why did you give me up for adoption?"

"well, the main reason is because your dad is famous, which you probably already know." she nods. "around the time i got pregnant, one of his groupmates had just had a baby and a lot of the fans did not react well, even though they were engaged. as jongin and i weren't engaged, we knew that we would get an even worse reaction. we thought it would be better for you to have a normal life instead of this crazy one we have."

"i see. did you ever consider keeping me?"

"yes," jongin replies honestly. "we talked it over for a long time when we first found out but decided we couldn't do that to you. you'd grow up with cameras following you around and people trying to harass you on the street. we didn't want to put you through that, we care about you too much."

she grins at that and my heart settles a little. at least she doesn't seem to be angry with us.

"do you have other kids?" she asks.

"we do," i say. "we have a son who's 10 and a daughter who's 7. we got married about 3 years after you were born and once your dad's group split up, we had your siblings."

"do they know about me?"

"yes."

"would they want to meet me?"

"i think so."

i call for the two other kids to come down and they shyly introduce themselves to their older sister. it takes a few minutes but eventually they seem to warm up and are already chatting and laughing like they'd grown up together. jongin's hand reaches over to grab mine and we share a look of fondness as we watch them.

the younger kids leave again after about 20 minutes then minyoung continues on with her questioning, now mainly focusing on the rest of the family.

"and finally," she says, "are you open to letting me be part of your lives? not as parents but maybe as friends for now until we get a little more comfortable."

"we'd love that," jongin says.

"we're here for any kind of relationship you want. we're not going to force ourselves to be parental figures, you have parents now who we respect very much, but just know that if you ever need anything, we're here."

that seems to make her really happy as she throws her arms out and tugs us in for a hug.

"thank you so much," she says.

"of course, we're always here for you," i say.

"not just for that, for everything." she pulls away and smiles. "i bet what you've had to go through for the past 18 years was really hard and i admire you so much for what you've done for me. thank you for letting me live the life i have because i truly have had a great one. i'm so excited for us to grow as an extended family in the years to come."

i feel a tear escape my eye at that so i quickly pull her into another hug to distract myself.

"giving you up was the hardest thing we ever did," jongin says, reaching out to stroke her hair.

"it really was," i agree. "you don't know how much it hurt me to not be able to hold you when you were born. i regretted our decision every day for years until the pain finally subsided enough that i could accept what we did was for the best. i'm so grateful you want to know us and understand what we did for you."

"of course, i have absolutely no reason to feel any other way. no matter what, you're my birth parents and i owe my life to you both. i love you."

"we love you, too," jongin whispers. "so very much."

after another hug, minyoung goes out to get hyejin and her husband, and jongin our other kids, and we spend the next few hours reconnecting. it's such a wonderful experience to get to know our daughter and i cannot wait for what comes next.

i hope you like this! i thought the past imagine should have a happy ending lol