[Fic] Concrescence - 2/3
Title: Concrescence
Pairing: Xiumin/girl!Kai
Rating: NC-17
Genre: romance
Warnings: smut
Word count: 24,535
Summary: Jungah has always known that she was going to marry the Obelus Group heir but she never actually thought she would fall in love with him.
Author's Notes: This was nearly titled "The Husband Acquisition"
***
Jungah felt under-prepared with the box she had brought with her. It was, per Minseok’s request, a box of pictures and little trinkets that she had kept close over her childhood, and Minseok hadn’t really told her why, though it was easy to imagine. Many newlyweds faced that first time after the wedding, of either getting to know each other better or learning how to live together, though they had all of that wrapped up into one, and a couple of weeks into their marriage, that was no different for them. But Minseok was there to greet her when her taxi pulled up, taking her hand and ignoring the scattered people as he led her into the park.
“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” Jungah said.
“Not very long. I picked up the food, and texted you I was ready when I was on the way, too. This spot looks good?”
It was shady, under a tree and without people too near, so Jungah couldn’t have complained. With the both of them working together, it was easy to spread out the thin almost-sheet, and to anchor it down with the box he’d been carrying and both of them sitting on it.
“I think we’ll be okay as long as the wind doesn’t come up too high,” Minseok said.
They’d be wearing the blanket, if that happened, though setting the food out between them meant the anchor of their bodies would keep the food from flipping over. The food was good, something from a nice restaurant that they’d been to for dinner before, not lunch. He was a little bit of a snob sometimes, but it mostly amused her. And he flicked at her hand when she’d remarked about the label on the box.
The dessert was some kind of chocolate cream, perfectly chilled it its own container, and with the breeze, it almost reminded her of being at the beach, carefree.
“So, here’s a question. What do you want to do?” Minseok asked, his plastic spoon dangling from his fingers. And he chuckled when Jungah raised her eyebrows at him. “I mean, I know our parents probably expect you to be a professional wife and mother, and my mom would probably make our lives hell with lectures if you said you wanted to work before there’s a baby on the way, but. I don’t know. Do you have a hobby? Do you want to volunteer? And it’s okay if you don’t know, it’s just… I don’t want being married to me to be some kind of prison, I guess. You’re not just “my wife.””
Jungah had opened her mouth several times during that, expecting to be able to get in a word while he kept babbling. And she didn’t even know what to say when he finally did stop, waving at her almost like he was embarrassed.
“I don’t know yet,” Jungah got out, her brain still trying to work. “I have my degree, but my mother obviously kept me back and kept me in her charities so that my “resume” would be good for being your wife. I hoped things would sort of naturally sort themselves out, once we got to know each other, once I knew what your expectations were and I could go on from there. Though, thank you. It’s nice to hear there are options, not just to know it.”
“You shouldn’t have to thank me for that. I guess I could could always take you in as my office assistant,” he teased, eyes twinkling as he let the innuendo stand.
“What would your current office assistant say?”
“He’s twice my age, so he’d probably enjoy some vacation time.”
“It’s probably more productive for you to keep him on, then,” Jungah said, smacking at his knee. No secret meetings in the office, and he read her thoughts, there.
“Probably. Though you should come by the office, sometimes. It’d be nice to see a face who doesn’t expect me to know the answer to everything.”
Jungah half laughed, though she envied him in a way, having that knowledge of where he belonged.
“Only where you want to go for dinner,” she said.
They were working out a system for that, by text. They traded, one of them choosing what type of cuisine they wanted, and the other choosing the restaurant. They were going off of ratings, trying to decide which ones they liked best. Jungah was pretty sure Minseok had some kind of a spreadsheet that he was using to file away their reactions and the type of service they got. It was kind of endearingly anal, like the way he kept his things in the bathroom.
“Did you bring the stuff I asked for?” Minseok asked.
“One box of childhood memories,” Jungah said. “You’re lucky, because I knew where this was. I just unpacked it not too long ago.”
Jungah watched, curious, as he got out his own box, wooden and etched. Her own was tin, a memento itself in many ways.
“I know a lot about you from things my parents have told me, from places we’ve been together since we’ve been married, and over the years, but… I thought it might be nice to share some other things?”
Not just sharing pieces of their childhood, but pieces of themselves, very telling in what they had kept close, what they cherished.
“That’s a really nice idea,” she said.
Minseok’s smile was so pleased, and they started unpacking their boxes, little by little.
There were concert tickets and movie stubs, and those were mostly explanatory though some unique stories went with some. They both had tickets from baseball games, different teams, but Minseok grinned, delighted. “We can go to a game together! Do you like soccer?”
Her insulted face told him everything he needed to know, fist-pumping.
“Am I going to have to put bumpers on the walls when there are games?”
Jungah didn’t believe the innocent face that Minseok gave her for a second. But there was a toy car his father had given him, one with obvious tooth dents in it, a necklace missing a clasp she had been given by her grandmother when she started middle school. Pictures of friends and places, polished rocks, coins from different countries. There was love in their boxes, in everything they had kept.
One of the last things Minseok had was a ring, one that was worn and clearly old.
“This was my grandfather’s. He worked, hard. He didn’t even have this until after his children were grown.” Minseok slid it onto his finger and it was obvious why he didn’t wear it, because it was very loose on him. “You can tell how hard he worked, just from looking at this ring. Sometimes, I just look at at, hold it. I want to do as much as he did, though I know because of him I won’t have to work as hard in the same ways. I don’t have to start from the very bottom. Our kids won’t have to either, but I don’t ever want to forget where it all started.”
Jungah touched the ring after he’d put it on his palm, tracing the gold and touching his skin at the same time.
“It’s almost cliche, but it’s important to remember. I remember meeting him once. I was just about to start middle school, and your parents had invited us over. We ate outside.”
“Oh,” Minseok said, remembering. “You’d just gotten a puppy, hadn’t you?”
“We did,” Jungah said, warmed by his recollection. “He was so scared by the fireworks. You…gave me your jacket when we were sitting outside.”
Minseok looked at her like he was admiring some kind of specimen. “How do you even remember that?”
“I was fairly sure we were going to get married, and maybe live in a castle at that point.”
“You had a crush on me?!” Minseok asked, so obviously delighted that it made Jungah squirm, even as he grabbed her hand and tried to pull her closer.
“For about five minutes,” Jungah allowed, nudging at him. So it was longer than that, but it was one thing to have an adolescent crush and another to be nudged along to get married. The reality of it all had been a long way off from those dreamy dreams and stealing glances at Minseok’s lips. Of course, she had firsthand knowledge of those. Things her tiny little self would never have even begun to dream of. Jungah leaned forward and stole a kiss - freely given - both to settle herself down inside and to keep him from teasing her any more.
There were things it was good to remember, as they leaned together and sorted through the last of the pictures. She wanted to add a few things more, a picture from their wedding, a little bottle of sand souvenir from their honeymoon. Even if she carried those memories inside of her, she wanted something there that she could touch. Even if the one thing that she had found wasn’t something that could be tucked away: how Minseok was making an effort to get to know her.
***
Sometimes Minseok made faces at his laptop when he was working in the evenings, those times he swore it would be 30 minutes but sometimes ran long. Sometimes he squinted at the screen, eyes narrowed in what looked like frustration, sometimes in inspiration, preceding a flurry of typing. Jungah read sometimes while he worked, glancing up at the amusing show that was his face, and he caught her sometimes, blinking like he wasn’t sure why she’d find him in the least bit interesting.
“What?”
“I can’t tell if you’re cursing someone out, or are they just going to come in tomorrow and have to work with you on their heels.”
Minseok laughed, taking a brief coffee break to tell her about a set of proposals he was trying to get ushered out the door. They had a team, but he was doing some last minute quality checking, and that team was probably going to end up working the night through to get everything out the door.
“They do a good job,” Minseok sighed. “I should remind them they’re doing a good job.”
And then she lost him again to the laptop, laughing a little into her tea.
But that wasn’t every night, most of them being time for Minseok to unwind, to watch sports, or tug her close for watching TV on the couch. Jungah paid attention when they went out to eat, not just taking delight in trying different dishes, but watching which ones that Minseok took the most interest in, how he reacted to the bites offered from her own plate. It was easy to build a bit of a mental list of things he liked best. It wasn’t like they never cooked at home. Sometimes Jungah picked up things, or she put in orders with the service they had. Groceries showed up at her door nicely wrapped and perfectly fresh, and all that was left was to put them away or prepare it. Minseok made dinner one night, a simple stir fry with eggs and rice and fish. He’d been halfway done when Jungah had gotten home from another meeting with his mother, and she wandered to the kitchen, watching him like a specimen in a jar.
“This is my lazy night dinner than I learned to make when I was too lazy to order in - too lazy to make a call! - and when I wanted more than cereal,” Minseok said.
It had had her laughing, leaning in as he offered her a bite. And it was good, filling, comforting. She’d made simple things, too, when they were too tired to go out or just wanted to stay home. Minseok had even lent a hand a couple of times, when he hadn’t been chained to his phone. They’d eaten delivery food the night her period had started. It had been a little deflating but at that point, not entirely unexpected. It was something she refused to worry over, when it was something they knew could take time. It had been an enjoyable couple of hours tucked against Minseok’s side as they watched a movie, feeling him laugh, and biting her tongue when she had been tempted to ask if he was disappointed, when she had mixed feelings herself. She should’ve been able to ask if he liked that they’d have just a bit more time, just the two of them, with the enthusiasm of trying for the baby that both of them wanted.
Something to work toward.
Like learning Minseok’s favorite foods, and then learning how to make them. Jungah knew what time Minseok was going to be home, and his assurance that he would actually come home and not work late. Even if it tipped him off that something was happening, she didn’t care, because at least she wouldn’t be cooking for nothing. Jungah had done all the preparation she could the morning of, picking out the freshest vegetables in the afternoon, arranging her recipes in order of time. The dessert, a cheesecake, was finished first and cooling, a sauce for pasta simmering, a steak heating through in the oven. She had little side dishes, spicy pickled vegetables to cut through the fat, and a wine he had had particular liking for in one of the restaurants. It was perfect. She was wiped out, and she had to keep blotting her face down after she changed into nicer clothes 30 minutes before she expected him, but everything was at least going in the right direction.
It didn’t keep her from tensing a little when she heard him come in.
“Wow, something smells good in here,” Minseok said, and his face was a bit dazzled as he inhaled on the way to the kitchen.
“Does it?” Jungah asked, resisting the urge to smooth down her hair. And she laughed as he got up close to her and inhaled into her shoulder.
“You smell good, too. But really, wow.”
“I thought it’d be nice to have something a little nicer, something we didn’t have to go out for,” Jungah said. He peeked into all the pots, bending to look at the resting cake, and under the cover where the side dishes had been set.
“What did I do to deserve this?” Minseok asked, as though amazed.
It made Jungah smack at him with a towel, starting to turn off burners. “Did you have to do something to deserve food?”
“No, but… Are we celebrating something?”
Minseok was eyeing her and Jungah shook her head. No surprise baby. “No, no celebrating. Celebrating the food, maybe. I like doing this every once in a while.”
“I’m not going to complain. And I see a lot of my favorites here?”
Jungah grinned, poking a bit of lettuce between his lips. “I’ve paid attention.”
It wasn’t just to show him that she’d paid attention either. It had grated on her a bit at first, just how much that she wanted his approval, but it also made her calm in a weird way. They were more than just roommates who slept together. Jungah didn't need his approval but she wanted it. She wanted him to be pleased with her in the same way that she wanted to please him in bed. It was a matter of pride, but there was more to it than that too. And she had a bonus of getting to watch Minseok enjoy it, to tell him about how she liked reading recipes, had learned to cook mostly from her grandmother and one of her aunts. He liked the wine, listening attentively, asking questions, talking about cooking with his own family. It was more sharing, a natural kind of it. The dishes were left for another time.
“You know,” Minseok said, stroking down her arm as they made their way into the bedroom. “We had that discussion the other day about you being able to do whatever you want, and I’m just glad you know you can do stuff like this without me expecting it all the time.”
“That's true,” Jungah said slowly. She’d never been sure exactly what he’d wanted from her, as his wife. Maybe it had influenced her more than she had realized. “Though I didn't do it just because of that.
He grinned at her. “That makes me even happier than the food did.”
There were things they could give each other, back and forth, that required no reciprocity, given just for the sake of it. She was sharing her enjoyment of making a good meal, and enjoying his appreciation of it. If she’d screwed something up, maybe they’d have laughed together and he’d have praised her effort, and they’d have eaten something else. Not everything was going to be perfect. No amount of money could guarantee that.
What they made of the ups, the downs, that was what made a difference.
“Thank you for thinking of me,” he murmured, hugging her from behind, and kissing her shoulder. “Really, it was was wonderful.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” Jungah said, and she nearly whimpered as Minseok nuzzled against her neck. Apparently she’d satiated his stomach, but not his body. Or maybe she’d inspired it. Either way, she turned in his arms, and his lips were soft as she kissed him. And she kept kissing him as he guided her down to the plush rug beside their closet.
“This is something else I like,” Minseok said, waggling his eyebrows as she laughed, sprawled out under him. But that laugh faded into something else as Minseok kissed her.
***
There was very light rug burn, not much of one, and Minseok had been incredibly apologetic about it until he saw just how amused that Jungah had been. It was a new life experience she could chalk up, one that Minseok had tried to soothe with kisses, and when that failed, with a cream that had been one of her wedding gifts. The pain had faded but she certainly did think about him every time she crossed that rug to get clothes. All the more amusing, for how relatively close the bed was. She absently ran her finger over the back of her wedding ring. Variety was important, for a lifetime.
But they both had their differences, too. In retrospect, Jungah thought having her closet separate from Minseok’s had been a good thing. Her closet was not as pristine as Minseok’s, and she wondered if he saw hers and despaired. It wasn’t as though she kept it cluttered, or had clothes draped everywhere, but she wondered if that maybe kept some of the peace between them. He kept things just so, and wasn’t ashamed to come along behind her and put the TV remote exactly where he wanted it, or rearrange the fridge. He hadn’t scolded her about it, yet. She might’ve been worried, early on, if he’d start to dislike her for it. But there were things they would need to compromise on, and it seemed both of them were doing their best. And when Minseok came into the room, Jungah smiled, standing to meet him.
Jungah shivered, but not from cold, from the the skim of Minseok’s fingers down her sides. He had that look, when he came out of the bathroom, the one that told her he was imagining her naked and that he wouldn’t mind if she got that way. Her eyebrows rose, and by the time he’d gotten to her, taken the bunched edge of the silk that she lifted and offered to him, she was beginning to throb. She knew what that look meant. Her eyes dipped down his body as he tugged her nightdress over her head, leaning in to kiss her. Promises. Minseok didn’t have to sleep early, finally done after what had seemed like a grueling week at work, and they’d spent the last two hours nestled together and watching a movie before she’d gone off to shower. And there he was, making her laugh as he pulled her on top of him on the bed, groping her in big handfuls before rolling on top of her.
It had her purring, the way he said her name as he kissed her, but he had one of her legs trapped between his so she couldn’t wrap her legs around him and pull him in. Minseok stroked along her thigh and Jungah moaned against his mouth. He kissed against her throat, his lips trailing against her collarbones, nuzzling along her body until he wrapped his lips around her nipple. It made her squirm, and it made her ache, and she squeezed against his shoulders as he teased her with his mouth, and two of his fingers pressed into her. It was Minseok who moaned then, like the warmth of her around his fingers was a stimulation to him, and he kissed against her breasts, sucking on her nipples, reveling in her body. But it was still a tease.
“You’re going to kill me,” Jungah whimpered, and Minseok chuckled, taking a long slow slide with his fingers and watching her hiss.
“Do you know how gorgeous you are, squirming on the bed and needing?”
“Being teased,” Jungah told him, and then, finally then, Minseok moved so that she could press both of her legs apart.
“You want me,” Minseok again teased, like he couldn’t tell, his fingers sliding into her slick and easy. “Jungah.”
She kissed him back, stroking at his neck, his lips warm, his mouth insistent. But even that he didn’t satisfy her with, dropping kisses down her chest, against her tightening belly. And the fingers he had inside of her stilled as he kissed against her knees, swapping back and forth between her legs and working his way along them. Jungah shivered at the scrape of his teeth against her thigh, and the kiss that soothed after that. Her legs were only pressed wider and she was glad of the half light as he kissed further and further up her thigh. She was so wet, even as tense as she was, she didn’t know how she was going to survive him touching her more.
And she struggled against self-consciousness, wanting what she was sure he was leading to, wanting to know, and half wanting to push his head away and tell him that he didn’t have to. But he was the one who started it. He was the one who was breathing harshly against the inside of her thigh.
Minseok did not lift his head, not much, and his voice was rough as he spoke. “You remember that dress with the short little skirt you wore to the pre-engagement party? I just wanted to steal you away and lift that skirt and make you feel good.”
Jungah almost cursed aloud as she processed that, but she whimpered instead. He’d wanted her. He’d wanted to- Her hips lifted as he kissed against her, and his tongue slid along her from his fingers, trailing up until she was gasping, her hands stiff against the sheets. He made a sound like he liked what he had found. It was hard to think of anything but the rub of his lips against her, the gentle slide of his fingers - and when he replaced his fingers with his tongue. Jungah moaned, the ache unbearable, desperate for him to touch her, to not tease her more. And his fingers slid back into her, with a swirl of his tongue, and Jungah’s head snapped to the side, her thighs trembling as he sucked and nuzzled and licked. She was sweating, gasping in a short, desperate breath just before she came against Minseok’s tongue. The whole bed was shaking and she barely heard her own moans as she rode through the pleasure Minseok gave her. But even as he soothed her, there was still an ache, an emptiness.
“Please,” she begged, reaching for him. “Please. Minseok.”
He reached for her hand, gripping it as he crawled up over her, and she guided him against her, moaning against his throat and squeezing his fingers as he slid into her.
“Yes,” Minseok said, like he was amazed, turned on. And he kissed all over her cheeks, her neck, as their hips worked together and Jungah gripped his back and moaned. Minseok rocked against her faster and Jungah keened, squeezing hard around him as she came again and felt Minseok lose his rhythm. She had only moments to wait for his moans, pressed into her as he came for her as she still fluttered around him. She was so revved up, she half wanted him to keep going, but she also wanted to sink into a blob of semi-consciousness and revel.
“Wow,” Minseok murmured after a moment. Jungah nodded against him, pressing her head against his. She was wringing wet and wanted another shower. But she wasn’t moving, not until Minseok was ready, too, and Minseok seemed in no great rush as he become one with the mattress and tugged her with him.
“Are you getting up?” she asked after a moment, nudging him.
He shook his head. But as she rubbed her fingertip against his stomach, his nose started to scrunch up, and Jungah was gasping with laughter, leaning on him.
“Do you think we should dress up like strawberries tomorrow?” she whispered, trying to see how alert he was.
“Uh-huh,” Minseok answered, and it was all Jungah could do not to roll around and giggle helplessly. She just snuggled him until he almost snorted his way out of sleep and scared her half to death. Payback, she guessed. But he made it up to her by letting her lean on him in the shower.
***
Minseok had a way of surprising her sometimes. Jungah walked past the desk he kept at home, and there on it was a frame with two pictures showing in the oval windows of it. One was a picture that had been shown at their wedding, the one of her grinning at about three-years-old, and Minseok not so much older but stalwart beside her. Their first meeting. The other picture was at their wedding itself, a moment pressed together as they showed off the cake that was just out of the picture. How much they’d changed between those two images, two decades of greeting each other, of learning what they were going to be meant for. They would still be figuring that out for years, still. She wondered if he’d been given it that way, or if he’d chosen the pictures himself. It was still there, in a place he’d see it often. It was almost like a little note that he was thinking of her, and that put a smile on her face.
It was sometimes one she needed, as she continually learned that marriage seemed seemed to be full of waiting. Minseok had been made of promises when he’d been getting ready for work that morning, teasing her with kisses that he’d be back and steal her into bed before some kind of charity gala the size of which made her head spin. But he texted he’d be late, and it let her start her bathing process earlier, drying her hair, smoothing on lotion, blending cream into her face to enhance her skin.
She was in her slip, the evening gown hanging on a hook in the closet when Minseok came rushing in.
“I’m late,” he said, throwing off his tie and wheeling into the bathroom. He emerged a moment later with a wet face and wet hands that he was drying off, slowing as he made his way back toward her. “Traffic was horrendous. I could have gotten a pogo stick and gotten home faster. And don’t get me started on work. I’ll have to tell you on the way o…ver. Oh. Hi.”
He stared at her in the black silk and whatever he could see of the cloth under it, and stared just a moment too long.
“I wish I wasn’t late,” Minseok said. “Didn’t I promise to take you to bed before the party?”
Jungah shook her head. “It’s all right. There’s always after.”
“No man should make you wait,” Minseok told her, and his skin still felt cool when he tugged her close and kissed her.
“You have to shower,” she reminded him, and he made some sound like he was agreeing with her, making her roll her eyes as he groped down her body. He stopped on her hips, wandering up and down and pulling back to eye her.
“You are a constant surprise. Were you not going to wear any underwear, or were you waiting for me?”
Jungah nudged her chin toward the bed where her underwear and stockings were waiting. “You caught me before I could put them on.”
“All the better for me, then.”
That was a wicked little chuckle, and no protests about them having a schedule went heard.
“Just worry about you,” Minseok told her. It was hard to think of anything else, the way he got her set up against the wall as he stroked up inside of her thigh and slid his fingers into her. It had her humming, gripping at his shoulders, and moving her hips with his hand. “Oh yeah. You feel so good. I wish I had time to just-“
Jungah could tell what he wished he could do, the way he stroked into her, ground his hand against her for maximum pleasure. He was probably going to be thinking about it the whole night, of getting her home, out of her dress. Or thinking how he’d gotten her off, that the flush in her cheeks wasn’t just makeup.
She knew what would be waiting for her when they got home, too.
“Minseok,” she gasped, squeezing around his fingers. He fondled her breast through the slick cloth, making her nipple stand hard and tight, working his fingers into her, rubbing his lips against her neck.
Jungah came like that, against the wall, leaning forward so she didn’t destroy her hair, moaning as he stroked her though it. She shuddered a little, opening her eyes to find her vision a little fuzzy and exhaling as Minseok pulled his fingers out of her. He pulled back and looked at her as she stood on shaking legs, a lazy trail from her painted toenails to her eyes.
“I wouldn’t have missed that for the world,” Minseok said, and grinned. Then he looked at his watch. “Showering!”
He kissed her one more time, fleeing into the bathroom. She gave herself another moment to compose herself, relishing the lingering throb and how unexpected it had all been. But while he showered, she took a moment to wash up a little, sliding back into her slip, into the figure-hugging little panties and the sheer silk that slid against the smooth skin of her legs. She was in her dress, waiting as he came out, just a few buttons left of his shirt and his tie and jacket to be put on. Jungah shivered a little as he zipped up the back of her dress, brushing his lips against her shoulder.
“No one is going to realize I’m there,” Minseok said, looking over the black, gauzy fabric that clung to her.
“I’ll make sure to introduce you,” Jungah teased, and his grin made her laugh when he tugged her toward the entry so they could leave, just a few minutes behind schedule.
***
Jungah opted for sparkling juice instead of champagne. She wasn’t pregnant yet, not that she knew anyway, but it was an easy switch at an event that she really didn’t want the tipsy feelings that champagne tended to give her anyway. There’d been little meetings, and dinner parties, but a full on party with men in tuxedos and women in expensive dresses was both more and less intimidating. So much mingling. So many more strangers. It had take two days of intermittent shopping with her sisters to get the dress she was wearing, and it had cost a bit more than she’d been wanting to spend on a dress of limited function and re-use. But when she’d confessed the cost to Minseok, who had given an absent “that’s good” as a response to her finding a dress, he’d blinked at her like he ate money out of his cereal bowl in the mornings. His only concern was that she put it on their shared account, and to leave the receipt for accounting purposes.
Though the way Minseok had looked at her in it had made it seem a little more worth it. Minseok introduced her to people, some she’d heard of and some she hadn’t. There were CEOs and politicians, even a few semi-well known actors. Some people they were introduced to in turn, Minseok networking, smoothly settling into conversations and stroking along her back when he wasn’t reaching to shake someone’s hand or using it to talk with.
They had just moved away from another group when Jungah’s arm was taken. Minseok’s mother.
“I’m stealing Jungah for a bit,” she told her son, shooing him off like he was five. Jungah just smiled at him as she was led away, grazing for a moment at the table of refreshments before sitting down at a table nearby. She hadn’t even realized her legs had been aching from the heels, not until she sat down.
“How has the party been?”
“I knew Minseok knew a lot of people, but it’s been really fascinating meeting them all. I know some of the names already but I hope I’ll remember for next time.”
“They might not remember yours. Unless they’re trying to ingratiate themselves with Minseok, perhaps. That is the way it is, sometimes. You look well, though. No news of you expecting?”
The strawberry was a bit more sour than she expecting, and Jungah sipped water to wash it down.
“Not yet,” Jungah said, her tone light. “Minseok and I both know that you’ll be the first person we call.”
That seemed to please her mother-in-law well. “It can take time. I never thought I would be so eager to be a grandmother. Are you happy with my son?”
Jungah blinked. The state of the pregnancy watch, that she’d been expecting. Inquiries to her happiness, not so much. “I’m sorry?”
“Is he treating you well? Are you happy in the marriage?”
Jungah pictured Minseok’s half asleep face smooshing up to give her a kiss and nearly laughed. She glanced to out at the crowd, finding the set of his shoulders, the sharp line of his hair against the back of his neck with ease.
“Yes, he’s treating me well. I’m happy.”
He’d never shouted at her or hit her, which was admittedly a low bar. He didn’t ignore her or belittle her. He seemed to want to make sure she knew she could have a future beyond washing his underwear and having his babies. Her perception of the nice older boy that she’d thought was cute had changed. Her realistic expectations had been a bit overshot, in the best of ways.
But Jungah was nodded at, leaned into and she focused on the quiet words.
“That’s good. Since he’s been thinking of his duty and doing his best to give you a child, you’ll need to be attentive to his needs until he knows he’s succeeded in that. I know you’re a good girl, so you’ll be able to be at his side until he has sons to bring up. My husband’s mother took me aside to tell me this as well, after I was pregnant with Minseok. If that happiness fades, you have to endure until after the children are born, and then, if you’re discreet, you can find your happiness elsewhere. If he has an affair while you are pregnant, it’s usually nothing to worry about. Men will be like that sometimes.”
The sudden chill down Jungah’s back had nothing to do with the icy water. “You think your son would-“
Jungah swallowed hard to keep the rest of the startled words from escaping. She’d been set to be embarrassed, speaking of her taking up with other men after she’d gotten Minseok his heirs, but that was something else entirely.
“I’d like to think he wouldn’t, that he is fond enough of you to not be tempted, but I’ve seen it time and again in my circle of friends. Men of some status believe that it is their right in some cases. We are their wives, and we bear their children, and we have nice homes and status, and some things are endured because of that. I don’t want you to build some sort of fairy tale in your head that will destroy you if he takes a mistress.”
Minseok being charming to women at parties. Minseok and the knowing way he had pleased her. Jungah had never been under the impression that Minseok had been celibate before he had married her.
“It may never be a thing you need to worry about. I hope I raised him to be better. Tell me, Minseok said you had cooked him a special dinner?”
The shift to small talk was not so much awkward as welcome, because Jungah’s brain refused to come up with a response that sounded intelligent. Saying she hoped so too, or perhaps maybe she could’ve been told that before they were married, none of that mattered. It was all speculation and reference to the lives of other people, not some foretelling of the future. She’d just been given carte blanche to have an affair if she was unhappy later on, and that did not sit so uncomfortably as did the thought of Minseok deciding she wasn’t enough.
But when her mother-in-law got stolen away, the thought of going to stand beside Minseok before she’d had a chance to process had her hesitating. She wondered how good of an actress she’d been, to have gotten through the rest of the conversation. Probably, she’d been fooling neither of them. Jungah stole toward the bathrooms, and as she skirted past chatting people, she found her salvation in a trim, gold dress.
They blinked at each other.
“Jungah!”
“Junhwa!” Her mood lifted instantly seeing a friendly face, a friend she’d had since inhabiting the corner of one very dull party her last year of high school. Junhwa had saved her then, too, pulling her into her little group of two.
“I haven’t seen you since the wedding! We just got back from America a couple of days ago and I’ve been slowly adjusting. Marriage seems to suit you!” And before Jungah could even respond, Junhwa gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry. Jungah, have you met Sejung? Sejung, this is Jungah. Kim Minseok, the Obelus Group’s heir is her husband. Wasn’t their wedding gorgeous?”
Jungah laughed despite herself, having met Sejung before. As they talked, it niggled at her to go find Minseok, but she knew he would look for her if he needed her, or text her phone. It was nice to talk about Junhwa’s trip, and Sejung’s intrigues working for her parents’ company.
“How is married life?” Junhwa asked.
“Like life, mostly,” Jungah said. “We’re still finding our routines.”
“It’s an adjustment to merge two schedules together,” Sejung said, wincing like she knew that all too well.
And Jungah paused, breathing in for a moment before deciding that it wasn’t something she wanted to keep inside.
“Is it out of style again to have feelings for your husband?” The incredulous look she got had her laughing. “No, I know how ridiculous that sounds. The way people talk to me sometimes, it’s like they expect him to knock me up and that our lives and bedroom activities will separate until it’s time to knock me up again. That wasn’t my idea of a marriage.”
“I don’t think that’s most people’s idea of a marriage,” Sejung said, shaking her head. “It’s like some kind of weird royalty or aristocracy complex. I mean, they’re rich, but that’s just weird.”
“I thought so, too.” And it felt good that it wasn’t just her.
“I guess Prince Minseok has a ring to it. So does Princess Jungah. But wait, Minseok isn’t the one who said he was going to fool around, is he?”
“No. It was someone else. It’s almost like, oh, I’m not pregnant yet, so I’ll have his attention a while longer.”
“Maybe they’re jealous that he’s actually attentive to you,” Junhwa sniffed. “Have you asked him if that’s something he thinks is okay?”
Jungah flattened her mouth for a moment. “Is there a polite way to ask someone if they plan to have a dozen mistresses? The weird thing was it felt like it was almost a warning, so that I wouldn’t get hurt. Or maybe that I wouldn’t start drama for our families, I don’t know.”
“Be grateful for that nice apartment, Jungah. That’s all that matters. That and the bang bang.”
It was said with waggly eyebrows and Jungah leaned, laughing until she could hardly breathe.
“Maybe he has a bevy of women in his pocket. Who knows.”
“This is going to sound like weird self-help advice but, just work for the relationship you want, I guess?” Junhwa mused. “Don’t worry about the pessimists or how they think things will be. Just because it happened to someone doesn’t mean it’s your future.”
It was good advice. And it felt good to have a friend who could see under all of it, to tell her what she needed to hear. Their marriage had a lot of outside influences, but what it came down to was her and Minseok. They were what really mattered. Jungah made plans with Junhwa and Sejung both to get together, outside of the stuffy atmosphere, and Jungah still did visit the bathroom, but instead of lingering away, she found Minseok immediately, and the smile she gave him wasn’t so forced as she’d worried it might be, and he welcomed her to his side with a smile, introducing her warmly to the people she hadn’t yet met in the group. Jungah just had to work for what she wanted, even if she was still discovering all the different things that entailed.
***
If the weekend was nice, even if Minseok was still tied to his phone and laptop, the first morning back to work was always the worst. For Jungah, because the raucous alarm spelled days ahead of penciling things into her calendar, finding what she wanted to fill her time with so that her entire existence wasn’t centered around waiting for Minseok to get home. But if it was hard for her, she was still the first one up, smacking at the alarm and poking Minseok until he actually sat up. He was usually right out of bed, but not that morning. They might have stayed up just a little bit too late with the gala the night before.
“Do I have to get up?” he mumbled, swaying on the edge of the bed.
“Well, no. But your father might be knocking on our door within the hour. Or someone sent by him,” Jungah said, smoothing down his flyaways. “Do you want some coffee?”
The sound he made was like a dying man, and Jungah went out to the coffeemaker, already pre-programmed and the pot partly full. She paused it, pouring out a cup and bringing it back to him unadulterated. And he was at least awake enough not to burn himself, as he took it, inhaled, moaned again and took a sip. He used her stomach as a pillow between swallows, leaning forward against her and breathing deep almost like he was trying to fall asleep again before muttering and drinking again, and then finally sitting upright.
“You were asleep before I was,” Jungah said. “What happened between then and now?”
“I got to thinking about a project and couldn’t turn my brain off,” Minseok said, and grimaced at her pitying look. “I know. I used to just get up and work on it but I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“I’d have gone back to sleep. You must’ve been lying there like a mummy, because if you were awake for that long, I didn’t realize it.”
“One of us should get enough sleep.” And Minseok groaned, standing up and pressing a couple of light kisses against her lips. “Okay. Food. Clothes.”
“You’ll be okay to drive?” Jungah wondered, following him and snagging his robe with her on the way. Not that she minded seeing him run around naked, but normally he wore it so he could be a little more carefree.
He stared at it when she held it up, bemused, and let go of his precious coffee cup long enough to shrug into it.
“Soon as this coffee kicks in,” Minseok said. “I think.”
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have let you leave the house naked,” Jungah assured him.
She pointedly ignored his “why not?” look, knowing then he was waking up if he was ready to joke with her about clothes or lack thereof. The world wasn’t ready for naked Minseok strolling along as he pleased.
“Get some more sleep for me,” Minseok told her, patting her butt and kissing her after he’d finally dressed and was ready to go. She hummed her agreement, and when the door closed behind him, she considered her options. Stay up, or curl up in the dark of their room a little longer.
She opted for that. There were times when Minseok dreamed, or cleared his throat in his sleep, or rolled over in a particularly ungainly fashion. It made her jerk right out of sleep almost every time, sometimes laughing a little, sometimes making sure he was okay. But she also fell back to sleep most times easily, too, the sound of his even breaths lulling her. When she heard odd sounds in the night, when she just wanted to know someone was close, she was glad he was there. The thought of sleeping alone had become the odd thing, and it was strange, but as she breathed in the scent of their home, their bed, she was happy, too.
***
Her period being a week late had been one thing. Her little countdown app kept going past, day, by day. Until it wasn’t just a week later than expected, but ten days, twelve, thirteen. That was harder to rationalize away, and even so, Jungah didn’t know if she felt pregnant, or if she felt like she was expecting her period. She’d been late before. She went back and forth a dozen times. Maybe wait a few more days, maybe talk to someone who knew more, though that either meant a friend, or the doctor, and doctor visits to her had a feeling of fear to them as well.
She’d spent an hour that morning investigating on her computer, researching pregnancy test brands, different options. There could be user error in that. She wondered if Minseok would have wanted to try, watching to see any changes. But in her phone, she still had the contact information of the OB-GYN that her mother-in-law had sent her to. That had been an experience all its own, in a pre-wedding family outing, a little over a month before the wedding, with her future mother-in-law, sister-in-law, two of her own sisters and her mother all seated around a table in a restaurant Jungah had never heard of.
“I made a pre-natal appointment for you with one of the best OB-GYN’s in the city,” Minseok’s mom said. “It’s good to be prepared in case you get pregnant on your honeymoon.”
“Mom!” Minseok’s sister had laughed, and there was a little bit of laughter and chortling from Jungah’s sisters, and all the while Jungah’s face had flamed.
If only she’d known then what she’d come to know later. Of course, it wasn’t as though having sex was going to be some kind of secret to their family, but she’d only kissed Minseok once and the few times they’d been together after that had been highly chaperoned, even when all Minseok was doing was talking to her. It had been when she was almost suspicious enough to think that they were trying to leave enough mystery to it that she wouldn’t try to back out of the wedding if she discovered some flaw in Minseok’s character.
But it was the same doctor Jungah contacted, for continuity, but also for the calm of the office when she’d gone, and the fact that she’d liked the doctor herself. Though even with a guarantee of privacy, she half wondered if calling the office would somehow trickle down to the family. But it took a three minute conversation, the mention of her mother-in-law, and the doctor was expecting her in an hour. It had her flying to shower, to dress, and it didn’t even give her time to think until she was in the taxi. It felt a bit like she was being whisked away on some bizarre trip of adulthood. Maybe she should’ve taken someone, her mother, her sister. But she wasn’t for certain. It was mostly just to check. If she was wrong, if she was just late, then at least no one’s hopes were lifted only to be dashed again. But she did text Minseok, telling him only that she was going to the doctor for a checkup, because that was all she knew it was.
Minseok texted back a few minutes later to let him know how it went, and to be safe. She wondered if he really thought about why she’d even be going to the doctor, but it didn’t matter. She just wanted to know, and Jungah fidgeted as she waited, until she blew out a breath, and stood to go in to see the doctor.
***
Jungah had been to Minseok’s office three times. Once for her first official tour as a new bride, once when he was running late and he’d texted her to wait in his office for him until he was done with his meeting, and the last time to bring him his forgotten cell phone. Jungah was grateful for each one of those times, if only for the fact that it meant that after she was escorted up the elevator by the front desk staff, Minseok’s assistant recognized her immediately. She couldn’t even have imagined having to explain who she was, asking if it was possible to get a moment of her husband’s time. She hadn’t wanted to text him that she was coming over, wanting some bit of surprise to it.
“I’ll check to see if he’s free,” she was told, and not 30 seconds later, Minseok opened his office door, beckoning her in.
“Hold my calls, unless it’s something urgent,” Minseok said, and closed them both into his office. “We didn’t have plans, did we? You were going to the doctor? Is everything okay?”
The office was bright, she’d remember that, the air strong with the scent of coffee and a hint of Minseok’s cologne. She wasn’t nervous so much as desperate, fumbling to get out the words before they just exploded out of her.
“No, no plans. I did go. I just…” The look of anticipation on Minseok’s face was so immense that Jungah was glad she wouldn’t have to deflate it. Jungah slipped the little ultrasound image from her purse, putting it into Minseok’s hands. “I’m pregnant!”
Jungah laughed as Minseok’s hands shot up into the air as though his team had scored a goal, and laughed harder when Minseok pulled her close and did a little jig as he rocked her back and forth.
“I didn’t even think about that until 30 minutes after you texted me! And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it but I didn’t want to text you and spoil any surprise.”
“I didn’t really know for sure. Just, timing and-“ Jungah dragged in a breath, shaking her head. “I couldn’t just wait until you got home.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Minseok said, and lifted his arm, clearly looking at the image again behind her back. “Our little blob baby.”
He actually glanced at her to see if she took offense to the labeling of their embryo. It was a blob, how could she argue with that.
“We did it,” Jungah sighed.
“Lots of times,” Minseok said, waggling his eyebrows.
It almost made her snort. “That doesn’t have to stop. I made sure of that with the doctor.”
He maybe groaned a little as he kissed her, pressing kisses against her cheek and making her shiver with the skyline of Seoul spread out behind him. She didn’t want to interrupt the moment, but there was another thing she had to consider.
“If anything bad happens, it’s usually toward the start. I’m right about 7 weeks, a little past halfway in the first trimester. It might be safer to wait, but if we don’t tell your mom today, I feel like she’s not going to forgive us.”
Minseok really did groan then, resting his forehead on her shoulder. “You’re right. She would hold that over our heads forever. And I’m not even going to think about making you tell her on your own. After work? I’ll have to text her to be sure they’ll be home. I think she’ll be swifter to wonder than I was.”
It made her grin back at him, and Minseok kissed her again, rocking them both, and she hugged him so tight for a moment that her arms nearly hurt, and he didn’t complain.
“Maybe you shouldn’t call the baby a blob to your mom,” Jungah murmured, and Minseok barked out a laugh as he imagined that. “But I think it’s cute.”
“That’s because you get me,“ Minseok told her.
He couldn’t see her, but he could feel how her arms tightened, just a little.
The sound of the phone beginning to beep, a clear sign something urgent was coming in, had Minseok sighing and letting her go a tiny bit. They walked in tandem step to the desk so Minseok could push a button and hear what it was.
“Give me another minute,” Minseok said, and put the line back on hold. “Can you just sit in my lap while I work?”
“I wish I could.”
She didn’t want to leave either, but Minseok leaned in when she touched his cheek, kissing her again.
“I’ll text my mom in a minute, and then let you know if we’re on for tonight. If that’s good, then I’ll text you when I get home, and pick you up.”
“Sounds good,” Jungah said.
“Can I…?”
Minseok was still holding the picture of the…the blob.
“You can keep it,” Jungah said. “I have a few more. We’ll take one to your mom, too.”
They traded a look, knowing the landslide of advice that would be coming their way. But Jungah slipped out while Minseok picked up his call, waving, looking back one last time to see the way he looked so comfortable in his chair, speaking with confidence to whoever was on the other end of the line.
“We’ll have to get you a key card so you can come up when you need,” Minseok’s assistant told her when she stopped by to at least say hello and ask how his day was going. Maybe he suspected, too, but he was too polite to say, wishing her a good day and calling up the elevator for her.
Reality hadn’t sunk in yet. Jungah spent half the afternoon napping, half of it on the phone with her mother who was out of the country. Minseok’s mother would be the first person they’d tell in person, but no one could have stopped her from calling her mom. That made it feel more real. With Minseok, they were still so wide-eyed and amazed by it. Jungah felt steadier, as she dressed to go to let her in-laws know that they’d chosen well, that their new daughter would give them the grandchild they were wanting.
Jungah touched the little magnetic frame that held the image of her little blob baby, already hanging on the fridge door. It made her smile before she made her way out the door, to meet Minseok.
***
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3
***
Pairing: Xiumin/girl!Kai
Rating: NC-17
Genre: romance
Warnings: smut
Word count: 24,535
Summary: Jungah has always known that she was going to marry the Obelus Group heir but she never actually thought she would fall in love with him.
Author's Notes: This was nearly titled "The Husband Acquisition"
***
Jungah felt under-prepared with the box she had brought with her. It was, per Minseok’s request, a box of pictures and little trinkets that she had kept close over her childhood, and Minseok hadn’t really told her why, though it was easy to imagine. Many newlyweds faced that first time after the wedding, of either getting to know each other better or learning how to live together, though they had all of that wrapped up into one, and a couple of weeks into their marriage, that was no different for them. But Minseok was there to greet her when her taxi pulled up, taking her hand and ignoring the scattered people as he led her into the park.
“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” Jungah said.
“Not very long. I picked up the food, and texted you I was ready when I was on the way, too. This spot looks good?”
It was shady, under a tree and without people too near, so Jungah couldn’t have complained. With the both of them working together, it was easy to spread out the thin almost-sheet, and to anchor it down with the box he’d been carrying and both of them sitting on it.
“I think we’ll be okay as long as the wind doesn’t come up too high,” Minseok said.
They’d be wearing the blanket, if that happened, though setting the food out between them meant the anchor of their bodies would keep the food from flipping over. The food was good, something from a nice restaurant that they’d been to for dinner before, not lunch. He was a little bit of a snob sometimes, but it mostly amused her. And he flicked at her hand when she’d remarked about the label on the box.
The dessert was some kind of chocolate cream, perfectly chilled it its own container, and with the breeze, it almost reminded her of being at the beach, carefree.
“So, here’s a question. What do you want to do?” Minseok asked, his plastic spoon dangling from his fingers. And he chuckled when Jungah raised her eyebrows at him. “I mean, I know our parents probably expect you to be a professional wife and mother, and my mom would probably make our lives hell with lectures if you said you wanted to work before there’s a baby on the way, but. I don’t know. Do you have a hobby? Do you want to volunteer? And it’s okay if you don’t know, it’s just… I don’t want being married to me to be some kind of prison, I guess. You’re not just “my wife.””
Jungah had opened her mouth several times during that, expecting to be able to get in a word while he kept babbling. And she didn’t even know what to say when he finally did stop, waving at her almost like he was embarrassed.
“I don’t know yet,” Jungah got out, her brain still trying to work. “I have my degree, but my mother obviously kept me back and kept me in her charities so that my “resume” would be good for being your wife. I hoped things would sort of naturally sort themselves out, once we got to know each other, once I knew what your expectations were and I could go on from there. Though, thank you. It’s nice to hear there are options, not just to know it.”
“You shouldn’t have to thank me for that. I guess I could could always take you in as my office assistant,” he teased, eyes twinkling as he let the innuendo stand.
“What would your current office assistant say?”
“He’s twice my age, so he’d probably enjoy some vacation time.”
“It’s probably more productive for you to keep him on, then,” Jungah said, smacking at his knee. No secret meetings in the office, and he read her thoughts, there.
“Probably. Though you should come by the office, sometimes. It’d be nice to see a face who doesn’t expect me to know the answer to everything.”
Jungah half laughed, though she envied him in a way, having that knowledge of where he belonged.
“Only where you want to go for dinner,” she said.
They were working out a system for that, by text. They traded, one of them choosing what type of cuisine they wanted, and the other choosing the restaurant. They were going off of ratings, trying to decide which ones they liked best. Jungah was pretty sure Minseok had some kind of a spreadsheet that he was using to file away their reactions and the type of service they got. It was kind of endearingly anal, like the way he kept his things in the bathroom.
“Did you bring the stuff I asked for?” Minseok asked.
“One box of childhood memories,” Jungah said. “You’re lucky, because I knew where this was. I just unpacked it not too long ago.”
Jungah watched, curious, as he got out his own box, wooden and etched. Her own was tin, a memento itself in many ways.
“I know a lot about you from things my parents have told me, from places we’ve been together since we’ve been married, and over the years, but… I thought it might be nice to share some other things?”
Not just sharing pieces of their childhood, but pieces of themselves, very telling in what they had kept close, what they cherished.
“That’s a really nice idea,” she said.
Minseok’s smile was so pleased, and they started unpacking their boxes, little by little.
There were concert tickets and movie stubs, and those were mostly explanatory though some unique stories went with some. They both had tickets from baseball games, different teams, but Minseok grinned, delighted. “We can go to a game together! Do you like soccer?”
Her insulted face told him everything he needed to know, fist-pumping.
“Am I going to have to put bumpers on the walls when there are games?”
Jungah didn’t believe the innocent face that Minseok gave her for a second. But there was a toy car his father had given him, one with obvious tooth dents in it, a necklace missing a clasp she had been given by her grandmother when she started middle school. Pictures of friends and places, polished rocks, coins from different countries. There was love in their boxes, in everything they had kept.
One of the last things Minseok had was a ring, one that was worn and clearly old.
“This was my grandfather’s. He worked, hard. He didn’t even have this until after his children were grown.” Minseok slid it onto his finger and it was obvious why he didn’t wear it, because it was very loose on him. “You can tell how hard he worked, just from looking at this ring. Sometimes, I just look at at, hold it. I want to do as much as he did, though I know because of him I won’t have to work as hard in the same ways. I don’t have to start from the very bottom. Our kids won’t have to either, but I don’t ever want to forget where it all started.”
Jungah touched the ring after he’d put it on his palm, tracing the gold and touching his skin at the same time.
“It’s almost cliche, but it’s important to remember. I remember meeting him once. I was just about to start middle school, and your parents had invited us over. We ate outside.”
“Oh,” Minseok said, remembering. “You’d just gotten a puppy, hadn’t you?”
“We did,” Jungah said, warmed by his recollection. “He was so scared by the fireworks. You…gave me your jacket when we were sitting outside.”
Minseok looked at her like he was admiring some kind of specimen. “How do you even remember that?”
“I was fairly sure we were going to get married, and maybe live in a castle at that point.”
“You had a crush on me?!” Minseok asked, so obviously delighted that it made Jungah squirm, even as he grabbed her hand and tried to pull her closer.
“For about five minutes,” Jungah allowed, nudging at him. So it was longer than that, but it was one thing to have an adolescent crush and another to be nudged along to get married. The reality of it all had been a long way off from those dreamy dreams and stealing glances at Minseok’s lips. Of course, she had firsthand knowledge of those. Things her tiny little self would never have even begun to dream of. Jungah leaned forward and stole a kiss - freely given - both to settle herself down inside and to keep him from teasing her any more.
There were things it was good to remember, as they leaned together and sorted through the last of the pictures. She wanted to add a few things more, a picture from their wedding, a little bottle of sand souvenir from their honeymoon. Even if she carried those memories inside of her, she wanted something there that she could touch. Even if the one thing that she had found wasn’t something that could be tucked away: how Minseok was making an effort to get to know her.
***
Sometimes Minseok made faces at his laptop when he was working in the evenings, those times he swore it would be 30 minutes but sometimes ran long. Sometimes he squinted at the screen, eyes narrowed in what looked like frustration, sometimes in inspiration, preceding a flurry of typing. Jungah read sometimes while he worked, glancing up at the amusing show that was his face, and he caught her sometimes, blinking like he wasn’t sure why she’d find him in the least bit interesting.
“What?”
“I can’t tell if you’re cursing someone out, or are they just going to come in tomorrow and have to work with you on their heels.”
Minseok laughed, taking a brief coffee break to tell her about a set of proposals he was trying to get ushered out the door. They had a team, but he was doing some last minute quality checking, and that team was probably going to end up working the night through to get everything out the door.
“They do a good job,” Minseok sighed. “I should remind them they’re doing a good job.”
And then she lost him again to the laptop, laughing a little into her tea.
But that wasn’t every night, most of them being time for Minseok to unwind, to watch sports, or tug her close for watching TV on the couch. Jungah paid attention when they went out to eat, not just taking delight in trying different dishes, but watching which ones that Minseok took the most interest in, how he reacted to the bites offered from her own plate. It was easy to build a bit of a mental list of things he liked best. It wasn’t like they never cooked at home. Sometimes Jungah picked up things, or she put in orders with the service they had. Groceries showed up at her door nicely wrapped and perfectly fresh, and all that was left was to put them away or prepare it. Minseok made dinner one night, a simple stir fry with eggs and rice and fish. He’d been halfway done when Jungah had gotten home from another meeting with his mother, and she wandered to the kitchen, watching him like a specimen in a jar.
“This is my lazy night dinner than I learned to make when I was too lazy to order in - too lazy to make a call! - and when I wanted more than cereal,” Minseok said.
It had had her laughing, leaning in as he offered her a bite. And it was good, filling, comforting. She’d made simple things, too, when they were too tired to go out or just wanted to stay home. Minseok had even lent a hand a couple of times, when he hadn’t been chained to his phone. They’d eaten delivery food the night her period had started. It had been a little deflating but at that point, not entirely unexpected. It was something she refused to worry over, when it was something they knew could take time. It had been an enjoyable couple of hours tucked against Minseok’s side as they watched a movie, feeling him laugh, and biting her tongue when she had been tempted to ask if he was disappointed, when she had mixed feelings herself. She should’ve been able to ask if he liked that they’d have just a bit more time, just the two of them, with the enthusiasm of trying for the baby that both of them wanted.
Something to work toward.
Like learning Minseok’s favorite foods, and then learning how to make them. Jungah knew what time Minseok was going to be home, and his assurance that he would actually come home and not work late. Even if it tipped him off that something was happening, she didn’t care, because at least she wouldn’t be cooking for nothing. Jungah had done all the preparation she could the morning of, picking out the freshest vegetables in the afternoon, arranging her recipes in order of time. The dessert, a cheesecake, was finished first and cooling, a sauce for pasta simmering, a steak heating through in the oven. She had little side dishes, spicy pickled vegetables to cut through the fat, and a wine he had had particular liking for in one of the restaurants. It was perfect. She was wiped out, and she had to keep blotting her face down after she changed into nicer clothes 30 minutes before she expected him, but everything was at least going in the right direction.
It didn’t keep her from tensing a little when she heard him come in.
“Wow, something smells good in here,” Minseok said, and his face was a bit dazzled as he inhaled on the way to the kitchen.
“Does it?” Jungah asked, resisting the urge to smooth down her hair. And she laughed as he got up close to her and inhaled into her shoulder.
“You smell good, too. But really, wow.”
“I thought it’d be nice to have something a little nicer, something we didn’t have to go out for,” Jungah said. He peeked into all the pots, bending to look at the resting cake, and under the cover where the side dishes had been set.
“What did I do to deserve this?” Minseok asked, as though amazed.
It made Jungah smack at him with a towel, starting to turn off burners. “Did you have to do something to deserve food?”
“No, but… Are we celebrating something?”
Minseok was eyeing her and Jungah shook her head. No surprise baby. “No, no celebrating. Celebrating the food, maybe. I like doing this every once in a while.”
“I’m not going to complain. And I see a lot of my favorites here?”
Jungah grinned, poking a bit of lettuce between his lips. “I’ve paid attention.”
It wasn’t just to show him that she’d paid attention either. It had grated on her a bit at first, just how much that she wanted his approval, but it also made her calm in a weird way. They were more than just roommates who slept together. Jungah didn't need his approval but she wanted it. She wanted him to be pleased with her in the same way that she wanted to please him in bed. It was a matter of pride, but there was more to it than that too. And she had a bonus of getting to watch Minseok enjoy it, to tell him about how she liked reading recipes, had learned to cook mostly from her grandmother and one of her aunts. He liked the wine, listening attentively, asking questions, talking about cooking with his own family. It was more sharing, a natural kind of it. The dishes were left for another time.
“You know,” Minseok said, stroking down her arm as they made their way into the bedroom. “We had that discussion the other day about you being able to do whatever you want, and I’m just glad you know you can do stuff like this without me expecting it all the time.”
“That's true,” Jungah said slowly. She’d never been sure exactly what he’d wanted from her, as his wife. Maybe it had influenced her more than she had realized. “Though I didn't do it just because of that.
He grinned at her. “That makes me even happier than the food did.”
There were things they could give each other, back and forth, that required no reciprocity, given just for the sake of it. She was sharing her enjoyment of making a good meal, and enjoying his appreciation of it. If she’d screwed something up, maybe they’d have laughed together and he’d have praised her effort, and they’d have eaten something else. Not everything was going to be perfect. No amount of money could guarantee that.
What they made of the ups, the downs, that was what made a difference.
“Thank you for thinking of me,” he murmured, hugging her from behind, and kissing her shoulder. “Really, it was was wonderful.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” Jungah said, and she nearly whimpered as Minseok nuzzled against her neck. Apparently she’d satiated his stomach, but not his body. Or maybe she’d inspired it. Either way, she turned in his arms, and his lips were soft as she kissed him. And she kept kissing him as he guided her down to the plush rug beside their closet.
“This is something else I like,” Minseok said, waggling his eyebrows as she laughed, sprawled out under him. But that laugh faded into something else as Minseok kissed her.
***
There was very light rug burn, not much of one, and Minseok had been incredibly apologetic about it until he saw just how amused that Jungah had been. It was a new life experience she could chalk up, one that Minseok had tried to soothe with kisses, and when that failed, with a cream that had been one of her wedding gifts. The pain had faded but she certainly did think about him every time she crossed that rug to get clothes. All the more amusing, for how relatively close the bed was. She absently ran her finger over the back of her wedding ring. Variety was important, for a lifetime.
But they both had their differences, too. In retrospect, Jungah thought having her closet separate from Minseok’s had been a good thing. Her closet was not as pristine as Minseok’s, and she wondered if he saw hers and despaired. It wasn’t as though she kept it cluttered, or had clothes draped everywhere, but she wondered if that maybe kept some of the peace between them. He kept things just so, and wasn’t ashamed to come along behind her and put the TV remote exactly where he wanted it, or rearrange the fridge. He hadn’t scolded her about it, yet. She might’ve been worried, early on, if he’d start to dislike her for it. But there were things they would need to compromise on, and it seemed both of them were doing their best. And when Minseok came into the room, Jungah smiled, standing to meet him.
Jungah shivered, but not from cold, from the the skim of Minseok’s fingers down her sides. He had that look, when he came out of the bathroom, the one that told her he was imagining her naked and that he wouldn’t mind if she got that way. Her eyebrows rose, and by the time he’d gotten to her, taken the bunched edge of the silk that she lifted and offered to him, she was beginning to throb. She knew what that look meant. Her eyes dipped down his body as he tugged her nightdress over her head, leaning in to kiss her. Promises. Minseok didn’t have to sleep early, finally done after what had seemed like a grueling week at work, and they’d spent the last two hours nestled together and watching a movie before she’d gone off to shower. And there he was, making her laugh as he pulled her on top of him on the bed, groping her in big handfuls before rolling on top of her.
It had her purring, the way he said her name as he kissed her, but he had one of her legs trapped between his so she couldn’t wrap her legs around him and pull him in. Minseok stroked along her thigh and Jungah moaned against his mouth. He kissed against her throat, his lips trailing against her collarbones, nuzzling along her body until he wrapped his lips around her nipple. It made her squirm, and it made her ache, and she squeezed against his shoulders as he teased her with his mouth, and two of his fingers pressed into her. It was Minseok who moaned then, like the warmth of her around his fingers was a stimulation to him, and he kissed against her breasts, sucking on her nipples, reveling in her body. But it was still a tease.
“You’re going to kill me,” Jungah whimpered, and Minseok chuckled, taking a long slow slide with his fingers and watching her hiss.
“Do you know how gorgeous you are, squirming on the bed and needing?”
“Being teased,” Jungah told him, and then, finally then, Minseok moved so that she could press both of her legs apart.
“You want me,” Minseok again teased, like he couldn’t tell, his fingers sliding into her slick and easy. “Jungah.”
She kissed him back, stroking at his neck, his lips warm, his mouth insistent. But even that he didn’t satisfy her with, dropping kisses down her chest, against her tightening belly. And the fingers he had inside of her stilled as he kissed against her knees, swapping back and forth between her legs and working his way along them. Jungah shivered at the scrape of his teeth against her thigh, and the kiss that soothed after that. Her legs were only pressed wider and she was glad of the half light as he kissed further and further up her thigh. She was so wet, even as tense as she was, she didn’t know how she was going to survive him touching her more.
And she struggled against self-consciousness, wanting what she was sure he was leading to, wanting to know, and half wanting to push his head away and tell him that he didn’t have to. But he was the one who started it. He was the one who was breathing harshly against the inside of her thigh.
Minseok did not lift his head, not much, and his voice was rough as he spoke. “You remember that dress with the short little skirt you wore to the pre-engagement party? I just wanted to steal you away and lift that skirt and make you feel good.”
Jungah almost cursed aloud as she processed that, but she whimpered instead. He’d wanted her. He’d wanted to- Her hips lifted as he kissed against her, and his tongue slid along her from his fingers, trailing up until she was gasping, her hands stiff against the sheets. He made a sound like he liked what he had found. It was hard to think of anything but the rub of his lips against her, the gentle slide of his fingers - and when he replaced his fingers with his tongue. Jungah moaned, the ache unbearable, desperate for him to touch her, to not tease her more. And his fingers slid back into her, with a swirl of his tongue, and Jungah’s head snapped to the side, her thighs trembling as he sucked and nuzzled and licked. She was sweating, gasping in a short, desperate breath just before she came against Minseok’s tongue. The whole bed was shaking and she barely heard her own moans as she rode through the pleasure Minseok gave her. But even as he soothed her, there was still an ache, an emptiness.
“Please,” she begged, reaching for him. “Please. Minseok.”
He reached for her hand, gripping it as he crawled up over her, and she guided him against her, moaning against his throat and squeezing his fingers as he slid into her.
“Yes,” Minseok said, like he was amazed, turned on. And he kissed all over her cheeks, her neck, as their hips worked together and Jungah gripped his back and moaned. Minseok rocked against her faster and Jungah keened, squeezing hard around him as she came again and felt Minseok lose his rhythm. She had only moments to wait for his moans, pressed into her as he came for her as she still fluttered around him. She was so revved up, she half wanted him to keep going, but she also wanted to sink into a blob of semi-consciousness and revel.
“Wow,” Minseok murmured after a moment. Jungah nodded against him, pressing her head against his. She was wringing wet and wanted another shower. But she wasn’t moving, not until Minseok was ready, too, and Minseok seemed in no great rush as he become one with the mattress and tugged her with him.
“Are you getting up?” she asked after a moment, nudging him.
He shook his head. But as she rubbed her fingertip against his stomach, his nose started to scrunch up, and Jungah was gasping with laughter, leaning on him.
“Do you think we should dress up like strawberries tomorrow?” she whispered, trying to see how alert he was.
“Uh-huh,” Minseok answered, and it was all Jungah could do not to roll around and giggle helplessly. She just snuggled him until he almost snorted his way out of sleep and scared her half to death. Payback, she guessed. But he made it up to her by letting her lean on him in the shower.
***
Minseok had a way of surprising her sometimes. Jungah walked past the desk he kept at home, and there on it was a frame with two pictures showing in the oval windows of it. One was a picture that had been shown at their wedding, the one of her grinning at about three-years-old, and Minseok not so much older but stalwart beside her. Their first meeting. The other picture was at their wedding itself, a moment pressed together as they showed off the cake that was just out of the picture. How much they’d changed between those two images, two decades of greeting each other, of learning what they were going to be meant for. They would still be figuring that out for years, still. She wondered if he’d been given it that way, or if he’d chosen the pictures himself. It was still there, in a place he’d see it often. It was almost like a little note that he was thinking of her, and that put a smile on her face.
It was sometimes one she needed, as she continually learned that marriage seemed seemed to be full of waiting. Minseok had been made of promises when he’d been getting ready for work that morning, teasing her with kisses that he’d be back and steal her into bed before some kind of charity gala the size of which made her head spin. But he texted he’d be late, and it let her start her bathing process earlier, drying her hair, smoothing on lotion, blending cream into her face to enhance her skin.
She was in her slip, the evening gown hanging on a hook in the closet when Minseok came rushing in.
“I’m late,” he said, throwing off his tie and wheeling into the bathroom. He emerged a moment later with a wet face and wet hands that he was drying off, slowing as he made his way back toward her. “Traffic was horrendous. I could have gotten a pogo stick and gotten home faster. And don’t get me started on work. I’ll have to tell you on the way o…ver. Oh. Hi.”
He stared at her in the black silk and whatever he could see of the cloth under it, and stared just a moment too long.
“I wish I wasn’t late,” Minseok said. “Didn’t I promise to take you to bed before the party?”
Jungah shook her head. “It’s all right. There’s always after.”
“No man should make you wait,” Minseok told her, and his skin still felt cool when he tugged her close and kissed her.
“You have to shower,” she reminded him, and he made some sound like he was agreeing with her, making her roll her eyes as he groped down her body. He stopped on her hips, wandering up and down and pulling back to eye her.
“You are a constant surprise. Were you not going to wear any underwear, or were you waiting for me?”
Jungah nudged her chin toward the bed where her underwear and stockings were waiting. “You caught me before I could put them on.”
“All the better for me, then.”
That was a wicked little chuckle, and no protests about them having a schedule went heard.
“Just worry about you,” Minseok told her. It was hard to think of anything else, the way he got her set up against the wall as he stroked up inside of her thigh and slid his fingers into her. It had her humming, gripping at his shoulders, and moving her hips with his hand. “Oh yeah. You feel so good. I wish I had time to just-“
Jungah could tell what he wished he could do, the way he stroked into her, ground his hand against her for maximum pleasure. He was probably going to be thinking about it the whole night, of getting her home, out of her dress. Or thinking how he’d gotten her off, that the flush in her cheeks wasn’t just makeup.
She knew what would be waiting for her when they got home, too.
“Minseok,” she gasped, squeezing around his fingers. He fondled her breast through the slick cloth, making her nipple stand hard and tight, working his fingers into her, rubbing his lips against her neck.
Jungah came like that, against the wall, leaning forward so she didn’t destroy her hair, moaning as he stroked her though it. She shuddered a little, opening her eyes to find her vision a little fuzzy and exhaling as Minseok pulled his fingers out of her. He pulled back and looked at her as she stood on shaking legs, a lazy trail from her painted toenails to her eyes.
“I wouldn’t have missed that for the world,” Minseok said, and grinned. Then he looked at his watch. “Showering!”
He kissed her one more time, fleeing into the bathroom. She gave herself another moment to compose herself, relishing the lingering throb and how unexpected it had all been. But while he showered, she took a moment to wash up a little, sliding back into her slip, into the figure-hugging little panties and the sheer silk that slid against the smooth skin of her legs. She was in her dress, waiting as he came out, just a few buttons left of his shirt and his tie and jacket to be put on. Jungah shivered a little as he zipped up the back of her dress, brushing his lips against her shoulder.
“No one is going to realize I’m there,” Minseok said, looking over the black, gauzy fabric that clung to her.
“I’ll make sure to introduce you,” Jungah teased, and his grin made her laugh when he tugged her toward the entry so they could leave, just a few minutes behind schedule.
***
Jungah opted for sparkling juice instead of champagne. She wasn’t pregnant yet, not that she knew anyway, but it was an easy switch at an event that she really didn’t want the tipsy feelings that champagne tended to give her anyway. There’d been little meetings, and dinner parties, but a full on party with men in tuxedos and women in expensive dresses was both more and less intimidating. So much mingling. So many more strangers. It had take two days of intermittent shopping with her sisters to get the dress she was wearing, and it had cost a bit more than she’d been wanting to spend on a dress of limited function and re-use. But when she’d confessed the cost to Minseok, who had given an absent “that’s good” as a response to her finding a dress, he’d blinked at her like he ate money out of his cereal bowl in the mornings. His only concern was that she put it on their shared account, and to leave the receipt for accounting purposes.
Though the way Minseok had looked at her in it had made it seem a little more worth it. Minseok introduced her to people, some she’d heard of and some she hadn’t. There were CEOs and politicians, even a few semi-well known actors. Some people they were introduced to in turn, Minseok networking, smoothly settling into conversations and stroking along her back when he wasn’t reaching to shake someone’s hand or using it to talk with.
They had just moved away from another group when Jungah’s arm was taken. Minseok’s mother.
“I’m stealing Jungah for a bit,” she told her son, shooing him off like he was five. Jungah just smiled at him as she was led away, grazing for a moment at the table of refreshments before sitting down at a table nearby. She hadn’t even realized her legs had been aching from the heels, not until she sat down.
“How has the party been?”
“I knew Minseok knew a lot of people, but it’s been really fascinating meeting them all. I know some of the names already but I hope I’ll remember for next time.”
“They might not remember yours. Unless they’re trying to ingratiate themselves with Minseok, perhaps. That is the way it is, sometimes. You look well, though. No news of you expecting?”
The strawberry was a bit more sour than she expecting, and Jungah sipped water to wash it down.
“Not yet,” Jungah said, her tone light. “Minseok and I both know that you’ll be the first person we call.”
That seemed to please her mother-in-law well. “It can take time. I never thought I would be so eager to be a grandmother. Are you happy with my son?”
Jungah blinked. The state of the pregnancy watch, that she’d been expecting. Inquiries to her happiness, not so much. “I’m sorry?”
“Is he treating you well? Are you happy in the marriage?”
Jungah pictured Minseok’s half asleep face smooshing up to give her a kiss and nearly laughed. She glanced to out at the crowd, finding the set of his shoulders, the sharp line of his hair against the back of his neck with ease.
“Yes, he’s treating me well. I’m happy.”
He’d never shouted at her or hit her, which was admittedly a low bar. He didn’t ignore her or belittle her. He seemed to want to make sure she knew she could have a future beyond washing his underwear and having his babies. Her perception of the nice older boy that she’d thought was cute had changed. Her realistic expectations had been a bit overshot, in the best of ways.
But Jungah was nodded at, leaned into and she focused on the quiet words.
“That’s good. Since he’s been thinking of his duty and doing his best to give you a child, you’ll need to be attentive to his needs until he knows he’s succeeded in that. I know you’re a good girl, so you’ll be able to be at his side until he has sons to bring up. My husband’s mother took me aside to tell me this as well, after I was pregnant with Minseok. If that happiness fades, you have to endure until after the children are born, and then, if you’re discreet, you can find your happiness elsewhere. If he has an affair while you are pregnant, it’s usually nothing to worry about. Men will be like that sometimes.”
The sudden chill down Jungah’s back had nothing to do with the icy water. “You think your son would-“
Jungah swallowed hard to keep the rest of the startled words from escaping. She’d been set to be embarrassed, speaking of her taking up with other men after she’d gotten Minseok his heirs, but that was something else entirely.
“I’d like to think he wouldn’t, that he is fond enough of you to not be tempted, but I’ve seen it time and again in my circle of friends. Men of some status believe that it is their right in some cases. We are their wives, and we bear their children, and we have nice homes and status, and some things are endured because of that. I don’t want you to build some sort of fairy tale in your head that will destroy you if he takes a mistress.”
Minseok being charming to women at parties. Minseok and the knowing way he had pleased her. Jungah had never been under the impression that Minseok had been celibate before he had married her.
“It may never be a thing you need to worry about. I hope I raised him to be better. Tell me, Minseok said you had cooked him a special dinner?”
The shift to small talk was not so much awkward as welcome, because Jungah’s brain refused to come up with a response that sounded intelligent. Saying she hoped so too, or perhaps maybe she could’ve been told that before they were married, none of that mattered. It was all speculation and reference to the lives of other people, not some foretelling of the future. She’d just been given carte blanche to have an affair if she was unhappy later on, and that did not sit so uncomfortably as did the thought of Minseok deciding she wasn’t enough.
But when her mother-in-law got stolen away, the thought of going to stand beside Minseok before she’d had a chance to process had her hesitating. She wondered how good of an actress she’d been, to have gotten through the rest of the conversation. Probably, she’d been fooling neither of them. Jungah stole toward the bathrooms, and as she skirted past chatting people, she found her salvation in a trim, gold dress.
They blinked at each other.
“Jungah!”
“Junhwa!” Her mood lifted instantly seeing a friendly face, a friend she’d had since inhabiting the corner of one very dull party her last year of high school. Junhwa had saved her then, too, pulling her into her little group of two.
“I haven’t seen you since the wedding! We just got back from America a couple of days ago and I’ve been slowly adjusting. Marriage seems to suit you!” And before Jungah could even respond, Junhwa gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry. Jungah, have you met Sejung? Sejung, this is Jungah. Kim Minseok, the Obelus Group’s heir is her husband. Wasn’t their wedding gorgeous?”
Jungah laughed despite herself, having met Sejung before. As they talked, it niggled at her to go find Minseok, but she knew he would look for her if he needed her, or text her phone. It was nice to talk about Junhwa’s trip, and Sejung’s intrigues working for her parents’ company.
“How is married life?” Junhwa asked.
“Like life, mostly,” Jungah said. “We’re still finding our routines.”
“It’s an adjustment to merge two schedules together,” Sejung said, wincing like she knew that all too well.
And Jungah paused, breathing in for a moment before deciding that it wasn’t something she wanted to keep inside.
“Is it out of style again to have feelings for your husband?” The incredulous look she got had her laughing. “No, I know how ridiculous that sounds. The way people talk to me sometimes, it’s like they expect him to knock me up and that our lives and bedroom activities will separate until it’s time to knock me up again. That wasn’t my idea of a marriage.”
“I don’t think that’s most people’s idea of a marriage,” Sejung said, shaking her head. “It’s like some kind of weird royalty or aristocracy complex. I mean, they’re rich, but that’s just weird.”
“I thought so, too.” And it felt good that it wasn’t just her.
“I guess Prince Minseok has a ring to it. So does Princess Jungah. But wait, Minseok isn’t the one who said he was going to fool around, is he?”
“No. It was someone else. It’s almost like, oh, I’m not pregnant yet, so I’ll have his attention a while longer.”
“Maybe they’re jealous that he’s actually attentive to you,” Junhwa sniffed. “Have you asked him if that’s something he thinks is okay?”
Jungah flattened her mouth for a moment. “Is there a polite way to ask someone if they plan to have a dozen mistresses? The weird thing was it felt like it was almost a warning, so that I wouldn’t get hurt. Or maybe that I wouldn’t start drama for our families, I don’t know.”
“Be grateful for that nice apartment, Jungah. That’s all that matters. That and the bang bang.”
It was said with waggly eyebrows and Jungah leaned, laughing until she could hardly breathe.
“Maybe he has a bevy of women in his pocket. Who knows.”
“This is going to sound like weird self-help advice but, just work for the relationship you want, I guess?” Junhwa mused. “Don’t worry about the pessimists or how they think things will be. Just because it happened to someone doesn’t mean it’s your future.”
It was good advice. And it felt good to have a friend who could see under all of it, to tell her what she needed to hear. Their marriage had a lot of outside influences, but what it came down to was her and Minseok. They were what really mattered. Jungah made plans with Junhwa and Sejung both to get together, outside of the stuffy atmosphere, and Jungah still did visit the bathroom, but instead of lingering away, she found Minseok immediately, and the smile she gave him wasn’t so forced as she’d worried it might be, and he welcomed her to his side with a smile, introducing her warmly to the people she hadn’t yet met in the group. Jungah just had to work for what she wanted, even if she was still discovering all the different things that entailed.
***
If the weekend was nice, even if Minseok was still tied to his phone and laptop, the first morning back to work was always the worst. For Jungah, because the raucous alarm spelled days ahead of penciling things into her calendar, finding what she wanted to fill her time with so that her entire existence wasn’t centered around waiting for Minseok to get home. But if it was hard for her, she was still the first one up, smacking at the alarm and poking Minseok until he actually sat up. He was usually right out of bed, but not that morning. They might have stayed up just a little bit too late with the gala the night before.
“Do I have to get up?” he mumbled, swaying on the edge of the bed.
“Well, no. But your father might be knocking on our door within the hour. Or someone sent by him,” Jungah said, smoothing down his flyaways. “Do you want some coffee?”
The sound he made was like a dying man, and Jungah went out to the coffeemaker, already pre-programmed and the pot partly full. She paused it, pouring out a cup and bringing it back to him unadulterated. And he was at least awake enough not to burn himself, as he took it, inhaled, moaned again and took a sip. He used her stomach as a pillow between swallows, leaning forward against her and breathing deep almost like he was trying to fall asleep again before muttering and drinking again, and then finally sitting upright.
“You were asleep before I was,” Jungah said. “What happened between then and now?”
“I got to thinking about a project and couldn’t turn my brain off,” Minseok said, and grimaced at her pitying look. “I know. I used to just get up and work on it but I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“I’d have gone back to sleep. You must’ve been lying there like a mummy, because if you were awake for that long, I didn’t realize it.”
“One of us should get enough sleep.” And Minseok groaned, standing up and pressing a couple of light kisses against her lips. “Okay. Food. Clothes.”
“You’ll be okay to drive?” Jungah wondered, following him and snagging his robe with her on the way. Not that she minded seeing him run around naked, but normally he wore it so he could be a little more carefree.
He stared at it when she held it up, bemused, and let go of his precious coffee cup long enough to shrug into it.
“Soon as this coffee kicks in,” Minseok said. “I think.”
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have let you leave the house naked,” Jungah assured him.
She pointedly ignored his “why not?” look, knowing then he was waking up if he was ready to joke with her about clothes or lack thereof. The world wasn’t ready for naked Minseok strolling along as he pleased.
“Get some more sleep for me,” Minseok told her, patting her butt and kissing her after he’d finally dressed and was ready to go. She hummed her agreement, and when the door closed behind him, she considered her options. Stay up, or curl up in the dark of their room a little longer.
She opted for that. There were times when Minseok dreamed, or cleared his throat in his sleep, or rolled over in a particularly ungainly fashion. It made her jerk right out of sleep almost every time, sometimes laughing a little, sometimes making sure he was okay. But she also fell back to sleep most times easily, too, the sound of his even breaths lulling her. When she heard odd sounds in the night, when she just wanted to know someone was close, she was glad he was there. The thought of sleeping alone had become the odd thing, and it was strange, but as she breathed in the scent of their home, their bed, she was happy, too.
***
Her period being a week late had been one thing. Her little countdown app kept going past, day, by day. Until it wasn’t just a week later than expected, but ten days, twelve, thirteen. That was harder to rationalize away, and even so, Jungah didn’t know if she felt pregnant, or if she felt like she was expecting her period. She’d been late before. She went back and forth a dozen times. Maybe wait a few more days, maybe talk to someone who knew more, though that either meant a friend, or the doctor, and doctor visits to her had a feeling of fear to them as well.
She’d spent an hour that morning investigating on her computer, researching pregnancy test brands, different options. There could be user error in that. She wondered if Minseok would have wanted to try, watching to see any changes. But in her phone, she still had the contact information of the OB-GYN that her mother-in-law had sent her to. That had been an experience all its own, in a pre-wedding family outing, a little over a month before the wedding, with her future mother-in-law, sister-in-law, two of her own sisters and her mother all seated around a table in a restaurant Jungah had never heard of.
“I made a pre-natal appointment for you with one of the best OB-GYN’s in the city,” Minseok’s mom said. “It’s good to be prepared in case you get pregnant on your honeymoon.”
“Mom!” Minseok’s sister had laughed, and there was a little bit of laughter and chortling from Jungah’s sisters, and all the while Jungah’s face had flamed.
If only she’d known then what she’d come to know later. Of course, it wasn’t as though having sex was going to be some kind of secret to their family, but she’d only kissed Minseok once and the few times they’d been together after that had been highly chaperoned, even when all Minseok was doing was talking to her. It had been when she was almost suspicious enough to think that they were trying to leave enough mystery to it that she wouldn’t try to back out of the wedding if she discovered some flaw in Minseok’s character.
But it was the same doctor Jungah contacted, for continuity, but also for the calm of the office when she’d gone, and the fact that she’d liked the doctor herself. Though even with a guarantee of privacy, she half wondered if calling the office would somehow trickle down to the family. But it took a three minute conversation, the mention of her mother-in-law, and the doctor was expecting her in an hour. It had her flying to shower, to dress, and it didn’t even give her time to think until she was in the taxi. It felt a bit like she was being whisked away on some bizarre trip of adulthood. Maybe she should’ve taken someone, her mother, her sister. But she wasn’t for certain. It was mostly just to check. If she was wrong, if she was just late, then at least no one’s hopes were lifted only to be dashed again. But she did text Minseok, telling him only that she was going to the doctor for a checkup, because that was all she knew it was.
Minseok texted back a few minutes later to let him know how it went, and to be safe. She wondered if he really thought about why she’d even be going to the doctor, but it didn’t matter. She just wanted to know, and Jungah fidgeted as she waited, until she blew out a breath, and stood to go in to see the doctor.
***
Jungah had been to Minseok’s office three times. Once for her first official tour as a new bride, once when he was running late and he’d texted her to wait in his office for him until he was done with his meeting, and the last time to bring him his forgotten cell phone. Jungah was grateful for each one of those times, if only for the fact that it meant that after she was escorted up the elevator by the front desk staff, Minseok’s assistant recognized her immediately. She couldn’t even have imagined having to explain who she was, asking if it was possible to get a moment of her husband’s time. She hadn’t wanted to text him that she was coming over, wanting some bit of surprise to it.
“I’ll check to see if he’s free,” she was told, and not 30 seconds later, Minseok opened his office door, beckoning her in.
“Hold my calls, unless it’s something urgent,” Minseok said, and closed them both into his office. “We didn’t have plans, did we? You were going to the doctor? Is everything okay?”
The office was bright, she’d remember that, the air strong with the scent of coffee and a hint of Minseok’s cologne. She wasn’t nervous so much as desperate, fumbling to get out the words before they just exploded out of her.
“No, no plans. I did go. I just…” The look of anticipation on Minseok’s face was so immense that Jungah was glad she wouldn’t have to deflate it. Jungah slipped the little ultrasound image from her purse, putting it into Minseok’s hands. “I’m pregnant!”
Jungah laughed as Minseok’s hands shot up into the air as though his team had scored a goal, and laughed harder when Minseok pulled her close and did a little jig as he rocked her back and forth.
“I didn’t even think about that until 30 minutes after you texted me! And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it but I didn’t want to text you and spoil any surprise.”
“I didn’t really know for sure. Just, timing and-“ Jungah dragged in a breath, shaking her head. “I couldn’t just wait until you got home.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Minseok said, and lifted his arm, clearly looking at the image again behind her back. “Our little blob baby.”
He actually glanced at her to see if she took offense to the labeling of their embryo. It was a blob, how could she argue with that.
“We did it,” Jungah sighed.
“Lots of times,” Minseok said, waggling his eyebrows.
It almost made her snort. “That doesn’t have to stop. I made sure of that with the doctor.”
He maybe groaned a little as he kissed her, pressing kisses against her cheek and making her shiver with the skyline of Seoul spread out behind him. She didn’t want to interrupt the moment, but there was another thing she had to consider.
“If anything bad happens, it’s usually toward the start. I’m right about 7 weeks, a little past halfway in the first trimester. It might be safer to wait, but if we don’t tell your mom today, I feel like she’s not going to forgive us.”
Minseok really did groan then, resting his forehead on her shoulder. “You’re right. She would hold that over our heads forever. And I’m not even going to think about making you tell her on your own. After work? I’ll have to text her to be sure they’ll be home. I think she’ll be swifter to wonder than I was.”
It made her grin back at him, and Minseok kissed her again, rocking them both, and she hugged him so tight for a moment that her arms nearly hurt, and he didn’t complain.
“Maybe you shouldn’t call the baby a blob to your mom,” Jungah murmured, and Minseok barked out a laugh as he imagined that. “But I think it’s cute.”
“That’s because you get me,“ Minseok told her.
He couldn’t see her, but he could feel how her arms tightened, just a little.
The sound of the phone beginning to beep, a clear sign something urgent was coming in, had Minseok sighing and letting her go a tiny bit. They walked in tandem step to the desk so Minseok could push a button and hear what it was.
“Give me another minute,” Minseok said, and put the line back on hold. “Can you just sit in my lap while I work?”
“I wish I could.”
She didn’t want to leave either, but Minseok leaned in when she touched his cheek, kissing her again.
“I’ll text my mom in a minute, and then let you know if we’re on for tonight. If that’s good, then I’ll text you when I get home, and pick you up.”
“Sounds good,” Jungah said.
“Can I…?”
Minseok was still holding the picture of the…the blob.
“You can keep it,” Jungah said. “I have a few more. We’ll take one to your mom, too.”
They traded a look, knowing the landslide of advice that would be coming their way. But Jungah slipped out while Minseok picked up his call, waving, looking back one last time to see the way he looked so comfortable in his chair, speaking with confidence to whoever was on the other end of the line.
“We’ll have to get you a key card so you can come up when you need,” Minseok’s assistant told her when she stopped by to at least say hello and ask how his day was going. Maybe he suspected, too, but he was too polite to say, wishing her a good day and calling up the elevator for her.
Reality hadn’t sunk in yet. Jungah spent half the afternoon napping, half of it on the phone with her mother who was out of the country. Minseok’s mother would be the first person they’d tell in person, but no one could have stopped her from calling her mom. That made it feel more real. With Minseok, they were still so wide-eyed and amazed by it. Jungah felt steadier, as she dressed to go to let her in-laws know that they’d chosen well, that their new daughter would give them the grandchild they were wanting.
Jungah touched the little magnetic frame that held the image of her little blob baby, already hanging on the fridge door. It made her smile before she made her way out the door, to meet Minseok.
***
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3
***