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The intensity was suffocating, but she didn’t struggle to break free from his embrace. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Thank you. Really, thank you so much.”
Seok-kyung said with a bright smile, as if he had completely forgotten what had just happened.
“If you like it that much, I feel a little sorry.”
“What’s there to be sorry about? You’re saying such lovely things. No taking it back.”
Seok-kyung murmured, burying his lips in her hair.
Why would he take it back? Who would that benefit?
Instead of saying all those words, Eun-chae simply nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him, Seok-kyung broke the embrace and firmly took Eun-chae’s hand.
“Where are we going?”
The events of the previous night flashed through Eun-chae’s mind, and she asked back, suddenly afraid. If she spent another night in his arms, her body would surely be ruined.
“There’s somewhere I want to take you.”
Without saying where, Seok-kyung put his arm around Eun-chae’s shoulders.
“Come on.”
Eun-chae bit her lip slightly and followed him.
Even if she got devoured, it couldn’t be helped. Just being with him like this made her happy.
Seok-kyung took her to a residential area about ten minutes by car from the Baedo Group headquarters.
He pulled Eun-chae’s hand and led her to a house there.
“Where is this? Whose house is it?”
“It’s not a house.”
Not a house? The exterior was definitely a small house with a garden.
But as soon as she stepped inside, Eun-chae fully understood what Seok-kyung meant.
Unlike a typical house, the inside was divided into small spaces like a studio or practice rooms, not bedrooms.
And in what could be called the living room, a large grand piano was placed.
A white grand piano. And on the white and black keys, a bouquet of bright red roses.
It was the piano that had been in her apartment.
“Seok-kyung-ssi...”
“I named it as I pleased, but I don’t know if you’ll like it.”
Seok-kyung handed her a small sign carved into wood that read ‘GRACE PIANO’.
“Grace Piano?”
“It’s the piano academy you’ll run. I named it after the meaning of the Chinese character for your name, ‘Eun’. You can take students, or just practice by yourself.”
“Seok-kyung-ssi...”
“I don’t want you to be afraid of the piano. If it rains, I’ll put an umbrella over you. Even if the umbrella is small and your shoulders get wet, our body heat will keep us warm.”
He led her to stand in front of the piano and continued,
“Because you proposed first, I ended up being a step late.”
Eun-chae was so moved that she couldn’t say anything.
Seok-kyung slowly knelt on one knee in front of her and took out a ring from his pocket.
“This is...!”
It was the wedding ring she had left with the divorce papers three years ago.
He still had this?
As she looked down at him with surprised eyes, a fresh smile turned towards her.
“Will you marry me again?”
Eun-chae slowly nodded, then nodded more and more vigorously.
Tears blurred her vision again, and she couldn’t see Seok-kyung’s face clearly, but she could feel it in her heart.
He was smiling brightly, just like her.
Seok-kyung slipped the ring onto her finger.
“I will. I will marry you again...”
Her tear-filled words were swallowed by Seok-kyung’s lips.
Her strength drained away at the soft sensation, and she stumbled, perhaps hitting the keys with her hand, as a strange scale echoed.
The two of them burst into laughter at the same time.
“Ah, wait, I have one more thing to give you.”
“Again? You’ve already given me so much.”
“Just wait.”
Seok-kyung disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later holding a large three-tiered cake.
It was covered in strawberries on top of pure white whipped cream.
“Huh? What’s this?”
“I felt bad that we couldn’t properly celebrate with you before...”
“Before?”
Eun-chae tilted her head, wondering what he meant, then remembered the day she had bought a slice of cake to celebrate her becoming a permanent employee.
That day, her miserable reality had been exposed to Seok-kyung.
He remembered that.
“Still, a three-tiered cake is too much.”
“I-Is it?”
Seok-kyung smiled sheepishly.
Seeing his proud expression as he bought this cake in her mind’s eye, Eun-chae laughed again.
“But it’s a delicious cake. I even put a lot of your favorite strawberries on it on purpose.”
“How did you know I like strawberries?”
“I asked your mother.”
Since when had they become close enough to contact each other separately?
Dumbfounded and amazed, Eun-chae stared blankly at Seok-kyung, her lips slightly parted.
Seizing the moment, Seok-kyung picked up a strawberry with his finger and popped it into her mouth.
“Hmm?”
“How is it? Delicious, right?”
She couldn’t help but smile at him as he looked at her with a smile.
Happiness really welled up inside her.
“Won’t you play the piano for me?”
Seok-kyung placed the cake to one side and whispered in her ear.
“I want to see you play the piano.”
“My hands are stiff, I don’t know if I can play properly.”
“Still.”
Since she had never played the piano in front of him before, she thought she might as well show him a little bit now.
After all, the piano had been almost everything in her life.
With a fluttering heart, like introducing a new person to an old friend, she sat down at the piano.
Chopin’s Nocturne.
Eun-chae recalled the piece Seok-kyung often listened to in his study when he stayed in Korea after their marriage and played it.
It was a piece she had occasionally practiced, hoping to play it for him someday.
However, because she hadn’t touched the piano at all since the accident, it wasn’t easy to hit the notes accurately, and eventually, she pressed the wrong key, stopping the performance.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t played in so long...”
Seok-kyung hugged Eun-chae from behind, his arms around her neck.
“Just how far are you going to move me?”
“Huh?”
“You knew it was my favorite piece and played it, didn’t you?”
His voice and warm breath tickling her ear, and the thought of being found out, made her neck shrink with embarrassment.
But she decided not to just be embarrassed anymore.
“It was a song you listened to often. I wanted to play it for you someday.”
“Do you know what?”
“What?”
When she tilted her head slightly, Seok-kyung’s eyes sparkled as he looked down at her.
“The first time I heard Chopin’s Nocturne was your performance.”
“Yes?”
She was so surprised that she almost bumped into him as she tried to get up.
“What are you talking about?”
“It reminded me of when we first met. You came to an L company social gathering, with your mother? Were you in high school?”
Eun-chae’s mouth fell open in genuine surprise.
She really didn’t expect him to remember that social gathering where they had first met.
“The day we went on that blind date, you told me we had met before. I couldn’t remember it until now. I kept wondering where we could have met. But hearing you play just now, it came back to me.”
Seok-kyung smiled deeply.
“At that gathering, you couldn’t refuse your mother’s nagging and played the piano. The Chopin’s Nocturne you just played.”
He remembered that.
If he even remembered her playing the piano with a flushed face because she couldn’t resist her mother’s pressure, then surely...
“You captivated everyone there, and as soon as the performance ended, you ran away.”
Seok-kyung even remembered the part she desperately wished he wouldn’t.
“It was such a beautiful and enchanting performance that after finding out the name of the piece you played, I started listening to it often. And here I was, married to the main character and couldn’t even remember it, me.”
Seok-kyung gave a wistful smile and gently stroked Eun-chae’s face with his hand.
“I really don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for the rest of my life.”
His shoulders slumped.
Don’t make such a sad face.
Eun-chae leaned her face against his large hand.
“I’m so glad you know now.”
“Really?”
“It’s because of my playing that you liked Nocturne, how could I not be happy?”
Her heart fluttered, and it felt ticklish, like bugs crawling on her skin.
Even though it was just a piano performance, the fact that she had influenced even one thing in his life was so incredibly wonderful.
“Maybe we were meant to be.”
“Maybe it was fate.”
Without either of them saying it first, they hugged each other and buried their faces in each other’s chest and neck.
Honestly, what did it matter if they weren’t soulmates or if it wasn’t fate?
Right now, they were more like soulmates than anyone else, and their love was more like a destined love than anyone else’s.
“Let’s take new wedding photos.”
“Yes.”
“And let’s go on a long, nice honeymoon.”
“We’re not newlyweds, though?”
“Let’s subtract the 3 years and 6 months in between and make it our second year of marriage.”
The second year of marriage. Subtracting the 3 years and 6 months in between.
Those were truly pleasing words.
“It doesn’t feel like we ever stopped being newlyweds.”
“What’s so good about being newlyweds again?”
“Hmm?”
“This.”
Seok-kyung’s thumb, which was holding her waist, rubbed her lower back, bringing back intimate sensations.
“B-But we did a lot yesterday...”
“It’s not enough.”
Seok-kyung smiled creepily and buried his face in the gap of Eun-chae’s blouse.
________________________________________
“Mom, really. You don’t have to buy so much! Seok-kyung-ssi’s house already has plenty.”
Eun-chae was flustered, watching her mother pick out dishes at the department store.
She was just moving her own body into the house where Seok-kyung currently lived, but her mother was really trying to buy her a trousseau as if Eun-chae was moving into a new marital home again.
“What about her? She didn’t get to do it properly before when she went to live with his family. This time, it’s practically a new marital home where it’ll just be the two of them, so of course, we have to buy things.”
“Why are you doing this when it’s not even your money, really?”
“Hey! I have a black card.”
Her mother took out a black card from her bag and waved it in front of Eun-chae’s eyes.
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