Chapter 165
Si-heon furrowed his brow as he gently wiped away the tears from her eyes.
“Why are you crying? Was I frightening?”
“Mr. Kwon Si-heon…”
Even at this moment, Si-heon found himself wondering.
When would she start calling him something other than the formal “Mr. Kwon Si-heon”?
“Yes?”
“It’s just… so heartbreaking.”
Twenty years old.
The threshold of adulthood, yet still an age where everything feels clumsy and unfamiliar.
Even for someone like Kwon Si-heon, it was far too young to bear such a horrific experience.
The endless sleepless nights.
Those lonely hours he endured alone, having learned that anything precious becomes a weakness.
“It must have been so hard… all by yourself.”
Now she understood why he had built such cold, impenetrable walls, why he avoided women and children, why he appeared to feel nothing at all.
“Don’t cry. Especially not for someone like me.”
“Hic…”
His words only made her tears flow harder.
After a moment’s hesitation, Si-heon carefully drew her into his arms.
This delicate body, this scent, this warmth – he had always watched from afar, never daring to touch.
The moment he held Ga-eun, his carefully suppressed feelings for her crashed over him like a tidal wave.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hic… for what?”
“For making you cry.”
Just for making her cry.
If he truly understood that, the right thing to do would be to leave her for her own good.
But that was a path he could never choose, even if it killed him.
He couldn’t part from Ga-eun.
It felt like he could only breathe if she remained by his side for life, until death.
No, he was certain of it.
“I’ve regretted it all this time. Speaking to you that way.”
For Si-heon, expressing emotions honestly was an incredibly difficult and disconcerting task.
“I spoke harshly to hide my true feelings.”
But he had to say it.
“Because I didn’t want to admit that you had become precious to me.”
If it meant keeping Ga-eun, he would do anything, no matter how difficult or disconcerting.
“If I admitted it, you would become my weakness, and those targeting me would aim for my weakness first.”
Si-heon held Ga-eun tighter.
“My eyes kept following you, I thought of you whenever I had a moment, and even when I was looking at you, I was thinking about you. I judged that state of mine to be dangerous.”
Dangerous elements must be eliminated.
By any means necessary.
That’s how he was taught, how he had lived.
Yet he couldn’t let her go, and the pain of that made him angry.
“I liked you.”
Si-heon met her eyes as he wiped her tear-stained cheeks.
“That was in the past. Now… I’m in love with you.”
Her large light brown eyes trembled slightly.
The sight was so endearing he could barely stand it.
Like a knight making a sacred vow, Si-heon lowered his head and gently kissed the back of her hand.
“The things I said to you. The things I did. I know they can’t be buried or covered up.”
Si-heon took out the ring he had been carrying all this time and slowly slipped it onto the fourth finger of her left hand.
“So let me spend a lifetime making it up to you. By your side.”
Ga-eun wept endlessly as she looked at the wedding ring on her finger.
“…Ga-eun.”
His voice trembled slightly at the end.
“You don’t have to forgive me. Curse at me, hit me. Do whatever you want.”
The deep sincerity in his low voice settled heavily in the depths of Ga-eun’s heart.
“I love you.”
The words she had longed so desperately to hear.
Words she thought she would never hear.
Words she thought she would carry alone forever, now spoken by Si-heon.
“I… have always felt this way.”
Ga-eun looked at their hands, both wearing matching rings.
“Perhaps since the moment you approached me at the jazz bar.”
The rubies of identical shape and color glowed red.
“I love you, Mr. Kwon Si-heon. So very much. Nothing makes me happier except knowing that this child is yours and mine.”
The same light shone in their eyes as they gazed at each other.
It was a miraculous moment when the person you love shares the same feelings as you.
Just then, Auntie’s voice rang out from the dining room.
“Sn-sn-snow! It’s, it’s sn-snowing!”
As they turned to look through the large window, white petals were indeed falling, sparkling as they descended.
The first snow of the season.
“Sn-sn-snow! Snooow!”
As Auntie ran out joyfully shouting, Noh man-su quickly followed after her.
“They say if you see the first snow with someone you love, your love will come true.”
“Sounds credible. Very scientific.”
Ga-eun’s eyes curved into crescents as she smiled brightly at Si-heon’s words.
“…..”
His wife’s first genuine smile.
The white snow falling against the backdrop.
Their overlapped hands wearing matching rings.
Si-heon knew.
This moment would be remembered as the whitest, brightest, and happiest scene of his life.
They leaned against each other, watching the white snow gently embracing the world.
It was the moment they transformed from a contract marriage into a real one.
***
From that day forward, Si-heon and Ga-eun slept and woke up together.
Eun Seon-mi happily accepted her nephew-in-law’s offer to not only take her frequently to places called art galleries filled with many paintings, but also to buy her ice cream whenever she visited.
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