Chapter Text
Chapter FIFTEEN: Fated to Love You
It was a mystery to both Mu and Baek Ah just how Wang So managed to get everything done before 6 PM, at which point he would leave his office and go home to Soo. It didn’t matter that he had organized a rooster of people to keep Soo company while she was at home – Eun and Jung the most frequent ones since they were on break from school -
At the end of the day, Wang So was more than happy to go home to Hae Soo. He knew she was fine in the company of his brothers – who sent him updates without Soo knowing, so she wouldn’t call him overprotective – but he was just happier when she was around.
Even the confrontation with his mother couldn’t ruin his good mood in knowing that when he got home his favorite person in the world would be there, waiting for him.
“You are home!” Hae Soo cried happily, waddling toward him the second he walked in.
“You shouldn’t be on your feet.” So said automatically, even as he hugged her close.
“I have been laying on the couch all day!” Soo pouted, earning herself a kiss for her troubles, which made her smile.
But, before he could kiss her again, someone clearing their throat behind them stopped them.
“I think it’s time we went home.” Hae Myung Hee said from her seat at the kitchen table, where she and Soo had been having tea, next to her was the last person So ever expected to see in his home: Hwang Bo Wook.
“Do you have to?” Soo asked.
“It’s getting late.” Myung Hee answered.
“All right.” Soo said, “Thank you for bringing Unnie, Wook-ssi.”
“Anytime, kid.” Wook answered, rising to assist Myung Hee with her chair. “You look good, So.”
“You two know each other?” Soo asked, tilting her head to the side like a puppy.
“We went to the same school.” Wook answered.
“Yes. Wook was our class president.” So added.
“What a small world.” Myung Hee said with a smile.
“Unnie! Before I forget, I got you some of that cream you like last time I went to work. I have it upstairs.” Soo said brightly and out of nowhere, beginning to make her way toward the stairs.
“No! Hae Soo, wait! Don’t go up on my account.” Myung Hee called after Soo, already giving chase, and leaving So and Wook alone.
“This is awkward.” Wook said, breaking the silence.
“If you are here because of some scheme by your sister, so help me god I –“
“Yeon Hwa doesn’t speak to me anymore. She has been angry at me since I wouldn’t go along with her plans.” Wook interrupted. “After your sister-in-law wouldn’t divorce your brother, Yeon Hwa came up with this crazy plan and wanted me to seduce your sister-in-law so Yo would have grounds for divorce”
“That sounds like Yeon Hwa,”
“It does, doesn’t it? I had just started dating Myung Hee at the time, but I knew she was the one and I didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship, so I said no.”
“She must not have taken that well.”
“Right. She threw a tantrum and said I was throwing her away… now she’s doesn’t talk to me, grandfather doesn’t talk to her, and mother keeps trying to bring her back into the fold.”
“I see.”
“Before you ask, I don’t even know your wife that well. I knew of her because Myung Hee always talks about Hae Soo but I only met her a handful of times, and that only a few months ago when Myung Hee asked me to help Soo with that fiasco with her house, okay?”
“I don’t doubt my wife.”
“I’m glad to hear. I wouldn’t blame you if you were suspicious because I am involved.”
“If it were anyone else but Soo-yah, I would be.” So admitted.
“Look. Myung Hee and I just came to drop off our wedding invitation, that’s it. You won’t see me often because I rarely have any contact with your wife. In any case, Soo will be at the wedding, but you don’t have to be, even if I don’t think my sister will be there…”
So paused, looking at the man in front of him. Before he broke up with Yeon Hwa, So and Wook had been friends for over a decade due mostly to proximity rather than shared interests, but they HAD been friends.
“I’ll be there.” So said finally, as footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs.
“I’d like that.” Wook said with a genuine smile.
“I convinced Soo-yah to stay upstairs,” Myung Hee said, slightly out of breath.
“Thank you, Myung Hee-ssi.” So said. “She does gets restless.”
Wang So talked to them for a few more minutes and walked them out, before making his way upstairs to find Soo leaning back on her pillows and snoring softly and he couldn’t help laughing.
“I’m not sleeping!” Soo said, sitting up and pushing a bit of hair that had fallen into her mouth.
“Of course not.” So agreed, climbing into the bed with her and showering her face with kisses. “I missed you all day.”
“You called me 5 times!”
“Are you saying you didn’t miss me?”
So pouting was so ridiculous that Hae Soo gave in and admitted. “I did miss you. Baby too! The second you walked in, she started kicking.”
So kissed her belly, “That’s my girl.”
“Speaking of the baby, Myung Hee wants to throw a baby shower and asked if it was okay if we did it here, I said I would ask.”
“You don’t have to ask, this your home.” So said.
“Then I do want to have it here.” Soo said with a nod.
“Then that’s how it will be. Now, what does my queen want for dinner?”
---000---
For the second time in as many weeks, Wang Yo woke up slowly, feeling groggy and disoriented, this time staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. He could hear strange beeping near-by and something - a tube - taped to the back of his hand -which felt both cold and stiff, bloated.
Turning to the side, in the dim light, Yo was greeted by a sight he had never expected to see in his life: His daughter Mun Deok with a thumb firmly in her mouth, sleeping against Mun Seong’s chest, drooling a bit on his wife’s designer dress while Mun Seong gently rubbed the back of the child’s head.
Yo groaned, trying to sit up, discovering that his ribs ached fiercely.
“Don’t move,” Mun Seong said softly, settling Mun Deok on the sofa where he now saw their two children also slept.
“They shouldn’t be here.” He said.
“One of their classmates’ mom dropped them off, and they didn’t want to leave until you woke up, but their nanny is coming to pick them up in a little bit.” Mun Seong said, coming to stand next to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I crashed my car into a lamp post.” He tried to joke, but then his eyes landed on his kids, noticing that Mun Deok had already snuggled into her sister Yoon Seong, and he suddenly remembered, “The baby, don’t let Yeon Hwa take the baby.”
“She already tried, but I handled it.” Mun Seong said like it was nothing as she fussed with his pillows and blankets. She let out a small squeak when Yo caught her hand and pressed it to his lips before trapping it under his own hand, holding it against his chest.
“Thank you.” He said. Yeon Hwa had been calling him non-stop all day, said she had to discuss something about the future with him, had threatened to take Mun Deok if he didn’t agree to meet with her. Yo had ignored her but didn’t put it above her to try to take the child while he was incapacitated.
“The doctor already checked her out, and she’s fine, by the way.”
Yo nodded and then added, “Mun Deok likes you, you know? And she’s very particular, she cries every time my mother picks her up.”
“I would cry too.” Mun Seong said, trying not to think on how warm her hand was, laying just over his heart.
Yo coughed and winced, “Don’t make me laugh.”
“T-the doctor said you have a couple of cracked ribs and a mild concussion, but you should be able to come home in a couple of days.”
“Concussions suck.” Yo complained. A concussion meant that he wouldn’t be able to read or look at screens for at least two weeks – that’s how it always was with Jung when he got them, anyway.
“I already asked Mrs. Jang to bring out one of the cribs from storage and set it up, I thought that since the baby sleeps through the night, she could stay in Yoonie’s room until we figure something out. Yoon Seong seems to think the baby is her doll or something.”
That’s when his sluggish brain realized Mun Seong had said “come home” and not “go home”, she meant to take him and his daughter in.
“Do you want me to call any of your brothers?”
“Maybe tomorrow,” Yo said. “I just need you right now.”
…000…
Yeon Hwa was desperate.
She had tried to talk to Yo but his phone kept sending her to voice mail, and going to the hospital again was out of the question, as Park Mun Seong was there and the bitch had more of a spine than Yeon Hwa had ever expected.
She was running out of time.
Her grandfather had given her a week to convince Yo to marry her and ‘restore the family’s honor’ or she would have to marry Kwon Sang Ho, a high-ranking diplomat friend of her grandfather’s. Only then would he allow her back into the family and reinstate her on his will.
Kwon Sang Ho was older than her by 15 years, bookish and not very attractive, he had no sense of humor, and though he was reasonably wealthy, it didn’t compare to the Wang’s fortune. Worse, he had recently been appointed to some embassy in South America, which meant that if she married him, Yeon Hwa would have to move away to the other side of the world where she knew no one and didn’t even speak the language.
It was exactly her worst nightmare.
“I know he’s not much to look at,” Her mother had told her, “but he’s respectable, and wants you enough to overlook your past indiscretions.”
His only condition was that Yeon Hwa gave up any claim to her out-of-wedlock child and never bring it up again.
Not for the first time, Yeon Hwa wondered how her life had ended in this mess. If only she had never cheated on So… if only So had ever looked at her with a fraction the affection he showered on his wife.
Yeon Hwa had seen them from afar a few times since that day in Yo’s office, and not by accident. Even all these years later, she couldn’t help longing for what could-have-been if only So had married her like he was supposed to. These days, So dotted on that woman in all the ways Yeon Hwa had only dreamed of but never gotten, not out of Yo and certainly not out of Wang So.
…ooo…
It had taken Wang Geon over a week to gather enough courage to seek out Oh Soo Yeon. The revelation that his former lover was so close had shaken him. He had never expected to see her again in this lifetime, especially after parting in such bad terms.
They had been friends and lovers on and off for years, even as he married other people, Soo Yeon would grow cold for a while but the pull between them was too big and eventually they would pick up where they left off. Until the day she told him she was pregnant.
He had been ecstatic. Sure, he already had his many sons, but Soo Yeon’s baby would be different... especial, Geon would love him or her as he loved only Mu, his eldest. Wanting to be part of that baby’s life, he had decided to divorce Shin Myeong once and for all, he was sure Soo Yeon would be a better mother figure for his sons anyway.
Wang Geon hadn’t counted on Yoo Shin Myeong turning against Oh Soo Yeon.
Last time they had seen each other, when she broke things off, Soo Yeonie had been lying on a hospital bed, looking small and pale; telling him there would be no baby for him to care for and to never contact her again.
And for once, he had kept his word. Less than a year later Jung had been born and Wang Geon hadn’t really looked back.
“Welcome to Damiwon, do you have an appointment?”
Snapping back to reality, Wang Geon asked to meet with Oh Soo Yeon and not five minutes later, he was being shown into a spacious office with minimalistic but feminine décor.
Oh Soo Yeon stood in a ray of light, arranging some fresh flowers in a vase.
“You look beautiful.” He said before he could think of something else.
“Thank you, I guess.” She said dismissively, “You look well too. Now, if we are done with the pleasantries, what do you want?”
Well, if that wasn’t the question. “I-I just needed to see you. I have missed you.”
“When you got around to thinking about me, you mean? When your wife and your company and your money let you?”
“Why can’t you accept that I thought of you? That I care about you.”
“You left me in a hospital room without looking back after your wife hit me with her car. You didn’t even apologize, just offered me money and asked me not to say anything.”
“I did what I had to do to protect my family.”
“You used to say I was your family.” Oh Soo Yeon flatly. “Your son and grandchild? Are they not your family?”
“No according to So. His mother and I are to stay away from him, the child and that little protégée of yours from now on.” Geon answered, still annoyed at what he had to agree to in order to keep So quiet.
“I’m glad to hear, you son is a smart man. Not that I’m surprised you agreed. You always take the coward’s way out where Yoo Shin Myeong is concerned.”
“If you are done insulting me…”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be done insulting you. So I think the best course of action for you is to never darken my door again. I have a life and it does not include you, just like your life never truly included me.”
Before Wang Geon could answer, there was a short knock on the door and it opened. “Umma! Can I borrow your car? I need to go to the university for study group and I’m running late– Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company.”
“I don’t know why I bother telling people you have better manners than this.” Miss Oh smiled fondly at her daughter in spite of the light reproach.
“Umma! You know I’m an angel.” Her daughter laughed.
“Take the keys and call me when you get there.”
“Thanks, Umma!” The young woman said, taking the keys from a dish on her mother’s desk. “Excuse me.” She bowed to Geon and ran off as quickly as she had arrived.
“You have a daughter? Isn’t she the same age as…”
“As the baby your wife tried to kill? Yes. The same baby, too.”
“You said-“
“That there was no baby for you to be involved with, and that’s still true. Did you think I was going to let you be near her after what your wife did? After you failed to protect us? Or that I would risk you would take her from me like you did with your third-wife’s children?”
“I loved you.”
“But you loved being Wang Geon more.” Oh Soo Yeon finally sat behind her desk. “You made your choice in that hospital room, and I made mine; live with it…and stop pretending you’re a victim here.”
-
Feeling defeated, Wang Geon left Damiwon, resigning himself to the fact that he would never, ever see Oh Soo Yeon again. Part of him had hoped they could take up things again – not only would it make his family safer, having her in his corner; but he hadn’t been lying when he said he missed her. He was growing old and Geon missed the comfort Soo Yeon-ie had always provided.
Now, just because he was making peace with letting Soo Yeon go, that didn’t mean he would forget about the daughter she had kept from him. He had only seen her for a moment, but she resembled her mother so much, except for the color of her eyes, which was closer to his own- the same color as his sons’.
There was so much he could do for the girl: Trips, money and access to the best of society.
He set a private investigator to find out as much as he could about Oh Ha Jin and he was not disappointed. His daughter was well liked and excelled at school. She was pursuing a degree in business from Seoul University and had recently returned from a semester abroad. She worked part time for her mother, but they didn’t seem to be struggling financially.
Oh Ha Jin was only a few months older than Jung but she had already exceeded his younger son’s accomplishments. She was exactly what he had hoped to his sons would be, but he had had nothing to do with it and that hurt his pride, and part of him wondered if it was fair to mess up this child’s happy life.
--00--
Chae Ryung loved the turn her life had taken after leaving the Wang Group. Her new job was demanding and challenging, but she was surrounded by good people and was quickly making new friends.
Even the fact that Woo Hee had decided to move in with Wang Baek Ah wasn’t enough to faze her. Thanks to the money she had gotten on her way out from the Wang Group, Chae Ryung could give herself the time to find another roommate if she wanted or move to a smaller apartment she could afford on her own.
She didn’t even think about Won these days. Well, at least not much. They had gotten into a very ugly fight on her last day as his assistant, and he had even kissed her, trying to convince her he had feelings for her.
Once upon a time, Chae Ryung would have been over the moon to hear those words from him, but now she saw them for the manipulative, toxic drivel that they were. Maybe he did have feelings for her, but she also knew he thought she was too far down in status to ever be serious with her, and she had wasted more than enough time on him.
He still called her sometimes but, busy with her new life, she simply ignored him.
…000…
Wang Jung tried to catch his breath as he collapsed on the mats at the dojang dripping sweat, wondering why he had agreed to meet his brother during So’s lunch hour, again. He should have gone with Eun and Soon Deok to watch over Soo, instead of sparring with his brother.
It had been the same every time So asked him to spar with him during the last few weeks. The more Soo’s pregnancy progressed, the more often So called Jung to meet up.
“You are old, how can you have so much energy?” Jung panted. In the past, he had always learned a lot when he sparred with So, but now he was just exhausted.
“I’m not that old,” So complained, “And it helps me de-stress.” Which was partially true, as he had a stressful job and all, but the other part of it was that he had a lot of pent up energy and was not taking sudden celibacy particularly well.
While he had not been a saint during those two years after he broke up with Yeon Hwa and before he met Soo, he had never had a problem going through long periods of time without sex before, but with his little wife wanting to snuggle and make out all the time? Hae Soo was not making it easy on him.
Hence the sudden need to take up martial arts again.
“Your de-stressing is bruising me like a peach.” Jung complained but got to his feet ready for round two.
Next time So called, Jung was definitely saying no.
---00--
Park Mun Seong couldn’t believe how easy it was to find a place in her heart for little Mun Deok. The toddler would often demand to be held and cling to Mun Seong like a baby koala, unwilling to relinquish her spot, even when her father offered to take her.
Soon, she was running through her house with the little girl at her hip like she had always been there. Mun Seong had always wanted to have a big family but after how hard it was to get pregnant with the twins, Mun Seong hadn’t dared to ask Yo to try again as Yoon Seong and Gyung began to grow up.
More than his infidelity, Mun Seong had a hard time forgiving the fact that Yo had gotten another woman pregnant by being careless when they two of them had struggled so much for their children. But actually having Mun Deok around? Well, she didn’t have it in her to harden her heart against the little girl.
Of course, that didn’t mean she was going to just roll over and let Yo come back to her life. Once he recovered from his accident, Mun Seong laid down the law. If he wanted to try and repair their marriage, he was going to have to work for it, starting with couple’s counseling and actual dates.
Wang Yo, wanting to end the strain of their separation, agreed though he had always recoiled at the idea of going to therapy. He missed his orderly life, and his kids, and her. If he was completely honest with himself, assertive Mun Seong turned him on quite a bit -maybe it said something about himself that it really did it for him when she bossed him around in the bedroom.
Maybe it was strange that at this point in his life -midway between 30 and 40 - he was actually falling in love for the first time, that he discovered that it didn’t have to be like a lighting strike, like the sexual attraction he had felt for Yeon Hwa, but that it could be a process that centered him and made him happy.
Especially once Yeon Hwa was truly out of the picture. A week after Yo had been released from the hospital, a lawyer had shown up at his house with some legal documents from Yeon Hwa in which she gave up her parental rights and gave Yo full custody of their daughter. Apparently, she had married a much older diplomat and followed him out of the country.
Yo suspected she had been forced into it by her family, as Yeon Hwa had always dreamed of ruling Seoul’s high society, and marrying a diplomat and moving to a foreign country would hardly help her in that endeavor; but it was one problem less for Yo, so he didn’t duel on it.
He focused on his kids and his wife, and his job, and who knew? Maybe one day he would even make peace with So. His younger brother totally owed him for getting him out of marrying Yeon Hwa, really.
-00-
For the second time in his marriage to Hae Soo, Wang So found himself ditching a meeting and running like hell to the hospital, only that this time it was for the happy news that she had gone into labor.
The labor was long and Soo was exhausted by the end, but it was all worth it when she was holding a pudgy, little baby in her arms.
“Isn’t she the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?” Soo asked Wang So, who hadn’t left her side through it all.
So took in the messy dark hair, the pouty little mouth and tiny fingernails. “She’s beautiful, just like you.”
“No one looks beautiful just after giving birth.” She answered, handling the baby to him and trying to smooth down her hair, smiling when So kissed her while cradling their daughter.
“You do.”
“What are we going to call her?”
“Mini-Soo.” Wang So joked, kissing the baby’s chubby cheeks.
“I don’t think that’s a legal name.”
“Well, we met in the middle of a snowstorm, why don’t we call her Seol?”
“Wang Seol, I like it.” Soo agreed, smiling as the baby yawned and coughed, making both her parents smile even wider.
So sat down on Soo’s bed and returned the baby to her, smiling at the two of them as Seol started to nurse. They had taken a bit of an unorthodox road to reach this point, but the happy result more than made up for it in his opinion.
And the best part of it all was that this was just the beginning of their happy life together.
00.00