Work Text:
"Do you want little Poppy to be a boy or a girl?" Dong Kyung asked her husband while clutching his right arm as the escalator took them to the departure floor.
Her question startled him, so Saram took a moment to respond. He hadn't really given it that much thought. Did it actually matter to him?
"I don't think I have a preference. As long as it's human," he responded with a nervous chuckle and Dong Kyung laughed heartily thinking how human her husband had become now, with his dad jokes and all.
Oh how Saram wished he meant that as a joke. It had just dawned on him that after centuries of observing human beings as the harbinger of doom, he had learned that everything always came with a price. And with how happy his new human life was going, he could not help but think that a payment was due. The thought made him pull his wife even closer to him as he kissed her fringe while she looked up at him.
And from that moment, the thought never left his head.
As they settled in their seats on the plane, Dong Kyung started to notice that her husband was a little tense. It was proven further by the way he was tightening his left hand around hers as he adjusted the turtle neckline of his sweater with the other.
" Gwenchana?" Dong Kyung couldn't help but ask.
Saram promptly glanced at her and nodded with a small smile.
"Eoh."
"Your hands are cold," Dong Kyung pointed out. Then it hit her – it was her husband's first plane ride as a human being. Or ever. She then sandwiched his left hand between her palms. "Are you nervous?"
Saram then looked at her and nodded again, this time his smile was rueful as if apologizing for his jitters.
"It's my first flight. You know how firsts make me nervous."
With that remark, Dong Kyung's pregnancy brain fell into the gutters and a montage of their first kiss in the rain started flashing in her head.
" Ya, it's inappropriate to talk about our firsts in a public place," she half whispered as she leaned closer to Saram, her voice lilting with mischief.
Just like that she made her husband giggle. Saram wanted to pinch her cheek but it could hurt her, so he wiped her face with the palm of his right hand instead.
"You really are meant for me, aren't you?"
" Wae. You still doubt it?" Dong Kyung jested while scrunching her nose like a bunny as she put her chin on her husband's shoulder.
"Ani. Not even a little bit, wifey."
As the plane took off, Saram's stomach started churning. So he held onto his wife's hand firmly and Dong Kyung snuggled his arm to soothe him while nuzzling it at the same time. Saram just closed his eyes and focused his senses on his wife's affectionate way to comfort him instead of paying attention to his motion sickness.
Before he knew it, their two hour flight was soon over and they reached Osaka with Saram's pride and ego still intact because he was able to hold in the waffle he had for breakfast, courtesy of Dong Kyung's pregnancy 101 coaching and tender touch. Thank goodness their first overseas trip as husband and wife had been going smoothly so far.
As he rolled their wheeled luggages through the door, Saram sighed in relief that the hotel that he booked was just 20 minutes away from the airport, because his pregnant wife was already starving by the time they reached their room. DongKyung made it a point to put the blame on the little poppy in her belly.
"This tiny human is always hungry," Dong Kyung whined on the bed while she pulled out a jacket from their luggage then handed it to her husband for him to hang in the closet.
"Tiny human? You mean our baby, or you?" Saram laughed so hard, he couldn't keep the jacket from sliding off the steel hanger.
Dong Kyung rolled her eyes at her husband, and he only laughed harder. Saram always found every opportunity to poke fun at her small frame, which she usually didn't mind.
Except when she was hungry and hormonal.
So she crossed her arms and turned her back on him, then lay on her side in bed with a sulky pout. It took a minute before Saram noticed that she was quiet as he held out an arm to her without looking, waiting for her to hand him another piece of clothing to hang in the closet.
So when he turned and saw her lying in bed, he quickly walked over to the bedside to check on her.
"Are you okay? How are you feeling?" He asked worriedly as he crouched on the floor. But Dong Kyung only looked at him with a petulant pout. "Are you dizzy? Do you want us to just order in? We can go out later this afternoon instead. We have plenty of time."
"My hormones are mad at you," Dong Kyung mumbled feebly.
" Mwoyeyo? What did I do?" The clueless husband asked haltingly.
"You called me 'tiny human'."
It took all of Saram's inner strength not to snigger at his wife's little pout and the reason behind it. So he just planted a soft kiss on her pout instead.
"I'm sorry," he apologized while he poked her cheek with the tip of his nose, his lips not wanting to leave the cushion of her pout.
So he kissed her again and again while mumbling 'I'm sorry' in between until she was giggling at the absurdity of her sulking.
"I'm hungry," Dong Kyung muttered when Saram was done peppering her mouth with kisses.
"Do you want to go out or should we order in?"
"Let's go out. It's very dangerous to stay long in an enclosed space with you."
"I think it's the other way around now. I'm the one in danger all the time when we're alone together,' Saram retorted with an amused grin.
So DongKyung sat right up in bed and sucker punched him on the shoulder. But she couldn't refute what her husband just blurted because he wasn't wrong. In fact, she would jump him right now if she wasn't starving like a viking. So they just finished unpacking their coats to distract themselves from the looming danger.
After they unpacked, they went out of the hotel to look for a ramen house. Dong Kyung was too hungry to find more options so they went to a place called Kamitora Higobashi which was just a three minute walk from the hotel.
The establishment was small, with traditional Japanese interior design of latticework on the sliding doors and mahogany frames on its walls. They easily found a small table for two right beside the samurai mural near the counter.
"Is little Poppy happy with your food?" Saram teased Dong Kyung who was busy with her bowl across the table from him. He was still waiting for his own bowl of ramen to be served, so he was munching on some gyoza in the meantime. His wife only nodded in response and didn't even look up at him.
Soon enough, the waiter approached their table and brought Saram's order.
" Meshiagare," the waiter bowed after carefully placing Saram's shoyu ramen bowl on his side of the table then walked away.
Only then did Dong Kyung care to look up and halted from slurping her noodles, with a strand still hanging from her little pout.
" Itadakimasu," Saram blurted in the best Japanese accent he could manage, then picked up his chopsticks. He was about to dig in when he noticed his wife eyeing his bowl like a puppy. "Do you want to try this?"
Dong Kyung slurped the noodle strand that was still hanging from her pout and looked at her husband with an adorable closed-mouthed smile.
"Not me. It's the tiny human," Dong Kyung quipped. "It's really adamant about trying that soup."
Saram could only chuckle at her negotiation skills. How could he say no to that?
" Arraseo. What tiny human wants, tiny human gets," he happily agreed. "Do you want to just try it or would you like us to trade bowls?"
His question tugged at Dong Kyung's hormonal emotions and her eyes watered a little. How could her husband be this considerate and patient with her?
"I'll just try it first. I don't know if tiny human will like it," she responded with a subtle sniff.
Saram then gently pushed the bowl to the center of the table so it was closer to DongKyung. After which he picked up a few strands of noodles with his chopsticks and scooped some of the broth with the renge. He then carefully placed the noodle strands on it and fed it to his wife.
Dong Kyung opened her mouth gleefully while her husband placed his left hand underneath her chin as she noshed the noodles then sipped the rest of the broth.
"How is it?" Saram asked when Dong Kyung was nearly done chewing. "Did tiny human like it?"
Dong Kyung pressed her lips together and just gazed at him ruefully.
He understood immediately that she liked the broth so he pushed his ramen bowl further to her side of the table and took her half eaten bowl of miso ramen.
"Why are you giving me your bowl? I already ate half of my miso ramen."
" Gwenchana. You're eating for two. I'll get another bowl later if I'm still hungry," Saram beamed at her. "Eat up, Mrs. Kim."
After their sumptuous lunch, DongKyung had a hankering for something sweet. So Saram checked the internet to find a nearby dessert place and found one that was located on the corner of the next block. He and Dong Kyung enjoyed the short walk hand in hand.
"I love walking like this with you. Just like the old times when we still had a contract and had to hold hands to recharge," Saram blurted, then brought his wife's hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
Dong Kyung then took a couple of steps ahead without letting go of his hand, then faced him and started to walk backwards.
"What do you mean when we had a contract?" She asked in an offended tone. "We still have a contract. For this whole lifetime."
Saram couldn't help the stupid grin on his face. He always loved it every time Dong Kyung called their marriage a lifetime contract, because it gave him a sense of humanness, having a starting point and a direction with a certain destination.
"Right," he smiled at her while keeping an eye on her backward steps to make sure she wouldn't trip. "What I mean is we don't get to walk like this a lot anymore. I missed walking side by side with you while holding your hand."
"Me too. But we have a car. We can't walk all the time," Dong Kyung laughed.
So Saram gently tugged her hand and DongKyung carefully pivoted back beside him.
"And I don't want you to get too tired. Little poppy will get tired too."
"You're such a great dad already," Dong Kyung smiled as she looked up at him.
" Jinja? You really think so?"
" Eoh ."
"That's comforting," Saram sighed in relief. "I'm actually kind of nervous about being a dad. I don't know what I'm doing."
DongKyung then put her other hand around her husband's arm and squeezed it a little.
"You don't know what you're doing? Well, dear husband, let me tell you what you're doing. You're doing a great job taking care of us. So don't worry, okay?"
After a 4 minute stroll, they finally found the dessert shop that was called Chocolaterie Patisserie Solilite. Dong Kyung loved the delighted look on her husband's face as soon as they entered the establishment. How could she forget how this brand new human had grown a sweet tooth?
She had to push him towards the cooler rack so he would snap out of his fascination. The seemingly countless varieties of decadent chocolate squares and cake rolls that were on display left him agape and Saram couldn't fathom how thrilled he was.. And at this very moment, he epitomized the infamous expression a kid in a candy store quite literally.
"Which ones do you like?" Dong Kyung inquired behind him as she peered into the glass while nuzzling the back of his left arm. Fabric conditioner and her husband's deodorant made a perfect scent that she just loved sniffing whenever she got the chance to stand behind him.
"Gosh, that has to be one of the hardest questions you've ever asked me," Saram jested, making Dong Kyung laugh out loud.
"You can't decide which ones you like?"
" Ani. I want all of them."
" Heol, my ahjussi husband is a toddler today," she teased him. "Let's get one of each?"
Saram then pulled his wife from behind him so she could see the display rack better. He then wrapped his left arm around her shoulders and put his chin on top of her head.
"That's too expensive. We still have two more days to go around Osaka. I can't spend all our money on chocolate bars," he muttered.
"Arraseo. Then just get a small box. Let's ask if you can take your pick or if it's pre-assorted."
Saram seemed happy with DongKyung's suggestion. So they approached the counter to inquire and after half an hour, they left the store with two small boxes of chocolate squares that Saram painstakingly selected and a bag of cake roll slices for his pregnant wife and their little poppy.
As they walked back to the hotel, Dong Kyung could already feel some cramping in her legs but chose to just ignore it. It had been a regular occurrence since she found out that she was pregnant and she had learned that it was one of the side effects of carrying the growing extra weight as her pregnancy progressed. But winter was making i just a little bit more taxing.
When they boarded the elevator, Saram immediately noticed that his wife was a bit winded. He realized that now that Dong Kyung was pregnant, she could get tired more easily when doing the most mundane tasks than before.
So when they arrived at the hotel room, he quickly grabbed a bottle of water from the mini fridge and handed it to his wife.
"You must be parched from all the walking," he smiled at her.
" Gumawo. You're so thoughtful."
After they washed up, Dong Kyung then settled in bed while waiting for Saram to finish brushing his teeth. She wanted to take a nap to gain enough energy so they could wander around Osaka and enjoy the city at dinner time. Their short flight seemed to have taken a toll on her changing body.
Saram joined her in bed shortly and she was surprised when instead of crawling under the duvet, he sat parallel to her legs and took her left foot out of the blanket.
"What are you doing?"
"Your feet must be tired from walking since we left Seoul. I'll just give you a gentle massage," Saram explained then started massaging the ball of her foot.
Dong Kyung was wearing thermal socks on both feet but she could feel the warmth of her husband's hands as he carefully kneaded her instep up to the base of her toes. She didn't realize how much she needed that massage right now.
"That feels really nice," she murmured, her lids already heavy from relaxation. "But it's safe for Little Poppy, right?"
"Yes, wifey," Saram nodded with a small smile. "Don't worry, I checked to make sure. Foot massage is okay," he assured her then continued kneading her foot with delicate pressure.
Soon Dong Kyung fell asleep and Saram moved beside her under the duvet to get some shut-eye himself. But unlike Dong Kyung who dozed off almost instantaneously after he started giving her a foot massage, Saram remained wide-awake.
He gazed at the soft tinge of peach across Dong Kyung's cheeks that was caused by the cold. He admired the gentle peak of her narrow nose and her slightly parted lips which was very telling of how deeply asleep she was. That, and her shallow breathing.
His dear Dong Kyung was bit by bit exhibiting the inevitable changes in her body as she carried their unborn child. He knew that she must be dealing with difficulties he wasn't even aware of because his wife had been so used to keeping her pain to herself all her life. But he wanted to be a part of this beautiful, albeit difficult journey with her. And he could only hope that she would let him.
Even now as she lay asleep beside him, Dong Kyung displayed her fierce love for their baby in the way she was protecting her belly with her hand. For him, it took some getting used to because they always held hands or hugged and were just practically entangled with each other when they slept. But his wife had been sleeping like this since she told him that she was pregnant.
And though he didn't think it was possible, he loved her even more for it.
He just listened to her shallow breathing until she eventually moved in her sleep and turned on her side facing away from him, her hand not leaving her stomach. So he inched a little closer and put his left arm around her and covered her hand with his palm.
Feeling the little bump that Dong Kyung was sheltering, he was once again overcome with his irrational fears about being undeserving to be a dad and how this calm happiness with the love of his life was bound to make a sharp turn in due time. Because that was the cycle of a human life as he knew it as the harbinger of doom.
He eventually nodded off with that as his last thought. But not another minute into his slumber, it was as if he was pulled out of reality and got dragged into a wormhole of various dimensions that transcended time and space.
By his new nature, his gut reaction was to feel like throwing up from being warped. But he managed to hold it in and he slowly got acquainted with his surroundings. Only to find out that he was just in the same room, and he was sitting on the same bed.
But Dong Kyung was not beside him.
He suddenly felt like his whole world was spinning the other way.
"Dong Kyung-ah?" Saram yelled in panic as he stood up from the bed and his voice echoed in the void as he rushed to the bathroom. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he opened the door and found Dong Kyung in front of the sink, with toothpaste bubbling up around her mouth as she brushed her teeth.
Dong Kyung quickly gargled with some tap water and wiped her face with a paper towel. She then saw the distraught look on her husband's face when she turned to him.
" Wae ?"
But Saram was too overwhelmed to respond. He was having a hard time telling reality apart from whatever dimension he had fallen into. But the fear in his heart when he didn't find Dong Kyung beside him felt way too real to be an illusion.
" Gwenchana?" He asked her when he finally managed to speak.
"Eoh. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Uh- I just..just want to make sure," Saram tripped on his words. "I thought you wanted to take a nap so I slept beside you and then I woke up and couldn't find you there and…and I panicked."
Dong Kyung then walked towards him and wrapped her arms around his back.
"You overslept. I was going to wake you up after brushing. But you're awake now. And that's good because it's dinner time and we're starving."
"I'm so sorry," Saram apologized then gently broke away from her embrace. He then rubbed Dong Kyung's belly with the palm of his right hand. "Little Poppy, forgive appa. We'll have dinner soon."
" Ya!" Dong Kyung swatted his shoulder. "We don't call our baby that anymore."
"Mwo?"
"And why are you rubbing my belly like our child is still in there?"
"What are you talking about?"
Dong Kyung only squinted at him as if he said something ridiculous then peered at the bathroom door. .
"Oh there she is."
"What? Who?"
Saram then turned to see who she was referring to. He could not believe his eyes when he saw a little toddler girl wearing a navy pullover sweater and a pink tutu skirt, her dark hair tied into two little pigtails. She was looking up at him very expectantly with those big brown eyes that resembled Dong Kyung's. Both of her hands were in her pockets just like what Saram usually did when scrutinizing a medical chart, or that time when he was 'instilling fear' by crossing out the days on Dong Kyung's wall calendar.
When the shock wore out, Saram carefully hunkered down to the floor to meet the little girl's eyes and she smiled at him ever so brightly, making a tiny divot appear in the right corner of her lips. Her striking resemblance to both Dong Kyung and him filled his chest with warm affection almost instantaneously.
' Appa, baegopayo," she slurred while her little hand grabbed onto Saram's thumb.
Saram was even more overwhelmed with so many emotions that he could feel his chest burning with the sobs that he was trying to keep down. By now he could tell that he was probably dreaming but meeting this little girl and hearing her call him appa was enough to make him wish that it was all real.
So he smiled back at her a bit tearfully, then put his hand on her left shoulder while the little girl kept her firm grasp on his thumb.
"We'll have dinner soon, don't worry," he reassured her. "But can appa ask you a question first?"
" Ne, appa," the little girl nodded, her big brown eyes still fixed on him with great anticipation for his question.
Saram took a deep breath to calm his nerves, knowing his question would sound absurd to this tiny human being that was regarding him with such affectionate gaze. He then took her other tiny hand and placed it against his cheek.
"What's.. what is your name?" He asked, his voice trailed off to a quiet sob.
The little girl held his gaze for a few seconds with a little smirk that reminded him of his own mischievous grin, as if she was expecting that question. She then beamed at him with a toothy smile, then leaned in and whispered in his ear.
Just then, Saram felt a summoning force, and he knew right away that he was going to be snatched from this juncture. And in a split second, he was once again removed from whatever version of his life he got a glimpse of and was pulled into a vortex of metaphysical realities that eventually took him right back to where he was - beside his wife, in the same bed, in the same room.
Unlike before, he didn't feel woozy but rather calm as if he just woke up from a dreamless sleep. He was still holding Dong Kyung in his arms but was confused and admittedly displeased by the way he was abruptly hauled from such a beautiful moment.
Good thing she was able to tell me her name, he thought, recalling the little girl's mellifluous voice.
But the calmness that he felt was soon replaced by alarm when he felt Dong Kyung's grasp tightening around his hand that was on her belly.
Saram sat right up and checked on his wife who was now groaning painfully while she was clutching her stomach as she curled up in bed.
"Dong Kyung-ah. Gwenchana?"
" Ani. My stomach. It hurts so much," she responded in a feeble voice, while squeezing her eyes shut.
As a doctor, Saram did his best to remain calm. But as a husband and a father to be, his heart was already pounding as if it was about to escape his ribcage.
"We read about this in the pregnancy 101 book right? It could just be your womb expanding because Little Poppy is starting to grow," he tried to console her. "Do you remember the pain scale that we read together? Can you rate the pain?"
"It's a six."
That was when Saram could no longer hide the worry on his face, because a six was pretty high on the scale for someone like his wife who had a high pain tolerance. He knew that what Dong Kyung was experiencing could be normal at this point in her pregnancy, but Saram just could not take any chances. No. Not when he knew that a payment was due.
So while he was engulfed in silent panic, Saram did not let his fears paralyze him and he quickly called the front desk to ask for assistance in calling a taxi cab. All the while he was holding Dong Kyung with his freehand, secretly hoping that like before, holding her like this could magically make the pain go away.
Once the staff assured him that a cab had been booked, Saram fetched a bottle of water from the fridge and assisted his wife so she could sit right up and drink a few mouthfuls to help alleviate the cramps. After which, he focused all his attention to keeping Dong Kyung – and himself, calm.
"Dong Kyung-ah, look at me," he implored her, then reached for her hand that was clutching her stomach. Dong Kyung quickly obliged and turned her gaze at him . " The cab will be here soon and we'll go to the hospital. Let's try to calm down, eoh ?" He once again took a shot at comforting her to which Dong Kyung nodded in response. "Now, can you tell me where exactly it hurts?"
"Here," she pointed at her lower abdomen, her eyes already brimming with tears but still holding his gaze with a steely resolve to keep herself together.
" Arraseo. Now just like we practiced, let's take some deep breaths."
Dong Kyung promptly drew a deep breath through her nose and slowly expelled the air through her mouth as Saram counted along. She did it a few more times until the pain was a little bit more tolerable and she could finally stand without recoiling in pain. So even though Saram was against the idea of making her walk, Dong Kyung insisted that she didn't need to be carried and they went down to the lobby right away.
Thankfully, the cab arrived in less than 5 minutes and Dong Kyung was taken to Sumimoto Hospital.
The bustle of the emergency room was nothing new to Saram. But being on the other side of a medical emergency involving the love of his life and their unborn child was not something his experience as a doctor could have ever prepared him for. Seeing Dong Kyung in pain had always been the one thing he dreaded with his whole being even when he still had the power to forfend the pain or make it stop. What more now that he was just as human as the rest of the people in the emergency room?
Fortunately, like Saram had initially surmised, DongKyung's doctor confirmed that what she experienced was indeed a normal occurrence in this stage of her pregnancy. Only signaling a perfectly healthy growth that was happening in her womb. A series of tests were done per Saram's request to put Dong Kyung's mind at ease and when the results returned normal after a couple of hours, Dong Kyung was immediately discharged.
The couple decided to just stay in the hotel room for the rest of the night to make sure that Dong Kyung was fully rested before they set out on the rest of their Osaka excursion the following day.
Dong Kyung couldn't help but notice the constant dejected look on Saram's face whenever he thought she wasn't looking. She could just tell that their trip to the hospital took a toll on him, she just wasn't sure to what extent.
So as they had their room service dinner while seated across the table from each other on the heated floor mat in front of a chabudai , Dong Kyung reached for Saram's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"I know you're still worried. But I'm really okay now. Little Poppy is growing just fine," she assured him with a small smile.
" Ara," Saram nodded. "I just can't help but feel so useless now that I can't make your pain go away anymore."
Saram's words felt like a knot in Dong Kyung's chest. She had no idea that her husband had been feeling this way because of something he could not control anymore.
" Ya, don't say that. Not having supernatural powers doesn't make you useless," Dong Kyung reprimanded him. She then took his other hand too and clasped their fingers together. "You didn't need any supernatural powers to help ease my pain earlier. You did it with nothing but love and patience and it still worked."
"But I didn't make it go away. I just can't stand seeing you in pain."
" Ya, Kim Saram," Dong Kyung tugged at his left hand to make him look at her squarely. "Pain is not always a bad thing."
"How can you say that when you've been through so much all your life? And You just endured a couple of hours of pregnancy pain."
"But if I didn't feel any pain, how would we know if there was something wrong with little Poppy? More importantly, the pain I felt is an indication that our baby is doing just fine. Our baby is healthy. Our baby is growing. It's a growing pain. That's what I felt and that is good," Dong Kyung maintained.
It was at that moment that Saram realized that what he thought was a well-founded fear that their lives were set to take a sharp turn soon was solely based on his newness to being mortal. That he overlooked the very simple fact that his other half had been living her whole life with growing pains before he even appeared to her that fateful night that she asked for doom. And if his observations of the cycle of human lives was any indication of the things to come, he could only conclude that what was due was not a payment, but rather a payback.
A payback for all the things the universe had made his wife go through, in which the only acceptable installment is in the form of happiness.
"I didn't think to look at it that way," Saram muttered while looking at his wife, this time with a buoyant smile. "You always know what to say."
The smile on his face brought relief to his pregnant wife and she couldn't be happier.
"So don't feel bad that there's no more magical power that can make my pain go away, eoh? " Dong Kyung added. "The real magic is happening behind that pain. And that I got you back. I still can't believe it every time I wake up beside you everyday."
"I love you, Dong Kyung-ah."
"I love you, too."
She then beamed at him with that affectionate smile that immediately prompted the memory of the little girl that Saram had met in his dream. He suddenly realized that he hadn't told Dong Kyung about her yet.
Should I tell her now? Or should I wait until we find out if we're really having a girl? Saram contemplated internally.
But he knew that his wife had a tendency to get overly excited and he didn't want to get her hopes up for something that wasn't even guaranteed. So in the end, he decided to hold out until they learned the baby's gender.
However, as they settled in bed that night, Dong Kyung startled him with yet another baby question just like she did on the escalator on their way to the departure area that morning.
"You said you didn't have any preference for our baby's gender, right?" Dong Kyung queried as she curled up next to him under the duvet.
And just like at the airport, Saram took a moment to respond, but this time it was for a different reason. Was he now yearning to be the dad of a little girl just like in his dream?
" Wae?"
"Hmm, nothing," Dong Kyung looked up at him while scrunching up her nose. "I was just thinking, what should we name Little Poppy, say if it's a girl?"
"A girl?"
"Yes. Wouldn't it be so adorable if Little Poppy turns out to be a baby girl who has my eyes and a cute little dimple in the right corner of her lips just like yours?"
Saram could not believe how Dong Kyung had just so accurately described the little girl in his dream. It was so uncanny, almost as if she had met her, too.
Seolma. Did she dream about her, too? He thought, recalling how they both took a nap earlier.
"So, what do you think? What should we name her?" Dong Kyung asked again.
So Saram gazed at his wife and saw the anticipation in her eyes. There was a sense of certainty in her question rather than it being rhetorical, practically affirming his hunch that Dong Kyung had met her, too.
"Yumanie," he responded with a grin. The way Dong Kyung's eyes rounded and watered in an instant was the only confirmation he needed.