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When the Lee family pulls up to the family residence, Hyunjin is watching from the window, sipping on a glass of red wine.
Seungmin is the first to get out of the car, stretching his arms as he gets out of the driver’s seat. He’s rolling his eyes at something that’s been said, but the fond twitch of the corner of his lips betrays the affection he feels. Hyunjin watches Seungmin’s expression, filing it in the back of her mind. Seungmin might not resemble Hyunjin’s husband that much in appearance, despite the two men being brothers, but it’s quirks like these that remind Hyunjin that Seungmin is still just exactly like the man she married.
Jeongin is the next to appear from behind the car, a big grin on the young woman’s face as she scurries to the other side of the car and scoops a tiny Yongbok into her arms, lifting her up into the sky before safely cradling the three-year-old girl against her chest. The soon-to-be college grad hasn’t changed since the last time Hyunjin saw her, and even Yongbok seems to have retained her cheery disposition despite having grown in size.
Hyunjin’s eyes don’t linger on the three members of the Lee family for much longer though. She has eyes only for one person, as Hyunjin turns her narrowed gaze to the passenger seat of the car, where a single woman gets out of the car with a groan. She complains about her age loudly enough for Hyunjin to hear her through the glass window, and Hyunjin gnaws on her bottom lip, knowing her dramatics are just for her husband’s attention, seeking both his ire and affection.
Lee Minho looks just as Hyunjin last saw her.
Beautiful, doll-like, with her long brown hair spilling down her back and over her shoulders and her pale complexion highlighted by her light pink hanbok. Hyunjin had thought her the prettiest, most beautiful woman she had ever seen when they first met, and Hyunjin begrudgingly has to admit the statement is still true, no matter how much time has passed and no matter how much Hyunjin wishes Lee Minho’s appearance were as much of a stain in Hyunjin’s eyes as her existence was in Hyunjin’s life.
Hyunjin watches Minho swat away Seungmin’s outstretched hand when her husband offers to help her out of the car. She gives Yongbok an affectionate pat on the head and a threatening gaze directed to her younger sister, as if to warn Jeongin not to drop her daughter, before Minho leads the way to the family residence.
Minho has made it clear since the day she married Seungmin that she is the true head of the household. She had made sure that Yongbok took her last name when her daughter was born, and she wasn’t afraid to order around her husband who always complied with a complacent grin. She walks with an arrogant confidence that Hyunjin can’t help but envy, but that isn’t what has Hyunjin’s eyes narrowed now.
No, the source of Hyunjin’s problems like always is elsewhere.
Hyunjin’s grip on the wine glass tightens as hurried footsteps come thundering through the halls. Hyunjin keeps her eyes out through the window, watching instead through the glass panel as the front door of the residence bursts open and Hyunjin’s fool of a husband walks right up to Minho with open arms and a smile fonder than any he’s ever shown Hyunjin herself.
“Minho! It’s been so long! How have you been?”
Hyunjin can hear Jisung’s voice even through the window. Hyunjin scowls as she takes another sip of her red wine, watching first how Minho sinks into Jisung’s warm embrace, then how Seungmin’s jaw clenches just slightly before he’s pushing his brother off his wife.
“We’re doing great,” Seungmin speaks up for Minho, but the strong-willed woman isn’t one to just let her husband speak for her.
“It’s so lovely to see you too, Jisung,” Minho says, her voice muffled through the glass, but the fondness still clear as day across her face, as she lets her hands linger a moment too long in Jisung’s. Seungmin is quickly to step up, forcing the lovers apart, and he plants himself firmly between his brother and his wife.
With his arms crossed, he glances back at Jeongin, who is doing her best to look uninterested, and Yongbok, who looks on with a curiosity that can only belong to a three-year-old who is curious about what’s happening despite not having the developmental skills yet to understand what was going on.
“Jeongin, take Yongbok with you inside, won’t you? I’m sure my parents are eager to see the both of you.”
“I want to say hi to Uncle Jisung!” Yongbok whines, earning a fond smile from all the adults, even Hyunjin as she nurses another sip of wine.
“I’m so happy to see you too,” Jisung coos, reaching over to give Yongbok a fond pat on the head. “Next time I’ll get you to call me Dad instead. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Yongbok giggles, clearly charmed by the idea, with no way of knowing the reason for her father’s stony face behind her, the true insinuations of Jisung’s words not lost on any of the adults.
Hyunjin feels another pang of something ugly stirring in her chest.
It’s always there whenever Jisung coos over his niece, but today in particular seems to have brought out the worst of Hyunjin’s emotions. Hyunjin loves her sons more than anything, and she knows Jisung does too, but it’s moments like this that remind Hyunjin of the early years of their relationship, when Jisung and Hyunjin both fondly wished they could raise a daughter.
Is that what Jisung saw in that horrible woman? Another chance to raise the daughter he might never have?
Hyunjin takes another angry sip of her wine to calm herself down.
No, Jisung had already been infatuated with Minho since the first time they met, long before Minho had beared any children, long before Hyunjin had even been sure that Minho was a woman at all.
For all Hyunjin knew when they first met, Minho could’ve just been a man dressed as a woman, a disguise worn to hide that Seungmin was gay from his parents, who still complained incessantly about how they hadn’t been allowed to Minho and Seungmin’s wedding. Minho was a traditionally male name after all, and Minho had been brusque in a way that reminded Hyunjin of the cool and handsome college students who left Hyunjin blushing whenever she passed the older students in the hall.
Hyunjin knew better now of course, knew that Minho was a woman through and through. She had watched Minho give birth to Yongbok, had been the only person Minho trusted in the delivery room because Hyunjin had been there every step of the way to help her with the pregnancy, having decided that she too could put aside a grudge for the sake of helping Minho welcome her first child, the family’s first granddaughter, until it sometimes felt like Yongbok was just as much Hyunjin’s daughter as she was Minho’s.
The two women got to know each other very well during those nine months, perhaps better than Hyunjin would’ve liked, especially during those nights when Minho would goad Hyunjin into drinking for the both of them. Hyunjin was a sleepy drunk who let her emotions get the better of her, and it was during one of those late night talks that Hyunjin admits to Minho that she once thought Minho was secretly a man, much to Minho’s bemusement, as Minho offers to show Hyunjin all the proof she needs.
Hyunjin doesn’t mention to Minho that she had already seen the evidence that Minho was a woman of course. Doesn’t mention that night she hid in the bushes in Minho’s backyard with Seungmin’s labored breathing against her neck, both of them watching through the glass doors of the living room with bated breath as Minho pulls her top off for a stunned Jisung, her pale breasts framed by the moonlight and her black bra. Hyunjin and Seungmin had sex for the first time in those bushes, as if spurned on by the evidence that their spouses were cheating on them with each other, but that first night had been spent with their eyes on the evidence of their spouses’ adultery, as Hyunjin watched Minho teasingly unclip her bra and bring Jisung’s well worn hands up to cup her plump breasts.
The memory of Minho’s breasts underneath the moonlight, the rolling of her hips and her tightly clenched thighs as she takes Jisung in is the main image Hyunjin remembers from that night. She revisits that memory occasionally, sometimes in shame, sometimes in anger, sometimes alone in the dark when the long nights make it hard to sleep. Whatever the reason, she keeps the memory close to her heart all the same, careful not to let it out, and like all the times before this, Hyunjin is so lost in thought that she almost doesn’t hear Seungmin raise his voice, pushing Jisung to the side to smile down at his sweet, innocent daughter.
“Yongbok, I’m sure Grandma and Grandpa are so excited to see you too, so why don’t you head inside with your Auntie Jeongin?”
“I don’t want to!” Yongbok wails, her eyes big and wide like her mother’s. “Channie is always mean!”
“Changbinnie will be there too. You like Changbin, don’t you?”
Yongbok lights up immediately, too young to remember to keep her temper.
“Yes! Changbinnie! Auntie Jeongin’s boyfie!”
“Okay, okay, he’s not my boyfriend,” Jeongin grumbles, rolling her eyes and shooting a stink eye at the other adults around her who clearly remain bemused by Changbin's obsessive crush. She doesn’t complain for long, clearly sensing the tension brewing behind Seungmin’s sweet smile, because she quickly adds, “But yes, let's go in then, shall we?”
Jeongin hurries down the front yard to bring Yongbok inside before the three-year-old can complain. She takes note of Hyunjin by the window once she enters, greeting her with friendly smile that Hyunjin returns, even taking a moment so that Yongbok can get a chance to wave excitedly at Hyunjin too. Jeongin then glances again behind her at the drama that’s brewing and offers up an apologetic grimace before she carries Yongbok away to the living room, where they’re greeted with enthusiastic shouts.
Hyunjin’s in-laws, the grandparents, fuss eagerly like always over their youngest grandchild, and they welcome Jeongin just as enthusiastically. Grandpa Felix in particular coos loudly about how his dear granddaughter looks so much like him, and Grandma Iyen like usual exclaims how glad she is to have another woman she can gossip with. Hyunjin’s two sons are just as loud as their grandparents. Hyunjin can hear Chan protesting Yongbok’s presence in angry English already, not used to no longer being his grandparents’ favorite, and Changbin shouts a flirtatious remark at Jeongin so loudly that Hyunjin almost forgets to be angry as she smiles into her glass.
Her good mood is short lived.
The two brothers are now engaged in a quiet but heated conversation outside, as if they had enough sense to not let their children overhear their quarrel, but Minho has remained stood to the side, looking about her surroundings in a carefree manner, as if she weren’t the reason why the brothers were arguing at all. As she peruses the property, her eyes inevitably land on Hyunjin, who doesn’t hide her displeasure as she glares back at Minho through the window.
They stare at each other for only a moment, before Minho has the nerve to smile so prettily at Hyunjin, like she thinks nothing of it at all.
Hyunjin turns from the window, shutting the sheer curtains behind her. She walks up to the open front door in calm and steady steps, and a part of her can’t help but be amazed that she’s even managed to keep herself together at all when she steps through the door and into the flood of sunlight.
The men haven’t noticed Hyunjin’s appearance in the front doorway yet, but Minho’s eyes haven’t left Hyunjin, as if the beautiful woman whose heart must be made of stone has watched Hyunjin walk up to the front door through the walls. Hyunjin stands there for a moment, taking it all in, before she steps down onto the concrete path, her heels hitting the stone with a loud thud.
Hyunjin wonders what to say as she gets closer. The men still haven’t noticed her yet, and Hyunjin has nothing to distract her from the beautiful brown in Minho’s eyes that get stronger with each glance, and before Hyunjin can find her bearings, like always, Minho is prepared first.
“Hello, Hyunjin,” Minho calls out, offering a little wave with that sickly saccharine smile. “Long time no see.”
Both Jisung and Seungmin turn to look at Hyunjin immediately. Jisung looks slightly spooked, which isn’t unusual for his strangely squirrelly demeanor, and yet his smile beams bright with adoration when he sees Hyunjin as he says, “Baby, you didn’t need to come out to greet them too. I was just about to usher Seungmin and Minho inside.”
Hyunjin rolls her eyes but lets Jisung make an attempt to shower her with the affection she knows she deserves, but her eyes linger on Seungmin instead. The younger man’s cheeks look slightly rosy even from the distance, and he too offers up a smile, more subtle in his affection, as he holds Hyunjin’s gaze and says, “Hi Hyunjin. It’s nice to see you again after so long.”
Hyunjin’s heart can’t help but skip a beat from such a simple greeting, but the moment is ruined when Jisung whips his head back at his brother with a scowl.
“Don’t speak to my wife like that. You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to behind my back?”
“Oh please,” Seungmin huffs, his eyes flaring. “What right do you have to accuse me of something like that?”
They’re arguing again before Hyunjin can get another word in. She’s learned that this seems to be the brothers’ preferred method of communication, a trait they’ve inherited from their mother, who loves to nag about everything to everyone. Hyunjin is used to letting their arguments fade away into background noise whenever there is a family get-together, but she’s grown to dislike it more and more, especially because it gives Minho the chance to sidle up to Hyunjin with a cheeky, knowing grin.
“Aren’t our husbands so silly?” Minho asks with her airy, teasing voice.
Hyunjin takes a long moment to let her eyes roll towards Minho, who just twirls her wavy brown hair with one petite finger.
“You’ve got some nerve to say that,” Hyunjin scoffs.
“What makes you say that?” Minho replies, sounding so innocent despite what she’s done.
Hyunjin opens her mouth to respond, but instead, her gaze darts back to Jisung and Seungmin, who have begun to raise their voices now that the front door was safely shut behind Hyunjin.
There were so many ways to describe what Jisung and Seungmin were to Hyunjin.
Her husband and her brother-in-law.
The man she married and the man she now sleeps with.
Two men she loves.
Two men who so clearly love the woman beside her more.
“You’re the reason why they’re arguing at all,” Hyunjin finally says, taking a long sip of her wine, wishing the alcohol might somehow numb the stinging pain in her chest. “They’re fighting over you, just like they always have, and it’s all because you keep stringing them both along without even planning to choose one of them.”
Minho doesn’t respond for a long while. Instead, the summer air just fills with the hum of cicadas, a mesmerizing backdrop to the growing voices of the two brothers who suddenly sound so distant.
“After everything we’ve been through, I still can’t read you well.”
Hyunjin snaps her head towards Minho, but her frown eases away into confusion when she finds Minho staring back, still with that same smile on her pretty face, but suddenly so indecipherable. Hyunjin thinks it’s the first time in a long time that she’s truly looked at Minho, whose brown eyes seem to glow beneath the bright sunlight, and Hyunjin finds her breath caught in her throat even as she chokes out, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I always thought you were a woman who knew clearly what she was worth, and yet despite knowing how much you deserve to be loved, you still can’t see that they’re fighting over you just as much as they might be fighting over me.”
Hyunjin narrows her eyes at that. She wants to argue, wants to insist that no, it’s all Minho’s fault, but she can hear bits and pieces of Jisung and Seungmin’s argument still.
“If you don’t love Minho anymore, just divorce her and let her be happy with me.”
“Then why don’t you leave Hyunjin first? I can treat her so much better than you.”
“Don’t you dare! Hyunjin’s the love of my life. You think I’d let her walk off with someone like you?”
“Well I love Minho more than you, so why don’t you back off first?”
The argument continues on in circles like that, endlessly, like a windmill turning forever in an relentless wind. Hyunjin gives the wine in her glass a gentle swirl, making circles to the tune of her lovers, their lovers’ arguments, and finally she has to concede.
“They do sound pretty stupid,” Hyunjin manages a small chuckle, though she turns her eyes just as quickly back on Minho. “Doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s all your fault this mess happened in the first place. If you’d just choose one of them, I could be happy with the other.”
“Oh please, if you’re going to ask me to choose, then why don’t you choose first?”
Hyunjin opens her mouth to respond but promptly closes it shut again.
It’s all just a ploy, she realizes, a trick to lure Hyunjin into the same silly argument that Hyunjin and Minho’s husbands are having with each other.
Minho knows why Hyunjin can’t pick just one of them after all. It’s the same reason why all four of them have gone along with this silly farce for so long, keeping up the image of a happy marriage while sneaking around behind everyone’s backs.
Hyunjin still loves Jisung after all. He’s her husband for a reason, the man she fell in love with during college and still loves for being so charming and clumsily adorable despite all his faults, and Hyunjin can’t imagine a life without the man who has shared his love with her for almost all her life.
Hyunjin loves Seungmin now too though. Despite only initially connecting with him as they navigated their spouses meeting up with each other, Hyunjin found Seungmin charmingly stoic, a calm breeze accompanying the whirlwind of excitement that Jisung had brought to Hyunjin’s life, and she can no longer imagine giving Seungmin up either.
She loves the two men through and through, just as Minho must love them, and just as Jisung and Seungmin must love the both of them back, and if she argues with Minho now, Hyunjin knows she’ll be forced to accept it.
That if they all want to be happy, they’ll just have to learn to share.
“I’m not going to choose,” Hyunjin finally admits, and Minho’s eyes glimmer, like she sees victory in the distance. Hyunjin won’t back down so easily though, takes a larger swig of her red wine, before she turns her cold eyes on Minho and snaps, “But I don’t want to share with you either.”
She expects Minho to turn defiant, to rise up to Hyunjin’s challenge of becoming the one to monopolize the attention of the two men who meant the most in their lives.
Instead, Minho seems hesitant, her lips pursing slightly, like that isn’t the response she was hoping for. She hums quietly, the most complacent Hyunjin has ever seen the normally self-assured woman, and turns her eyes instead back on their arguing husbands, who have gone from arguing about their wives to trying to boast about their children.
Hyunjin doesn’t understand it.
“You’re not arguing with me,” Hyunjin says, deciding she might as well point out the obvious.
“No, I’m not,” Minho replies quietly, as if deep in thought. Hyunjin won’t give her the chance to do so, knows if she lets Minho think too long she’ll just fall into Minho’s next trap, so Hyunjin continues along, refusing to let the conversation lull.
“Does this mean you’re giving them up to me?”
Minho rolls her eyes, and Hyunjin feels the corner of her lips quirk upwards despite her attempts to remain angry.
“I would give them up to you, Hyunjin. I really would, but that’d make me a terribly sad woman, and you know it.”
Hyunjin does know it.
She sees how deeply Minho loves both Seungmin and Jisung too, and she knows how sad Seungmin and Jisung would be if Minho really were to remove herself from their lives. The Hyunjin that would like Minho too if Hyunjin’s husband weren’t cheating on her with Minho thinks she would also be sad if Minho were to leave, and the part of her that wanted to believe Minho could still be a friend as Hyunjin helped Minho during her pregnancy would hate to make Minho sad too.
Minho’s the one who had continued to see Jisung after she was finally recovered from giving birth though, and any sympathy and camaraderie Hyunjin had developed for Minho vanished as Hyunjin too took that as a sign to continue her affair with Seungmin. They were past the point of being friends now, past the point of being able to share the men they loved, and Hyunjin can only shake her head, sipping her wine that has grown bitter with the taste of Hyunjin’s regrets.
“Even if it makes you sad, I don’t want to share them with you.”
“I’m not asking you to share, Hyunjin. I’m just here to offer you a different perspective. That we can simply be equals here, not just different parts of a whole.”
Hyunjin frowns. “What are you getting at?”
“Look at Jisung and Seungmin for example. They clearly love the both of us, and yet they’re never satisfied with just stealing each other’s wives from each other. If you want my two cents, it’s because sleeping with each other’s wives is the closest they’ll ever get to being with each other.”
Hyunjin immediately makes a disgusted face that has Minho’s laughter ringing quietly beside her.
“How can you even imply that?” Hyunjin asks, just about to take another sip of her wine before suddenly finding the taste of it just as awful as the thought Minho’s just put in her head.
“Am I wrong though? Why else would they put up with us all cheating on each other like this?”
“I…” Hyunjin remains lost for words as she watches Jisung and Seungmin continue to bicker, both men starting to go red as their words grow more heated. She can’t imagine that what Minho says has any ounce of truth to it, and she’s much less willing to entertain the idea than Minho clearly is, though her mind does betray her, thinking back to that night, when the image of Minho’s naked figure became so deeply imprinted in her eyes. Hyunjin hadn’t been watching her husband that night, hadn’t been watching the man she was having sex with either, but she suddenly can’t help but wonder now if it had been Minho or Jisung that Seungmin had been staring at that night.
Hyunjin grimaces at the intrusive thought, shoves it deep into the back of her brain, but all that does is lead Hyunjin to a different question, one that has Hyunjin turning on Minho with a deep frown.
“If that’s what you really think, then why are you letting them use you, or rather, use us for such a farce? You’re even more strong-headed than I am. Even if you really thought they loved the both of us despite god forbid them wanting each other, you wouldn’t let them use you to play games with each other like this.”
Once again, Minho fails to hold Hyunjin’s gaze. She turns her pretty brown eyes to the arguing husbands, her nose slightly upturned and tilted away from Hyunjin’s curious eyes, but it does nothing to hide the sudden flush that’s appeared at the tips of Minho’s ears.
Hyunjin doesn’t understand it, this sudden shyness from a woman who has been confidently sure of herself for as long as Hyunjin has known her. She doesn’t understand it, and it suddenly means more than anything to Hyunjin that she know what’s going on in Minho’s mind this moment, that she know what could possibly have such a beautiful woman look so shy.
“I wish you wouldn’t stare at me so intensely like that,” Minho quietly whispers, still not meeting Hyunjin’s gaze.
“Then just answer my question. What do you have to gain from all this?”
Minho’s lips upturn slightly into a small pout. Maybe it’s the alcohol finally hitting, or the warm haze of the summer sun, but Hyunjin finds it in herself to admit that it’s a rather cute look on the older woman, who finally lets out a small sigh, her eyes flitting coyly up to meet Hyunjin’s gaze.
“Maybe I’m just like those two idiots arguing with each other. Maybe one of the reasons why I’m sleeping with your husband is because I think it’s the closest I’ll ever get to you.”
The hum of the cicadas turns into a roar.
It drowns out any thoughts Hyunjin could possibly have, leaves Hyunjin with just the image of Minho’s shy pout, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and yet her eyes dark with the desire for something more.
Hyunjin sees it now. Sees the look in Minho’s eyes, the look Minho has always had in her eyes whenever their gazes meet, and Hyunjin suddenly feels hot, hotter than she ever could beneath the summer sun.
“I never thought of it like that before,” Hyunjin hears herself say, still barely able to form a thought amongst the sudden heat that’s flushed through her brain. “I think I slept with Seungmin just because I hated to see you win.”
“I had the feeling that was the case,” Minho laughs quietly, though her eyes never leave Hyunjin, whose heart beats quicker the longer she holds Minho’s gaze. “You never struck me as someone who was interested in other women like that.”
Hyunjin gulps. Her hand feels clammy around her wine glass. The stem of the glass suddenly feels too thin, the base too flat, the shape of the glass bowl too hard.
It feels wrong, all of it.
What Hyunjin craves instead is the smooth touch of that cheek in the palm of her hand, the soft dip of those hips pressed beneath her grip, the tender plumpness of those breasts cupped in her fingers, those same breasts she once watched get fondled beneath the moonlight until Minho’s back was arching back with a shudder.
The wine Hyunjin nursed over her anger feels like such an insignificant afterthought, a frustrating reminder that what Hyunjin holds in her hand now is against everything Hyunjin suddenly wants instead, and she’s leaning in close all of a sudden, a wisp of her short black hair brushing forward past her ear to meet a stray strand of Minho’s long brown hair.
“Are you saying it’s too late for a woman my age to discover something new?” Hyunjin asks, dares, with a voice too quiet and heated for a woman who just minutes ago had hated Minho with every breath.
Minho looks stunned by Hyunjin’s question, and Hyunjin can’t help but grin in response, soaking in the sight of the older woman caught so off guard. Minho couldn’t have expected such a response from Hyunjin, who can barely believe it herself, but neither of them are women who second guess their decisions. When Hyunjin wants something, she achieves it, and she’s known Minho long enough to know that Minho is just like herself.
She’s never one to let an opportunity slip through her fingers, and so Hyunjin watches as Minho slowly blinks back to process it all, before a hint of her signature smile pulls at the corners of her lips.
Confident, daring, and, Hyunjin finally recognizes, lustful too.
“Guess there’s only one way to find out,” Minho whispers back, and she grips Hyunjin by the shoulders and leans up to press her mouth to Hyunjin’s for a kiss.
Hyunjin has kissed plenty of people before. Ex-boyfriends, her husband, Minho’s husband, but Minho’s kiss is different. Her lips feel softer than the men Hyunjin’s kissed before, the thin layer of Minho’s lipstick smushed against Hyunjin’s mixing with the sensation of their lips pressing together. Hyunjin dips her head down more to angle her mouth better against Minho, letting her suck at Hyunjin’s bottom lip, kissing her harder as Hyunjin’s left hand snakes up Minho’s side, cupping her finger beneath Minho’s jaw and pressing a thumb into the softness of Minho’s cheek.
“What the—?”
Hyunjin breaks apart from Minho at the sound of Jisung’s voice, but she takes her time to look down upon the sight before her, the sight of Minho’s still half-lidded eyes and her smudged lipstick, the movement of her delicate throat as she gulps in anticipation, in a desire for something more.
Hyunjin doesn’t know how she does it, but she wrenches her gaze from Minho’s face to stare at her husband. Jisung is looking at her like he’s seeing a stranger, and Hyunjin wonders if she looks just as dazed as Minho does with her messed up lipstick and loosened hair.
“Hyunjin… Minho… What are you doing?” Jisung stammers, like he still doesn’t understand what he’s just seen.
Behind him, Seungmin catches Hyunjin’s gaze, and somehow, Hyunjin isn’t surprised when he manages a chuckle, his eyes shifting to linger on Minho instead.
“I knew that’s what you were really after,” Seungmin says with a bemused shake of his head, and Hyunjin watches Minho wink back at him, offering her husband a rare sign of open affection when she blows him a kiss.
“What— wait what do you mean by that?” Jisung demands, flabbergasted when he rounds on his brother, but Hyunjin doesn’t wait to let anyone ruin the moment any longer.
She’s suddenly aware of the wine glass in her hand still, that she held tightly between her fingers even as Minho kissed her. The glass is still half full with the wine Hyunjin had stewed over just minutes ago, and the bitterness she’d consumed feels so silly now compared to the giddiness now welling up inside her. Without another thought, Hyunjin pours the rest of her wine onto the grass lawn, lets the last of the red wine drip out along with the last of Hyunjin’s regret until all Hyunjin has left is an empty glass ready to receive the sudden outpouring affection Hyunjin now feels for the woman beside her.
Hyunjin loops her arm around Minho’s thin waist, so delicate to the touch, marveling at how well her hand slots into the crease of Minho’s hips. It was no wonder now, why both Hyunjin and Minho’s husbands were so obsessed with Minho, and Hyunjin doesn’t know which of the men she’s addressing anymore, as she pulls Minho’s body flush against her own while casting both her husband and her lover a flirtatiously coy grin.
“I guess your baby is my baby now too,” Hyunjin giggles, her smile growing when she catches the blush deepening across Minho’s cheeks. She doesn’t wait for either Jisung or Seungmin to respond, though she catches Seungmin’s growing grin and Jisung’s stunned bewilderment, simply spins Minho around, guiding her away into the house, where they finally burst into the living room still glued to each other’s side.
Their children crowd up around them immediately, all looking excited to see the two women finally getting along with each other, and Hyunjin beams back.
For the first time in a long time, everything finally feels whole again in these walls Hyunjin had thought would need to forever hide her secrets, and when she’s sure no one is looking, Hyunjin sneaks a kiss to Minho’s forehead, waits to see the older woman blush before she whispers, “Let’s get to know each better this year, Minho.”
Minho chuckles despite the growing redness on her cheeks, as she bats her eyes prettily up at Hyunjin, her red lipstick still a shiny sheen across her lips.
“Only if you keep calling me baby,” Minho teases.
“You liked it that much?”
“I did.”
Hyunjin smiles, already imagining all the ways she'll get to know Minho, until the memories of that moonlit light become more than a reality, and that smile on Minho's face brings so much joy that Hyunjin can't even remember how she could be angered by it at all.
Hyunjin squeezes Minho’s hand back, steals another kiss from Minho's lips when she's sure that both their husbands are watching before she whispers back a response.
“Then I guess you can be my baby for as long as you’ll be mine.”