When I Loved You

Yiyoung rushed to his side. Muyeol quickly reached out and pulled Jiyoon into his arms before kissing Yiyoung, and then pecked his daughter’s cheeks.

“What happened?” Yiyoung asked.

“Work went better than I expected, so I came back earlier.”

“Really? That’s good.”

“How was everything here? Nothing happened?”

“Yeah. Today, Jiyoon…”

The family of three caught up as they headed to the parking lot.

After they reached home, and spent some quality time together, Muyeol entered the bedroom after tucking Jiyoon in her bed. Without turning on the light, he carefully sat down on the bed. Yiyoung had fallen asleep right after finishing dinner. She must have been exhausted.

He reached out and softly stroked her hair. His touch seemed to have woken her up, because Yiyoung yawned as she asked, “What time is it…”

“It’s 9 o’ clock. Go back to sleep.”

“Give me a hug.”

Muyeol lied down next to her, and put his arm out. Yiyoung put her head on his arm, burying her face in his chest.

“Why am I so tired these days?” she mumbled.

Muyeol had noticed it before he even went on his business trip; Yiyoung didn’t know what to do, she was constantly sleepy.

“What do you think?” she asked him, her eyes closed.

Muyeol pondered over it, and then recalled the time she’d slept like a bear wanting to hibernate. He jerked his head up and asked, “A second baby?”

“You got it,” Yiyoung confirmed with a smile.

Muyeol tightly wrapped his arms around, unable to say much because of how happy he was. It took him a while before he finally said, “I will do better.”

“Okay. I’ll trust you this time, too.”

“Our second child, huh? I can’t believe I’ll be the father of two children.”

Being a parent itself was a fear for Muyeol. Since he’d never been loved by anyone, he wasn’t confident in his ability to be a father figure, even though he loved being one.

“I think you should freely express your happiness,” Yiyoung had said before.

When she gave birth to Jiyoon, Yiyoung and Muyeol had worried a lot. Whenever they had the time to talk, they would discuss what to do. And both of them had agreed that the one thing he should always do, was to express his love to his child without worrying about anything. They believed their child would be able to feel it. There was no right or wrong answer to raising a child, but they tried together, their child laughed. And Jiyoon’s laughter was a great motivation for her parents.

Yiyoung patted Muyeol’s back. “You’re getting closer to being the best dad day by day.”

Muyeol smiled as he lifted her head by the chin and softly kissed Yiyoung on the lips. “I need to hold back for a while again, huh?”

Muyeol laughed loudly and kissed her again. “I love you.”

“I love you,” exhaled Yiyoung, no longer feeling anxious, and feeling satisfied.

“I love you.”

And then Yiyoung was dragged into her dreams, where she opened Muyeol’s diary after a long treasure hunt. She flipped to the favorite part of his diary.

‘If someone tells me that I can ask for one thing and it would be granted, then I would want to say that I want to live with Shitty Yoon, even for a day. Even if it was a dream, I’d love to experience living with her. My life would be beautiful with that memory of living with her.’

Because of Muyeol, her life had become beautiful.

* * *

Afterword by the author

I really love writing, and I’m always grateful to be able to do what I love for a living. I also like to travel. I want to see as many things as possible for as long as I can.

The places in ‘When I Loved You’ such as Germany, Czechia, Hungary, and Austria are all places that I visited in February this year. Actually, I was writing a different novel before this one, but after seeing Hallstatt, I felt a strong urge to write a new novel.

As soon as I returned, I stopped working on the novel I was focusing on before I traveled, and immediately started writing ‘When I Loved You’.

The theme of this novel is ‘beauty’, and it includes the beauty of humans, views, love, and the world.

My writing is not perfect, but I hope my feelings are conveyed through the novel. This sums up the epilogue.