M 205

Side Story 3 Episode 7

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“Anyway, you don’t have to come this often. You’re busy, Lieutenant General. I’m feeling a bit better too—.”

“If you don’t want me coming to the hospital, get discharged quickly. That’s all you have to do.”

“Lieutenant General….”

“And living life, wouldn’t there be a day when I get hospitalized too? Then you take care of me, then.”

“Pardon? What do you mean….”

“No? If I’m hospitalized, you won’t come to see me?”

“…….”

“I feel like I gain strength just by seeing Lee Sehwa even when I feel like I’m about to die, but you’re just going to stay home without even showing your face? That’s not right.”

“Th-that… Lieutenant General.”

“Can you imagine how I feel now?”

“…….”

“Then what should we do from now on? Should I keep my face, which you like so much, locked up inside the residence and not even check to see if my darling is okay?”

Ki Tae-jeong, as always, made a claim with a serious face that shattered all logic, and Sehwa, who hadn’t expected his husband’s tantrum, could only blink, not knowing what to do.

“Huh?”

“…….”

“Honey, why aren’t you saying anything? You’re not coming to see me? If that’s the case, I’m really going home right now.”

“…….”

“Wow, you said you loved me, but you’re going to abandon me if I’m hospitalized? Huh?”

“Th-that’s not it… Uh, um… Anyway, I don’t think I can come as often as you, Lieutenant General…?”

“Why?”

“Because… there will be two children, cough, cough.”

No matter how much he thought about it, he didn’t think he could take care of two children alone, Sehwa added in a voice that was tinged with worry and a bit of awkwardness. The innocent man seemed to be wondering if this was how he should respond, in his own way.

“Ah, that’s right. You have to take care of two kids alone if I’m hospitalized.”

“Yes…. So please don’t get sick, Lieutenant General.”

“Haha, I understand.”

“I’m serious. Don’t get hospitalized or anything.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not joking. You said you’re a Lieutenant General now, so you won’t go to the battlefield directly… Don’t create such a situation? Absolutely.”

“Okay, okay. I understand. Don’t worry, honey.”

Lee Sehwa, who would have quietly felt depressed in the past, thinking that he had pressured Ki Tae-jeong to have a second child, making him and the child suffer, and that it was all his fault anyway, now worries only as much as others do, and feels upset appropriately.

General Oh Seon-ran still dislikes him, but still consults him first when it comes to matters concerning Sehwa and the child. General Oh Seon-ran acknowledges in his own way that Ki Tae-jeong is the spouse of his son, who is as precious as his own life, and the father of his grandson, who wouldn’t hurt even if he put him in his eye.

Also, his young son, Hae-rim, who is only four years old, is overcoming the absence of his dads so bravely that he almost wishes he would whine a little more.

So Ki Tae-jeong was somehow enduring in the empty residence without Lee Sehwa and Lee Hae-rim.

“Today it’s strawberry-flavored candy?”

“Yeah. This time, Hae-rim said let’s make it strawberry.”

“Hae-rim?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve been making the candy with Hae-rim all along.”

“No, I’m hearing this for the first time….”

“I stand in front of the fire, and Hae-rim does the simple things.”

It was obvious, but dangerous tasks like boiling sugar and starch syrup were Ki Tae-jeong’s responsibility. Hae-rim’s role began the next morning. On the way to drop off the child at the daycare center, Ki Tae-jeong would hand over the mold with the contents well-hardened overnight, and Hae-rim would diligently take out the candy from the mold. He was so focused that he worried he might get motion sickness, but Hae-rim seemed very happy to have his own task.

‘Daddy, this! This one, gotta take it out!’

‘Uh-huh, Hae-rim found it well.’

‘Hehe.’

After separating the candy from the mold, the two of them would sort out the ones with rough edges together. Ki Tae-jeong would subtly push the ones that needed to be removed in front of Hae-rim, and the child would be happy to find them belatedly…. Looking at Hae-rim, who had the same face as Sehwa and smiled the same way, he wondered what the problem was.

‘One, two… Wow! This many went in today!’

‘That’s right. There were a lot of round candies today.’

‘Yes! Totally awesome!’

After the sorting was done, Hae-rim was also responsible for carefully pouring the candies, one by one, into the glass jar to take to the hospital. Ever since the time he excitedly poked and prodded, breaking the end of a candy, Hae-rim was putting all his effort into the safety of the round candies.

‘I hope Little Daddy eats a lot….’

‘Yeah, he will.’

‘But Little Daddy, does he brush his teeth? If he eats this many candies and doesn’t, it’s a big problem.’

‘I’ll tell him that too. That Hae-rim is worried about whether Little Daddy is brushing his teeth.’

‘Uh-huh… But, uh, if I say I’m worried, I think Little Daddy will be upset… He’ll be very upset….’

‘Ah, that’s right. Then should I just say that Hae-rim misses him?’

‘Yes…. Ung, I hope tomorrow comes quickly again….’

‘Why? Because you want to put candy in the jar for Little Daddy?’

‘Yes!’

When he told him that Hae-rim was just caressing the glass jar filled with candy, waiting for the new morning to come, Sehwa carefully observed the round candy in his hand with a new gaze. For a long time, he looked at the perfectly shaped handmade candies, without a single scratch, that Ki Tae-jeong’s big hands and Hae-rim’s small hands had diligently picked and chosen to fill.

“The shape really doesn’t matter… Don’t throw away the ugly ones.”

“Not ugly, but the ones with rough edges. You know, the candies where the sugar water bulges out along the mold’s surface. You could cut your tongue on those.”

“Ah…. Um. I see. I guess so.”

Sehwa’s Adam’s apple bobbed greatly. Like someone who had barely swallowed something hot.

“Uh-huh, hmm, so… the ones I’ve been eating… were all made like that? By you and Hae-rim….”

“Yeah.”

Lee Sehwa, who had been constantly touching the round and smooth, light pink sugar lump that didn’t catch on anything, finally put the candy in his mouth after hearing Ki Tae-jeong’s nagging that it would all melt and get on his hands.

“Are you okay? Can you eat it?”

“Uhe, id’s good.”

“Good. If you feel okay after eating one, let’s try eating a little more rice porridge.”

“I will….”

His pronunciation was all garbled because he was diligently rolling the candy around in his mouth, but Sehwa tried hard to respond to Ki Tae-jeong. As if he wanted to make up for the past few weeks when he couldn’t even have a proper conversation because he was sick.

“What is this, like a kid.”

“I’m gonna, later….”

Ki Tae-jeong wiped the sugar water off Sehwa’s fingers with a gauze handkerchief, thinking about happiness.

“It doesn’t come off easily when it gets sticky. What are you going to do when the smell comes up later.”

It’s a strange thing. Sehwa is still having a hard time even chewing rice grains, and he is also going through such intense morning sickness symptoms that he feels like he’s dying every day, and he regrets several times a day that he would never have agreed to have a second child if he had known Sehwa would suffer this much… but just being with this person makes him feel that he is still, in the end, happy.

If he only consider the objective factors, these days are not good at all, but it’s amazing that those days accumulate one by one and become happy days, no different from any other day.

“This is really good.”

There was a time when he hoped that only happy stories would be written in the diary of his brave spouse, who was taking one step forward every day by his side. He believed that it had to be that way. But now, it seems like it doesn’t matter anymore. Looking at Lee Sehwa, who smiles as if he has the whole world with just one candy, even makes him think that perhaps heaven is not the perfect form that he insisted on.

Yes. Lee Sehwa’s body will get better, and there will only be things to smile about in the future.

Ki Tae-jeong, holding happiness in his hands, with a concentration and total amount that was no less than before, vowed that he would never let go of this. No matter what happens in his life, even if there are painful and difficult processes like this time, he is just grateful to the loved one who guarantees that it will eventually be a happy ending.