DWWWB Extra 2 part 4

“So our Milhee cooked food for your little sister?”

Mother looked at her daughter with proud eyes and asked.

“Yes. I was so grateful. And I also felt so sorry.”

“Next time your sister visits, bring her to our house too. I can make her a lot more food that will taste more delicious than Milhee’s. Okay?”

“Just your words are more than enough, Mother.”

I was sitting in the center of the living room as I checked on Father’s road bicycle.

“Ugh, Dad! Just leave this to a bicycle shop. Why are you giving this kind of work to your son-in-law?”

I gave my wife a look and silently told her to stop. She was acting a little more sensitive than usual today and was throwing a tantrum.

“We’re family. We can make requests like this from time to time. Didn’t you prepare a meal for Gong-seobang’s younger sister?”

Father replied in a voice that seemed to indicate he felt a bit hurt.

“Gong-seobang’s little sister is basically my little sister. Of course I should have cooked for her!”

She talked back, unwilling to give an inch.

“But I’m your dad! I’m basically Gong-seobang’s parent!”

And Father also seemed unwilling to back down.

“The smell of bicycle oil is too strong in the living room. Ugh!”

She got up from the sofa and ran to the bathroom. The three of us that were left in the living room looked at each other.

“Is the smell of oil that strong?”

Father tilted his head and asked.

“She’s been saying that all day, so I opened all the windows. I even opened the front door! What smell? It’s so cold in here I could die!”

Mother tightened the shawl around her shoulders and answered.

“Milhee has a weak stomach. Maybe it’s acting up again. I noticed that she gets sensitive like that when it does.”

I explained to clear the air.

“Jeez, this is so damn frustrating.”

Suddenly, Oh Hyunho, who had been flipping through the TV channels with a remote control on the sofa, shook his head and clicked his tongue.

“What? Why are you going on about feeling frustrated all of a sudden?”

Mother glared at her oldest son as she asked.

“Are you sure it’s not morning sickness?”

“Ouch!”

The chain snagged on my finger, and I let out a shout.

“Oppa, what’s wrong?”

She came out of the bathroom and ran over with wide eyes. The tip of my index finger was dripping with blood. She held my finger in her hand and grew angry.

“See?! I told you to just leave this to the bicycle shop. Look at him! He’s bleeding! Ugh, the smell of oil!”

She covered her nose and mouth with her left hand. She held my hand with her right hand and scowled.

“Gong-seobang. Let’s start by going to the hospital.”

Father suddenly put on his bicycle helmet and began to fuss as if he were going to go on a rampage.

“If we’re going to the hospital… Dad, why are you putting on your helmet?”

She asked in disbelief.

“Ah, right. Not the helmet. Where is my coat? Let me get changed first. Let’s head to the hospital first.”

“We can just put some medicine on it. There’s no need for a hospital. Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?”

She moved to get up and head over to the medicine cabinet.

“You need to go to an ob/gyn first!”

She grew pale and stared at her father. Her shocked eyes grew damp with tears. It seemed that she had finally realized what was going on. But…

“Dad, what’s wrong? Gong-seobang hurt his finger, so why would we go to an ob/gyn? Hm? Dad, get a hold of yourself. Why did you put on your helmet as you told us to go to the hospital? Huh? Mom! Since when has Dad been like this? When was the last time he got a physical?”

When she began to start shedding tears, Oh Hyunho laughed in disbelief.

“Not Gong-seobang. We’re talking about you. You! Do you have morning sickness? It doesn’t smell like oil in here! But you’re the only one who’s making all this fuss saying it smells like bicycles in here.”

“Ah?”

She tilted her head and looked off into the distance. Her limbs turned stiff as if she were a wind-up doll that had suddenly come to a stop. I received a band-aid from Mother and wrapped it around my finger before getting up. I walked over to my wife as she looked dazed, and she suddenly began to laugh.

At Father’s insistence, we all went to the convenience store. Even her older brother Oh Hyunho followed us out. The five of us walked side by side as we entered the convenience store, and what we purchased was a pregnancy test. The man at the convenience store who seemed to be a part-timer working there gave us such a strange look that it made my hair stand on end.

We returned to her parents’ house and waited as she entered the bathroom.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d have to wait for my little sister to go pee… Ah!”

Mother landed a huge slap on her oldest son’s back. After five minutes had passed, she came out of the bathroom with a sullen face.

“Looks like it’s negative.”

Father, who was the most impatient out of all of us, spoke up first. I was about to let out a sigh when I discovered the trembling corners of her lips. As always, cute and mischievous Oh Milhee wasn’t able to hide her instincts as a broadcast PD and had prepared a show for us.

“I think it was positive, Father.”

I laughed as I replied to what Father had said. Suddenly, she let out a shout.

“It’s positive!”

She lifted the pregnancy test over her head and laughed. This moment felt even more overwhelming than when I had won the Tour de France.

* * *

“Is there anything more you want to eat?”

She had what some called an eating morning sickness. She always had to have something to eat close to her mouth. If she felt the slightest bit hungry, she would start to retch. But she never ate a lot at once. She would only be eating a little all the time.

“I want to eat a donut that’s filled with a lot of milk cream.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

“And buy a cup of hot chocolate on your way back. I want to eat them together.”

The donut was a popular item that required customers to start standing in line early in the morning, but it was one of the few things she would crave. Therefore, in order to satisfy her cravings, I would make sure to get it for her without fail.

Once her eating morning sickness began, she arranged a flexible working schedule at the broadcasting station. She would go out to the office once a month, and while she would browse through project proposals, she would only work in projects where telecommuting was possible.

And like someone who was on standby, I stayed by her side. All of my time was dedicated to Oh Milhee.

I showed her all of my assets that she didn’t know about. I had gathered enough wealth where we didn’t have to work or worry about money during our lifetimes. I owned a small building in Seongsu-dong, and the monthly rent brought in a steady stream of revenue. I also had a pension plan, an apartment in Hawaii, a villa in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, about thirty works of art that I would occasionally lend out to private art museums, and some land that I would buy here and there as I traveled around the country…

“All of this belongs to you, Oppa?”

Her eyes widened as she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then why am I working at the broadcasting station?”

She tilted her head. I didn’t know how to answer that, so I hesitated for a moment.

“I think this would be enough for me to live the rest of my life without having to work, right?”

She asked, asking for confirmation.

“If you want to live the rest of your life without working, you can do that.”

“Is this something like… If I give birth to three kids, you’ll give me a fortune… Why haven’t you shown this to me until now? Why did you show it to me after I was already pregnant?”

“You never really asked. And you said you’d like to keep our incomes separate.”

“So I did.”

She nodded, unable to refute my words.

“But now that we have a baby, it’s different from when it was just us two.”

A marriage was a lifestyle. There were more than a couple of things that two separate individuals had to compromise on as they joined together in matrimony.

“And we should definitely share our financial situations with each other, but there wasn’t much time to do that until now.

After we got married, she had been busy with her program, and whenever she had some time, I would get busy preparing for a race outside the country. Then she started working on another program, and Jiwoo visited. We were so busy the first ten months after our wedding.

As we grew closer and closer together, there were times when it was difficult to have practical conversations with each other. Especially when it came to finances. It could be something that was difficult to comprehend.

“I’m sorry I’m only showing you this now. I’m not showing it to you now because you’re pregnant. I wanted to get everything organized before I showed you, but it’s been crazy.”

“No need to be sorry. I feel like I got a pregnancy present. You know! Some women get pregnant, and they say, ‘My husband bought me a building! They bought me some land!’ Things like that.”

She giggled and wrapped her arms around my neck.

“I should feel sorry. I should have cleared things up earlier and showed it to you by now.”

“Oppa, do you know what’s inside my bank account?”

“No.”

“Then what about my equity account? Do you know what kind of insurance I have? Do you know how much I put into my savings account every month? Neither of us knew about the other. We better set a day to go through all of this together.”

I pressed my mouth to her forehead and murmured.

“Then is my wife going to take care of my finances from now on?”

“Nope. We are going to take care of it together.’

There was no right way to go about married life. All we could do was show our sincere hearts and devotion as we moved forward together.

* * *

“Oppa.”

“Hm?”

In the dark night, I was startled when I heard my wife calling for me. I quickly sat up.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“My stomach keeps twisting a bit.”

Just because she whined a lot did not mean she was a crybaby. If she was saying something hurt, that meant that it really hurt.

I quickly turned on the lamp on the bedside table. She was dripping in cold sweat.

“You should have woken me sooner! Look at all this sweat!”

“I mean, they said the birth would happen later. It also felt like false labor pains. But… It hurts so much right now.”

Her lips were pale. I felt guilty for sleeping without a care in the world while my wife was suffering alone.

“Let’s hurry over to the hospital. Okay?”

“Okay.”

After grabbing the bag we had already prepared for the birth, we made our way to the maternity hospital that we had been frequenting. As soon as we arrived, the doctor on call checked her condition. They laughed and said that we had come at the exact right time.

“Sorry. For sleeping without knowing you were in pain.”

“No need. The doctor said that we came at the right time.”

When she wasn’t feeling the labor pains, she laughed. But when the labor pains hit, she would frown and gasp for breath. She wanted to get the epidural, but because she had shown an allergic reaction to anesthesia in the past, she wasn’t able to.

As the intervals between the cramps grew shorter and shorter, my wife looked like she was overwhelmed with pain.

“It hurts a lot, right? I’m sorry, Milhee.”

Even as she was in the throes of labor pains, she shook her head. All I could do as she writhed in pain was hold her as I leaned against the back of the bed. Once she hit seven months, we went to a birthing class as a couple. We also did yoga together twice a week.

She leaned her back against my chest and let out a deep breath. She was between my legs, so she was able to rest her arms on them. It was a posture we had learned in the birthing class. I planned on holding her thighs when it was time to give birth.

I didn’t want to leave her alone on the cold hospital bed as she gave birth to our child. We discussed this together and decided to find a hospital that allowed us to stay together during childbirth.

“Oppa, it hurts so much.”

Tears dripped down her eyes as she buried her face against my neck.

“Yeah, I know it hurts. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making you hurt.”

I stroked her wet cheek and whispered.

“Uugh!”

Another cramp was coming, and her entire body trembled. Even though she had an eating morning sickness, her arms were still so thin that they felt like they were going to snap in my hands. I held her arching body and helped her breathe.

“Milhee, inhale slowly and exhale.”

If the mother didn’t breathe properly, the fetus would be deprived of oxygen. Because it would put both the mother and the baby in danger, it was very important for the mother to breathe as steadily as possible.

“Nnng, hee, huu.”

She moaned as she breathed to the rhythm I gave her.

“I think the baby is ready to come out now. Do you have a name for the fetus?”

The doctor positioned herself between my wife’s legs and asked.

“It’s Chain!”

Before I could answer her, my wife spoke up in a ragged voice. Because we had discovered the child’s existence right as my finger had snagged on the bicycle chain, we had decided to name the fetus ‘Chain’.

‘Chain’ also expressed the connection that connected me and her together. A chain also allowed the two wheels of a bicycle to run smoothly. Like a bicycle that could roam the world on its two wheels, we hoped that our child would grow up to be one that could do anything they wanted. Therefore, its name held all the good intentions we could think of.

“It looks like your name is Chain because your Dad is a professional cyclist. Our little Chain! Be like your Dad and come out in one go!”

Thanks to the doctor’s support, the delivery was smooth, and Chain came to enter the world.

“It’s a pretty daughter. I think she has her Dad’s nose.”

With the umbilical cord still attached, my wife received the baby and held her in her arms. I held my wife even deeper in my arms.

“She’s pretty. She’s so small and pretty.”

My wife quietly gazed down at our daughter as she murmured. My heart felt so full. Within my arms was my wife and my child. Everything was so lovable in my eyes.

“You worked hard. Thank you. I love you.”

I gently pressed a kiss onto my wife’s temple, and the baby carefully opened one of her eyes. Her black eyes reflected her two parents.

It felt like another world was opening up before my eyes.

As soon as my wife was moved to her private room, Mother and Father came inside.

“Aigoo, my daughter worked so hard.”

When she saw her mother, my wife suddenly burst into tears.

“Why are you crying? You shouldn’t cry after childbirth. Your eyes will be swollen.”

“Was it this hard when you gave birth to me, Mom?”

“No, it wasn’t hard for me at all. My Milhee didn’t make it difficult for me one bit and came out well.”

Mother gazed pitifully at her daughter as she claimed it wasn’t difficult at all.

“Yeah right. Maybe it was because there was a formidable age gap between the first and second, but your mom had a really difficult labor with you.”

“You seriously have no tact.”

Mother glared at Father, and my wife let out a weak laugh.

“Who does Chain take after?”

“She looks just like Oppa. The shape of her nose is exactly the same. But it also kind of looks like her eyes take after mine.”

The room felt crowded and warm. After eating a bowl of seaweed soup that Mother had personally cooked for her, my wife seemed to have regained some of her energy.

“You usually can’t sleep that well right after you give birth. After a few hours, you’ll suddenly feel very sleepy.”

“It must be because of the adrenaline, Mother.”

When she heard my remark, she looked at me as if she were wondering how I knew this.

“They have the internet for things like that these days.”

Father claimed they didn’t know things like that back in their day as he cleared his throat.

“Father, would you please give our Chain a name?”

When he heard my request, his eyes widened in surprise. The request seemed to have caught him off guard, but his eyes began to fill with joy.

“Me?”

“You gave Milhee such a pretty name. Please give your granddaughter a name, too.”

Father painstakingly racked his brain.

“Aigoo, dear. Looks like you won’t be getting any sleep tonight. How can you when you have so much to think about?”

“No, actually, I already had something in mind.”

It seemed like he had already been thinking about the child’s name for a while now.

“Aigoo, this silly man. The child’s name is something the parents choose.”

“That’s right. The parent’s intentions are important when it comes to a child’s name. That’s why I was going to make it her childhood nickname.”

“What is the name, Dad?”

Milhee asked in a gentle voice.

“Morang. Gong Morang.”

It sounded pretty. My wife and I began to recite ‘Morang, Morang’ as we tried the name out.

“Everyone’s love. Morang.”

The meaning behind the name was pretty too.

“It’s pretty. I like it.”

I also nodded in agreement with her.

“We’ll name her Morang, Father.”

Suddenly, Father’s face twisted as he burst into tears.

“Aigoo, why is this man acting like this in front of the kids?”

“Thank you, Gong-seobang. No, my second son! Everyone’s asking me if my well-to-do son-in-law ever looks down on me, but our Gong-seobang is not like that! You are so considerate towards me!”

I grew up without experiencing a father’s love. My biological father never searched for me, and my stepfather was displeased with me. I had two fathers, but I basically was better off with none.

The father I gained through her was different. The day during my university days when I lied and said I was Oh Hyunho’s hoobae and had dinner at their house, he said he would cheer me on as I strove to fulfill my dream and patted my back. It was the first time I had ever heard words of support from someone Father’s age.

“I’m grateful for you, Father.”

“Aigoo, how kind. You are so good to us.”

Father laughed as he patted my shoulder. Milhee glanced at me and her father and flashed us a satisfied smile.

The day I received Morang, I felt like I finally received a true family. Morang’s mom, Morang’s dad, Morang’s grandma, Morang’s grandpa, and Morang’s uncle… Through my child’s name, the ties I had to this family grew even stronger.

And all of this was only possible because of Oh Milhee. She was the source of all the blessings in my life.

* * *

“Morang, you need to wear your helmet! And also your knee guards.”

“I don’t wanna! The helmet feels stuffy!”

Morang tugged on the helmet straps around her neck and scowled.

“No! If you want to ride your bike, you need to wear a helmet. That’s what the law says. What is a law?”

“Something you need to follow no matter what!”

Morang’s personality took after me, her mother. She was afraid of the consequences when she didn’t follow the set rules and she also liked to whine. She had a mix of both, and that mix often drove me insane.

“But the helmet is still stuffy! This is grandpa’s yard! If I break the law here, the police won’t know! I don’t wanna wear a helmet!”

And her clever way of thinking was also like me.

“You need to wear it for safety!”

Five-year-old Morang’s nickname was Gong Horang¹. Once she grew stubborn about something, she was quite viscous. Rather than ‘everyone’s love’, she was like a tiger that made everyone feel exhausted.

“No. I won’t wear it!”

“Then you can’t ride your bike!”

She had received her bike from her grandfather for her fifth birthday.

“Morang, you should listen to Mommy if you want Daddy to teach you how to ride a bike.”

At some point, my husband came out as he carried our second child.

“I just changed his diaper. He also drank 120 mL of milk.”

My husband was more adept when it came to childcare. Our second child was a son who looked just like his father. His name was Gong Mogyung². My father gave him that name to express our wish for him to become a magnificent person who received everyone’s respect.

“Can’t I not wear my helmet?”

Morang remained stubborn.

“Morang. Have you ever seen someone not wearing their helmet in one of Daddy’s races? All the cool athletes wear helmets when they ride their bikes.”

Although he wasn’t racing full-time, he would often participate in races that were his specialty. We had agreed to this as a couple so that our children could watch their father work as an active athlete.

After we got married, we no longer made decisions on our own. All of our decisions were made after consulting one another.

He generously made compromises for me, and I open-mindedly considered his opinions. There were a few times when I felt proud of becoming such a mature couple.

“Okay. I’ll wear my helmet.”

Our five-year-old daughter pouted as she conceded to wearing her helmet.

“Waa, now that our Morang is wearing her helmet, she really looks like a cyclist! You look really cool.”

My father, who was sitting at a table we had placed in the shadowy area beneath the tree, shouted out. When Morang heard her grandfather’s words of praise, she smiled triumphantly.

After my parents retired, they sold their place in Seoul and moved to the outskirts of Gyeonggi-do Province. They bought a house that had a spacious yard for the kids to play in.

“Now, Daddy will hold the back of your bike and slowly push you. Use all your strength to push down on the pedals. Got it? There’s no need to hold on tight to your handlebars. You only need to hold them like you hold your little brother Mogyung’s hands.”

“Okay!”

Morang gritted her teeth and nodded with a grim look on her face. The helmet straps that pushed down on her face caused her plump lips to pout out. She looked so crazy adorable. Morang was a child who drove her parents crazy. She drove us crazy with her rough personality, and she drove us crazy with her cuteness.

At some point, my father walked over to us and pulled out his phone to take a video of the two. I held Mogyung in my arms and watched my kind husband and my adorable daughter.

“Now, let’s go!”

My husband began to slowly push my daughter’s mint-colored bicycle.

“Wow! Daddy, the wheels are moving! It’s so cool!”

Morang shouted out with glee. The bicycle had training wheels attached at the back. Even if my husband let go, the bicycle would stay upright.

“Daddy, you’re holding on, right?”

“Yeah.”

He slowly let go of the bike.

“You’re really holding on, right?”

“Yeah, I’m holding on. Look farther ahead, Morang!”

I recalled the time when my husband had taught me to ride a bike.

“You’re still holding on, right?”

“Yeah, Daddy never let go.”

She must have heard the distance of his voice because Morang dug her left foot into the ground and came to a halt. Then she turned around and screamed at my husband, who was standing far behind her.

“Liar! You let go, Daddy! Waaaa!”

Morang burst into tears. My husband roared with laughter as he ran over to his daughter and lifted her up into the air.

“Daddy trusted that Morang would ride the bike well even if Daddy let go. My Morang is really good at it!”

He wiped the tears dripping down her plump cheeks with his large hand, and the child gradually stopped crying. However, my daughter’s eyes were still filled with betrayal.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. My Morang is really good at riding a bike.”

Morang wasn’t able to hide her grin.

“Grandpa recorded our Morang riding her bike by herself. Our Morang was really cool.”

Morang’s smile deepened as she looked at her grandfather and began to kick her feet to be let down. The child ran over to her bicycle and got onto the seat. She began to step down on the pedals and sped across the yard.

“Morang, slowly! You’ll get hurt!”

“Okay, slowly!”

But the child did not get off the bicycle until she had used up all her energy.

* * *

Late at night, Morang and Mogyung fell asleep in their grandfather and grandmother’s arms. My wife and I went to bed with carefree hearts. These days, we spent more nights here than in our house in Seorae Village.

I wrapped my hands around her slender waist and pulled her closer. She buried her face against my firm chest and asked in an exhausted voice.

“Today was tiring, wasn’t it?”

“No, not at all.”

I placed a kiss on her round forehead. I could smell the fresh wind on her skin.

“When I was watching you teach Morang how to ride a bike, I remembered the old days.”

“Me too.”

My wife and I both laughed.

“We were so young back then.”

After giving birth to our second child, my wife seemed to long for the past. It seemed that she was upset that her body was not like before she gave birth, but in my eyes, she was still pretty and adorable. As time passed by, she was filled with graceful maternal love, and she transformed into a trustworthy wife who did her best to take care of her family.

How could my wife be even more perfect than this?

“My Oh Milhee is still young, even now.”

I kissed her soft cheek, and she quietly smiled at me.

“And still pretty.”

My lips traveled from her cheek to her mouth. Our breaths mixed as I whispered.

“And so lovable.”

I swallowed her laughing lips. With our lips still merged together, she asked.

“We said we’d take the kids to the amusement park tomorrow. Will you be okay? I need to watch Mogyung, so you’ll have to go on the rides with Morang. Even though the rides are for little kids, they still go up pretty high.”

My wife’s voice was dripping with worry.

“Hm? So what if the rides go up high?”

“You have a fear of heights!”

I had forgotten. I forgot that I was supposed to be a man who needed to have a fear of heights. There hadn’t been opportunities for this fear of heights to come up, so I had completely forgotten. When taking care of two children, all sorts of things came up from time to time.

My wife threw me a suspicious look.

“Ah, right… I forgot. I’ve been so busy chasing the kids around that I’ve lost my mind.”

It wasn’t a lie. I merely forgot that I had lied to her about my fear of heights.

“How can you forget something like that?”

She laughed in disbelief.

“I’m going to have a hard time tomorrow, playing with Morang all day. Right?”

I felt like this was the right time and began to unbutton my wife’s pajamas. My wife left a smacking kiss on my lips as if she pitied me. I pushed my hand into her pajamas and gently squeezed her soft breasts.

“Hmm.”

My wife let out a satisfied sigh and slowly closed her eyes. I slipped my tongue through the seam of her lips.

I’ll say this again. I don’t have a fear of heights.

I am merely a man who wants to receive her kind smile and stay by her side until the day I die.