Chapter #64
(Jihwa pov)
I'd rehearsed this conversation in my head at least a dozen times on the drive over, and every version fell apart the second I actually stood in my father's kitchen doorway.
"You're just going to stand there?" my dad asked, not even looking up from the pot he was stirring. "You've been doing the nervous-shuffle thing since you walked in. Spit it out."
"I don't have a nervous-shuffle thing."
"You've had it since you were six and broke my good watch." He set the spoon down and finally turned to face me, arms crossed, the same patient, knowing look he'd worn my entire life. "What's going on, Jihwa?"
I took a breath. There wasn't really a smooth way into this, so I just said it.
"I want to marry Dohyun."
My dad went very still for a second — not shocked-still, more like he was letting the words settle somewhere important. Then something in his face softened, the way it did whenever he was trying not to let on how much something meant to him.
"Well," he said finally. "It's about time you said it out loud."
"You knew?" I asked, dropping into the chair across from him.
"Jihwa. You've been buying his favorite tea in bulk for a year. You reorganized your entire apartment around what makes him feel safe. You call me at eleven at night just to talk about the way he laughed at something." He shook his head, almost fond. "I didn't know the timeline. But I knew it was coming."
I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly feeling more exposed than I expected. "I want to do it right. Not rush him — you know what he's been through, what trust costs him. But I also don't want to wait so long that he starts wondering if I'm not sure. Because I am sure. I've been sure for a while."
"Then don't overthink the timing," my dad said. "Overthink the how. Someone like Dohyun isn't going to want a big spectacle. He's going to want to know it's real, and safe, and that he can say yes without it costing him anything."
That's exactly the kind of thing I needed to hear, and exactly the kind of thing only my father would think to say.
The front door opened before I could respond, and Seojoon's voice carried in from the hallway. "Sorry, sorry — traffic. Did I miss the food?"
"You missed nothing, it's not ready," my dad called back, then muttered to me, "He's been coming around more since the divorce started moving. Good for Minji, having someone steady."
Seojoon appeared in the doorway, shrugging off his jacket, and something about his expression stopped me — he had that look. The one I probably had walking in here myself. Restless. Like he was holding something he needed to say before it burned a hole through him.
"You okay?" I asked.
He hesitated, glanced at my dad, then at me, and apparently decided there was no version of this conversation he could hold in any longer.
"I want to marry Minji."
My dad and I both just stared at him for a second.
"...What?" Seojoon said, defensive already. "Why is everyone looking at me like that?"
"No reason," I said slowly, a grin creeping onto my face despite myself. "Just — funny coincidence. I was literally in the middle of telling him the same thing. About Dohyun."
Seojoon blinked. Then blinked again. "Wait. Seriously?"
"Seriously."
A slow, disbelieving laugh broke out of him. "Of course. Of course this is happening at the same time. What are the odds."
My dad, thoroughly delighted now, clapped his hands together once. "Well. Sit down, both of you. Sounds like we have some planning to do."
We ended up crowded around the kitchen table, my dad's forgotten pot still simmering on the stove, notebook paper pulled from a drawer because apparently my father kept a stash of blank paper specifically for moments like this.
"Okay," Seojoon said, dragging a chair over, still looking a little stunned by his own confession. "This is insane. I've been sitting on this for weeks. I kept telling myself it wasn't the right time, with the divorce still not finalized—"
"Same," I said. "I kept telling myself I didn't want to rush Dohyun. Turns out we were both just scared."
"Speak for yourself," Seojoon said, but the deflection didn't land — his ears had gone slightly red.
My dad tapped the pen against the table, all business now, the same expression he used to get running project meetings before he retired. "Two proposals. Two very different people, who need two very different approaches. Let's start with Dohyun, since Jihwa's already halfway through spiraling about it."
"I'm not spiraling."
"You reorganized my spice rack while you were 'thinking' ten minutes ago."
I looked down. He wasn't wrong.
"Fine," I admitted. "What do I do?"
"Something small," my dad said. "Private. Somewhere that already means something to the two of you — not somewhere fancy or public that would make him feel like he's on display. He's spent enough of his life being looked at by strangers."
That landed hard, in the good way. "The park," I said slowly. "Where we had ice cream. Where I first saw him actually laugh."
"There it is," my dad said, pointing the pen at me. "That's the one."
Seojoon leaned back, arms crossed, watching this with something between amusement and genuine attention, like he was taking notes for his own situation. "Okay, but Minji's different. She's not fragile like that — don't get me wrong, she's been through hell, but she processes things by being in control of them. If I ambush her with something big and emotional, she'll feel cornered instead of surprised."
"So don't ambush her," my dad said. "Ask her to help you plan something — tell her it's for someone else if you have to, some excuse to get her involved in choosing details, a ring, a place. Let her feel like she has agency in it, right up until she realizes it was never about someone else."
Seojoon went quiet for a second, turning that over. "That's... actually really good."
"I raised a smart kid," my dad said, gesturing vaguely at me. "Some of it had to rub off eventually."
"Hey."
We spent the next hour like that — half-planning, half-arguing, Seojoon sketching a rough timeline on the back of a torn piece of paper while my dad interjected opinions about ring shops he apparently still remembered from decades ago. It didn't feel like two separate proposals being planned. It felt like one big, slightly chaotic project the three of us were building together, and somewhere in the middle of the noise and the half-finished dinner going cold on the stove, I realized this was exactly the kind of family I used to watch from the outside and wonder if I'd ever get to have.
By the time we finally ate — cold, reheated, nobody caring — we had something close to an actual plan. I'd take Dohyun to the park next Saturday evening, timed for the same soft light we'd had that first ice cream night, no crowd, no spectacle, just the two of us and whatever words I could manage to get out without my voice cracking. Seojoon would spend the week roping Minji into "helping" him pick out a gift for a coworker's engagement — a flimsy excuse, but he swore she'd never see it coming — before turning the whole thing around on her at the end of it.
"You're going to ruin the coworker excuse the second you start sweating," I told him.
"I don't sweat under pressure."
"You're sweating right now."
He wiped his palm on his jeans, glaring at me, and my dad laughed so hard he had to set his chopsticks down.
"You'll both be fine," my dad said, once he'd recovered. "Nervous is good. Nervous means it matters."
Seojoon nodded slowly, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders. "Minji deserves someone showing up for her without asking anything back first. I just want to be that. Whatever she decides after that is hers to decide."
"And Dohyun deserves to know he gets to want things for himself now," I added. "Not things that get taken. Things he actually gets to choose."
My dad looked between the two of us for a long moment, something unreadable and proud sitting behind his eyes.
"You know," he said quietly, "thirteen years ago I don't think either of you could've imagined a night like this. Sitting in my kitchen, planning how to marry people who once thought they'd never get to choose anything for themselves again."
Nobody said anything to that. We didn't need to.
Later, walking Seojoon out, he paused at the door, hand on the frame, and looked back at me with something almost sheepish. "Hey. Thanks. For not making this weirder than it already was."
"You confessed you wanted to marry someone in the middle of my proposal-planning session," I said. "It was already weird."
He grinned — actually grinned, unguarded, a rare thing from him. "Fair. See you Saturday. Try not to cry too hard in front of him."
"No promises."
He left, and I stood in the doorway a moment longer, looking back at my dad clearing the table, humming something under his breath, at peace in a way I hadn't seen from him in years. Two proposals. Two people who'd spent most of their lives being told what they were allowed to want, finally about to ask for something entirely their own.