A/N: This is an addendum to Chapter 10 of this fic, written in Yi Jeong's mother's POV. Someone had requested a scene where Ga Eul meets Yi Jeong's mother when I first wrote Chapter 10. This probably isn't quite what you had in mind, but I wanted to write it as a stream of consciousness so I could easily cover a larger period of time. Hope you enjoy!
The girl is not what Chung Ae expects to see when she wakes up in the hospital room—a small, unassumingly pretty commoner curled up next to her younger son Yi Jeong. He's reading; she's dozed off, her head on his shoulder. Before she can form another coherent thought, Yi Jeong's gaze lifts from his book to her; he takes in her conscious state, and immediately his eyes widen. His voice cracks over the word 'Omma.'
Ga Eul. Autumn.
His hand lingers protectively on her waist when he introduces her.
She's someone special to him; that much Chung Ae can tell in her drugged state.
And Yi Jeong must be someone special to her because Ga Eul keeps coming back to visit during Chung Ae's hospital stay and even after she's been transferred home but kept under constant watch. Sometimes Ga Eul comes with Yi Jeong, sometimes without. She tells Chung Ae that she's a kindergarten teacher at Shinhwa. That she's best friends with Jun Pyo's wife. That she's an amateur potter. That she loves her son more than anything.
Day by day, she makes Chung Ae smile a little, then laugh a little, as she recounts the antics of her kindergarten class or her frustrations when her tentative creations fall apart on the potter's wheel.
She has a softness to her, a curiosity about life, that Chung Ae once had, and it awakens a part of her that she thought was long dead. The part of her that would stop in wonder to inspect a pretty flower or sing loudly at a karaoke bar. It occurs to Chung Ae that she has made herself old before her time with her self-pitying, with her refusal to move on from her crushed dreams of marital happiness, and she promises to do better.
For once, she does do better. She is better. She rebuilds her relationship with her son, little by little. She enjoys her shopping trips and afternoon coffee with the daughter she never had. When the time comes for Yi Jeong and Ga Eul to plan out their wedding, Chung Ae applies herself to the task with more energy and spirit than she has applied to anything in a long time.
On the day of the wedding, she makes a speech. She does not look at Hyun Sub. She does not think about her own wedding day. She looks only at the radiant couple at the center of the reception hall, confident that they will not make the same mistakes her and her husband made. Tears gather in her eyes before she can even begin speaking.
She had not known when she opened her eyes that day that instead of losing her life, she would be starting it anew.
The girl sitting beside her son is not what she thought she needed; then again, Ga Eul wasn't what Yi Jeong thought he needed either.
How they had both been proven wrong.