Dear readers, I decided not post this next chapter today, since it was written and I'm sure you all wanted to see what happens next. It is a short one, so enjoy, and please leave reviews!
The man who made her mind flabbergasted and her heart swell and constrict at the same time, finally fell asleep. He refused to let go of her hand, like her son used to do when he was little and scared of having a bad dream. Her baby boy was very brave and never complained, but he held onto her hand so tightly, she could not move. Once she attempted to pry her hand away and he mumbled with tears in his voice, "I lost Oma. Oma, find me."
Little Young never told her about the dream, but she understood that it was the fear to lose the only parent he had that was tormenting him in the darkness of the night. Fears of adults were bigger and darker, but essentially all of us, small or grown up, were afraid of the same thing – to lose what was the most dear. She did not need an explanation; she could feel with every fiber of her being that Choi Young's greatest fear was to lose her hand again, to lose her, because from what she understood, he had lost her once.
When she sat by his bedside covered by the night's shadows and stopped trying too hard to remember the past, the distraction of her uncooperative mind was pushed aside and her heart took over completely.
She felt so much empathy for this man's condition. His energy was filled with suffering and exhaustion; it was in need of proper nurturance and much rest. She could provide that. She could hold his hand and give at least his body what his soul begged for. At least for now.
Deeper and deeper she was descending into Choi Young's consciousness, overwhelmed by his blaring need for her. There was no point in fighting the pull of his ravenous KI, but in return, her own energy responded with as much yearning. The nagging longing and need this stranger stirred in her was beyond anything she could comprehend or understand.
This felt bigger than her, it felt necessary and absolute.
An inky blue, indigo ocean of KI was beating powerfully in her center, she felt an enormous surge of energy, connection to the universe, to the billions of star years away, white cosmic light, bright starkness of open cosmos and her in the middle of it, holding the hand of a strange man, the man who had her son's name, the man who was supposed to be her love, her life, her everything.
She did not remember with her mind, but she remembered with her whole being, an unmistakable and deafening silence of loneliness, making her cold day and night, no matter how much she bundled in warm sweaters and thick blankets, only when she was next to him – the silence was no more. There was no more seeking blindly for something to feel the void; soft and gentle, peaceful and relaxing was his beautiful light that began completing her barrenness. And in the center of it all – a shining star of pulsating heat that he opened up for her to enter, enveloping her with what she could only classify as eternal loving.
She swam in that sea of KI, in those deep black waters of his protection, liking not to recognize where she was, only him and only his strong embrace was safe and soothing. She curled inside him, in the nook of his heart, reserved just for her and started to breathe him in...
. . .
Choi Young had the most amazing dream: Eun Soo and he made love. It was different that the other times he remembered – all-pervading, more intense, more profound, and they did not really need to touch more than holding hands. He felt her essence: gentle, tentative, lost; it poured and circulated inside of him, healing his wounds of time, healing his used up and abused body and soul. It felt divine. It was not a dream, but he was afraid to open his eyes and scare away what could only be a beautiful fantasy...
Even more miraculous was the soft breathing of a woman who was pressed trustingly and intimately against him. Her fingers spread on his chest and her red hair sprawled on the pillow. He barely turned his head, careful not to spook the elusive fantasy that felt more real that any dream he had had of her.
Just last night she told him she did not remember him or their past together, she was not even sure he was the father of their son. And this morning, just a few hours later, she is comfortably asleep next to him, as if the years had not tore an impassable rift between them.
Choi Young was keeping his heart from breaking through the ribcage, so violently it was pounding. "Calm, general, calm," he commanded. Whatever it was, he was not about to break the spell. Possibly the longest half an hour of his life had passed before Eun Soo began awakening. He closed his eyes immediately not knowing what else to do, leaving it all up to her. She did not say a word or made a sound, lightly like a feather, she floated from the bed and then he felt a soft familiar fragrance brush his face – her hair.
"I wonder," she mumbled, obviously looking down at him intently and then fixed the blanket around him. Softly she exited the room and he held a long inhale with her scent as long as he could before he was forced to take another empty of her presence breath.
. . .
Something had changed within her overnight. She obviously fell asleep next to the mysteriously magnetic man, while helping him to regulate his inner force. Or so she thought. Yet, she was filled with the sense of bliss and calmness that entered her unawares during the starry dream, full of deep blues and blackened oceans of immense power, which sucked her into the vortex of what she could not name or identify with words, but where she was completely merged with Choi Young. It did not feel foreign or strange, she had no fear or apprehension of losing herself to the omnipresent force, it was a reminder of forgotten happiness, of connection that created a third entity, where they existed together as one.
Thinking or analyzing her experience made her frustrated and turned into a nagging headache. It was impossible to quantify or approach with logic. It just was and it was undeniable.
...
The days that followed left Eun Soo in a daze. She moved around the house, doing what she was supposed to do as a mother and as a host to a strange man, who was recovering from an illness and whom she needed to take care of. When she thought of the actor, the fluttering sadness and longing she used to feel and the pang of rejection did not seem to matter as much. In fact, those feelings moved somewhere to the background, while Choi Young started to take the front stage of her soul. She searched herself for some explanation and reached the only one she could think of – she was getting over her never coming to fruition love toward Min Ho, since it did not seem he would ever accept her.
Lying in bed at night, she stared at the picture of the three of them, of the surrogate family they had created over the years: her, Young and Lee Min Ho – smiling and happy, like a real family. And she felt guilty. How quickly she let go of her feelings for Min Ho was disconcerting, as if she betrayed his kindness of many years, however, her heart's burden was lifted, finally having found a place at Choi Young's side welcoming unconditionally and with great joy what she could offer.
She became possessed by the sensations and sudden waves of feelings that came to the surface at the most odd moments: de ja vu-like blips of awareness about him in her past. She was surprised to find that she was not upset about such half dreamy existence. After that beautiful night, she decided to watch and see, to trust her heart more than her head.