Min-ji asks Jihyun to be her boyfriend a month after they arrive at Busan.
"We've lived together for quite a while, and I think that…" She argues.
He kisses her before she can proceed and says yes.
"You're wonderful." He murmurs after they make love for the first time since that fateful night of their break-up. "I can't believe you're real sometimes. From the moment I saw you, you were telling some client off, I don't know who. The boss gave you an earful, but you looked like a warrior goddess then, and I knew I had to earn you."
The woman smiles, fingers traveling down his lean chest. She missed this, and no words can describe how it feels to have it back, to have him back.
"I'm no goddess." She reminds him softly. "I'm as human as you are, as flawed as you are. For the longest time, I couldn't believe you ever wanted me. An ugly woman who let her insecurities take the best of her, who saw herself as a victim of a world with arbitrary criteria to measure someone's worth. It took me a lot of therapy to turn into the woman you saw in Incheon, able to put her feelings aside in favour of someone who needed it."
The teal-haired man frowns. "But you've always been there for me. You've never denied me anything."
"It wasn't for free, and it wasn't purely because I loved you." She admits. "I wasn't aware of it, but deep down I wanted acknowledgment, everything worked in a very transactional way in my head, and that's not healthy. When you left, I felt like you were in debt, that you owed me more than I got. After all I did for you, you paid me that way? But my therapist helped me see true love requires no payment. True kindness asks for no refunds, not even a thanks. In that aspect, you were a lot better than me. You deserved better than me, but I'm glad I got another chance."
On another day, she tells him how she came to realize he had loved her all that time, and that her early conclusion about loving Rika was not true.
"I tried to date another guy. I met him in a bar. His friends made a bet on who could get me to bed. He told me straight up about it and asked if I was interested in half the prize. It was a sizable amount. I refused at first. I felt like a whore, having sex for money, but we talked, and we clicked, and we decided to leave the bar together. We didn't sleep together, we went to our respective homes halfway, but his friends couldn't prove it, so we got the money.
"We decided to try a relationship, but it was never serious. It was when I noticed… I mean, he wanted me. I know he did. But he never looked at me the way you did. Never spoke to me as you did. Never made love to me as you did. In fact, we only ever fucked. He lacked your tenderness, your sweetness. He didn't care for my happiness any more than a casual friend would.
" Even when you told me those hurtful words, you caressed my knuckles. Your gaze was as arresting as it had always been. I realized you've always loved me, even when you left me, and I was even more confused. I wanted to reach you out even before... that, but my life was too chaotic. I was afraid, I was so confused, that I was selfishly relieved, if I'm perfectly honest, that I had the chance to talk to you, even if it was the way I did."
Jihyun kisses her as if she was the air he breathed.
"I love you." He says simply.
That is all that Min-ji needs to hear.
At her recommendation, Jihyun resumes his work as a photographer at the company ZEN founded half a year ago, tired of running the hamster wheel of acting work. It was a bit of an adaption, since the man lacked his dominant hand, but the work was just as brilliant, and so no client ever found reason to complain.
Min-ji can tell his progress now also by noticing how he reacts to the commissions he gets.
The flight to Seoul and back is fast and somewhat cheap. He visits Lucy and Taemin and brings them home sometimes, always with her at his side. One day, Lucy asks him if he's her 'real' father. When he says yes, she smiles. He cries on her shoulder after they make love that night.
Two years after jumping off a bridge, his psychiatric begins to wane off his medication. First, he stops taking the pill to cut the voices away. When Jihyun remains without hearing them three months later, the antidepressants' doses are slowly lowered.
He does not leave therapy, even when his symptoms are mostly gone. He fears falling back if he stops.
"I have you." He explains, even when she does not ask. "But you shouldn't carry this burden alone."
"You're no burden." The woman replies, but she is grateful for the therapy all the same.
In their third anniversary, he orders her favourite pizza. They eat under candlelight, and when they finish, he takes her to dance in the living room, no music. Slowly, he stops, going down on one knee.
Jihyun does not get to pour his heart to her, though. Min-ji blurts out her 'yes' before he can speak up, and any words he has to say are replaced by his kisses tasting like olive oil.
It is perfect.
