Owning You - A Na Jaemin Fanfic

62. Cooking Lessons

White lights. Soft snow.

The sidewalks are crowded with shoppers and revellers soaking in the snow and the weekend.

He hasn't said anything since we reached the long stretch of shops. Just held my hand and walked among the pulsing, vibrant mass of humanity.

"What are you thinking?" I ask as we pass a store that smells of gingerbread and spices.

"You." He pauses in front of a bookstore. The glow from within clears any trace of shadow from his face.

I smile.

"I came here last year. On my own." I had wandered the streets on a cold, wintry night, and stood at this very book store, looking in. There had been couples walking along hand in hand on the sidewalks and the concrete pavements, smiling, laughing, chatting, in love. And I had looked at them with curiosity and envy, and wondered what it was like to be in love, what it was like to be loved.

"Did you?" Still staring at me, he brings my hand to his lips and kisses two knuckles.

His fingers trace upward, along my face and into my hair. This is really him, wrapping me up so securely in his arms, this is Jaemin...Na Jaemin, he smells of citrus and sunshine and fresh linen, and he feels like - well, nothing, nothing feels as good as he does.

"I was alone. And it was snowing, just like it is now. I felt lonely." My mother, staring at the snowflakes outside the window, waiting, waiting for my father to return home. It had been unbearable, watching her wait, and I had lied to her and said that I was going out with Suzy.

"Do you feel lonely now?" His eyes are sombre.

"No." I smile. "I'm not lonely. Not anymore. Because I've got you."

"Always," he says. "You've always got me."

"Sometimes, I can't believe it. That you are here with me." I take a deep breath. "There are prettier, nicer girls out there."

"There may be prettier, nicer girls out there. But they are not you." He looks intently at me. "You are the only girl for me. You are everything I want, and more." He touches my face gently, reverently. "My darling Haeri. You are beautiful," he says gravely, flecks of light shimmying in his eyes. "Don't you know how beautiful you are?"

I feel beautiful in his arms, so warm, so soft.

"You make me feel beautiful," I whisper. "You are beautiful, too."

And he is.

He is gloriously, scandalously, incandescently beautiful.

"Haeri," His voice. My name. Midnight velvet. Deep strum. Acoustic guitar. "Pretty Haeri." I'm in his dance space. Breathing in his breaths.

The lightest of snow falls. A thin layer of white. Reflected lights.

We both watch the snow fall.

He smiles, and I can see the best of me reflected in his bright eyes.

I love him.

It isn't just about the gorgeous face and the beauty and grace of form that Jaemin has been blessed with. It is the way he lingers over my name, the way he says it, as if it were the most precious name in the world, the light in his eyes as he gazes at me, the way he takes me in, the sense of wonderment and awe as if he cannot quite believe that I am in his arms, that I am his. It is the way he holds my hand tight, the way he hugs me to him, so protectively, as we move through the world. It is all of it. All of him. In his voice, his gestures, his gaze. As if he cannot imagine a world without me, as if his life before me had been unreal. As if I am his reality. His world. And nothing else matters to him but me.