Married at 30 / kim namjoon (#15)

Ch 21

하은

I arrived at the residence of one of my favourite people, the one who vowed that she would remain single for the rest of the life and not get married, being the richest one out of all of us and live in a large house with 40 cats and be a rich cat lady. A young girl opened the door for me, her big doe eyes staring back at me as she tries to figure out who I am to her mother. "Who are you?" She is her eldest child, the one whom she wanted her to dress in leather jackets and look like a biker.

"Tell your mother that Auntie HaEun is here to pick Hakyeonnie up," I told her and she began to run back into the house to call for her mother along the hallway, it has been a while since I have seen her and she has grown a little taller from 6 months ago.

"YongRim ssi! Auntie HaEun is here to take Hakyeonnie away from us." I could hear her loud voice echoing through the house and I silently giggled to myself. I can't believe that her child is calling her that, most children wouldn't call their mother by their first name or to add an honorific next to it. I will make sure that my child will only call me Omma and nothing else.

A more mature voice replied. "What the hell did you call me, Byeon Ahyi ssi? Try to call me that again." She picks up her child up and made her way towards the front door where I am standing at. "YongRim ssi? Am I even your friend? I am your mother, not anyone else."

Kang YongRim, the cool one in our group who refused to date anyone through our 4 years of university life, the one who claims that dating is only for losers and she would be better off doing something more useful is now a mother with 2 children. Despite all the stuff that she has said, she dated someone in our course in secret for the past 4 years and we are of course kept in the dark.

We had no idea that she was taken all along since she was always talking about not getting married and the desire to be single for life, she suddenly dropped the bomb on us on our graduation day, a few minutes before she would go on stage and announce something important to the whole cohort.

She went on stage and confessed that she was in fact attached for the past 4 years with the hottest guy in our course other than Kim Rowoon and they are going to get married the very next month, the three of us were so shocked that she hid something so huge from us when we should be the ones that should be known about her private life before anyone else, we were so taken aback that she was hiding all this for so long.

We all predicted that either AeRan or EunHee would get married first since they were all dating but we have never expected someone that vowed that she would rather be single for life than to spend years dating people. It seems that people don't really mean what they say sometimes...

"I warn you for the last time that you address me by my first name, I will send you flying through the window. I mean it and I will really do it, your father can't defend you anymore." She told her off and I stood by the door amused by the two of them, I stifled a giggle and they heard it. "What's the matter, Bang HaEun ssi? Have you not seen a mother lecturing her child before?"

"It is not that, we are running late on time and the girls are probably already making their way to my house." I reminded her of the activity that we are going to do tonight, it is movie night and the four of us would be at my house for a sleepover.

"Oh god, what the fuckery..." She swore and quickly looked over at her child who had her ears covered. "Did you happen to hear that?" Ahyi shook her head and she put her down on the floor. "Go to your father and demand him for dinner, AhJin as well. Wake her up this instant and promise me that you girls go to bed by 9 pm straight after your father has read you a storybook. Is that ok?" The child nodded and ran back into the house, a normal thing that I have seen in children. Are their legs that short that they have to run to match an adult's pace?

"Wait for me in the house, I will be out here in a while." She closed the door and I did what as she told me to, I got into my car and did the waiting. It was over 10 minutes before she finally emerged from her house with two crying children and the man of the house holding over to AhJin, the younger one. They refused to let go of YongRim, they can't bear to see their mother leave the house for the whole night even though it is a monthly thing and I think that the girls should be quite used to this already. Oh, I forgot that they have a memory like a goldfish...

It took another good 5 minutes before she would make the escape from her girls and make plenty of pinky promises that she would come back and not leave home, Yong-rim places a kiss on her husband's cheek and lips before she walks over to my car, looking rather haggard and a few years older than she is 30 minutes ago.

She let out a long sigh once she sits down next to me, enjoying the air-conditioning. "Enjoying the view that you are seeing? That's why you shouldn't get married at all, it makes you get tired as if you are running a marathon. I'm glad that you are still single after all these years, you don't get to experience all those hassles and you can live my dream to be a single cat lady, not to have two clingy cats that wouldn't stop sticking up me all the time and have a useless husband who can't do anything much than to make money in the house and occasionally babysit the children."

"It can't be that hard from what I see, they just love you a lot more than normal children," I commented, starting the engine. "It is not that different from dating someone." I have a clingy boyfriend and he seems very much like a dog that couldn't stop giving me love and gives me kisses pretty much all the time.

"Nope, it is a lot harder. Someone like you that have zero dating experience can't understand how I exactly feel." She paused. "Why are you talking about this all of a sudden? Have you finally broken the--"

I cut her off, showing off my pearly whites as I smile shyly. "Yep, I have broken that spell." YongRim immediately takes out her phone. "What's with the phone?"

"I have to persuade my husband to take care of the whole day as well for tomorrow. You have to spill absolutely everything about you and that mysterious guy, one night is clearly not enough."