Chapter Seventy-Nine: Faded Poetry
●A Love That Heals
The garden was a canvas of color that afternoon—roses bleeding into sunflowers, tulips bending toward the light. I sat on the stone steps, fingers absently tracing the rim of my teacup, my thoughts drifting somewhere I couldn't follow. I didn't remember planting the white lilies that bloomed along the path. But they were my favorite.
All my favorite flowers.
Taehyun emerged from the house, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a worn book in one hand and two cups of tea balanced in the other. He looked softer here, away from the shadows of his office, away from the weight of whatever business demanded his attention. Just a man bringing his wife tea in a garden full of lilies.
"Your professor instincts are showing again," I teased as he handed me the cup, our fingers brushing. "Do you lecture your roses too?"
"Only the disobedient ones," he replied smoothly, settling beside me on the steps. "And you're worse than any of them."
I smiled despite myself. "That's a compliment, coming from you."
He sat close—not quite touching, but near enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his arm. The book in his lap was familiar. That diary. The one he guarded like a relic.
"You've been quiet lately," he observed.
I shrugged. "I've been… thinking."
"About?"
"Things I can't explain. Feelings that don't make sense." I stared at the lilies, watching them sway in the breeze. "Sometimes I feel like I'm searching for something I lost. A word I used to know. A song I used to hum. A person I used to be."
His gaze flickered to my face, but he didn't press. Instead, he opened the diary and passed it to me.
"Page 43," he said softly.
I turned the page—and froze.
The handwriting was different here. Looser. More open. But the words… the words settled in my chest like a homecoming.
"I wonder if someone out there is looking at the same stars as me, reading the same books, wanting the same peace, the same dreamscapes. Maybe we'll find each other not through fate—but through a quiet choice to stay."
My fingers trembled slightly against the page. "Who wrote this?" I whispered.
He stared straight ahead, at the horizon where the garden melted into sky. "Someone who sees the world the way you do. Someone who believed that love wasn't about grand gestures. That it was about showing up. Every day. Even when the other person couldn't see you. Even when they forgot."
I turned toward him, my heart thudding for no reason I could explain. "You always know what I'm thinking before I do."
A faint smirk touched his lips, though his eyes stayed fixed on the horizon. "Maybe I just know you better than you know yourself."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to push back, to deflect, to protect myself from the weight of whatever he wasn't saying. But the words wouldn't come.
Because maybe he did know me. Better than anyone. Better than I knew myself.
And maybe that should have terrified me. But sitting there, in a garden full of flowers I'd always loved, with a diary full of words that felt like mine, the terror was quieter than it used to be.
---
●The Quiet Strength of His Love
I wandered into his study without knocking.
He was at his desk, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his dark hair tousled like he'd been running his hands through it. The room smelled like cedar and ink and something darker—him. The diary lay open before him, a pen resting on its pages.
"You braid my hair," I said, arms folded across my chest. "You cook for me. You feed me chocolate when I'm grumpy during my periods. You scare away anyone who even looks at me too long."
He arched a brow, setting his pen down with deliberate slowness. "Observant today, aren't we?"
"Even your men are starting to gossip. They think you've gone soft."
Taehyun leaned back in his chair, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "Let them. I don't care what anyone thinks." His voice dropped, softening around the edges. "But I care what you think."
I stepped closer, my eyes drawn to the diary. It lay half-hidden beneath some papers, but I could see the edges of poetry peeking out, familiar handwriting that made my chest ache.
Before I could speak, he added quietly, "You're falling for me, aren't you?"
The words knocked the air from my lungs.
I scoffed, turning away. "In your dreams."
But my voice wasn't convincing. Even to me.
He stood slowly, pushing back from his desk. His footsteps were silent on the Persian rug as he approached, and when he stopped before me, his fingers brushed a lock of hair behind my ear. The touch was light. Reverent. Like I was something precious he was afraid to break.
"Then stay out of them," he murmured, his voice low and intimate. "You're taking over."
My breath caught. His eyes dropped to my lips—lingered there—but he didn't kiss me. Instead, he turned away, picking up a different book from his desk and holding it out.
"Read this tonight," he said. "You'll like it."
I took it with unsteady hands. The cover was worn leather, soft with age, and when I opened it, a note fell out—written in slanted cursive. His handwriting.
"For the girl who once wrote of stars and silence. May you find your way back to yourself—at your own pace." ♡
I looked up, but he was already walking away, his back to me, his shoulders tense with something that looked like waiting.
---
The Kneeling
Later that night, after the house had gone quiet and the rain had softened to a whisper, I found him kneeling by my side of the bed.
He'd been applying the ointment to his wound—the one he'd taken for me, the one that was finally healing—but he'd stopped halfway through, the bottle forgotten in his hand. He just knelt there, his forehead resting against the mattress, his breath slow and even.
I sat up, the book sliding from my lap. "Taehyun?"
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stayed there, kneeling beside me, like a man praying to a god he wasn't sure existed.
When he finally looked up, his eyes were dark, unguarded, stripped of all the armor he wore for the world.
"I know you don't love me," he said quietly. Almost to himself. "I know you're still trying to remember who you were before. I know there are days when you look at me and see a stranger." He inhaled slowly, his fingers brushing the edge of the blanket. "But I don't need you to love me. Not yet."
My throat tightened. "Taehyun—"
"Not ever, if that's what you need." He pressed a kiss to my knee. Gentle. Reverent. "I'll wait. I'll keep waiting. Until the waiting becomes breathing, and the breathing becomes living, and the living becomes something you can't imagine without me in it."
He got up eventually, his movements slow, careful, like he was carrying something heavy. He moved behind me on the bed, and his fingers found my hair, separating the strands, beginning to braid. Slowly. Carefully. Like he needed an excuse to stay close just a little longer.
"You always touch my hair when you're nervous," I said softly, leaning back into his hands.
"I always touch your hair when I miss you," he corrected, his voice warm against my ear. "When I need to remember you're here. That you're real. That you chose to stay."
I closed my eyes, letting the rhythm of his fingers soothe the chaos in my chest.
___
It was late when I finally put the book aside. The diary sat on his nightstand, taunting me with its secrets.
Taehyun was in the bathroom, the sound of water running faint through the walls. I could hear him humming under his breath—some old song I couldn't place, the melody familiar in a way that made my chest ache.
"Although I'm passed underneath the frozen sunset… I'll walk towards you one step at a time. Still with you…"
I tried not to look at the diary. Failed. Tried not to think about how often I caught him whispering to its pages, smiling at its words like they held secrets even I couldn't unlock.
When he emerged, towel around his neck, hair still damp, I was staring at the diary like it had personally offended me.
"Are you ever going to tell me who wrote that thing?" I asked lightly, stretching like I didn't care. "You spend more time with it than with me."
He paused, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Is that jealousy I hear, Mrs. Kim?"
"I don't get jealous of paper."
"No," he agreed, settling onto the bed beside me. "You get jealous of words. Of dreams. Of anyone who might have known the girl who wrote poetry in the dark." He picked up the diary, his fingers tracing the worn cover.
---
●Jealous
The next morning, I stepped into the sunroom barefoot and grumpy, holding my half-burnt toast like a crime scene report. Taehyun was already there—lounging on the couch like a damn painting, shirt unbuttoned at the throat, his hair still damp from a shower.
And in his lap, like always, was that diary.
"You've been spending a lot of time with her," I muttered, taking the seat across from him.
His brow lifted. "Her?"
"The diary." I gestured at it with my toast. "Should I be worried?"
He looked down at the book, then back at me, his smirk deepening. "You sound jealous."
"Of an inanimate object? Please."
He turned a page, his voice lazy and amused. "She tells me things. Beautiful things. Poetry. Dreams. Secrets thought lost."
I rolled my eyes so hard I almost saw into another dimension. "How romantic. Maybe marry her and leave me out of your literary affairs."
"She doesn't bite like you do," he mused. "But she also doesn't throw shoes when she's mad. Bit of a trade-off."
I tossed a pillow at him. "You like when I bite."
His eyes darkened for a half-second too long. "You're not wrong."
I pretended not to notice the way that made my stomach flutter. He closed the diary gently, setting it aside like it was sacred.
"I like her words," he said more softly. "But I love hearing yours."
My breath caught for no good reason. "I—didn't say anything worth hearing."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, gaze sharp and unrelenting. "You say everything worth hearing. Even when you don't mean to."
I looked away, picking at my toast. "You're ridiculous."
He chuckled. "And you're jealous."
"Am not."
He leaned closer, his voice low and teasing. "So if I kiss the diary goodnight instead of you, you'd be fine with that?"
I glared. "Try it and I'll set it on fire."
He laughed—really laughed this time—and it made my pulse trip. God, that sound. He didn't touch me. Just bent down… and brushed a feather-light kiss to my cheek.
"I'll kiss you first," he murmured. "Always."
Then he turned and left me there—heart pounding, toast forgotten, cheeks burning.
And the diary? Still untouched on the couch.
But I could swear he left it open on purpose. Just so I'd look. Just so I'd wonder.