Taehyung

Walking into the kitchen, I head towards the sink where my wife is doing the dishes.

"I'm sorry, I forgot to call and tell you about lunch. But you should eat now, and I will eat the rest for dinner," I speak softly, leaning on the kitchen counter and keeping my eyes on her face, but she doesn't raise her eyes to even spare me a glance.

"I don't need your permission to eat..." she glances at me briefly. "Not when you just walked out like that after an argument last evening without bothering about anything or anyone," her eyes scrutinize the clothes that I'm wearing, and I'm sure that she knows that these are not mine.

"I borrowed them from SeokJin," I whip out a lie spontaneously, and she locks her gaze with mine for a few seconds, her hands stopping their work as well.

It is as though someone pressed the pause button on her.

"I never asked," she fires back casually and resumes her work, returning her eyes to the dishes.

"I'll do them," I extend my hand to her, asking her to hand me the gloves and the scrubber, but she only mutters something under her breath and tells me to leave the spot at once.

"Appa!" Thankfully, Areum calls out and drags me out of the tension prevailing in the kitchen, and I give her my best smile before walking out to the living room.

"Can you wait for appa to take a shower and change? I'll make it quick," I ask her, and she doesn't seem too happy about it.

"Daddy has got a stubble, and you don't like it, right?" I point to my chin and my daughter giggles, shaking her head and pushing me with all her might towards the bedroom.

Laughing, I walk away to take a shower after picking out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt to change into afterwards. I take off Richard's clothes and carefully place them inside the laundry hamper, and hang the belt inside my wardrobe.

Once in the shower, the warm water drips down every inch of my body while my mind drifts off to Maya and the warmth and comfort that I felt last night when I cuddled with her to sleep.

We kissed, and it was with mutual consent, and I definitely felt the sparking electricity between us. I could have easily lost control, but I wasn't sure if she was really ready for anything at all. And at that moment, I only felt the need to be comforted, reassured, listened to and just to be held in her arms.

My tears erupted last night, but Maya never told me off like how most of the people in my life have ever done—a man shouldn't cry. No, she didn't. She held me tight and helped me through my pain by just being by my side.

Why is she not the woman in my life?

Maya opened up to me about her life, and it only makes me want to be her strength and always keep her close. I asked her about the marriage thing just so I could bring up the topic and tell her about mine. But when she was literally in tears, I couldn't just pour out my misery as well and make her sadder than she already was.

Should I have anyway told her about my life too? Would she be okay with having me around like last night even after I tell her about my failing marriage? She might regret everything. And my daughter? I can't hide things forever although hiding the fact is not my intention at all.

Where am I even headed to?

Shaking off my thoughts, I scrub my body and hair clean, and allow the water to wash away the soap and shampoo bubbles while I close my eyes—Maya being the only one that I could see, even with my eyes closed.

My thoughts are flooded with the beautiful moments of our kiss and the unplanned make-out, the way we fed each other ice-cream at midnight, the way she casually wore my clothes—it turned me on big time.

The sudden strange feeling within my stomach, along with the dripping wetness on my skin is definitely stirring something within me, and my hand reaches out for the shower knob as I turn down the temperature of the water, hoping that the trickle of cold water would help the little problem rising between my thighs.

"Appa, you're taking too long," Areum bangs on the bathroom door, the sudden noise startling me out of my state of trance.

"I'll be right there in two minutes!" I shout out as I hurriedly rinse off all the lather from my hair and body and turn off the shower before wrapping a towel around my waist and stepping out of the bathroom.

Areum leaves the room once I exit the bathroom, after which I get dressed and join her in the living room where she has already brought out her Jenga blocks, apparently struggling to set the tower right.

"You want to play Jenga?" I ask her as I pick up one of the blocks that is thrown to a corner and sit down on the floor with her.

"No, appa. Let's build a castle with these blocks. I want my dolly to be inside a castle," my daughter grins.

Leave it to Areum to use every game in ways that even the maker of the game wouldn't have imagined it to be used.

An hour, numerous failed attempts, a few sheets of paper and many paperclips later, we finally manage to build a decent looking castle to house her battered dolly who has lost an eye and whose hair is tangled beyond repair. Yet, it is her favorite doll which she is dead against discarding.

After placing dolly inside the castle, I click a few pictures of Areum and the battered dolly and her castle. We even conduct a small birthday party for the dolly which is attended by some of the other damaged dolls, one of whom has purple hair, and the color has bled onto her face.

"She looks creepy, Areum," I declare, inspecting the scary purple-haired doll that could easily pass off as voodoo material.

"Appa, no," she snatches the doll from my hands and fondles her gently. "Eomma and I used conditioner to wash her hair. She's so cute. I used watercolors to color her hair," she pouts cutely, and only then I look at the blotches of purple color sticking to my fingers.

The party goes on while Jang-Mi totally ignores my presence in the house, only occasionally talking to Areum, and then she proceeds to open the front door when Areum stops her.

"Eomma, are you going out? Can you pleeeeaseee buy me that sticker sheet?" Areum flashes her toothy grin, and I move my gaze to look at Jang-Mi who only rolls her eyes in frustration.

"I already bought you two of those, and you're going to finish the entire sheet of stickers in one hour, so why would I even buy it again?" She keeps ranting, and then I interrupt her.

"What is this sticker sheet, bubba?" I distract Areum from listening to impending financial discussions, and she turns to look at me.

"It's the squishy sticker sheet that has lots of small and big Hello Kitty and other kawaii stickers. Ye-Seo brought it to school last week, and I loved it, appa. I also want one like that," she cups my face in her hands and asks cutely, knowing fully well that this is the kind of bribe that can get her anything she wants from me.

I place both my hands on her soft and delicate cheeks, using my thumbs to swipe over her flawless, smooth skin.

"I will try," I whisper and wink at her, making her giggle and nod softly.

Had I told her right away that I would buy it for her, then all hell would have broken loose with Jang-Mi who would have started arguing about how we both should be consistent with our parenting rules and not behave in such a way where Areum would think that she can get things done from one parent when the other turns her down.

I get it to an extent because kids are smarter than we think they are, but at the same time they can easily melt our hearts and make us fulfil their little wishes. It is not a great idea to let the children know that the parents are torn in their opinions, but for that not to happen, the parents must first engage in good conversations and healthy arguments—both of which don't ever occur in our household.

I also know that giving Areum everything she asks for is not the right way to do it, in fact, it's the worst that a parent can be, yet the guilt that I'm not giving her all that I wish to give her makes me give in to these little things that she asks of me.

And in all honesty, a small sticker sheet that would probably cost about five hundred wons or something is not going to make us broke.

Jang-Mi leaves the house to buy grocery and fruits, after which Areum and I continue with the doll party for a little while, and then we leave to the nearby community park.

My daughter and I buy the sticker sheet which she asked for, and then we eat a few pieces of hotteok each, after which she proceeds to play on the swings while I sit at a nearby bench and watch over.

Being idle once again, my mind goes back to last night, and everything that happened between Maya and I.

There's an undeniable attraction that I have been feeling towards her, and last night I knew for sure that she has also been feeling similar things towards me.

Back in school, she was the only girl who I used to look at. There were so many days when I used to silently follow her around after school, taking the same bus as her, yet I never once found the courage to tell her that I liked her.

I still vividly remember how I used to watch her as she climbed up the numerous stairs on the elevated street to reach her house, wearing the uniform skirt which was longer than what all the other girls at school wore.

It's almost unbelievable how drastically our lives have divulged and changed over the past decade and a half. She has been in love, got married, and even lost her partner, and how painful it must have been for her—I can't even imagine.

And then there's me who also fell in love, got married and even has a kid, yet there's not even a slight trace of happiness or peace in my life.

Last night things escalated too fast, and we were edging the fine line between giving in to our desires and guarding our morals—the demarcation being almost an illusion like the horizon.

I know that the bond of my marriage makes this an unacceptable and forbidden thing to do, and the feelings that I'm developing towards Maya are so complex and taboo that I can't even open up to anyone about it. Yet, wandering into forbidden territory, giving into desires and sinning have always been the toppers among man's flaunt-worthy skills, and I'm still just a human who feels the need to be loved and listened to.

It's amazing how spending some quiet time at the park can send the human mind rattling away to so many random places.

Sleeping half-naked with a woman other than my wife isn't right, but again, if I felt comforted in her presence, is it really wrong? I mean, if my wife had given me that kind of comfort and reassurance, would I even have thought about getting it from someone other than her?

There still exists a line that's as thin as a whisper, the line that Maya and I are clinging on to, with the hopes of not doing something regretful—the keywords here being 'thin as a whisper'.

Some wise man once said that high school reunions can be dangerous—well, he was so right in every aspect. It does trigger risky emotions that makes the heart want to re-live the happy days and maybe even push the limits, irrespective of where we are in life at the moment.

And the freedom that adulthood gives us, plus the capability of effortlessly holding numerous secrets within makes this all very tempting, irresistible, and definitely dangerous.

The temptation!!
Don't judge him.

And just a heads up, Maya's full name is Maya Harris.

💖

Published on : 05/03/2022