.seventy six.
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"I know you got my husband drunk so that he'd sleep with you. And even then he never touched you because he's not interested."
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Baek-ah stayed a bit longer to play with the children in the leaves a few feet off while his brother and his wife talked. He also played little tunes for them on his instrument that he had brought with him while Eun rushed to his wife's side and pulled her into his embrace. Jinki was between them and the two year old giggled with delight upon seeing Eun so close up. It was the first time he had ever seen his father so happy, so happy while being around him. The child didn't realize that his happiness wasn't about him, but he was still glad to get any attention or love from him. As he pulled away from her, he planted a joyful kiss on her lips.
"Jagi, I have wonderful news." He said to her, eyes beaming with an excitement she remembered in him when he was a seventeen year old boy who only cared about having fun.
She smiled warmly at him, balancing the toddler on her knee when he began to get restless. She could not see the way he held out his chubby little arms, begging for Eun to hold him. The tenth prince had to this day never held his third child. He couldn't bring himself to do it. He felt that he would be a hypocrite if he did, since he still held a bit of resentment in his heart. It was far less now, since Minji had lived and was recovering. But he would never forget the way he had almost lost her because she had chosen to let the baby live.
"What is it, love? You sound like this is something that will brighten up our whole day." She wondered happily.
"That's right, jagi. Baek-ah has just saved me from having to do something I really didn't want to do." He gave her some vague information first and when he saw her cock her eyebrow at him in question, he continued. "Remember I told you about that girl from the village?" He stopped and only continued when she nodded her head. Her smile had dropped clean off her lovely face and she was suddenly in not so good of a mood. But he thought that talking about it would be worth it in the end because he had good news for her. "My brother has just come to tell me that a girl in the village approached him, thinking him a commoner, and offered him money to get her pregnant."
Minji gasped at that. It had to be the same girl they had both encountered. But why was she so desperate to marry Eun when he had no interest in her? What would she gain from all of it?
"She told him that she and I never got intimate, and that she wanted to get pregnant so that she could pin her child on me and force me to marry her." As he got the words out, he was once again filled with relief. Relief that he didn't take another woman while being drunk. He knew he could never do that when his Hak Soon was all he wanted. She was all he needed, and he would never need anyone else.
From the moment he realized that he was in love with her, he decided that there would be no one else for him. She was the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. She was the woman he wanted to love for a hundred years.
Minji also found herself full of relief. She knew that in those days, it was quite common for a man, especially a prince, to have more than one wife. But she had never been keen on the idea of sharing her husband with any other women. What was better was that Eun felt the same. He didn't have any interest in taking another woman as his second wife. That was why she had found it strange and even hurtful upon finding out that he had gone out and slept with someone else. Eun would never do that to her. But she also understood that the mentality in those days was different and she tried to understand him. It was why she had been so supportive when she found out.
