The New Beginning

Epilogue

Seoul, 2016

"Do I want to go back to that time?" Deok Sun laughed and looked at her husband. Jung Hwan scoffed and shrugged his shoulder.

"I don't want to go back, I like it now," he answered. She smiled and patted his knee. "Although, if I have a chance to go back to Ssangmundong in 1988 for a day, I would take it."

"Right? Me too. And it had to be that year," she laughed.

"If you can go back to 1988, what would you do?" the interviewer asked them again. They looked at each other and burst out laughing, knew what the other would answer without saying it.

"I bet he'll say he'll confess to me in 1988," she told the interviewer, chuckling. He laughed again and nodded, agreed with what his wife said.

"You didn't confess to your wife in 1988?"

Jung Hwan grinned and shook his head. "I like her since our childhood, but it took me more than ten years to confess," he answered. "And we only started dating four years after that."

"So much for first love," she laughed again.

"But you ended up together in the end, was it because you're each other's first love?"

They looked at each other again and smiled. He put his arm around her shoulder and she held his hand. Eighteen years of marriage and he still could give her a sense of peace just by holding her hand.

"Maybe," she nodded and smiled. "But, I'd like to think it was because we never gave up on each other."

"We struggled so much just to be together and I think that's what makes us worth it, that's what makes us held on when things get hard. We knew how it felt when we thought we lost each other and we'd rather be together, no matter what."

All the crew smiled and blushed after he said it, especially because he gazed at his wife so lovingly when he did. They all felt like they were intruding the couple's private moment.

"I didn't know General Kim is such a romantic," the interviewer laughed awkwardly.

"He only said it at times like this. He's never said it when it's just the two of us," Deok Sun scoffed at her husband. He gave her a side-eye, warning her not to say another word.

"Because you always saying things like this when I did," he scoffed back.

"Yah!"

"How could you say yah to your husband?"

"You said it too, why couldn't I?"

The crews glanced at each other, hiding their smile. Deok Sun was probably the only person brave enough to call a general 'yah', really.

"I know it's not related with our theme, but I'm curious about how your friends are doing. Your Ssangmundong Squad. Do you still keep in touch with them?"

"Of course! We met almost every week," Deok Sun answered. "They're coming here tonight, in fact."

"Sun Woo was appointed as the Chief of Neurosurgeon in the Yonsei University Hospital last year," Jung Hwan answered. "Bo Ra noona moved to the national prosecutor office two years ago, she's a senior prosecutor now."

"Dong Ryong's an owner of successful barbeque restaurant chains and now he's funding a dessert place managed by his wife."

"It was never empty every time I went there. The desserts were delicious too."

"You must know how Taekie's doing. He's still an international baduk champion, even now. His wife retired when their son was born and stayed at home to take care of the two."