"I am sorry," sighed the tree. "I wish that I could give you something, but I have nothing left. I am just an old stump. I am sorry."
"I don't need very much now," said the boy, "just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired."
"Well," said the three, straightening herself up as much as she could, "well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, boy. Sit down. Sit and rest."
And the boy did. And the tree was happy.
The End.
Jeong Hyeok closed the book, setting it down on the end of the table next to the glider. Eun Jung was fast asleep in her crib. He looked up and Se Ri was standing in the doorway to her room, leaning against the frame, arms crossed against her chest, just staring.
"This book is rubbish," he said in a hushed whisper.
"What?" Se Ri asked with exaggerated shock, grasping at her chest dramatically. "That's blasphemy. How dare you speak such sacrilege against the almighty Shel Silverstein."
"Seriously?" he replied. "That ending? She loved that boy and he took everything from her."
Se Ri's brows furrowed and she looked him up and down. "That's what you do for the people you love."
"No," Jeong Hyeok shook his head. "No, because if those people loved you back, they wouldn't keep taking pieces of you away until there's nothing left but an old, rotten stump."
Se Ri took a step backwards. "Is that....? Are we...?" she shook her head and he could see tears forming behind her eyes. "Do you think we're taking pieces of you?"
"What?" Jeong Hyeok stood up. "No! That's not..." He took a deep breath. "You didn't want to cut down my trunk." He replied emphatically. "You didn't tell me because you didn't want to cut down my trunk. And I am not a fool. You were scared. You made the decision for you. But I know that you made it for me too. You didn't want to cut down my trunk."
She wiped a tear from her cheek. "Of course I didn't, But now you know and you're here. And... Do you feel like we chopped you down?"
"No," he promised, taking a few steps towards her. "I feel... I feel like you took my apples."
"Huh?"
"You took my apples. And I would give you and Eun Jung my apples a hundred times over. Only right now, I have no apples left to give and I am not sure who I am without them. And they'll grow back because I still have a trunk and branches. They'll grow back. But only they do, I feel like I could be an orange tree for all I know."
"This metaphor is very... existential," Se Ri replied, shaking her head.
"I've been putting off looking for an apartment."
"You've got time, Jeong Hyeok." She assured him.
He shook his head. "I need a place of my own. A life of my own. I need to give my apples a chance to grow back."
Se Ri sniffled back sobs. "You can have my apples," she pleaded. "And my branches. You can have my trunk. I don't care. I want you to have them."
"I know." he took another step forward and folded her into his arms. "And that's a problem because for so long you'd barely let me gather your leaves and play king of the forest." He smirked playfully into her hair and Se Ri laughed through her tears.
"I actually rather enjoyed when you played king of the forest."
"I do look quite regal in a crown of your leaves," he joked back, tilting his head down to press his lips to her forehead.
Se Ri got serious again. "I am scared," she sniffed.
"Me too, love." Jeong Hyeok admitted.
"What if your new place has a cute single neighbour, or you get a perky new secretary at your new Gangnam office? One who didn't lie and cheat and keep you hidden away in Vegas?"
He pulled his head back to look into her eyes, his hands still caressing her arms. "I have loved you for 13 years, Se Ri. Even when I was with Hye Jin, I could never give her 100 per cent of my heart. Because I loved you. And I swear to God I still do. And I am mad. I am still so mad. And we're not okay. But I made a choice. I made a choice to try, because I love you. In order for me to do that, I need to take a step back. I need to figure out who I am as a father. I have to figure out who I am if we're going to figure out who we are. And I need you to do me a favour."
"What?"
"I need you to write."
Se Ri scrunched up her face in confusion. "That's not what I expected."
Jeong Hyeok chuckled. "You're a writer, Yoon Se Ri. A great one. It's your trunk. It's what makes you you. And if I love you, I can't watch you chop down your own trunk because you're scared."
"When am I supposed to have time to write? I barely have time to shower."
"I'll have an appointment with a realtor on Monday. I'd like to take Eun Jung with me to look at places. I know she can't exactly give me her opinion, but it'll be her home too. This way, you'll have the whole day to write. We'll also have to figure out a custody arrangement at our mediation appointment so you can have more days to write."
"Custody?" She pulled back sharply.
"It's a good thing. It'll give you time to focus."
Se Ri scoffed. "We're supposed to be trying, Jeong Hyeok. We're supposed to be trying but you can't wait to get a whole new home. A home for you and Eun Jung. A home where you'll spend days without me. How are we supposed to try if we're not even together?"
"We're both getting too comfortable here, Se Ri. We're getting too comfortable before we've really figured anything out. Every day I am here it's getting easier and easier to forget what got us to this point in the first place."
"So forget!" Se Ri replied eagerly. "Forget it and let's move forward together."
"I can't do that. I can't just push my feelings aside and pretend like everything is okay. Because we're not together. Not yet. This is your world and I am just living in it. And you-- you're looking for me to rescue you again but like I told you before, you never really needed rescuing. So I need to live in my own world and you need to rescue yourself."
"Why does this feel like goodbye?" she sniffled.
"It's not," Jeong Hyeok shook his head empathically. "That's not what this is, I promise. I am not running. I'll still be around. I just won't be living here. It's not like we didn't know I was going to get my place eventually."
"I don't want you to go."
"I don't want to go either," he agreed, "but that's why I have to."
****
They sat around a conference table in a fancy law office. In a room where they were going to negotiate his daughter's future. It felt so strange and clinical. Eun Jung was still so... unformed. She could turn out to be anybody. Her future held a million possibilities and yet here they were trying to make decisions for the person she would one day become. How could they know what was best for her?
"Are you a special kind of stupid or just regular kind?" Jeong Hyeok was broken from his thoughts by the sounds of none other than Seo Dan.
"Excuse me?" the mediator asked.
"Judging by the looks of you. I gather you don't have children of your own, but babies need to eat. Since the baby's diet is breast milk, and pretty boy's man boobs don't lactate," she waved dismissively at Jeong Hyeok, "overnights are out of the question right now."
The short-haired woman next to her buried her face in her hands, clearly mortified by her boss' action.
"Dan, I appreciate your help, but you're not helping," Se Ri informed her friend.
"Someone's got to keep him and his fancy-pants lawyer from trampling on your rights," Seo Dan argued.
"I've got Do Pyeonosanim here, and she works for you, and you know she's good. And this is just mediation. I mean you're great for a fight but Jeong Hyeok and I aren't fighting. We already agreed he wouldn't take the baby overnight until she's at least six months old."
"Sure, that's what he said in private. But now he's here with his two big-shot lawyers, so are you, darling."
Jeong Hyeok shook his head in exasperation. "Seung Joon, maybe you and Seo Dan can both wait outside. I appreciate the support, but I think less is more right now. Hong Pyeonosanim can handle this."
"I am sorry, you want me to go outside with her? She's like one of those praying mantises who eat the heads of the male praying mantises."
"That's not until after they mate. Just don't sleep with her and you should be just fine. Also, you don't need to actually wait with her."
"Fine," Seung Joon pouted, getting up from the table. Jeong Hyeok silently wondered how he or Seo Dan actually had successful careers. They had been bickering since before they entered the room, and then Seo Dan had to go and turn her venom on the mediator. God only knew what they would do in front of a judge. Then again, he and Se Ri were the ones who'd agreed to let them come-- so what did that say about them?
"I am so sorry about all of that," Jeong Hyeok apologised once Seung Joon and Seo dan were gone.
"Yes," she concurred. "I apologise. My friend Seo Dan is well-- she's passionate and she didn't mean what she said."
"Oh, she totally meant what she said," Jeong Hyeok corrected. "But she says it to everyone, so it's not personal."
"Just a word of advice," the mediator opined, "do not bring them to court when we present the final parenting agreement to a judge unless you all want to get charged with contempt."
"Yes, Sir," Se Ri agreed.
"Maybe we should get back to the matter at hand," Hong suggested.
"Yes," Do Hye Ji agreed. "We've already come with an agreed-upon timeshare arrangement." She slid a piece of paper across the table to the mediator. "As you can see, we did in fact agree to hold off on overnights with the father until Eun Jung is six months when she can start on solids."
"Mr Ri Jeong Hyeok will have her exclusively on Sundays and Thursdays," Hong added. "Miss Yoon Se Ri will have her on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Saturdays and Sundays after their counselling sessions will alternate-- with intention of spending them together as a family."
"After Eun Jung starts to wean, we'll transition to a 4-3-3-4 schedule with Mr Ri Jeong Hyeok taking her Sunday through Tuesday and Miss Yoon Se Ri having custody Wednesday through Friday with alternating Saturdays."
Jeong Hyeok hated every minute of this. The last thing he'd wanted to do was to think of how to hand their daughter back and forth every few days like an object. All he could think was those cold, divorced couples who dropped their kids off at the curb because they couldn't stand to be within six feet of their ex. No matter what happened to him and Se Ri, he wouldn't let it become that.
The mediator looked over the papers Se Ri lawyer's had presented to him. "Everything seems to be in order," he determined. "You both agree with these arrangements?"
"Yes, sir," they both acknowledged.
"Do you have any questions?"
The lawyers turned to their respective clients to confirm that everything was squared away.
"Yes, actually," Se Ri stated, looking from her lawyer to the mediator, then back to Jeong Hyeok.
"Yes?" the mediator prompted.
She looked around the table for a moment before her eyes settled on Jeong Hyeok.
"It's just... you're going to be going back to work. What do you plan to do with her when you're at the office or have to travel?"
"Well, I'll try to work my schedule around my days as much as possible of course, but otherwise I'll have the nanny to help."
"Nanny?!" Se Ri asked. "What? No. We did not agree on a nanny. When you have her, you're supposed to have her."
"And I will, but I am man enough to admit I might need some help sometimes."
"I don't want our daughter raised by a stranger," she insisted.
"She won't be. I am not talking about live-in domestic help here. just a part-time employee to help out. And she'll be thoroughly vetted."
"Or him," Se Ri retorted.
"What?" Jeong Hyeok asked in confusion.
"Or him. There are males nannies, you know."
"You're against the idea of a nanny at all," he replied in exasperation, "why do you care what their preferred pronouns are?"
Se Ri rubbed her temples in frustration.
"I just... I want our daughter to be with family or friends when she can't be with us."
"Well, we don't all have close-knit families and an entire town's worth of people ready to volunteer to babysit at a moment's notice. Unless, of course, you want me to entrust our daughter's life to Chi Su and Se Jun."
"Okay, this is where I step in," the mediator interrupted. "When Mr Ri Jeong Hyeok has physical custody, child care is at his discretion. Although, I think it's fair to suggest that if either of you're going to be out of town on your days, that you agree that the other parent gets first rights to take over."
Se Ri's face was flushed as she opened and closed her mouth several times, apparently trying to come up with a sufficient argument.
"I think this is fair," her lawyer encouraged. "Unless he's seriously shrinking his parental duties..."
"I wouldn't," Jeong Hyeok insisted. This was ridiculous. She knew how much he loved Eun Jung. How much he hated being away from her. How important it was for him to not to be a father like his father was.
Se Ri sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Fine," she acquiesced. "But if you go for even one night..."
"Agreed. And the same goes to you."
"Where am I going?" Se Ri asked.
"Conferences... book tour..." he suggested. She was going to finish that book. He'd make sure of it.
Se Ri scoffed. "At this rate, Eun Jung will be graduating from college by the time I finish my book, but fine. If I have to go away overnight on one of my nights, you get her."
"Great," the mediator said. "Now that's settled, let's talk about vacation..."
Two hours later, emotionally exhausted, they all exited the conference room. There had been so many things he'd never even considered, even after his meeting with Hong to prepare. And Se Ri had completely flipped over the financials. As he suspected, she'd absolutely refused any child support or financial assistance. It didn't matter-- he'd set up two trusts for Eun Jung with Se Ri as the trustee. One couldn't be touched until Eun Jung was 25, but the other provided for her care should it be necessary. Se Ri could be stubborn but if it came down to it, she would use the money if Eun Jung needed it.
Jeong Hyeok looked around for Seung Joon but didn't see him. He wasn't surprised-- they were supposed to grab lunch but he hadn't expected Seung Joon to sit around waiting. He'd just give him a call. He dialled his friend's number and waited for it to ring.
"What's that?" Se Ri asked, cocking her head to listen to something. Jeong Hyeok pulled the phone away from his ear and heard a faint ringtone.
He and Se Ri followed the sound down the hall to a door. Turning the know, he pushed it open, regretting it almost immediately.
"Oh god, ew!" he turned away from the scene before him, feeling physically ill.
"Hey, I ummm... We were just consulting on..." Jeong Hyeok chanced a peek around just as Seung Joon finished straightening his tie and Seo Dan was tucking her blouse into her suit pants.
"We were screwing," Seo Dan confirmed.
"Gross!" Se Ri cried.
"Hey, women have needs too. Don't you slut-shame me."
"I don't know what happened," Seung Joon said. "One minute we were fighting and the next... Please tell none of my secret shame," he pleaded as he pushed his way out of the room.
"I wish I didn't even know myself," Jeong Hyeok assured him. "But if you wind up decapitated, don't say I didn't warn you."
"Oh please, like you're some great catch?" Seo Dan rebuked as she donned her suit jacket. "I had an itch, you scratched it. End of story." She dug through her bag, pulling out a tube of lipstick. "Darling, you have a mirror?" she asked Se Ri.
Se Ri made a face as she reached into her purse and pulled out a compact and handed it to Seo Dan. She turned to Jeong Hyeok. "Instead of couple's counselling next week, I think we need to have a therapy session about this," she suggested with a grimace. "This is a nightmare."
Jeong Hyeok shook his head. "That won't work, I am scarred for life and I have no desire to talk about it."
"So, what's everyone doing for lunch?" Seo Dan asked.
"I've lost my appetite," Se Ri and Jeong Hyeok said at the same time.
*****
Let's take a small break before another counselling. So, do you think this going to be a step forward or backwards for their relationship?
As always, I love any feedback I can get. Thank you for reading💕💕
And, I apologise about the ending because I myself totally didn't know that was going to happen at the end until it happened, lol 🤣🤣