Maya's POV
"Mrs. Kim.... Oh right, Namjoon told me you wanted to talk to me. Please come on in."
"Joonie, please excuse us for a moment, I'd like to have a word with Maya, alone." Namjoon took that as the hint and left us alone in the room.
Well, this is awkward. I have never been alone with her ever since I met her.
"Mrs. Kim-" "Maya-" we both say together.
"No wait Maya let me go first. I would like to apologize for my behavior. You have been very nice to me since the day I met you but I have been an absolute bitch. " I am a bit surprised, not going to lie. I never thought this would happen. I try and suppress my expressions and let her continue.
"After you left, well basically after I was unacceptably rude to you and you came here, Namjoon sort of yelled at me. After talking about our problem and everything, I felt extremely guilty for my hostile attitude towards you, and because of that guilt, I finally came clean in front of them about why my feelings for you are the way they are. And I think you deserve to know it too."
"Ma'am I-"
"Solar. Call me Solar from now on. Got that?"
I nod. She continues.
"Your father and I were together in our school days."
My eyes go as wide as my mouth which is hanging open at that one sentence.
"We were in love. But his marriage got fixed with your mother which caused us to part ways and right after our break up when I saw him with your mother, he looked so damn happy. It hurt me. It hurt me so much, because of which I held a grudge against your entire family. It was why I was hostile towards you. I know it's very very stupid, but I couldn't help myself. I understand if you do not want to see me or anything after this. I insulted you pretty badly out there and after Namjoon told me everything, about your conversation in the car with him, I realized that even without being present in the situation at that moment, you single-handedly might have fixed my marriage. The least I can do is swallow my pride and my feelings that I had for someone forty years ago and come clean with you so that we can start fresh, especially when I see my son be crazy whipped for you."
I blush at the last sentence that she said.
"You knew about it? About Joon's feelings for you?"
"I got to know about it in the recent past," I say, sort of uneasy because literally this lady and I had a falling out about two hours ago, I almost had sex in her house with her son roughly fifteen minutes ago, she confessed that she hated me because she and my dad were lovers and now she is talking to me about how her son likes me.
"Are you both together?" She asks with a soft smile.
"Uh no. No, we aren't together."
"Why? If you don't mind me asking.." She asks, now with a sort of worried look.
"Well uh how do I put it? I found out some things about him which I was previously not okay with and we have agreed to not move forward with our feelings unless I am completely fine with him getting involved in certain things." I say, mentally facepalming myself because I clearly revealed too much.
"Let me guess, the smuggling and money laundering?" She asks, now with a laid-back expression. I was shocked because I never thought that she knew and even if she did, how the hell did she guess it in one go?
As if she read my mind, she scoffs and says, "It was the only thing that made sense considering you lost your family because your father went down this road."
I let out a sigh and sit on the edge of the bed, followed by Mrs. Kim or Solar, as she asked me to call her.
"I'm not defending him because I'm his mother but they are big businessmen. They can't grow bigger if they don't have proper political and economic power and for that, they need to get their hands dirty. That's how the world works dear."
"I know. I know but it's just that, it's sort of hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that the one person I'm crazy about is on the same road as my father, which cost him his life. I know it's a lot safer now, I even accompanied him so that I get to see how safe it actually is, he sort of asked me to so that I can start believing him, but it still somehow scares me." I say, tears pooling in my eyes as my mind again goes back to the time I was kidnapped, when I saw my family and the house blow up.
"Well Maya, you are one smart girl, so I will not question your judgment here but know this, I could see it in Joon, how much he likes you. Hell, he even yelled at me for lashing out at you, and trust me he never did that. He can even give up his life protecting the ones he loves and holds dear to him and today I could see it in him that you are also one of them. Basically what I'm trying to say is he won't let a scratch come on you, you can trust him. You won't regret it...."
I smile at her as I wipe the teardrop that escaped my eye.
"Thank you. For this. I lost my mother too early to actually know and ask her about what it is like to trust somebody with their life and heart and soul like she did. You are the first one who said something in the same lines to me."
"Ahhhh don't cry...... everybody needs relationship advice from someone at some point of time. Just did not expect that it'd be me giving you advice that too about my son." She says while wiping the rest of the tears that escaped my eyes.
"And I can assure you Solar, I am absolutely in love with your son so if we do end up dating, like if I do get over my fear and we do get together, I'll keep him as happy as possible." I smile at her as I say the words.
"I hope so." She says before looking at me and then looking down. For the first time, the silence is not uncomfortable.
"You said I single-handedly almost saved your marriage. How?" I ask, breaking the silence.
"You said something about being tired of the loneliness together, so we decided that we'd go visit some of our relatives, maybe even take an overseas trip. We will give this a try. Because no matter what, I do love this man, I love Sejin. We have been together for forty years. We have a beautiful family with four children. We can't give that up like this." She then looks up at me and says, " You predicted all of these. We had a solution so fast, because of you. Thank you."
We were interrupted by a knock followed by Namjoon popping his head in to take a peak.
"Mom, you might be surprised but we got the food ready, you wanna come down for dinner?" He asks.
Solar nods before standing up. I follow her and almost left the room with her but was stopped by Namjoon.
"Well aren't you both coming?" Solar asks. I look at Namjoon with furrowed eyebrows.
"Uh yeah, we'll join you guys in some time." Namjoon calmly says.
"So what happened?" he asks, curiosity filling his eyes.
"Well she apologized, came clean about not liking me, confessed that she and dad were lovers, then gave me a shit ton of relationship advice and thanked me thousand times for saving her marriage and now we're here," I say, shoving my hands in my pockets.
"Oh yeah, I know about the last part. I was standing outside for the last fifteen minutes, eavesdropping. Well, I didn't want to, I came to call you guys for lunch but something caught my ear and I stayed there for the rest of the duration."
"Wha- what caught your ears?" I stutter. I very well know what I said in the last fifteen minutes.
"Oh, nothing much, just the part where you told mom that you are absolutely crazy about me, that you were in love with me, and that if we date, you'll keep me as happy as possible," Namjoon says while hovering over me. Our height difference can be felt now because need to lookup directly. A red tint covers my cheeks as I hide my face in embarrassment.
"Well if it helps, I do love you too." He says, his dimples highlighting his ever-beautiful smile.
"This is so weird. We aren't even dating but we confessed that we are in love with each other." I say, hiding my face in his chest.
He moves away from me only to cup my cheeks and pull me into a kiss. This wasn't like the previous kiss, this was gentle as if I was something so fragile and he was being so careful. It's as if I could feel his love through the kiss.
"I know you are still not completely okay with me doing what I do, so I won't pressure you. Whenever you are ready for me, I'll be too."
He says before placing a peck on my forehead and taking my hand, proceeding to the dining room where everyone was waiting for us.
"I can't believe I'll have to sleep with blue balls today." He whispers in my ear as we start taking our plates.
"Who knows..... You might not, anything is possible, Just saying. Joonie" I whisper back before winking while I see him choke on air because of my words and actions.