THREE MONTHS LATER
"Babe, have you seen my other emerald earring?" Harper calls from the bedroom.
"Uh.." Yoongi looks at the counter of the bathroom sink. "No. Did you check in the nightstand?"
"No, I didn't think to look in there. Oh! Found it!" Harper pulls it out of the nightstand and stands in the mirror as she puts the jewelry in her ear.
"I know we're just going to see the house first but I really needed a reason to wear these earrings. They're beautiful."
"My mother said that she saw them in the jewelry store and couldn't leave without getting them for you. It'd have probably bothered her for a while if she didn't." Yoongi says, patting his face dry.
"She's a sweetheart." Harper expresses. "I love her so much. And I'm pretty sure her, my aunt and my mom are like best friends now."
"Good. She needs friends out here. Her and my dad have started bickering from being around each other so often." Yoongi chuckles as he checks his shave job.
"Mama!" Onyx yells as he walks down the hall.
"Yes, baby?"
She hears the shaking of his pacifier and smiles to herself as he walks into the room. She holds her hand out for it as she squats down to his level.
Harper takes the cap off the pacifier and gives it back to him. He puts it into his mouth and holds his arms up for her. Picking him up, she sits him in the dresser as she finishes checking herself in the mirror.
"Alright, baby. You ready?" Yoongi asks. "We're only going to have about 15 minutes to make it to the restaurant from the house tour."
"Really? Damn. Okay, I'm coming." Harper picks Onyx up from the dresser, smoothing the fabric of her dress before they exit the apartment.
Yoongi carries the car seat with Onyx in it and Harper carries the diaper bag. Their shoes this against the carpeted hall floor as they walk to the elevator.
"I hope this doesn't run too long." Harper says. "I have a paper due tomorrow and I have to finish the last little bit of it. Then I want to go back for editing to make sure it's good before I submit it."
"It shouldn't be too long. Most of us have work in the morning. We'll be out by 8:30, nine o'clock at the latest." Yoongi tells her.
The elevator doors open and they step inside. Harper pushes the button for the first floor and Onyx stares at the doors as they close. When the elevator starts to move, he stops sucking his pacifier and goes still.
"How are you feeling about it?" Yoongi asks his girlfriend. "School, I mean. Good?"
"Yeah. I think that I assumed the worst when I applied again. Between work, school and just life in general, it is a little difficult. But I have our family and friends for help. And you're always the biggest support for me. I don't feel overwhelmed by anything. Probably not just yet, though."
"It's October already, though." Yoongi smiles at her. "You'll be done in no time, baby." He holds his hand out for hers and she intertwines their fingers.
The elevator doors open and they step out together. Yoongi kisses the back of her hand and she smiles at him.
"How are you feeling with work? Are the new nurses fitting in well? Everything good up there?"
"Yeah." Yoongi nods. "They're great, actually. I think that Del Torre scared a lot of the nurses at that conference earlier in the year. A few of them transferred to Mary's. Nurse Beth told me that it was because they were basically feeling called out and didn't want to deal with it."
"Of course, they didn't. They want to be able to say and do whatever they want. They don't want to deal with the consequences of their actions." Harper rolls her eyes.
"Well, half of their gossip died when Kyra was convicted. Plus, everyone is now aware that we're together so they've got nothing to talk about me for anymore."
"Ah, so the third floor is now functioning less as Grey's Anatomy and more as an actual hospital unit." Harper jokes.
Yoongi laughs as they walk outside to his car.
"Yep. I talked to Dr. Han yesterday morning and he said that he actually enjoyed the post-op briefing with his team."
"Really?" Harper says, actually surprised by the news. "How is he? He speaks when he sees me in passing, but that's about it."
"I think that he's a bit scared of you." Yoongi laughs again. "I don't know what you said to him, but this morning, he told me that he was taking his wife out to dinner."
Harper raises an eyebrow as she opens the back door behind the passenger seat.
"Must've taken my advice and stopped being a coward."
"You called him a coward?"
"Well, he is." She straps their son into the back seat. "Or was, I suppose. He's coming around. I guess."
"You still don't like him, do you?"
"No." Harper admits. "He was mean and nasty to you for nothing. I don't like that."
"But at least he's trying to be better."
"He is. So I will give him credit for that but only his actions will change my mind about him. Until then, I'll stay indifferent."
The couple gets into the car and hold hands as they drive through the city.
Last week, Yoongi told Harper about a home for sale that he'd come across. His lease for his apartment ended a few months ago.
His parents paid the rent for a month and a half until they moved into their own home. Them moving out prompted Yoongi to get on the ball to start looking for homes.
Knowing how long that the process takes to close on a home, Yoongi told her that they should probably start looking at them now and making decisions. This way, by early next year, they'll be moved into their new home.
This was his explanation and reasoning to her, which she couldn't really argue with. It makes sense. For now, they can pay month to month without being tied to a lease for their apartment.
When they pull up to the home that, Harper gets a good look at the outside. It's a craftsman style home with tan colored paneling. The outer color theme seems to be neutrals.
Harper falls in love with the exterior the second that she sees it.
"Oh, wow." She says as they get out of the car.
"Beautiful, right?"
"Yeah." She opens the back seat and Yoongi walks around to take Onyx out of his car seat, leaving the heavy contraption inside.
"Is there a realtor coming? They should be here by now, no?"
"Mm." Yoongi says as he walks up to the door. "Maybe they're inside already."
Too awestruck by the home, Harper doesn't pay much attention to the words coming out of his mouth.
She steps foot into the house after him and looks around. Stainless steel appliances, marble countertops, pendant light fixtures, chocolate wood cabinets.
"Everything's so new." Harper says, wiping her fingers along the counters. "This looks like something out of a.. modern movie set or something."
"Yeah.." Yoongi agrees as he looks around.
Onyx wriggles in his arms and Yoongi puts him down. He walks around the house, roaming freely. Harper smiles as Yoongi follows after him.
If Onyx feels comfortable in this new setting, then that's a plus for her. That's a big gauge and apparently, it passes his vibe check. He's not one to roam unfamiliar places too often.
Not at all, actually. He'd much rather stick to one of his parents, a consistent constant in his everyday life.
Harper takes everything about the place in, looking in each room of the first floor until she reaches the family room.
Her eyes light up at the sight of the backyard.
Outside, it's completely fenced in. There's a back patio and to Harper's absolute joy, a pool.
Her hand touches the handle of the patio door and is ready to open it when her name is called.
"Mamaaa!"
"Yes, Bear?"
Harper listens but hears nothing in response. Not even the sound of his pattering shoes against the hardwood floor.
"Onyx?"
Her eyebrows pinch together as she walks away from the back door. She looks side to side as she walks in the direction that she came.
"Onyx?"
"Mama?"
Harper follows the sound of his voice and walks back the way that she came.
"Mamaaa!" He exclaims when he sees her.
Harper laughs as he runs into her arms. She picks him up and kisses his cheeks.
"Hi, stinky boy. I just saw yo-. Yoongi..." Harper blinks slow as she watches her boyfriend stare out of the front window.
"When I was doing my residency, I used to drive around the neighborhoods at night when I got off of work." He speaks as his eyes scan the skyline.
"It sounds a bit childlike now but I used to pick out a house that I really liked and tell myself that I'd get that one. I'd imagine what the interior looked like and map out what would go where in my head. I'd play the role of an interior designer, so to speak."
Biting the inside of his cheek, he takes a deep breath.
"I'd go home and dream up all sorts of things. What kind of cars my wife and I would have. What our mornings would look like together. What our nights coming home would look like. Would we have a garden in the front lawn? Would we even have the time to keep up with that? Would I trust the neighbors enough to look out for my kid playing in the lawn while we sat out here? All trivial things, it seemed like, by the time that morning came."
Yoongi looks over to Harper as she holds their son. He plays with the compass around her neck, holding it in his small hands.
"I'd get to work, get through the day, get back home, shower, eat, sleep. Repeat. Everything started to seem so mundane day to day. Time flew me by and then, next thing I knew, I was I was 29. Hadn't done much of anything that I planned for in college bedsides school. That's all that I had, really. Admittedly, I think that I was starting to lose hope. A hopeless romantic?" He chuckles to himself. "A paradoxical thing, isn't it?"
Hopeless romantic. Some who continues to believe in love no matter how hard that it's been for them in the past.
Romantic? Yes.
Hopeless? No.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
"A hopeless romantic with no hope? Where does that leave me?" Yoongi asks.
He swallows thickly as he walks over to his girlfriend. Her breathing deepens as she listens to him speak. She listens to his story, she hears it from a new angle than she previously had.
"And then came you."
Yoongi pushes Harper's butt length braids over her shoulder. He likes being able to see her full face. He likes being able to admire her from any and all angles.
Always.
"At our cores, we're not very different people at all." Yoongi expresses. "Life's just led us in different paths... with the same destination."
Yoongi's soft hands, with small spaces of callous, cup Harper's cheek. His thumb runs along the line of her jaw. Her blinking slows, coming to a still as she stares at him.
"I wouldn't want to be here with anyone else." Harper tells him. "If not you, then who?"
"If I had the gift of foresight, I'd just pray that you'd wait for me every day."
"Every day?" Harper's head tilts up as Yoongi leans in.
"Mhm." Yoongi hums. "Every day until I met you. Every day until we fell in love. Every day until I was able to buy the house that we dreamt up together. Every single day..." His lips brush hers.
Their kiss is tender and chaste. Their lips slowly pull away from one another's as Onyx giggles quietly.
"Every day.." Yoongi whispers to her. "Until I could bring you into the house under the rouse of a tour.."
He takes a cautious step back and Harper keeps his eyes on his.
"Until I could finally muster up the courage to get down on one knee...."
Harper's heart thuds in her chest. The blood rushes through her ears, drowning out everything that isn't in this moment. Drowning out everything that isn't this man.
Yoongi gets down on one knee and reaches into his pocket. He takes out the velvet brown box and Harper can't bring herself to look at it.
"..And ask you to have me as your husband for the rest of our lives. And every millennia after that."
Onyx looks at his mother as she cries. He looks at his father in confusion before frowning.
"Dada!"
Onyx puts his palm on Harper's cheek and rubs. She laughs through her tears and Yoongi grins at them.
"Yes." Harper says as she wipes her tears. "Yes, I'll be your wife."
"Oh, thank God." Yoongi exhales in relief as he stands up.
His fingers are trembling as he slides the ring onto her finger. Harper's mouth falls open as her eye narrows.
"Did you think I was gonna say 'no'?" She asks incredulously as she smiles.
"No, but if I was down there any longer, I think I'd have started full on shaking."
Harper wipes his eyes as he puts his arms around hers. She giggles and he laughs with her, putting his forehead on hers.
"Ah!" Onyx screams and frowns at his father.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want a kiss, too?" Yoongi says before kissing Onyx's forehead.
The baby smiles bashfully and puts his head on his mom's shoulder. He wraps his arms around her neck and lays there.
"I'm starting to think Onyx really is a little Cupid after all." Harper says softly.
"Probably." Yoongi replies just as soft. "Really wouldn't doubt it. He silently convinced Delilah that it was time for her and Luca to have a baby. He gives Hailey and Taehyung baby fever. That's almost impossible."
Harper laughs at the thought.
"Just look at what he's managed to do in a year's time." Yoongi says. "We're engaged."
"I'm going to be your wife." Harper smiles giddily. "We're going to be married."
"Min-Taylor?" Yoongi asks, pulling his fiancée closer.
"Min-Taylor." Harper confirms. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"... everything." She says, the playfulness in her tone fading out. "Thank you for this healing."
"It always takes two." Yoongi pecks her lips. "And I couldn't have done it without you."
A|N
#Whew. Okay. This one is gonna be long. This kind of makes me sad to end. I literally starting writing this (as I've said like a million times, I'm sorry😭) for my own space of solace, for my own space of peace and escape. It quickly became other people's space of comfort as well and I didn't fully expect that. Not in the massive way that it's happened, at least
#Healing Harper is the fastest growing story that I've ever gotten out of my head, even faster than Serenity. Which is insane to me, by the way.
#I wanted to portray characters that display real emotional complexity or as close as I could. I'm still learning along the way and not everything will be perfect. And I guess that's apart of the whole thing. Maybe that's the point. I may never get it perfect because emotional complexity isn't. It's exactly that. Complex.
#If you've come this far with me on my journey as an impromptu author, then thank you <3 Really, from the bottom of my heart. And if this is the first that you've read, I hope that you've enjoyed it enough to join us on the journeys to come. Love you always.
Yours until my creativity runs out,
•Kae|Moonie🌙