❁ EPILOGUE ❁
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Things moved pretty quickly after that.
A week after your reconciliation, Namjoon bought a ring, and proposed properly at dinner in a beautiful riverside restaurant he had booked. It was also here that he revealed he had been promoted, once again, to Senior Editor at Page7.
At 27, he was the youngest person in the company's history to hold the role.
He had done it, finally, for both of you.
By far the most fun part of the whole arrangement was telling people that you were finally together, and having a baby. Best of all was telling Mrs. Kim, who screeched so loudly that Mr. Kim fell out of his chair, and Namjoon threw an arm out across your stomach instinctively, as she jumped up and began to bounce around her living room.
"Oh, finally!" she cheered, the middle-aged woman looking eighteen again as she hopped and skipped around the room, stopping to hug you both tightly and kiss you on both cheeks over and over again. "Finally, finally!"
You could only laugh, letting the tears roll down your cheeks and blaming the pregnancy hormones for how emotional you were.
"Mrs. Kim," you asked her, when she finally calmed down. "I was also hoping, at the wedding... you might give me away."
At this, Mrs. Kim looked as though she might faint from happiness, drawing you back in for another round of hugs and kisses.
Eventually, hours later, you and Namjoon had left, after Mrs. Kim made you promise to bring the new baby over all the time, so that she could shower it with love the same way she had done for Nari.
Speaking of Nari - that conversation was a fair bit more difficult than the one with Mrs. Kim.
It wasn't hard to explain to her that you were pregnant again. Nari seemed overjoyed at the thought of a little brother or sister, though you suspected she was just excited by the prospect of having someone to unleash all of her random facts on, or simply someone to boss around.
It was the changing nature of yours and Namjoon's relationship that she found hard to grasp. And rightly so, considering how dubious the pair of you had been about it for so long. It was hard for you to understand, let alone a four year old.
You sat her down in her room, just her and you alone, a week or so after Namjoon properly proposed, and tried to explain. That although Taehyung - or 'Taetae Appa', as she had taken to calling him now - was her father, Namjoon was going to be her father too. And that you liked Taehyung, but you loved Namjoon, and you were going to get married soon.
Nari had listened carefully, surprisingly devoid of questions throughout this whole speech, considering she normally had a million of them. After a moment of quiet thinking, she finally spoke.
"Will Taetae Appa be the baby in your tummy's Appa too?" Nari asked innocently, and you shook your head sadly.
"No, sweetheart. Just Namjoon. I know it's all very confusing, I'm sorry," you rubbed her back. "You are a very smart girl, but it's okay if it doesn't make sense. Just remember that you can call Taehyung and Namjoon anything you like, whatever feels right, okay? You can have two Appas, like the baby Uncle Jinnie and Jimin are going to have."
"But," Nari began slowly, scrunching the plush unicorn Taehyung had gotten her between fingers. "You told me before that Moonie isn't my Appa."
"I know, I'm sorry," you nodded regretfully. "Eomma was wrong. She made a mistake. You can call Moonie whatever you like, okay? If you want to call him Appa, that's okay."
Nari seemed to think about this for a minute studiously, and then she nodded. With a face of complete seriousness, she asked - "What do you call Namoonie, Eomma?"
You beckoned her forward with one finger conspiratorially, and then leaned in to her ear as if to tell her a secret.
"I call him," you whispered, quiet as you could - "Butthead."
And then you and Nari had fallen about in a fit of unstoppable giggles.
She called Namjoon 'Appa Butthead' for a solid week after that.
He never told Nari off for it - of course not, she was his favourite, after all - but when he got wind that it was your doing, he made sure you paid for it later that night. Not that you really minded, of course, when his punishments were so thoroughly enjoyable.
And so, life went on. Your stomach grew bigger, and Namjoon and Nari insisted on looking after you, bringing you hot drinks and ice baths for your sore feet, and giggling to themselves when you rested bowls of food on top of your bump. You would huff at their teasing, which would only make them laugh harder, and then you would forgive them, because seeing Namjoon and your daughter living under the same roof brought you so much joy, you couldn't even begin to describe it.
Nari went to Taehyung's house at weekends now, you and Namjoon having agreed that he could be trusted to care for her without supervision, and it was during this time that the pair of you planned your wedding. At first, you and Namjoon had discussed having your wedding ceremony after you gave birth. After all, you were able to take much more time off for maternity leave this time, considering you and Namjoon now had a joint income, and his promotion meant a healthy pay rise. It would give you lots of time to plan while you settled the new baby in.
But ultimately, you hadn't wanted to wait. Heavily pregnant or not, you were going to marry Namjoon before the year was out.
And besides - you were, technically, already married. This one was just for fun. For the two of you.
And so, in December, when snow was beginning to coat Seoul in a beautiful white blanket, you waited nervously in the alcove of an ornate reception room, eight months pregnant and preparing to walk down the aisle.
Mrs. Kim smiled up at you, dabbing her eyes with tissue. She hadn't stopped crying since she had arrived. You linked your arms with hers, hearing the music strike up, and turned to face the aisle, grinning at all of the guests who had assembled there.
Jungkook and Yoongi were stood to the left, hand-in-hand and smiling at you, the rings glinting on their own fingers from their own recent wedding. Jungkook was handing a tissue to Jimin, who was already crying excessively at the sight of you, and you caught Jin's gaze, both of you rolling your eyes at how dramatic Jimin was being.
You figured Jimin's hyperemotional state was also something to do with their adoption application, which was now in it's final stages. It looked as though they might be welcoming a new child in the next few months - just like you and Namjoon.
As you walked further, you spotted Taehyung up at the front, a highly excited Nari in his arms in a beautiful lilac chiffon dress. You'd managed to catch him briefly earlier, where he'd informed you that it had taken two hours to convince Nari not to wear her stegosaurus onesie for the wedding.
Nari's new obsession was, obviously, dinosaurs. Namjoon claimed this had nothing to do with Taehyung being in a new TV show about a prehistoric explorer, but you'd caught both him and Nari watching it, engrossed in it from their curled up position on the couch together, when he thought you weren't looking.
You had smiled. Nari had learned, these past few months, how to play her Taetae Appa and her Moonie Appa off against each other only too well. You were fairly convinced she knew that the pair were in constant competition for the position of Nari's favourite, and she'd often milk this by - for instance - telling Namjoon that Taehyung had bought her a brand new set of T-Rex bedcovers. Namjoon arrived home the next day with a gigantic 3D model of Jurassic Park, which you had immediately demanded he return to the store, despite Nari's delighted squealing.
You grinned at the memory. She really was a clever little demon.
Taehyung beamed at you now, and you waved at him and your daughter, reminiscing on how brilliant he had been for the last seven months. The process of filing for joint custody had taken a very long time, but Taehyung had met every single requirement easily, and finally, two weeks ago, it had been granted.
You knew he was overjoyed, to finally have Nari become his daughter in law as well as in his heart, and a part of you was exceptionally proud of the father he had become.
But now, as you reached the top of the aisle, you could focus only on the man waiting for you there.
Namjoon looked beyond handsome, in a dark blue suit that complemented his skin tone perfectly. His raven hair had grown out a little, resting at the nape of his neck and falling beautifully around his coffee eyes, and he wore a slender hoop in his ear. When he spotted you, it was like his chest swelled, and his mouth rose into the deepest dimpled grin you'd ever seen on him. There was a twinkle in his eye, and you couldn't tell if he was just crying, or really, really happy to see you.
Mrs. Kim squeezed you gently as she left you in Namjoon's company, and you wanted to tell him then and there, despite being in the middle of your wedding ceremony, that you loved him so much it felt like your heart might burst open with the weight of it.
But you didn't need to say it. The pair of you demonstrated your love for one another every single day, in the little things, and the big things, and all the things in between. You had even decided to name your unborn daughter (it was another girl) Jenna, from the Korean eonjena.
Meaning - always.
And so as you stood before him, and all of your gathered friends and family, you were not afraid, or apprehensive, or even a little nervous.
You just smiled, took his hand, and looked forward to a lifetime of always with Kim Namjoon.
THE END (sort of)
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never fear, my bagel buns, that's not REALLY the end!
you know i can't resist one more chapter...
let's take a peek at what they're all up to seventeen years later, shall we?
bonus chapter coming soon! 💜