Behind him, Seo-yeon stood holding the edge of the table with both hands and said nothing at all.
The silence stretched. Min Yoongi kept his back to her, one hand flat against the window. She could see his shoulders rising and falling, and she knew that if she stayed quiet any longer, he would stop asking. He would walk out of that room believing she had lied, and she would never be able to take it back.
"Yoongi," she said.
He didn't turn around.
"Please look at me."
"Why should I?"
"Because I'm going to tell you the truth."
His hand slowly slid off the glass. He turned around. His face was tired and closed, and his eyes were red.
Seo-yeon's lips trembled. She tried to say it calmly, the way she had practiced in her head a hundred times, but her voice cracked on the first word.
"It's yours."
He didn't move.
"The baby is yours," she said. "I lied. It's yours. It was always yours."
"Then why..."
"Please, let me say it." Tears were already running down her face. She didn't wipe them. "I lied because I was scared. I've been scared since the first day I knew."
He stayed where he was, as if he were afraid that if he moved, she would stop.
"I found out on the day I took the test," she said. "I sat on the floor and stared at it for an hour. I couldn't believe it. It was my first time, and it was only one night, and it was you. A man I had loved from a distance for so many years." She laughed, thin and wet. "I thought, who would believe me? Nobody would. Even I wouldn't have believed it if it weren't happening to me."
"I would have believed you."
"You say that now." She shook her head. "But you're Min Yoongi. You have a career. You have a group. You have millions of people who love you, and ten years of work behind you. I thought about what would happen if a girl walked up to you and said she was pregnant after a night at a club. I thought about the headlines. I thought about how people would treat you, and how people would treat the baby. They would say I was trying to trap you. They would say I was lying for money."
"I don't care what people say."
"You would have cared." Her voice broke. "You would have cared when the company called you in. You would have cared when the fans turned on you. I've watched what happens to idols who get caught in a scandal, Yoongi. I've watched them lose everything."
He opened his mouth, and she held up a hand.
"Please. I'm not finished."
He closed it.
"I went to the fan meet to tell you," she said. "I really did. I stood at the back of the hall, and I watched you signing albums. You were smiling. You were so happy. I thought, this is what he worked for. He wasn't a nobody anymore. He had everything he ever wanted." Her breath hitched. "And I was going to walk up there and ruin it with one sentence. Because of a mistake I made, drunk and heartbroken, in a club."
"It wasn't a mistake."
"It was a foolish decision."
"Seo-yeon..."
"It was my foolish decision," she said, and her voice rose into a sob. "You told me that night it was a risk, and I begged you anyway. I didn't think about you at all. I only thought about myself. And then, when I found out about the baby, I thought, I can't make it worse. I can't make you pay for my stupidity. So I decided to keep you out of it. I decided I would raise the baby alone, and you would never have to know."
She pressed both hands over her mouth, but the sobs came through anyway.
"I'm sorry," she said through her fingers. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't trying to hurt you. I just didn't want to ruin all those years of hard work. I thought if I disappeared, you could keep everything. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
Min Yoongi stood very still.
All the anger had drained out of his face. What was left was something she had never seen on it before, something raw and stunned. He crossed the room in three steps and stopped in front of her.
"Hey," he said softly. "Hey. Stop. Don't cry."
"I can't," she said. "I'm sorry. I can't stop."
"It's okay."
"It's not okay."
"It's okay," he said again. He lifted his hands, hesitated, and then gently took hold of her shoulders. "I'm not angry. I was, a minute ago. I was shouting. But I'm not now. I'm just..." He shook his head. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. I didn't know. I didn't understand."
"You had every right to yell."
"No. I didn't." He ducked his head, trying to meet her eyes. "You were alone. You were scared, and you were alone, and I was the one who walked out the door. Don't apologize to me. I should be the one saying sorry."
"You didn't know."
"I should have stayed." His voice cracked. "I should have woken you up and said goodbye. I should have left my number. If I had, you wouldn't have been alone for even a day."
"Yoongi..."
"Shh. Come here."
He pulled her gently against his chest. Seo-yeon stiffened for a second, and then she sagged against him, her forehead against his collarbone, her fingers clutching the front of his hoodie. She cried harder than she had in weeks. Months of fear came out of her all at once, the sleepless nights, the lonely hospital room, the day she had hidden behind a pillar with her hand over her stomach.
Min Yoongi held her. He rubbed her back in slow circles, saying nothing for a while.
"It's okay," he murmured at last, against her hair. "It's okay. I'm here now. You're not alone anymore."
"I was so scared."
"I know."
"I didn't know what to do."
"I know. I know." His arms tightened around her. "You did everything you could. You were trying to protect me, and you did it badly, and I love you for it."
She went still.
The words had come out of him so quickly that he seemed as surprised as she was. He pulled back slightly. His face was inches from hers, and his eyes were wide and unguarded.
"I mean..." he started.
Seo-yeon's tears were still running down her cheeks. Her lips were parted. She looked at him, and he looked at her, and neither of them spoke.
Then she was crying again, helplessly, harder than before, her shoulders shaking and her breath coming in broken gasps. Min Yoongi looked at her face, wet and flushed and open, and something in his chest gave way.
He lifted a hand to her cheek. He wiped away a tear with his thumb.
And then he kissed her.
It was a soft kiss, a careful one, and for a moment she was too startled to react. Then her fingers loosened on his hoodie, and she kissed him back, and the sound she made against his mouth was half sob and half something else. His hand slid into her hair. The other settled at her waist, careful of the curve of her stomach. The kitchen clock ticked, and the persimmon branches scraped against the window, and neither of them heard the gate.
Neither of them heard the front door.
"Oh!"
The sound was small and sharp, and it came from the doorway.
They broke apart.
Mrs. Min was standing at the entrance of the dining room with her coat half off, one hand pressed against her chest. Behind her, Mr. Min had stopped in the hallway with his hat in his hand. His eyes were round behind his glasses.
For a second, nobody moved.
"We..." Mrs. Min said. She looked at her son, at his arms still around Seo-yeon, at the girl's tear-streaked face. Her mouth opened, and closed. "We forgot our umbrella."
"It isn't raining," Mr. Min said faintly.
"We forgot it anyway."
Seo-yeon's face turned crimson. She stepped back so fast she nearly knocked into the chair. Min Yoongi's arms dropped to his sides. He stood there with his cap crooked and his ears red, looking exactly like the eight-year-old boy in the beach photograph.
"Mom," he said. "Dad. It's not..."
"We saw," Mrs. Min said.
"We definitely saw," Mr. Min agreed.
The four of them stood in the dining room, and for a long moment, none of them knew where to look.