December 2020

Jieun was pacing around her living room, waiting for news from Hanteo and for Jungkook's arrival.

She ran to the door as soon as she heard the doorbell ring.

" Jungkook" she greeted

He was still dressed in a fancy suit, probably from whatever shooting or filming he did for BTS. His hair was unusually messy, his make up half ruined as if he cried and wiped part of it with his sleeves. However it was his empty gaze and forlorn look that shocked her the most.

" Jieun-ah" he murmured. They stayed frozen there, looking at each other for half a minute, both unsure about what to do and what to say.

Jungkook took a step forward to enter her home and engulfed her in a hug. His strong arms wrapped around her and she allowed herself to cry. She realized his comforting warmth was the only thing that could calm her down, she needed him now more than ever.

She wrapped her arms around him and they stayed like that for as long as they needed it. She didn't want to let go because she felt safe in his arms.

" I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please forgive me." He repeated, his right hand caressed her hair and he went back cradling her body against his chest.

" I'm sorry I hurt you. I should have just told you I couldn't come to Jinhae because I was stuck in Tokyo for our MV shooting. I'm sorry I let my jealousy and possessiveness ruin beautiful memories. I'm sorry I wasn't there during you pregnancy. Maybe if I was there, Kang Ho Dong would have never had the opportunity to take her away. I'm so sorry you had to suffer for years. Jieun-ah, I love you, I never stopped loving you since that day on the rooftop."

She was beyond stunned by his words. Everything was just overwhelming: the news about their daughter, now his apologies and confession. This was too much to handle and she needed to calm down and come to terms with everything that happened the last 4 hours.

" I..Jungkookie...I..need to...breathe" she looked at him. He sighed and let her go.

" I'm sorry, I needed to get it out of my chest, it's been eating my soul away for months since Golden Disk Awards. I'm sorry it took me so long to say it. I'm sorry about the terrible timing. I understand we have other priorities right now."

He took the seat beside her and offered her a small smile. His eyes regained a little bit of light and he looked much better than when he arrived.

" Let's talk about that later. I'm...still not ready to face...I'm not ready to dig into that territory right now."

" Of course" he nodded " What informations do we have? "

" Ho Dong didn't tell me the name of the orphanage. He just said it was near Busan. Hanteo went to see his friend who he is a detective and they'll come back to the hospital to ask more details from Ho Dong. Jihwan contacted my lawyer who will meet us here."

" How can I help?"

" I honestly don't know, right now I feel lost and powerless too. We must find her but I don't know where to begin." She answered truthfully. Jungkook came closer to her and squeezed her shoulders.

" At least Ho Dong respected one of my wish. Her name is Chaewol. I wanted to name her after the moon. It reminded me of you, of us that night." She told him with a small smile.

" Chaewol...It's pretty and I think it suits her. "

They stayed silent during long minutes, both pondering about this crazy situation and about its implications and consequences.
She was so lost in her thoughts, she missed the sound of the doorbells. She ran to the door and greeted her lawyer.

" Hi Yea Ji, thanks for coming as soon as possible"

" No problem, Jihwan made it clear it was something important and urgent."

" Yes, it is. We need your help now more than ever. Please come in" Jieun closed the door behind them.

Jungkook bowed towards the lawyer. Yea Ji looked very surprised, clearly not expecting the presence of the member of the most popular boygroup in the world.

" Hello, I'm Jeon Jungkook, nice to meet you."

" Seo Yea Ji, senior associate at Lawless Law firm." The woman greeted back.

They took a seat, Jieun and Jungkook began telling the crazy story of their daughter's birth, fake death and abandonment at an orphanage.

" I want Kang Ho Dong to pay for his crimes. I don't care if he's going to die in a few months, I still want him to admit his wrongs and be held responsible. " Jungkook said

" The doctor and the midwife helped him, as well as that brute Seo Jang Hoon too. They must be investigated." Jieun added

" I'll see what I can do to get more information. We'll have to wait for the news from the police detective but we'll open an investigation. I won't rest until they are put behind bars, I can promise you that." Yea Ji stated and Jieun sighed in relief.

Seo Yea Ji has been representing Jieun for various situation, mostly about her singing career (contracts, business deals) and the cyberbullying. She was a brillant woman, one of the best lawyer in Seoul, who despite her cold demeanor had a thirst for justice. Seo Yea Ji married Jieun's friend Kim Soo Hyun last year and the two women became even closer.

" What about our daughter ? How can we find her?" Jieun inquired

" We can easily locate her if we have the orphanage's name. However the procedure is very complex. We have to prove you never signed the consent for adoption paper. The Korean Adoption Services must be notified of our request to see the false papers. It might take some time. There's also a high possibility that she was moved to different orphanages over the years or that she was adopted. Korean laws allow adoptees to look for their birth parents, there's a special procedure for that. However, because it's uncommon, I don't know the details of the procedure of parents looking for their child but I'll look into it."

Jieun's heart sank, what if their daughter had a new family and they weren't allowed to contact her. In a way, she should have been relieved that their child found a nice home and loving parents (she prayed they were) instead of being raised in a orphanage. But it still hurt to think that they unfairly lost so many years and opportunities to be happy together because she was taken away.

Jieun remembered the raw pain she felt when her mother and Inna helped her to donate everything they prepared for her daughter's arrival: the crib, the clothes, the diapers, the baby equipments, the toys. She was heavily distressed for a month after the birth because her milk kept coming in but there was no baby to feed. She eventually had to take medicines to stop it. The first year was the most painful, hence her suicide attempt.

" Don't worry, we'll find a way, everyone will do their best to help us find her. Just have faith, okay Jieun-ah?" Jungkook tried to reassure her.

She looked at his eyes, full of sincerity and hope. At this moment, she wanted to believe everything he said, needed to believe everything will be alright.

That night, Jungkook stayed at her home and they held each other in the dark, talking about everything that went wrong in their relationship and in their lives. 

" You know, I often dream about her. She's there in my dreams, laughing, running but I never get to see her face. My heart aches everytime I woke up because the memories of the dream quickly fade away. It has been going on for years and I asked my psychiatrist how long I'll feel pain everytime I think about her and he said everyone had their own process and timing for grieving. I smile and laugh during the day, then I feel empty when I'm alone at night, as if something is missing." Jungkook quietly said

This was the first time they opened up with words about their own suffering. When they were in Jinhae in front of the memorial, the grief was evident on their faces but they never found the right words to express it.

" I know all too well that feeling and I'm sorry it took us years to finally talk about this." She replied

In the end, they were just two broken people who were hurting and who hurt each other in the process of grief over the years.

There was a reason she stopped their love affair in september 2019 after two years. She couldn't bear it anymore. God knows she loved Jungkook more than anything but they were hurting each other with their silence, stubborness to dismiss their problems and to never talk about their feelings.

Right now she finally understood the stupidity behind their reasoning. For years, Jieun thought in order to move on in their lives, Jungkook and her needed to silence everything that happened between them except one day per year at their daughter's birthday. The pain needed to be locked away in order to help them fonction in their daily lives.

They got lost on their path to adulthood, then drifted apart over the years, creating a gap that was hard to close. She used to be hurt by the fact that things will never be the same. Now she made peace with it.

He may not be anymore the boy she fell in love with when she was 19 but she still loved him. In fact she never stopped loving him. She may have briefly dated other people but it never worked because they were not Jeon Jungkook.

The expression " the heart wants what it wants" had never been so accurate. Despite her efforts, she couldn't erase him from her life and her heart and even her body wanted him badly.

She loved his shy persona but also the confident and dominant one, then the goofy one who made her laugh. Jungkook was the only one who could spark extreme emotions in her (love, passion, anger,desire, jealousy, happiness, hurt) to the point where she felt she would get consumed by them.

He was the only one who could make her smile all day with just one random text. He was the only one who could make her lose composure in public. Jungkook was the only one she allowed to get everything from her: her first times, her love, her tears, her most sincere smiles, the right to make her happy or to break her heart.

She felt incredibly strong by his side but also very vulnerable. She hated herself for letting him have so much control over her feelings. Their love affair, their silences, all of that were unhealthy.

The last strike in her heart was when he decided to not come to Jinhae this year. She went back to Seoul, crying her eyes out, shaking her head in disbelief. The most painful thing was wondering if  Jungkook finally decided to move on for good and forget about them.

He told her about his bad reaction to her engagement rumor to Yeo Jingoo. She got mad at him for believing them to be true and for hurting her with his lie.
She shared the stories behind her break up with Kiha and the porcelain plates she threw in anger around her house when she learned Jungkook was dating Laboum's Solbin.

They were not the same 19 and 18 years old Jieun and Jungkook who spent a fabulous night under the moon and had secret dates at amusement parks. They were two broken young adults who got lost in their quest to find happiness and success.

The future was more than ever uncertain but she firmly believed they made an important positive step tonight.

" Do you think Chaewol looks more like you or me ?" Jungkook asked, eyes looking at the ceiling of her bedroom.

" I don't know, maybe she's the perfect mix of both of us. Some nights when I closed my eyes and let the dreams take me away, I heard her humming melodies or imagined her singing Knees, Through the night or Dear Moon. She really loved those three songs when she was in my womb. I wonder if she ever heard them again."

" Jieun-ah? Do you think she hates us? She might have grown up thinking we didn't want her and abandonned her. My heart will break if she rejects us. I just hope that wherever she is, she knows we love her."

Jungkook was right: there was a chance their daughter didn't want to see her birth parents. His words kept Jieun awake all night. At some point in the night, she scouted closer to him, looking for his comforting embrace.

🌜💙🐰🐰🐰💜🌛

December 2020

Chaewol looked behind her again: this big avenue looked the same as the one she took minutes ago. Everything looked the same in Seoul. She kept walking around but she was starting to get hungry. Her tummy growled again but she didn't have money to buy food. Maybe if she asks nicely, someone will give her food.

She continued her exploration of the city and eventually found a bench to rest in a park. It was very cold outside and she was getting tired.
She took a sip from her bottle of water and ate one of the crackers she put this morning in her bag for the camping.

Parents and children were playing in the park. She looked in fascination as they laughed and ran around the playground. A boy cried after falling from the swing and his mother comforted him.

Chaewol lowered her eyes, her vision became blurry with tears, she wanted caring parents too. Sister Hanna was nice but she was not her mother. Did she have a daddy somewhere? Were they together?

At the orphanage she understood the concept of separated parents and children who weren't allowed to live with them. For example, Dongbaek was in the orphanage because her father was very mean and he hurt really bad Dongbaek's mother who was in the hospital for a long time.

Chaewol thought about what and who her parents might be. What was their names? What did they look like? Were her parents good people? Of course they were, she shook her head, it was ridiculous to think otherwise.

She took her bag and pursued her search for her parents. An old woman and a girl were selling gyeranppang outside the park. Chaewol approached the small food stall, mouth watering at the sight of the egg breads. She lingered around the stall, too shy to speak or ask for food.

" What's your name?" The girl who was maybe 11 or 12 finally asked

" Moon Chaewol" she replied timidly

" Hi, I'm Lee Jian, where are your parents? Are you lost?" She looked around, trying to see if people were searching for a little girl.

" I'm lost but I don't have parents. I'm looking for them!"

" Hmmm...okay.. do you know where do you live?"

" Near Busan"

" What?? But that's far away from here! How did you get to Seoul? What are you doing here alone? " Jian exclaimed

Jian looked like someone she could trust so Chaewol began to explain she lived in a orphanage, got lost in the forest, took a train to Seoul and was now searching for her lost parents.

" Wow that's a crazy story! It sounds like the kdramas they diffused on TV. Here take a gyeranppang, I usually don't give free food but you look like a lost puppy." Jian offered her an egg bread which Chaewol devoured immediately.

" Thank you, it's really good"

Jian explained she was helping her grandmother sell egg breads every weekend to make money. She didn't have parents like Chaewol and lived with her deaf and muted grandmother in a social center.

" Halmeoni cooks and I take the orders from customers and manage the money." Jian proudly said. Chaewol thought she was really cool.

" Do you have a place to sleep tonight?"

Chaewol shook her head, her plans didn't go that far. She just wanted to find her parents but didn't think about the details. She began to panic: what if they weren't in Seoul but in other cities.

Jian used her hands to communicate with her grandmother then turned back to Chaewol.

" Halmeoni said it's okay if you come with us. We live in a welfare center for elderly but I'm sure we can find some place for you to sleep. Everyone is kind there! Especially Dr Kim Chang Wan. But Chaewol, if you really don't want to go back to the orphanage, don't tell them your real name, use a new one." Jian told her that with a very serious face, Chaewol couldn't help but nod. She really didn't want to back to Yangsan Children's home.

She waited behind the food stall for Jian and her grandma to finish their day. She even helped them pack and transport everything back to their home. The three of them pushed the little cart and Jian suggested new names.

" What about Sejeong? No that sounds a lot like King Sejong. Or maybe Irene, Jisoo, Yeri, Dahyun, Yooa but if you use the names of girlgroup members it will be obvious you're lying."

They were now entering one of the big avenue and Chaewol recognized the buildings.

" Oh I was here this morning, I remember this: Hotel del Luna! " She exclaimed

" Wow you're only 6, well almost 7 but you can easily read like that? I couldn't do that at your age. I'm still struggling with some sentences and words even now." Jian said

" Sister Hanna taught me! I only have two children books so I learned every words by heart. Now I can read other things."  Chaewol felt really proud of that. She was one of the best at school.

" Luna is a very pretty name and I think it means moon. It's perfect for you."

" Luna...yeah I like it!" 

She jumped in excitement at the idea of a new beginning.