Unexpected Second Chance at Love

Sitting inside the back seat of the same cab she got in, Yue Ling stare out the window.

After she bid her parents a long farewell, Yue Ling told the driver to drive to another place.

This place is located on the other side of City Z, which makes them have to drive through the city.

Seeing the once familiar buildings, she felt an indescribable feeling dawn on her. She couldn’t help but feel that this place somehow seemed so different and distance.

This place she once called home.

From the busy city to the outskirts of City Z, the cab drove for two hours. Arriving at a mountain, the cab drives for another 30 minutes before it finally parks.

Throughout the car ride, Yue Ling did not look anywhere but at the flowers on her lap. When she left the flower shop, she had bought another bundle of flowers. Staring at the purple color of the flower, her mind somehow drifted to memory lane.

”Miss, we are here.”

Hearing the old man’s words, Yue Ling lifts her head and turn to look out the window. She could feel a slight tightening in her heart.

From all angles of view was mother nature’s beautiful creation. The blue sky enhanced the beauty of the mountain like a painting.

Opening the door, she slowly got out of the car. The moment she stepped out, she could smell the unique scent of the grass with a mixture of the ocean. The sound of the sea calling slowly enters her ears.

She turned to look at the old man, ”I’m sorry for having to ask you to wait again.”

”Hahah, no worries. I’m old, I can nap if you take longer.”

Yue Ling smiles faintly at the old man. Closing the door, she walks towards the sound of the ocean.

Inside the cab, the old man looks at Yue Ling’s figure and he sighed. From what he saw earlier, he could guess that the girl was crying. On the way here, he could see more pain written on her face. Even if she had her sunglasses on, he knows that look from miles away.

Sighing again, he reach for a newspaper on the passenger seat and starts reading it. Since he’s waiting, he’ll read for a bit and then take a nap.

Oblivious to the old man’s mind, Yue Ling walked on the small dirt road as tall grass guarded the sides. Her bluish green eyes stare in a daze as she took each step. She could hear her heart thumping loudly in slow beats. As if everything around her had stopped.

The small dirt road shifted into cement before a set of stairs greeted her. She climbed the stairs until she was welcomed with a small fence. Staring at it, her hand holding the bundle of flowers tightens as her heart tightens.

Lifting one hand, she takes her sunglasses off before she slowly push the fence door open. Taking steps forward, the smell of the sea got stronger as the breeze picks up.

Her eyes stare straight ahead at the white tombstone. It was alone and near the cliff of the mountain as the ocean becomes its background.

Sitting down, she didn’t lay the flowers on the tombstone but stare at the picture. It was a man whose smile was so happy that anyone who sees would feel happy too. Under the picture was the name ’Lee Shin’. Yue Ling couldn’t help but curl into a faint smile.

”Shin... I’m here to see you..”

Slowly, she reach her hand out and touch the picture then to the engraved name.

”I’ve been doing fine.. You once said, everything will heal by time... And it’s true, life has truly moved on with time...”

Turning her head to the side, she stare out to the ocean in the distance.

”I met someone... I never thought I’d be able to love again... even I was surprised at this unexpected second chance at love....”

She paused in her words and daze into the ocean for a long time. Like how she did with her parents, she listened to the ocean calling as if listening to Shin speak.

Looking back at the tombstone, she smiles faintly with a sigh.

”I don’t know how this relationship will go, but I do want to give him all the love I have... I want him to know that he has all of me and not just half...”

Lowering her head, she looks at the purple flowers in her hand. The name given to these flowers were called ’hyacinth’. She had chose these purple hyacinths because it’s meaning was the reason why she had come here.

Looking at the man in the photo, she slowly place the flowers on the tombstone.

”I came to ask that you forgive me for finding a new love...”

Touching her stomach, she smiles a warm a smile, ”I will remember how you helped me out of my dark days and how you showed me what love felt like... You will always hold a place in my memories, but.... it’s time I let go....”

She stare at the man smiling in the picture and she smiles back.

”Do you think so too?”

——————-

Minutes passed and hours soon came by. Yue Ling sat facing the ocean as her body leaned against Shin’s grave. She told him about everything that has happened since he left this world. As if the tombstone was him.

From the past three year till now, she told him everything without hiding. Except her pregnancy. It was wrong if she had told Shin and not Lu Tian. Even if Shin is no longer here, it wouldn’t be fair to the man.

”Is it wrong to say that I am actually happy with him?”

Staying in silence, she continues to listen to the ocean and watch the waves hit the shore.

When Shin was still alive, he had once mentioned that if one day he passed away, he wanted to be near the ocean.

A place where he will be free like the ocean.

Thinking about Shin, a tear slowly falls, then another. The tears she had kept for him within the past three years. She leaned her head more on the tombstone and sobbed quietly.

No one understood her like Shin did.

When her parents left, she had to mature and when her hal-abeoji passed away, she had to cut out the word ’love’.

The people she thought were ’family’ to her wanted her dead. While others wanted to use her. It wasn’t until she met Lee Shin, that he opened her heart up and brought her out of darkness.

He was the one who told her that life is too precious to waste.

He became her reason to look forward to what life had for her.....

But after he passed away, she felt like nothing was left in this world for her.

She had thought when he left, he had taken her heart with him....

However....

”Yue Ling.”

She never expected someone to walk into her life and make her experience love in a different way.

”It’s cold, why are you here?”

Even she didn’t know when, but she knows that she has fallen madly in love with Lu Tian.

”Yue Ling.”

Tilting her head, she furrow her brows together. Thinking of something, she chuckles to herself and shook her head. She must be missing Lu Tian that is why she’s suddenly hearing his deep, yet comfortable voice.

”Yue Ling.”

Like time had suddenly stopped, she felt her heart the same. She froze in place. Her heart slowly beats again.

”You’re not going to answer me?”

Slowly, she turned around and there, standing at the fence door was him. His tall and well built figure clothed in all black. His handsome features that god seemed to have spent a longer time sculpting.

Is it really him?

She stare in a daze as the man walks towards her. His steps were steady, but each step he took was like a rhythm matching her heartbeat.

The man she has fallen in love with...

The man who opened her heart again...

The man who is the father of her unborn child...

The man was real and not some kind of illusion...

”Tian.....”

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