Chapter 12

The house was usually quiet when Bianca entered the house . It was usually pretty rowdy on Friday nights, which was the boys' night to unwind. Last Friday, they stuffed themselves with pizza and played board and card games all night. It was refreshing seeing them that way as they were always on the go.

She idly wondered what they ordered for dinner as she slipped her shoes off and put them on the shoe rack in the closet, replacing them with her house slippers.

"Welcome back," Jin says, suddenly stepping onto the landing behind her and making her jump out of her skin, whirling around to face him, one hand clutching her imaginary pearls and the other practically yeeting her purse into the wall behind the door.

"Oooooh you scared the shit out of me," she exclaims, leaning against the door and laughing at how ridiculous she must've looked.

"Sorry!" Jin apologizes, looking concerned, but then dissolving into laughter himself as she doubles over, clutching her stomach.

He gathers the contents of her bag, his laugh getting caught in his throat when he sees some of the things that fell out. Clearing his throat, he gathers it all and places it back inside her bag before handing it back to her.

"I am really sorry; everyone says my footsteps are super quiet," he chuckles, walking down the stairs and through the living area with her.

"They didn't lie! I didn't hear you at all, but don't feel too bad. I'm easily startled anyways," she says, finally sobering as they walk into the kitchen, him holding the door open for her.

"Noona! Welcome back, you're just in time," Jimin calls from his place at the table.

"We ordered sushi and sashimi," Jungkook says, gesturing to the many trays on the table.

"Ooh, looks good! Let me go wash my hands," she says, hanging her purse on the back of the empty chair between Taehyung and Jimin.

She opts to wash her hands in the bathroom and once she's gone, Jin is still standing at the island, shifting from one foot to the other—contemplating.

"Jin Hyung, why aren't you sitting?" Jay asks, immediately noticing the eldest's restless state.

"Um...I don't know if I should say it because I saw something I wasn't supposed to," he says, making his way to his seat and cursing his ninja like ways for the first time in his life. Had he never scared her, he wouldn't be in this predicament.

"It's about Noona?" Tae asks, leaning forward so he could see him.

"Yeah...I think we may have misread the situation. I think she really is pregnant. I scared her at the door and she dropped her bag. I picked everything up and there's a folder in there from the fertility clinic. I wasn't trying to read it but I could've sworn I saw the word pregnancy on one of the papers," he says.

"This is from a fertility clinic. I knew it," Jimin says, noticing the pink folder with the logo of a pregnant woman on the front sticking out of the purse she hang on the back of the chair next to him.

"So that means she can't eat any of this," Joon says, gesturing to the spread in front of them as well as the Pinot noir on the table.

"She didn't seem too worried though," Jungkook says, his hand on his chin.

"Maybe she doesn't know," Jimin says in a questioning tone.

"Or maybe it hasn't sank in yet if she just found out today," Jay adds in a hushed tone just as she swings the door to the kitchen open.

She looks to be in deep thought, her lashes damp as if she'd splashed water on her face. She's not wearing makeup like she was when she left and her eyes look a bit red, like she's tired or has been crying. It takes only a few beats of complete silence for her to look up at them quizzically, only to find them all looking at her and then quickly looking away.

Her heart rate immediately picks up. She and Kev were just discussing whether or not she should tell them about her past. A quick internet search of her name bought up everything and they could easily misinterpret what they saw just like the company did—or someone at the company could end up mentioning it to them. In any case, that's the last thing she wants to happen. She decided to tell them herself. It's her story to tell, but with the way they're acting, seems like someone has beat her to the punch.

"Did something come up that we need to discuss?" she asks after struggling with how to break the ice.

Everyone then sheepishly looks at Jin, which makes her lean forward so she could see his face.

"Umm, I promise I wasn't trying to snoop, but I saw one of your papers when I was picking up your bag. We can order something else for you eat...since you can't eat this," he says and her brows dip in confusion as she looks from the food to him and back again.

Then, it clicks for her. He saw some of her paperwork, which is in a pink folder with the fertility clinic's logo on it.

"Ohh!" she exclaims, patting herself on the forehead.

"It's fine Jin, I know you weren't trying to snoop, but you misunderstood what you saw. I'm not pregnant. I actually just found out that I can get pregnant, which is why I went to a fertility clinic" she says, her words coming out slightly faster than normal, indicating both how nervous and relieved she was.

Apparently she wasn't the only one feeling that way for every single one of them deflated at hearing that, their tense postures relaxing as they processed what she said.

"Oh! Well congratulations," Namjoon says, the first to recover.

She chuckles at his questioning tone and thanks him. They were all so awkward it was comical. Clearly they were toeing that line between professionalism and friendship. She could tell they were brimming with questions, but were holding back for the sake of not offending her. Her chuckles turn into a laugh when she looks across the table to where Jungkook was staring at her intently, his brows furrowed and his lip ring caught between his teeth as he physically willed himself not to ask whatever was eating away at him. She noticed he's the most curious one, outwardly at least.

"I'm open to talk about it if you have questions," she says and he immediately fires off.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asks and she shakes head.

"Nope, can someone crack that open?" she asks, gesturing to the wine. She'd need it to get through this.

Jay grabs it and the cork screw off the table, getting to work.

"Husband then?" Jungkook asks, his tone conveying his confusion.

"No, which is partly why I went to the fertility clinic. I don't see myself being romantically involved with anyone any time soon so I'm having my eggs frozen...next month as a matter of fact, so I'll need a day off for that. I'll add it to the calendar," she says, naturally turning to Namjoon, who's eyes widened slightly.

"Only one day? Isn't that like...a procedure," he asks as Jay passes her a glass of chilled wine. She thanks him and takes a sip before answering.

"It is, but it's considered minimally invasive. Most women go back to work the next day. I don't really do anything strenuous so I figured I would too," she shrugs and him and Tae immediately protest.

"It's still a surgery. You should take more time," Tae says and Namjoon cuts in before he could protest.

"Absolutely, cross that bridge when you get to it okay? Take all the time you need to heal, but please...for our sakes, take more than one day," he says with such sincerity that she can't even argue with it.

"Okay, will do, but I will meal prep for a few days ahead," she says, making him roll his eyes playfully.

"Why don't you see you're self being romantically involved with anyone? If you don't mind me asking of course," Jimin asks as he takes the wine glass she passed on to him from Jay.

"Well, in short, I'm not ready and I honestly don't know if I ever will be again any time soon," she replies honestly and he nods, his lips pursed as he studies her thoroughly as if searching for the source of the pain that caused those words.

"I can relate to that," Tae says, swirling his wine around his glass and slumping back in his seat.

"Really? That's unfortunate," she says sympathetically, her mind drifting back to the songs from his album.

There's another few moments of silence as everyone loads their plates with their sushi and sashimi of choice.

"See, now things are awkward. What were you all talking about before I got here?" Bianca says, breaking the heavy silence.

"We were actually talking about how great of a job you're doing. We all enjoy your cooking and your presence, but we haven't gotten a chance to really get to know you since we're always so busy. I know you've already told us a lot tonight so we completely understand if you don't want to, but we'd love to know more about you," Namjoon says.

"Well thank you. I really enjoy you guys' company as well. You all have such good energy. My cousin and I were just discussing this actually. There are some things that I feel like I should go ahead and tell you before you find out from someone else and maybe get the wrong idea," she says, taking a big gulp of wine and folding her hands in her lap underneath the table to hide her trembling fingers.

"You have our attention," Jay says, his tone unreadable, but not cold at least.

"Then I guess I'll start from the beginning. I was born and raised in a small, rural town in Alabama to my parents. I'm an only child and when I was very young, both my parents came into their era of luck as they like to call it. My mother's family owned a lot of land and they found out there was oil on majority of that property so they came into a lot of money. The same year, my dad was appointed as the CFO of Spalding."

"Like basketballs?" Tae asks, his brows shooting up.

"Yes, they make all kinds of sporting goods," she confirms.

"So that's why he could get you out of that mess with the basketball player," Jin exclaims, referring to the rude tweets she told them about and how her dad managed to have him delete them.

"Yes," she says, having to sidetrack to that story for the rest of the members who hadn't heard it.

"What a fucking dick," Jungkook scoffs, making her chuckle and nod.

Taehyung and Jimin agree and Jay just frowns, his jaw resting on his steepled hands.

"Anyways, so I never really wanted for anything growing up. Kev and I are suburb babies, trust fund babies, whatever they're calling it these days. So my grandparents—my mother's parents were living in Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. There was a huge flood and they lost everything. It was truly a tragedy. A bunch of people died, may they rest in peace. My grandparents thankfully got out in time and they had to live with us for well over a year I think. Anyways, I say all this to say that they sparked my interest in cooking. They took over making all the meals and I hate to say it but I didn't know my parents couldn't cook forreal until I ate their food," she says, making them laugh.

"I was like okay, they won't be here forever so I need to learn as much as I can while they're here," she continues, shaking her head fondly as she combs back through her memories.

"Did you cook a lot after they left?" Jimin asks.

"I did," she confirms, passing her glass over to Jungkook, who had gestured to her glass as he refilled his own.

"I took over breakfast every morning and dinner on most nights once I got a little older. Eventually, I got tired of cooking the same stuff, so I started checking out cookbooks from my local library and trying recipes I'd come across online. Experimenting in the kitchen quickly turned into my favorite thing to do so I knew at an early age that I wanted to do this for a living," she says before stopping to take another hearty sip of her wine.

"There's not too much to tell about my teenage years. I studied hard because I wanted to get into the best culinary school I could possibly go to...Oh! I started learning Korean at around 12 years old I think. My cousin Kev, Jungmin's boyfriend, was born here but moved to the US when he was around 10. Everyone made fun of his accent, so I helped him learn to speak English better in exchange for learning Korean."

"No wonder you're so fluent," Jin says and she shoots him a small smile.

"Yeah, so I graduated high school, went off to college, got engaged at 21, got married at 22, studied abroad, worked in restaurants, expanded my brand to private chef, and now I'm divorced," she says finishing off her wine as they all blink at her.

"Wow, how long have you been divorced?" Tae asks and Jin scolds him softly, Jay and Namjoon shooting him disapproving looks, but she assures them it's okay. She opened this can of worms on purpose.

"Well, we separated in February of last year and my ex went to jail and wouldn't sign the papers, so it wasn't legally declared until January of this year," she says and they struggle not to gawk at her.

"You were married for just about 10 years. No wonder you don't feel ready to date," Jimin says and she nods.

"We were together 6 years before marriage so we've got to factor that in too," she says, making his jaw drop.

She knows exactly what they're thinking now. After spending over half your lifetime with someone, what could possibly be bad enough to make you leave? They'd understand in a few minutes.

"So yeah, he's the only person I've ever been with. We've known each other our entire lives—started dating at 15, continued dating throughout college—he went to a medical school that was super close to my school. We got engaged at our graduation dinner, I studied abroad and worked in restaurants while I waited for him to finish school. We moved back home and both our careers took off. Our marriage wasn't perfect but it was something close up until 2022 when we decided it was time to start a family," she says, pausing to down the rest of the wine that was in her glass.

Jungkook immediately refilled it, realization and understanding in his eyes as he put the pieces together.

"He worked at a really good hospital so after a few months of trying, we went to see a fertility specialist, one of his colleagues who was supposedly the best in the city at the time. We got evaluated and the results were that I was functioning on a normal level and that he had an extremely low sperm count, so he was practically infertile. However, he and Karen went behind my back and altered the results so that they said I was the one who was infertile and he was normal. This is what they ended up telling me," she says and there's gasps around the table.

"Oh it gets worse," she says with a humorless chuckle.

"So I started hormone therapy which consisted of weekly hormone injections, which made me extremely sick since I didn't need them. That was two years of constantly juggling my career and my health while my ex husband juggled his big secret and the affair he decided to have with Karen," she says, her tone laced with disgust and barely restrained anger.

"What the fuckkkk?" Namjoon says, one hand on his temple as if the bomb she just dripped stressed him out personally.

"He sat back and watched those injections make you physically sick for two years and didn't say a word?" Jin asks, his face uncharacteristically taut.

"Yep," she says popping the p at the end.

"And on the days when I was too weak to move, he was with her," she sighs heavily, gritting her teeth.

"And I know that you're probably thinking, "how could she marry such a monster?" But I swear, he wasn't like that before. I've known him since we were literally in diapers and he's always presented himself as sweet, thoughtful, soft spoken. There was no warning when it came to him. Everyone we've ever known was fucking gobsmacked that this happened," she adds.

She knows that if she hadn't had cold, hard proof that no one would have believed her. Her own parents even seemed unsure the first time she told them about it, thinking she'd misunderstood somehow.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up about it. There was no way you'd have any reason to believe the man you loved for that long would make such a heinous decision," Jay says, catching her eyes across the table.

"I can't even think of an insult terrible enough to describe him. Please tell me he's still in jail," Jungkook says and she nods.

"They only gave him 5 years since he made a plea bargain. He threw Karen under the bus, but neither of them will be able to legally practice medicine anymore. They're licenses have been revoked, Thank God," she says.

"And Karen, how long does she have?" Jimin asks.

"Don't know yet. She tried to off herself to her trial is postponed until she's able to withstand court," she replies, finally feeling the effect of the wine.

"I'm glad she didn't get to take the cowards way out," Tae says absentmindedly next to her.

"True. So what I also wanted to address is that there's a photo from an old gossip blog circulating of me in handcuffs. It's from the day I found out about everything and I flipped the fuck out, so I was detained and taken down to the station for questioning. I was never actually arrested. Someone at the company told Sungwon and we've already discussed it. I almost lost this job because of it so I figured I'd tell you before it got any of you and got misconstrued again," she finishes and she doesn't know if she actually feels lighter or if she's just a little light headed from the wine.

"That's why you couldn't make it to dinner that day," Namjoon concludes and she nods.

"And why Sungwon was so insistent on buying brunch the next day and making sure we made sure you were comfortable—which we would've done anyways," Jin says, rolling his eyes.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you Noona," Jimin says beside her, his eyes glossy when she turned to look at him.

"Oh no! If you cry, I'm definitely going to cry and I've done enough of that today," she says, holding one hand up to block his face from her view.

He chuckles and nods, trying to blink the moisture away.

"We know you've probably heard it a lot, but we really are sorry that happened to you," Namjoon says and each member makes their agreement known.

"Thank you," she says simply, temporarily unable to say more due to the lump in her throat.

She sips at her wine absentmindedly as the others work on clearing the table and putting the leftovers away, the maknae slipping away to avoid cleaning she thought.

It wasn't until there was a loud thump that vibrated the table that she jumped, pulling herself out of her thoughts to find the biggest gift basket she's ever seen in front of her.

"Surprise," they all exclaim, making her smile.

"We wanted to get you a welcome gift. There's something in there from all of us personally," Taehyung says.

"Thank you, this is extremely thoughtful of you all," she says, smiling genuinely as JK pushes it towards her.

"You deserve it," Jimin smiles, standing up to help JK unwrap the plastic at the top so she could pull it down whether than tearing it.

"Wow, so pretty" she exclaims, pulling out her first gift. It's a little pink tipped succulent she recognizes as an Echeveria.

"That's from me," Namjoon smiles shyly, his adorable dimples on display.

"Thank you, I shall name her Pinky and she shall live on my window sill," she says, making them chuckle.

"Cute," he grins as she turns back to the basket to pick out another gift.

The next one is a rose gold knife set with marbled gray and white handles. She oohs and ahhs at the pretty blades, her obsession with kitchen ware fed.

"Thank you Jin, I can't wait to put these to use," she grins before moving on to the next.

"This is heavier than I thought," she giggles as she holds the pretty, pink blanket at arms length.

"It's a weighted blanket," Jay explains and she gasps.

"Oooh, I've been wanting to try one of these. It's so soft. Thank you Jay," she smiles, earning one in return.

Jimin's gift is a pink coffee mug that has the phrase, "Sometimes you forget you're awesome, so this is your reminder," on it in gold. It came a cute, gold spoon and a matching wireless mug warmer.

"I can't wait to make some hot chocolate in this. Thank you Jimin," she grins, earning a thumbs up and a finger heart from him.

The next one is heavy and Tae reaches forward to help her lift it out of the basket and set it down gently. She unwraps it and gasps, finding the most delicate looking tea set she's ever seen. It's made of clear glass with gold handles that are decorated with chrysanthemum flowers.

"I am going to feel like a fairy when I use these. If you see me with pointed ears, don't ask questions. I am in my fae era," she says, making them laugh.

"Seriously though, this is so beautiful. Thank you Tae," she says, placing the pot back into the protective styrofoam holder.

"You're welcome, I'm glad you like it," he grins.

She unwraps the last gift and gasps, finding a brand new Samsung Galaxy S Ultra phone.

"It has a stylus. I know how much you love the one you use with your iPad. You can use it to sync with the tablet," Jungkook says, clearly proud of himself and she smiles.

"I do love a stylus. Thank you so much. You guys really went all out," she smiles, her eyes glossy.

"Don't cry, at least not yet Noona. There's more," Jimin says, making her giggle as she tilts her head back as he'd done earlier in an attempt to blink the tears away.

There really was so much more—fuzzy socks, bath bombs, a robe and sleep mask set, bath bombs, lotion, a jade roller, a skincare set, a mini heating pad, a diffuser and essential oil set, chocolates, and as assortment of tea.

"Guys, this is too much. I'm fighting for my life right now," she says fanning her eyes to stop the tears, which was futile.

"You deserve it," Namjoon says, her tears of joy bringing him joy.

He wasn't alone in the thought or the feeling. After what she's been through, she still manages to keep a positive attitude and pleasant demeanor, which is a task within itself. After hearing her story, no one would blame her had she turned to darkness, but she chose to be a light. She chose to be a fixer though she herself is broken—a nurturer when she herself needs nurturing. Having a heart of gold is what it's called. It's rare and precious and should be treated as such. She's the type of person fate brings to your doorstep to change your life for the better and they're wise enough to not take her for granted.