The stop and start of plucking guitar strings pulls you from your sleep late one night. Your fuddled brain barely registers the neon green numbers that say 2:02 am on the clock across the room. Rolling to your right, your hands search for a sleeping Junmyeon only to grab at air.

Maybe he left? The thought passes as quickly as it comes. No, he always tells me if he gets called into work.

Being a resident doctor at the city’s largest hospital was something Junmyeon had dreamt of since high school and you had supported him the whole way. All through his undergrad and med school years, you were his rock. Though his night’s on-call took its toll on the both of you sometimes. Maybe he was in a hurry and he forgot? The broken strumming down the hall reminds you why you had woken up in the first place. Did Junmyeon forget to turn the TV off last night?

It takes a minute for you to drag yourself up and out of bed. The sleeves of Junmyeon’s old button up fall down a bit over your hands, loose like the rest of the shirt hanging around your frame. With bare feet padding light against cool hardwood, you make your way to the living room to turn off the TV, ranting to Junmyeon in your head about the importance of conserving energy in your head.

Only it’s not the TV playing rough guitar chords in the middle of the night.

Junmyeon’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, sans shirt but gray sweats are coving his lower half, with a guitar in his lap that you recognize as his friend Chanyeol’s. You stop dead in your tracks and watch as he struggles with proper finger placement, pausing every so often to squint at the music sheets laid out on the coffee table in front of him. His tongue is poking out at one corner of his soft lips in concentration and your heart swells. His nearly-too-long hair looks like he’d been running fingers through it for hours, strands sticking up in every which way, and your own fingers itch to fix the lovely mess.

Junmyeon still hasn’t noticed you standing at the opposite end of the room when he starts singing along with the slow plucking and pausing of guitar strings.

“Lost in innocence…Take this…fragile heart. We know where…where we’ve been. All…these miles together. Fall in—into my…skin. Crash into…these arms. We know how this ends. Fade…into forever.”

It’s been years since you had last heard Junmyeon sing. He used to be in the choir in high school, but college put a pause on many of his old passions. Though you’re not sure why he decided to pick up singing again, or learn guitar for that matter, your heart skips a beat at the melodious timbre of his voice still strong after years without proper care. Junmyeon sure picked a strange time to make you fall in love with him all over again.

He finally notices you standing there when he finishes the song. He looks up from the neck of the guitar, rubbing at the sore pads of his fingers, and his eyes go comically wide. Your teeth can’t hold back the smile forming on your lips as you applaud the little show you were given.

“That was really, really good, Jun.”

Junmyeon’s mouth flops open and closed like a fish out of water and the blush on his cheeks is a soft pink that makes you want to pinch them. You save both of you the embarrassment and choose to sit next to him on the couch instead. Junmyeon places the guitar against the side of the couch and pats at his lap. You take the hint and rest your head on his firm thighs, closing your eyes when his fingers card through your bed-tousled hair.

“So learning the guitar, huh?”

“Yeah, you could say that.” A light chuckle rumbles through him and his head lolls back against the edge of the couch. “Chanyeol’s been teaching me on our breaks at the hospital.”

“Why the sudden interest in guitar?” You punctuate the question with a light kiss to his abdomen and he starts a bit from the tickling sensation before smiling down at you. He watches you there for a while, fingers in your hair and a hand on your waist before he speaks.

“I wanted to surprise you actually,” he says worring at his lip a bit. “But you kinda…messed that one up for me.”

“How about this,” You shove at his side, poking your tongue out. He pokes his out back, but you ignore it. “When you’re ready to ‘surprise me’, I’ll act super surprised and we can pretend like this never happened!”

“You’re a terrible actress, sweetheart.”

“Hush.” You cross your arms over your chest and pout up at your boyfriend. “What’s the surprise then?”

“I can’t just tell you!” he scoffs.

You pull out all the stops and give Junmyeon your best puppy dog eyes and pout. You know he can’t resist your aegyo, no matter how hard he tries. It’s with a sigh that Junmyeon finally relents. He lifts you off of him and gestures for you to sit so the two of you are facing each other. His hands clasp around yours and you can feel the rough, slowly callusing, pads of his fingers brushing in circular motions against the palms of your hands. His brows are pulled tight in concentration, his lips pursed. Junmyeon’s never been one to say things lightly, whatever he says he means. It’s always been something you’d admired, his straightforwardness. The look on his face now, however screams uncertainty and you can’t understand for the life of you why.

“Jun? Everything okay?”

Junmyeon looks up at the concern in your voice and reassures you with a light smile, one that pulls at the corners of his eyes and crinkles them.

“I want to ask you something.” You watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows deep and your stomach turns suddenly thinking the worst. A nod is all he gets in return from you; you can’t quite find the right words lodged in your throat.

“Sweetheart. Darling. Baby. Love.” Your hands are assaulted with kisses with every word. Giggles pour out of you and the fear eases away a bit.

“Yes, cheese ball?”

Junmyeon grins before visibly steeling himself for what he’s about to say. “Y/N.” He pauses, in- and exhaling a deep whoosh of air, before meeting your eyes again. “Will you marry me?”

It’s your turn now to gasp like a dying fish and Junmyeon’s got the most terrified look on his face. It takes your brain a few moments to process his question, but you feel your head nodding with your mouth still agape.

“I…Junmyeon…,” the poor man looks like he’s about to cry. It wouldn’t surprise you if he thought the same of yourself. “Jun…Of course. Of course I will.”

Strong arms are around you before you can get the last word out; crushing you in a tight hug that steals your breath. Tears fall in earnest now from the shock and awe and you couldn’t care less if you were getting snot all over Junmyeon’s bare chest. You can hear sniffles and feel the tell-tale wetness against your neck. Your head’s spinning and you can hear your heartbeat racing. Junmyeon’s own heart is thundering madly against your chest and you pull him in tighter. You sit together like that for a long time. Just holding each other, breathing each other in and settling into the idea that the two of you were one step closer to forever.

Junmyeon’s dry and slightly cracked voice breaks through the late night silence as he cradles you in his arms.

“Promise you I’ll be…The promise you can keep…Til the end of time…And on the other side.”

Soft kisses are placed on the top of your head, over your tear stained cheeks, brushed lightly over familiar lips.

“Just you and me, love…We are almost home.”

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A/N: me writing this story>>>>