“I will love you forever. I promise I will always take care and cherish you forever.”

“Forever is quite a long time, isn’t it?”

“It is, right? That only means you have to endure me nagging at you for the rest of your life.”

“Oppa!”

“Well. I love you, Heo Youngji.”

“I love you too, Hongbin oppa.”

Forever.

___

Hongbin forces his lips to stretch out a smile when remembering one sweet moment they shared before. It’s all candy jelly rainbow life until he forgot such a thing could ruin the unicorn land they lived. Once he’s awake, reality slaps him hard, asking him to pay the promise he has made.

I will love you forever.

He meant it. He really did. Even until now, he still keeps his promise with scattered heart that barely beats to live at present. It hasn’t been long, but sometimes he wants to quit.

Sometimes Lee Hongbin wants to leave the game—with face full of tears, the smile he usually wears has long gone, and expression isn’t guarded with many layers of façade. It doesn’t get easier with the fact in her state of forgetting almost everything, she still remembers him.

(maybe she doesn’t forget almost everything, she only forgets about himself)

They had a rough start, he remembers. But after that their story went well like fairy tale books in the last page, a happy ending—then they live happily ever after—only Hongbin forgets there’s always another book, another story, another hardship for them to continue.

He feels numb.

The motion of her body beside him pops off his little, depressing time bubble as he watches Heo Youngji’s eyes slowly fluttering opened. He always likes her crimson cheeks when she’s shy, her wavering eyes that look anything but him, and now he found nothing like those except a blank expression and a pair of empty eyes staring back at him.

They stay like that for a moment before his hand reaches her head. She flinches, and for a mere second Hongbin is hesitate (and his scattered heart breaks more severely that sends sting into his eyes) but he smiles and pats her head softly.

Before, she was used to become a bright red before snuggled deeper into his embrace. Before sounds too far away from now.

“Feeling better?”

She waits for a couple of beats before answering ‘not so much’ through her empty, distant voice. It sounds strange to Hongbin’s hearing as he’s used to like her bubbly, high-pitched voice which brings so much joy whenever he listens to it.

Used to. He hates those words so much now.

“I’ll bring you water, wait here, okay?”

Youngji only blinks her eyes, seemingly uninterested with whatever he has in mind to please her—to bring her back. It is clearly an awkward situation for him, while he isn’t quite sure about her. He even doubts she feels anything right now.

Hongbin gets up from the chair he has been sitting on for almost an hour, his steps aiming to the bedroom door. It’s when his ears perk up hearing her chilly voice resonates through their room.

“Lee Hongbin-ssi,”

The woman he used to know, his significant other he has promised forever to, the Heo Youngji Lee Hongbin loves so much would never call his full name. She wouldn’t dare. That is truly impolite, besides, why would you call your own husband with ssi anyway?

His knees weaken as for a split second Hongbin wants to ignore her strange calling. But however strange it is, that is still a progress, isn’t that? So he puts up his fake sweet smile that already immediately hurts his cheeks and turns around. Youngji stares at him in a foreign way he wishes he won’t see it for the next time.

“Yes, Youngji-ya?”

She seems calculating. She scrutinizes him like a vet scanning a wounded fragile puppy. Carefully, Youngji opens to speak again.

“Are you sure it is me who you really love?”

It’s like being slapped hard into the reality. It feels much worse rather than when she finally woke up but didn’t remember him as her husband and asked for Wang Jackson instead.

His smile is instantly broken. His mask that well-set for almost a month shatters into pieces. He can feel the growl inside him, where the urge to scream, to let all of the frustration, disappointment out, and his hands form a fist. His breath becomes uneven as he briskly turns around again, pacing to the door.

“I’m sure. I will love you forever. And I’m not gonna break my promise that easily.”

His voice is light, melts into the thin air, Youngji almost doesn’t catch it. But she does.

What she doesn’t catch though, a tear drops fast onto his cheek and she will never know.

___

They meet at a coffee shop near his work place as she insisted. Youngji thinks it’s better be around familiar face she remembers rather than stuck up in so-called home sweet home with a pair of sad eyes staring at you in despair.

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