“Hey,” Sanghyuk smiled, taking a seat beside his boyfriend and soul mate, “how’s your day been?”

“Mostly great,” Hakyeon replied, moving to rest his head on the older man’s shoulder. Their friends sitting on the other side of the table pretended to gag over the couple’s cuteness.

“Mostly?” Sanghyuk questioned, frowning slightly, “what happened to make it only mostly great.”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Jaehwan answered for Hakyeon, “it’s tall, currently blond, and used to date you.”

“Oh god,” Sanghyuk sighed, “what did Taekwoon do this time?”

Taekwoon had calmed down a great deal since the sabotage attempt on Hakyeon, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still be a jerk when he wanted to be. And when it came to Hakyeon……well, he really wanted to be a jerk to the actor. No one was sure if it was because he still liked Sanghyuk or if he had another reason to hate Hakyeon, but no one was gonna bring the matter up with Taekwoon any time soon.

“He just said some stuff,” Hakyeon assured him, “nothing too horrible.”

“I’d love to know why he does like this,” Wonsik frowned slightly, “it’s been almost two years, you’d think he’d grow up and forget about……whatever it is that pissed him off so much.”

“You’d think,” Sanghyuk nodded in agreement.

“Speaking of two years,” Hongbin grinned, trying to change the subject, “your two year anniversary is coming up, any plans you wanna talk about?”

“I’m not gonna propose on our anniversary,” Sanghyuk rolled his eyes, “it’s too…….cliché. When I ask Hakyeon to marry me……” He trailed of, clearly unwilling to share his actual plans with Hakyeon right there.

“Are you keeping your mouth shut because Hakyeon is here?” Jaehwan questioned, “Or because you don’t actually have a plan?”

“First one,” Sanghyuk replied, smirking slightly, “trust me, I’ve got an amazing plan.”

“Then you--,” Jaehwan started to say, but was cut off by Sanghyuk’s phone.

“Hang on,” Sanghyuk said, frowning slightly as he read the text she’d sent, “it’s my sister.”

“What did she say?” Hakyeon asked, trying to see what the message said.

He liked Sanghyuk’s sister a lot. Her husband and kids, too. Sanghyuk had introduced him to them shortly after their one year anniversary. They’d been very warm and welcoming to him, making him feel like he’d always been part of the family. At one point, Sanghyuk’s sister had pulled him aside to talk. She’d told him how happy she was that Sanghyuk had found him, that she hadn’t seen her brother so happy in a long time. She admitted that she’d been more than a little surprised to find out he was Sanghyuk’s soul mate when he brother first told her about Hakyeon, but after meeting him she totally understood.

He hadn’t met Sanghyuk’s parents. Considering everything he knew about them, he figured he never would and was perfectly fine with it. He’d rather not meet the people who’d hurt Sanghyuk.

“Our parents are in town,” Sanghyuk scowled, voice filled with cold hatred, “they want to have a family dinner.”

“I take it you can’t pass on it?” Wonsik asked, watching his friend and band mate carefully.

“Our grandfather is apparently going to be there,” Sanghyuk sighed, “so no, I can’t.”

If it was just his parents, he and his sister would pass hard on a family dinner. But they loved their grandfather and didn’t often get to see him since he – and their parents – lived so far away. For the chance to see him, they could put up with their parents for a few hours. Their grandfather was totally worth whatever crap their mother and father could dish out.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Hakyeon assured his boyfriend, “I’ll be right there with you.”

“No,” Sanghyuk told him, “I don’t want you anywhere near those two. If there was more of a buffer there, like some of my aunts and uncles and cousins……..sure, I’d love to bring you along. But when it’s just me, my sister, her husband, my grandfather, and them? No.”

“But I don’t want you to go by yourself,” Hakyeon pressed, “and what if they’ve heard about us? I mean, they probably have, it’s not like we’ve kept our relationship hidden from the media. I need to be there.”

“I can deal with whatever they say,” Sanghyuk insisted, “I’ve heard so much from them that it doesn’t even register anymore. But you…..you don’t need to hear that kind of crap.”

“Think he’ll end up taking Hakyeon?” Hongbin whispered to Wonsik.

“It’s Hakyeon,” Wonsik replied, “when has he ever lost an argument?”

--

“I shouldn’t have let you come,” Sanghyuk muttered, tightening his hold on Hakyeon’s hand as his mother made a thinly veiled insult about Hakyeon.

“Better we both suffer then just one,” Hakyeon replied, doing his best to pretend that her words had no effect on him.

They didn’t hurt him. No matter how many times she implied that Hakyeon wasn’t good enough for someone like Sanghyuk or his father made an indirect remark questioning Hakyeon’s faithfulness, it didn’t hurt him at all. Hakyeon knew he was good enough for Sanghyuk, his lover made that clear ages ago when Hakyeon had once doubted his worthiness of being Sanghyuk’s soul mate. He knew he would never two-time Sanghyuk and his lover knew that as well.

No, those comments just made him angry.

Angry that Sanghyuk had to hear garbage like that.

Angry that Sanghyuk had been hearing those two spill such venomous words for years.

He wanted to yell at them, call them out for everything they had done. But Hakyeon held it in. Yelling any of that would only make it worse for Sanghyuk. They were in public after all. Sanghyuk didn’t need his personal family business on the from page of the local tabloids. His sister and grandfather didn’t need that either. Especially his grandfather who didn’t know anything about what his son and daughter-in-law had put his grandchildren through.

“It’s starting to get late,” Sanghyuk said, pulling Hakyeon from his thoughts, “I’m afraid that Hakyeon and I need to be getting home.”

“We’ve got full schedules tomorrow,” Hakyeon nodded in agreement.

“Really?” Sanghyuk’s grandfather said, “that’s too bad.”

“We should head home, too,” Sanghyuk’s sister spoke up, “I’m sure the babysitter will want to go home soon.”

The group exchanged goodbyes, Sanghyuk’s parents wisely keeping their words to a minimum. Sanghyuk and Hakyeon ended up promising to come visit his grandfather soon, a promise that both were happy to make. The old man was wonderful and sweet, it made Hakyeon wonder how on earth such a great man could be the father of Sanghyuk’s dad.

“I’m so sorry you had to sit through that,” Sanghyuk said once they were in the car and headed for home, “I really wish you hadn’t talked me into letting you come along.”

“It’s alright,” Hakyeon assured him. “I’m just happy you didn’t have to go through all that alone. I can’t imagine how much worse they would have been if I wasn’t there.”

“Probably wouldn’t have been much worse,” Sanghyuk shrugged, “Mother probably wouldn’t have made half as many comments insulting you, but Father would have doubled up on questioning your loyalty.”

“Just because he was a cheat,” Hakyeon huffed, “and his wife was a cheat doesn’t mean I’m one, too. I’m not like them at all.”

“I know,” Sanghyuk smiled, “I’d be an idiot if I didn’t know that.”

“I’m just so mad,” Hakyeon sighed, trying to relax, “they said crap just like that to you when you were a kid, right? Trying to put thoughts in your head that I’d be just as unfaithful? That you weren’t good enough at anything?”

“Yeah,” Sanghyuk admitted, “I always knew that they were full of it, that they just wanted to make me and my sister as bitter and hateful and horrible as them.”

“They’re horrible,” Hakyeon hissed, “I hate them.”

“Same here,” Sanghyuk replied,

“I wish you’d had better parents,” Hakyeon said, reaching over to grab one of Sanghyuk’s hands, “I wish you didn’t have to grow up with the ones you had.”

The pair fell silent after that, Sanghyuk watching the road and Hakyeon watching Sanghyuk.

“Thank you,” Sanghyuk said after he’d parked the car, “for being there with me tonight. For putting up with all that and not reacting. I know you must have wanted to scream at them most of the night, tell them off for everything they’ve done.”

“It was so hard,” Hakyeon admitted, “before you got us out of there, I was sure I was going to snap.”

“I could tell,” Sanghyuk laughed slightly, “why do you think I got us out of there when I did?”

“I love you,” Hakyeon smiled slightly, bringing their joined hands closer to his face so that he could kiss the back of Sanghyuk’s hand.

“And I love you, too,” Sanghyuk replied, reaching into his pants pocket with his unoccupied hand to retrieve a little box, “which is why I want to marry you.”

“Was this your proposal plan?” Hakyeon laughed, taking the box from Sanghyuk and putting on the ring that was inside.

“No,” Sanghyuk said, “I had a much better proposal planned out, but this…….this felt like the perfect moment.”

“It is pretty perfect,” Hakyeon hummed in agreement, “I love you, Mr. Cha Sanghyuk.”

“And I love you,” Sanghyuk replied, “Mr. Han Hakyeon.”

“Hyphenate?” Hakyeon asked after a moment.

“Cha-Han has a nice ring to it,” Sanghyuk replied.

“Cha-Han it is,” Hakyeon grinned before moving to kiss his fiancé.

A/N: I had to re-read Your Mark Part 1 in order to get the idea for this. I feel bad for making Taekwoon a jerk. Again. Other than that, I really love how this one turned out.