❝ chapter forty-two

s o l a r ’ s

I woke up at 9am sharp to cook breakfast for Eric because technically, we’re now officially and legally married and I should cook a decent breakfast for him at least once and he has always been the one cooking for me. But it’s me we’re talking about and unsurprisingly, I completely ruined the breakfast again so we ended up ordering a breakfast burrito for Eric and a bowl of kimchi stew for me. It was embarrassing because Eric wasn’t even surprised anymore and he just cooly suggested we ordered out. 

I snuggled against Eric on our bed and occasionally he’d planted a kiss on top of my head. He’s reading something on his phone but I’m too sleepy to see what it is and mainly because it’s entirely in English too. 

    I almost fell asleep again when he asked, “Can I ask you something?”

    Sleepily, I mumbled, “Hm?” 

    “Why did you still keep everything I gave you during our wgm days even though you didn’t plan to date me afterwards?” 

Eric never knew I actually kept all of those things until we moved into this house and I brought all of it with me. He thought I’d either threw it away or I’d just lose it because that’s how I am and I’m also with him on that because I thought I’d do exactly all of those too but strangely enough, it never happened and when he found out that I still kept them, he never really got to ask why either because we were busy with the wedding plans.

I pulled his now free hand closer to me and fiddled with his fingers. They’re warm, Eric’s skin has always been warm no matter how cold the room is. Back when I still didn’t know, I thought he had a fever several times and freaked out all by myself and he had to constantly reassured me that it wasn’t fever. 

    “Because I didn’t want to forget you.” I said and I could feel him watching me but I didn’t want to look up into his eyes in case I get the sudden urge to cry. “I rejected someone I really love, the least I could do was keeping everything he once gave me just so I could looked back and be reminded that I also fell in love with the right guy even thought it might not work out between us.” 

    I stole a quick glance at him. “Did you throw everything away?” 

I already knew the answer before he even answered but I still asked anyway. Eric never really threw away anything he received. He just kept them and stored them somewhere then forgot about them but he never just threw them away. He just didn’t have the heart to do it and that was also how I came to know how his ex-girlfriends looked like and what they gave him as presents but he didn’t know about that and I didn’t want to tell him either. 

When I told the girls about it, Wheein asked how could I not get jealous over that and I told her it was pointless to get jealous or angry over it now. We both had our own memories of our pasts before we met and he respected mine so I should do too. And I know Eric, he’s only keeping those for the sake of memories and he’s not really thinking about them and I didn’t want to hold him back from his memories either. It might be painful or happy memories for him but it’s his memories and I don’t have the rights to decide whether he should keep or throw them away.  

    “No, I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away too.” Now he’s the only who’s fiddling with my fingers. 

    I watch as his thumb and index finger gently play with mine. “You know, my sister cried so much when she found out you proposed. She was so mad at me that day after I rejected you at the park.”

    Eric laughs and it sound carefree like he no longer has any worry of whatever arounds him and it puts me at ease too. “Why?” 

    I shrugged. “Something about I’ve just let go of my own potential source of happiness. I’ve never told you this before, but she approved of you ever since our wgm days. She may sounded and acted indifferent when she first met you but she was on cloud nine when she knew we were dating for real.” 

He smiled at that and I sighed in content. My mind shifted back to that one night when he confessed for the first time. What would have happened if I accepted him right there? Would we be as we are right now or would it not work out this well? But knowing us, I’m confident we could work it out because we both couldn’t stay mad at each other for too long. I’m stubborn and sometimes he also is but we both listened well to each other and somehow, we both just ended up apologizing first the next few hour no matter whose fault it was. We both know it’s pointless to stay mad at each other for too long. 

    “What do you think would have happened if I didn’t change my mind during the MBC Entertainment Awards?” 

    He traced his finger gently along my palm. “I’d hate to admit it but I think we would both moved on with our lives and careers and just looked back on our memories bitterly whenever we came across each other’s names.” 

I sighed. Even the thought of it broke my heart although I had to agreed with him, we’re both stubborn when it came to our decisions. I snuggled closer in Eric, taking in his warmth as my comfort. He stopped tracing his fingers along my palm and instead held onto it tightly. 

Up until the wedding ceremony, I’ve had doubt about my own decision and it’s not because he made me regret my decision to marry him or anything but I just have doubts about every decision I’ve made — every single time. I didn’t know if it was right of me that I should be doing all of these when the people who gave me so much could be hurt by this but these thoughts went away every time when I remembered what Eric means to me. Although my career and my moomoos mean the whole world to me, Eric means just as much and just like how I should not or don’t want to give up on them, I also don’t want to give up on him. He helps me finds my ease and comforts and when we said our vows, I knew I made the right decision saying I do.  

    “Thank you for marrying me.” His voice comes off soft and sincere and I know he means every single word of it.

    I smiled and hummed back in reply. After a short while, I said, “Come on, let’s get some more sleep. We still have luggages to pack and a late night flight to catch.” 

Eric groans and pulls me closer to him by my waist, then buries his face into the side of my face. I giggle when he complains that he hates packing. He has always hated packing and unpacking, even back when we were dating, I’d be the one packing and unpacking his luggages and checking if he forgot anything because he only threw stuffs in without double checking it — that was how much he hates packing. Once, he kept his luggage the way it was for almost  a month after he came back from his tour and only unpacked because he realized how empty his wardrobe was without half of his clothes in it. 

    “I’ll help you pack.” I whisper and turn so I can plan a soft kiss on his cheek. “But you’re cooking those instant noodle and spicy rice cakes for me on our honeymoon.”

ahhhhhhh, so this is finally the end of this story ☹☹ i'm sorry i took so long to upload this chapter, it was new year in my country several days ago and i was over at my grandparents' house and i didn't bring my laptop with me and maybe because i wasn't ready to end this too ;-----; but now that it really ends, i just want to thanks everyone for showing so much supports for this fanfic, it means a lottttt to me and thank you so much for coming along on this journey with me ;-------;♡ i'm glad to see that there are people who are still supporting ddongie like i am even though we know it might be impossible for them to be together (or even to do a collab ☹). i've said this in my last chapter but srsly, i'm forever grateful for everyone who supported this fanfic and i hope you've all enjoyed reading this as much as i've enjoyed writing it for you. ilyyyy and i hope you have a nice day (or a gooood night sleep if you're reading this at night). byee♡