Chapter 7
“And that was another hit single from Cho Kyuhyun! Let’s all give him another round of applause!”

Kyuhyun smiled and waved and bowed before taking a seat across the MC’s.

They proceeded to talk about his song especially for Japanese fans. He told them about how the preparations were going and how happy he was that he was being given such a chance to show how much he’s grown, debuting in Japan by himself.

The MC nodded then looked at his cue cards. Smiling, he continued, “A lot of people are very interested in your personal life, most especially now that you’re married.”

“Ah yes,” Kyuhyun responded with a small and shy smile.

“What do you like most about being married?” the MC asked.

“There are many things,” Kyuhyun began, looking somewhat thoughtful. “But I guess what I like most is the fact that I have someone to go through life with, someone who will love me through everything and for all time.”

A chorus of awww’s sounded from the audience, which made Kyuhyun feel even shyer.

“It seems married life is going well for you,” the MC observed, smiling at him.

“Yes it is,” Kyuhyun confirmed, beaming.

Pause.

“You better stop lying, Cho Kyuhyun. Your married life hasn’t been a bed of roses.”

~ * ~

“That was a great performance!” a voice came through the doorway.

Kyuhyun looked up, glancing at the visitor through the mirror in front of him. He had just finished another performance, his last in Japan for a while. He’d been having a lot of discussions with his management in the months that had passed. He wanted to stop performing in Japan so much and just focus his activities in Korea once more. He wanted to continue doing activities with the members, even if they weren’t complete. Heechul and Yesung had both entered the army almost two months ago. It had always been Heechul’s plan to enter the army in June. But Yesung surprised everyone when he said he was going, too. Kyuhyun wanted to do activities with his SM The Ballad members, too. They debuted in a time when he was very much active in Japan, which made him miss a lot of their performances, which he felt really bad about. He’d been promoting in Japan for two years already. He figured it was about time he went back home for good.

“Hyung!” Kyuhyun gasped loudly, looking very much surprised at Leeteuk’s presence. He immediately stood up and walked over to him, giving him a tight hug. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know, I was in the neighborhood,” Leeteuk nonchalantly stated with a shrug.

“Yeah right,” Kyuhyun snorted. Then he grinned and gave him another hug. “But I’m glad you’re here anyway. I missed you.”

“Missed you, too, magnae,” Leeteuk said, pulling away and ruffling his dongsaeng’s hair. “So… how are you? How’s everything? Have you packed?” he asked as they left the waiting room and proceeded to the building entrance, going through hallways. After the performance, he was scheduled to go to the airport to go straight home.

“Everything’s good,” Kyuhyun confidently answered. “I am coming home, after all.” He beamed at the thought. He couldn’t wait to see everyone again, to be with everyone again. Especially his wife. Jin Ri.

He suddenly stopped walking at this thought, confusing Leeteuk, and immediately pulled his phone out to call her before he remembered how they had gotten into another fight the previous night.

He had called her because he missed her. She was busy when he did, which got him irritated because he wanted so much to talk to her until the sun rose, which was supposed to be their thing. They were supposed to watch the sun rise together as much as they could, just like how her parents did when they were still alive. But she was busy. And then, in the background, he heard Keiji’s voice. That riled him up because she had told him that they had stopped hanging out. The conversation went downhill from there.

Recently, whenever they talked, even when he was at home, all they ever seemed to do was fight, and over the smallest of things, too. It really bothered him and made him wonder why they were getting on each other’s nerves so much. They were never like that in the past.

“What’s wrong?” Leeteuk asked, watching the magnae stare at his phone, as if contemplating something, then pocketing it. “You should call her,” he gently suggested when his question wasn’t answered as they started walking again.

Kyuhyun let out a breath. “We got into another fight, hyung,” he shared. “I don’t understand why we’re fighting so much. We’ve never fought like this before and not so many times.” He turned to his hyung. “Do you and Angie noona fight like this?”

“Yes,” Leeteuk answered without missing a beat.

“You do?” Kyuhyun asked, clearly surprised. He would’ve thought that someone like Leeteuk and Angie, with the kind of relationship that they had, never really had arguments.

Leeteuk smiled fondly at his dongsaeng, who obviously thought too highly of his relationship with Angie. “Of course we do,” he confirmed. “Sometimes you fight even more with the people whom you love the most.”

“What do you and Angie noona fight about?” Kyuhyun prodded, looking baffled at this information.

“Everything,” Leeteuk answered, chuckling. “We fight about washing the dishes, taking care of the kids, being too busy, not having time for each other… everything. We even fight about who gets to turn off the light when going to bed.”

“That’s…” Kyuhyun trailed off, not knowing what to say.

“That’s the reality, Kyu,” Leeteuk stated, putting an arm around his shoulders. “You aren’t always going to like each other no matter how much you love one another.” He patted his dongsaeng’s shoulder. “As long as you make up at the end of the day…”

Kyuhyun sighed. “That’s the thing, hyung. Since I’ve been going back and forth to Japan—staying mostly in Japan these past few months, sometimes we just don’t talk about it. It’s like, since we’re in this distance, we’ve allowed ourselves to just drift away from each other,” he elaborated dejectedly.

Leeteuk watched as Kyuhyun let out another breath. He looked really sad and upset about his current situation with his wife. The older really didn’t know how else to console him but to allow him to vent his frustrations and concerns out. Fighting is a reality in couples. There was no way going around that. It didn’t matter how in love he and Angie were with each other. There would always be days that one would be annoyed with what the other did.

“She talks about nothing else when we see her, you know,” Leeteuk comforted him with a smile on his face. The younger looked at him, a light appearing in his eyes. It comforted Leeteuk to know that he was obviously always going to be in love with his wife, despite all the fighting. A certain light always appeared in Kyuhyun’s eyes every time Jin Ri was brought up. “She always talks about how she misses you and always asks these questions about what your family would be like.” He chuckled. “It’s always like this when she comes over to help babysit Sungjoo and Sunhee.”

That brought a smile to Kyuhyun’s face that wasn’t wiped off the whole journey home.

~ * ~

The airport was full of people. There were a lot of people rushing past him, most hurrying towards their flights, afraid of being late. There were also a lot of people who were there just because they found out that Leeteuk and Kyuhyun were arriving from Japan.

Leeteuk raised up a hand to wave at the fans that seemed to have been waiting a long time for them. Meanwhile, Kyuhyun merely smiled as he pressed his phone to his ear, waiting for the person he was calling to answer.

“Hey,” Kyuhyun immediately greeted, rather excitedly as soon as his call was answered. “Princess! I just arrived.”

“Kyuhyun,” Jin Ri greeted. He could hear the excitement and happiness in her voice. It made his smile bigger. “Are you with Leeteuk oppa?”

“Yes, he’s with me. Where are you? Are you waiting in the car upfront?” Kyuhyun proceeded to ask, craning his neck to look around.

There was a hesitation that made him turn his attention back to her. “I’m not at the airport,” she told him meekly. “Eunhyuk oppa and Donghae oppa are picking you up.”

For the first time since he and Leeteuk talked, he wasn’t smiling. “Are you stuck at work?” he calmly asked, not wanting to start a fight when he only just got home. He looked at when Leeteuk nudged him, giving him a curious look, to which he just ignored. He started following his hyung around the airport to go to the entrance.

“I’m… yes,” Jin Ri answered, a hesitation in her voice. “Are you on your way home already?”

“Can’t you get out early? You know that I was coming home today,” Kyuhyun started, becoming increasingly irritated. “Couldn’t you have put work off for one evening?”

“Kyuhyun,” she began to reason, but he cut her off.

“What is it that you have to do?” he sharply asked.

“There are some photos that need editing and I have to hand them in tomorrow morning,” she explained, sounding helpless.

He and Leeteuk had reached the entrance and had seen Eunhyuk and Donghae, who had both gotten out of the car, helping them with their bags.

“Let’s go out and drink,” Donghae merrily suggested. He had missed Kyuhyun a lot when he was away and wanted to spend some time with him.

“He should spend time with Ri,” Leeteuk interjected, shaking his head. “And I have to get home to Angie.”

“The hyungs are asking to go out,” Kyuhyun relayed to his wife, earning him a stern look from the oldest male.

“Oh,” Jin Ri said, sounding disappointed. “So you’re going to go out with them before coming home?”

“It doesn’t matter, right? Since you’ll be working and everything,” Kyuhyun spat.

“But I—,” she began, but he interrupted her.

Before she or anyone else could say anything, Kyuhyun told Jin Ri through the phone, “I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’ll call you later.”

“Kyuhyun—,” she started, but he had already ended the call.

“So where are we going?” Kyuhyun asked his hyungs as they all go inside the car, ignoring the vibrating of his phone in his pocket. He knew it was Jin Ri calling, but he really didn’t want to talk to her at the moment. It was childish of him, he knew. But it just really ticked him off knowing that she didn’t even seem to make an effort to see him when she knew that he was coming home. And for good, too.

“Kyu, shouldn’t we just bring you home?” Eunhyuk uncertainly suggested, glancing up at him through the rearview mirror.

When Kyuhyun didn’t answer and just stared out of the window, Leeteuk stepped in. “Did you two have another fight?”

“She’s at work,” Kyuhyun simply responded. “Let’s just go out and drink. I could use some right now.”

“Kyu,” Donghae started to argue.

“Please don’t, hyungs,” Kyuhyun insisted. “Not now.”

~ * ~

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Kyuhyun announced, standing up after chugging down another glass of soju.

Eunhyuk and Donghae—Leeteuk had asked to be brought home—watched as their magnae left. Kyuhyun hadn’t done much talking when they arrived at the bar. All he had done was drink and drink and drink. They wondered how bad things were getting between him and Jin Ri that he had to resort to drinking as such. But they didn’t want to meddle, as things usually got worse when other people involved themselves in another’s problems.

So the two boys decided to just enjoy themselves. They hadn’t been out in such a long time and opportunities like these were rare for them. Donghae suddenly stood up to greet someone who had just walked inside the exclusive lounge they were staying in. Nichkhun, followed by Junsu, made a beeline for them. They exchanged greetings, hugs and a bit of conversation.

“Is it just the two of you?” Nichkhun asked, glancing around the lounge.

“Kyu went to the bathroom,” Eunhyuk supplied.

“That’s him, right?” Junsu voiced out, leaning on the balcony, his gaze at the bar. Nichkhun followed where he was looking, along with Eunhyuk and Donghae.

True enough, Kyuhyun was hanging out at the bar, talking to a seemingly pretty girl. Eunhyuk and Donghae exchanged a quick look before immediately excusing themselves from Nichkhun and Junsu. They hurriedly made their way downstairs, not even bothering to cover their faces as it was dark anyway.

“Hey,” Donghae greeted Kyuhyun without warning, putting an arm around the younger’s shoulders and squeezing it with enough force. Kyuhyun flinched. “We were wondering where you were.”

“Are these your members?” the girl Kyuhyun was talking to asked, peering at them interestedly through her long lashes.

She was pretty. With long dark hair, a tiny, doll-like face, big eyes and a beautiful smile. It would be hard for any man to not find her attractive.

Her smile growing wider, she reached her hand out and offered to shake their hands. “I’m Shim Hyo Sun,” she introduced herself, bowing politely as both boys shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Eunhyuk shyly responded. He was always shy when it came to pretty girls. But he gave a curious look to Kyuhyun.

“She was a high school classmate,” Kyuhyun informed them, glancing at Hyo Sun.

“Is that all I was, a high school classmate?” Hyo Sun teased, making Kyuhyun laugh, which surprised his hyungs. Just minutes ago, he was in a very sour mood.

“Definitely not,” Kyuhyun confirmed and they both chuckled, obviously laughing at some inside joke.

“Well it’s getting late,” Hyo Sun said. “I should get going.” She had noticed that Eunhyuk and Donghae looked impatient and she didn’t want to bother them anymore. “It was nice to see you again,” she told Kyuhyun, turning to him.

“It’s nice to see you too,” Kyuhyun agreed, smiling warmly and affectionately at her. “We should meet and catch up some other time, at a place less noisy,” he then offered.

She smiled at this and nodded. “That would be nice,” she stated. She took something out of her purse, which turned out to be a calling card, and wrote something on the back of it. After which, she handed it to Kyuhyun. “I wrote my mobile phone number down.” She smiled when he pocketed the card. “I really hope you’re going to call me to meet up, Cho Kyuhyun. It’s been too long.”

“I will,” Kyuhyun promised.

Smiling once more, she bowed to the three of them. “I’ll be leaving then.” With a small wave, she left, making her way through the dancing crowd.

Donghae and Eunhyuk then both turned to Kyuhyun, eyebrows raised.

“What?” Kyuhyun asked.

“Who was that?” Donghae demanded.

“I told you,” Kyuhyun explained. “We were high school classmates.”

“How come we’ve never heard of her?” Eunhyuk then asked.

“Yeah because I need to tell you everyone I knew back in high school,” Kyuhyun responded in sarcasm. “Really, hyung.” He rolled his eyes at him as they made their way back upstairs to the lounge. “We became friends back in second year.”

“Does Na Young know her?” Donghae wanted to know.

“She does. But I haven’t seen Hyo Sun since our third year in high school,” Kyuhyun remembered, frowning at the thought.

“Are you sure you guys were just friends?” Donghae pressed.

Kyuhyun smiled a little. “Well, before Na Young, there was Hyo Sun.”

Before Eunhyuk or Donghae could ask a follow up question, they had reached the lounge and were met by Taeyeon and Kangin, who had both just arrived.

“What are you guys doing here?” Kyuhyun asked in amazement after hugging both Kangin and Taeyeon. He had grown much closer to Taeyeon since she had become one of Jin Ri’s best friends.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Taeyeon teasingly shot back. She looked behind him. “Where’s Ri? I thought she said you two were staying in tonight. You know, for some quality time.” She snickered along with the boys.

“Jin Ri’s at work,” Kyuhyun flatly told them, grabbing a bottle of soju from their table. All of a sudden he was thirsty again.

“What are you talking about?” Taeyeon asked, looking confused, as Kangin grabbed the soju bottle from the magnae and drank it himself. She looked thoughtful for a second. “She told me that… You mean you didn’t go home? You went straight here from the airport?” She glanced at Eunhyuk and Donghae, who were both nodding furtively. She glanced at her watch. It was almost midnight.

“She’s working,” Kyuhyun defended himself. “What am I going to do alone at an empty house?”

“Uh, wait for your wife? Or pick her up at work?” Kangin suggested. His girlfriend elbowed him in the stomach.

“Oppa, you should go home,” she calmly but worriedly told Kyuhyun. “I’m sure she’s home by now,” she added at once.

“Fine,” Kyuhyun said, glancing at the others. It was obvious they all wanted him to go home. He looked at Taeyeon, who worriedly looked at her watch once more. He wondered what she looked so concerned about. “I’ll see you guys then.”

Kyuhyun took a cab, only carrying the bag with his personal artifacts and leaving his luggage in Eunhyuk’s car, and went straight home like he told the others he would.

As he looked out of the window, he thought of how he would apologize to Jin Ri. It really was wrong of him to have put the phone down on her and to have ignored her phone calls afterwards. He never expected her to drop things for him before and he shouldn’t be starting now. He knew how much she loved him, how much she cared and how willing she was to do everything for him. He had witnessed that already.

Leaning his head back on the headrest at the back of the cab, he closed his eyes and willed himself to think of his favorite images of her. Different images of her flashed through his head: Jin Ri walking down the church aisle in a beautiful white wedding gown; Jin Ri taking photos; Jin Ri writing lyrics and composing songs; Jin Ri looking like she was going to pass out after he had kissed her; Jin Ri cheering for him in his performances and concerts; Jin Ri in her pink dress underneath the cherry blossoms. There were more, but he thought that his most favorite image of her is her sleeping and waking up beside him every morning ever since they got married. She was his wife and forever will be.

He smiled as he got out of the cab and entered the I-Park building entrance. He really couldn’t wait to see her. He really should have just gone home after leaving the airport and shouldn’t have allowed his anger to take reign on him. He missed her terribly and not coming home to see his wife the first thing didn’t really show that.

As he quietly entered the dim apartment, he looked around and saw Jin Ri sitting down on the couch, sleeping. Her head was bent to the side, resting on the armrest. Crouching down in front of her, he lightly prodded her awake. When she didn’t even move a muscle, he stood up and gently lifted her up and carried her into his arms.

“Kyu?” Jin Ri muttered, her eyelids fluttering open.

“I’m taking you to bed,” Kyuhyun softly told her, giving her forehead a light kiss as he padded towards their bedroom.

“You’re here,” she said, smiling, putting her arms around his neck and leaning her head on his shoulder, ignoring the smell of alcohol on him.

“I’m here,” he confirmed as he laid her down on her spot. He sat down beside her, on the edge of the bed, and caressed her hair.

“Are you hungry?” she then asked, feeling more awake. She slowly sat up and cutely rubbed her right eye. “I made some food. I could heat it and—.”

He shook his head and shushed her. “You should get some sleep.”

“What about you?” she asked, looking at him worriedly. “Aren’t you coming to bed?”

“Of course I am,” he told her. “I’ll just get dressed.” He leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the lips. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she acquiesced, nodding and lying back down, closing her eyes.

Kyuhyun stood up and quietly left the room when he noticed that she had fallen back to sleep. He went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. As he entered, he stopped in his tracks, staring at the kitchen counter. Jin Ri had mentioned that she had made him some food, but what he saw on the counter wasn’t just food. It was a full on feast. It seemed like she had made him all his favorites. She even baked a cake.

He walked towards the counter and leaned against it, his elbows supporting his weight. Hanging his head and closing his eyes, he remembered Taeyeon looking at her watch and being worried. Now he understood. There weren’t any photos that she needed to edit. She was never at work. She just pretended because she wanted to surprise him.

When he joined her on the bed a little while later, after fixing the kitchen and getting dressed, he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a long and deep kiss. He didn’t care if it woke her up, which it did.

“Kyu?” she asked, opening her eyes, sounding breathless.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, giving her another kiss. “I missed you. I really did.”

She smiled at him and touched his face. “I missed you, too. I’m glad you’re home.”

“For good,” he added.

“For good,” she repeated rather happily. She looked at him for a second, smiling, before her expression turned into one of concern. “Did you eat anything before you drank? I know you and your hyungs get carried away with drinking and never eat anything.”

“I didn’t,” he told him, kissing her again. “But I’m fine. I’m not hungry for food.” He put a hand on her waist, slightly lifting her shirt up.

“Are you sure?” she asked, ignoring his advances. “I could heat something. I’d rather you eat.”

“Princess,” he stated, his voice low and rough as he inched closer towards her. “I haven’t seen you, my wife, for a month. I missed you.” His face was mere inches away from hers, his breath ghosting her face. It made her shiver. “Right now, the only thing I’m hungry for is you.”

“I missed you, too, Kyu,” she responded with a giggle, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Want to show me just how much?” he asked excitedly, his arms around her waist.

She shook her head. Before her husband could protest, she added, “I’d rather show you how much I love you.” She wiggled her eyebrows in a manner that made him laugh.

“I’m waiting,” he teased, pulling her flush to him, sealing her lips with a kiss.