Life went on as usual in the Choi household.

It has been months since that incident on the lake and if ever there was a slight indication that something remotely huge has happened, it was not obvious. Shim Changmin fell deeper and deeper in love with his wife yet he had contented himself in watching her silently every time their paths meet in their relatively small home. On whether Choi Sooyoung noticed, nobody knew. There wasn't a single hint of apprehension and awkwardness every time she slings her arm nonchalantly on her husband's shoulders; no implied messages for each time she holds his hands; no indication of anything whenever she gives him an occasional hug. And the city mayor’s son was left alone to himself, talking to the shadows and thinking hard every time he goes back to the guest room that is now his. At night whenever he faced the ceiling and the once uninteresting wall that is now decorated with Seohyun’s one thousand Keroro stickers, Changmin is caught on his languid daydreams of what-could-bes and what-have-beens; tortured with the fact that he cannot even voice out his feelings. For which, his only outlet is to hug tightly the blanket he had smuggled from his wife’s room one day while she was in school.

School. That’s another reason.

Ever since Choi Sooyoung started school, Changmin thought he has been living a life that could be aptly described as hermetic. As it was her final semester in college, Sooyoung embodied the exact stereotype of a graduating student: leaves the house early, goes back home late. The girl had been too busy that the only spare minutes of her time she had shared with Changmin were the brief moments when they sit down on the dinner table. Weekends were not an excuse too. In preparation for her training, Sooyoung applied as a part-time cook on a local restaurant on the next city.

Technically, we are living in one house yet we cannot even pass for society’s definition of what it actually is to “live together”,  Changmin sighed.

Most of the time, he was left alone staring at the paneled walls of the house silently counting the hours tick by. But then he wasn’t simply lounging on a corner all day; Choi Sooyoung made sure that he will be useful. He can still remember the last week before Sooyoung’s classes started. The girl seemed hell-bent on the task of making him an ideal house husband.

She would wake him up at around five and would immediately order him around.

“You need to get used to waking up early. I always leave home at six-thirty so I won’t be late.” She used to tell him.

For seven days, she taught him how to take good care of their little home. She gave him a notebook that would be his guide in housekeeping. In it were instructions how to wash the dishes, do the laundry, tend the strawberries, take care of the vegetables, iron clothes, and the minutest details the girl could think of (even the proper way of piling the pillows in the living room). She also gave him a list of simple recipes that would help him survive his day-to-day life without her to cook for him.

He felt like a child being home-schooled on the subject of running his life but he didn’t mind. He even decided on not telling her that he does know how to iron clothes properly and that he is not the lazy household-idiot that she thinks he is. He just let her boss him around. He knew that after the seven days are up, he would be missing her company.

True enough, when Sooyoung’s classes started, he felt tad sadder than before.

He had anticipated the absence but he didn’t expect the heavy feeling that accompanied it. It was nice being alone and able to wander around the place without Sooyoung barking orders but loneliness crept quickly and Changmin found himself missing the girl badly. He missed seeing her mischievous face first thing in the morning as she’d wake him up; he missed the way she would nag and then hold his hand as she taught him the proper way of ironing the clothes; he missed the way she would hit him with whatever she was holding every time he would purposely answer wrongly on her house-keeping questions. He missed her too much he had gone farther down his usual level of cheesiness by pretending that she is there even when she isn’t. Symptoms include talking to her pictures on the corkboard and having hourly monologues about his suppressed feelings for her.

He laughed amusedly as he immersed on the thought that he, the great Shim Changmin, is in love. And to the kind of girl he least expected to be within his range of interest. The most unlikely girl that is Choi Sooyoung, his wife.

Which explained why he can’t help but crush her into an embrace one Saturday morning when he found her eating donuts in the kitchen instead of being at some contemptible diner cooking what-have-yous for her stupid internship practice.

“Ow, Min! Get off!” Sooyoung shoved him playfully as she laughed between bites.

“I’m not dreaming, am I?” Changmin cupped her face and stared into those eyes. “You’re really here, right?”

“YAH! Are you taking drugs? Of course, I’m here.” She scrunched her nose before flicking his forehead with her index finger. “Get off now. I can’t breathe.”

“Honey, I missed you!” He pulled her into a hug again. Sooyoung blinked furiously in surprise and then she pushed him once again. Changmin looked at her and pouted, his arms still loosely wrapped around her body. “You don’t miss me?” He said meekly as he gave her the most pitiful puppy look he can ever give.

Sooyoung simply giggled at his question but stopped abruptly when she noticed that he was, in fact, serious.

“Well...” The following words were softer. “I do, too.”

She felt her cheeks getting warm to which she immediately changed the topic. “But I’ll be doing some schoolwork later today so I can’t play with you. I need to do my Humanities paper.”

“I can help you!” Changmin volunteered chirpily.

“Oh yeah?”

He simply looked at her with a smug look on his face. “If you haven’t ask…” he raised his right hand and casually pushed back the side of his hair. “I graduated top of my class.” A resolute smirk on his face accompanied the last sentence.

 “Braggart!” Sooyoung answered back at him though she was laughing at his attempt in playing cool. “If you’re so special as you say you are, let’s see how you fare with this movie review I’m doing.”

“BEAUTY AND THE BEAST?” Changmin, basically, shrieked. “The cartoon?!” He stared at her annoyed form before he let himself tumble on the pile of pillows sprawled on the living room floor. His laughter echoed all over the house