What comes after a ‘Happily Ever After’? Everyone knows about the big chase, the scary confession, the awkward first dates, the steamy bedroom scenes. But what comes after all that? If this was a normal relationship he had, he would ask the girl for her hand in marriage, meet the parents, plan for a few kids, plan some more for their future.

But this wasn’t a normal relationship he had.

Kim Minseok was gay. He had a relationship with a person called Luhan. He calls it relationship because he’s not quite sure what Luhan calls it.

They kiss. They go on coffee dates. They . But what’s that called? Dating? Are they boyfriends? Luhan doesn’t like to call it anything. Because if you start calling it anything, you need to have an ending, he said. How’s our story going to end? Luhan had said through very tired eyes, drunk with beer, sitting on Minseok’s couch.

Where in our storybook could we put a ‘happily ever after’?

MInseok had no answer to that. So he left their relationship without a label. But when his parents ask him about his life, has he found someone? Has he found someone that’s worth the old diamond ring his mom had given him? Was he going to be fine waking up alone for the rest of his life? His mom had looked so worried that her gay son wouldn’t find anyone that wanted to stay in his life.  

Minseok wanted to reassure that it was fine. He found someone. Other homouals actually existed in Korea. Though Luhan wasn’t a Korean. He wanted to tell her that he actually had a boyfriend.

But I’m not your boyfriend. Because that means we have are emotionally attached. And all attachments can be broken.

So what are we?

Friends.

So Minseok just stays quiet and lets his mom comfort him for being a 30 year old bachelor.

Minseok sighs and wishes his and Luhan’s story could reach a happy ending. Because he loved Luhan very much. He doesn’t know if this feeling was mutual, but with all the love that he held for his… friend, he thinks that he has enough loved poured out for the both of them. So Minseok tells Luhan exactly that.

I love you.

And Minseok couldn’t reach Luhan the very next day. Nor the week after. Nor the week after that. In fact, Luhan disappeared for a one whole year.

I’m sorry. Where are you? Call me back.

Where are you? Please come back.

I’ll try to control my feelings for you. I’m sorry. Please come back.

I miss you. Please come back.

Are you doing well? I heard you quit your job. Please come back.

You cleared out your flat too. Where are you? Please come back.

Luhan’s voice mail holder actually beeps twice when the messages are full and Minseok is unable to leave one. But Minseok does so anyway.

I don’t love you anymore. Please come back.

Luhan showed up on his doorstep the very next day - looking like he had never left Seoul to start with and Minseok was just crazy enough to think that one simple sentence drove him away.

Minseok had so many questions to ask him. But he let them all hold when Luhan asked him to walk with him down by the river. Minseok didn’t question Luhan’s sanity - it was freezing cold in the middle of the winter.

They walked for over an hour. Minseok noticed small changes then. Luhan left his hair abit longer, hiding that mole just at the bottom of his ear. His hair was dyed a bit of a lighter blonde. That made him look prettier. But he bit on his bottom lip. He can’t be saying these things. He promised Luhan no love. How strange that sounded even saying it to himself in his head. Because as sure as the sky over him was blue, he loved Luhan. But Luhan can’t know that.

“You said you didn’t love me anymore.” Luhan had stopped walking. Minseok lets a cold breeze pass by before gathering his senses again. Because god, he missed that voice.

Minseok nodded and grunted because he doesn’t trust himself to lie in front of Luhan.

“Why did you come back?” What was the point of coming back then? Minseok was tired. He loved Luhan but Luhan clearly had other plans. Commitment issues or what not. Minseok no longer wanted to deal with them. Because he had been staring at his phone for the past year wishing an unknown number would dial in and he would hear Luhan’s voice. And many more years hoping that certain words would come out along with his voice.

Minseok was so tired.

“Because you didn’t love me anymore.”

Wasn’t that what he wanted? Minseok must have looked confused because Luhan just chuckled. White puffs of air coming of his nose and mouth, a scarf coming around Luhan’s pale, thin neck and red cheeks decorated his face. Minseok wanted nothing more but to hug him and hold him tight. But he held his hands down.

“I realised I didn’t want that.”

“You said you didn’t want a relationship.”

Luhan smiled and took a step towards Xiumin. “You’re right. I still don’t.”

“That’s so-”

“Selfish?” Luhan finished for him. Minseok nodded.

“I don’t want to give up anything, Minseok. Not my heart, not my life. I don’t want to waste my feelings on something so fleeting. Where do we go from being in a relationship, Minseok? We move in together. We grow old. We die. Is that it? What’s so different from us just accompanying through our lives where we can still give and derive pleasure from each other?”

Minseok just looked Luhan through his whole monologue. He didn’t agree a word of it. It’s different. It has to be. It feels different with Luhan.

“But I take pleasure in you loving me. I knew you did. I just couldn’t face the truth of it when you told me that. I can’t give you the same. I can’t give you what you need, Minseok. And I don’t want you to ask me of what I can’t give. So I left.”

Luhan was such a selfish bastard. Why did he fall in love with such a selfish bastard?

“I thought if we were friends, it’d be much easier. Lovers can fall in and out of love so easily. But as friends… as friends we’re together forever.”

Minseok looked at Luhan, shaking. He doesn’t think it was from the cold though.

“You can’t decide what I see you as, Luhan.”

Minseok can see Luhan was crying now.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Luhan lifted his head, letting Minseok see fresh tears running down those red cheeks.

“Why don’t you love me anymore?”

Minseok wanted to tell Luhan that he did. He never stopped loving. But he didn’t want Luhan to leave.

“We are friends. Friends don’t love each other like that.” Luhan looked dumbstruck, caught by his own words.

Minseok wanted to slap himself for using Luhan’s words against him. Maybe he wanted Luhan to hurt a little bit. Let him experience what he put Minseok through. Just a little bit.

Luhan disappeared the next day. For 2 years this time.

Minseok still picks up the phone everyday, still dials the same number, still hits the same automated voice tone that tells him he can’t leave a message because the inbox is full.

Minseok goes to bed every single night thinking what would have happened if he didn’t lie to Luhan. Maybe he’d be lying beside him, all snuggled up in his blanket under Minseok’s arms. But every day Minseok only wakes up to a pillow filled with dried tears.

Minseok knows it was exactly 2 years because when Luhan showed up again at his doorstep, the strong December wind was blowing heavily, messing up Luhan’s blonde hair. But this time Luhan looked older.

“You look old.” Minseok chuckled. He doesn’t have anything else to say to Luhan.

“I’m an old man, Luhan.” Luhan tried to peek inside his apartment for any signs of a family. Minseok had none to offer.

“Come take a walk with me.”

They took the same route they did 2 years ago.

“I love you.” Minseok was the one who stopped this time. Did he hear that right?

“What did you say?” Minseok must have heard that right because Luhan buried himself further in this scarf and tucked his hands deeper into his trench coat.

“I’m sorry it took 2 years for me to figure that out.”

Minseok should be angry. Furious. He should be shouting at Luhan. Yelling at him for wasting his time. His youth.

But he couldn’t bring himself to. “How did you know?” His own response surprised him as much as it did Luhan.

“I woke up everyday wondering why you weren’t there with me.”

Minseok smiled. He wasn’t the only one.

Upon the walk back to his house where Luhan annoyed him into admitting that there wasn’t a day that went by that he stopped loving Luhan (eww why are you such a cheesy old man?), he realised that happily ever after didn’t exist. It was an illusion. Many people searched for closures. And this ‘happily ever after’ was a closure in a romantic relationship. But how can a story end when the people inside were still changing, evolving, growing? Minseok and Luhan weren’t going to be happy for every tomorrow. They were going to have bad days, days they’ll chew each other out, because , why can’t you just buy the groceries on the way home because I was the one who did the dishes. They are going to leave the house, yelling at the other that they were never going to come back. They were going to have times when they wished they had something to give their family back to, a blood-related grandchild to show their parents.

But, really, Minseok thinks as Luhan threw him a snowball that landed right in his chest, to have Luhan wake up on his chest everyday would be worth so much more than a ‘happily ever after’.

“Yes, mom. I have a boyfriend. He’s Luhan. No. We were not friends. I told you we were friends because- WHAT NO! He’s gay! No, mom, he’s not going to change . What? Ew, mom, I’m gay. I’m not going to make Luhan grow a pair of s. Yes, maybe. No, adopt maybe? You’re coming down? Why? Luhan can’t cook for nuts. We’re not going to marry - it’s not legal, remember? Yes you can come to our house. I just moved. Luhan’s just finished unpacking. Yes mom. Bye. Oh, and stop reading that damn Cinderella book to noona’s child. That ’s wrong.”