"It has been a long time..."

Being the heavy sleeper she was, it was surprising that she was awake by the voice that sounded almost like a whisper. But still her eyes closed, difficult to be opened though she was awake (half-awake, to be exact).

"...One year? Two year?” Donghae scoffed.

'What one year and two year?' she thought sleepily as she was in the process of sleeping back.

However, her sleepiness was forgotten when she heard what he was saying afterwards.

"I'm a coward, aren't I? If I really love you, I should proudly say 'I love you' to you. Not only dare to say it when we are filming this virtual marriage show."

Minhee's eyes shot open and slightly widened upon hearing what he just said as her heart started pounding in her chest. Because of the darkness, Donghae couldn't see her opened eyes, so did she – or maybe he was so deep in his thoughts to even realize it.

"But, if I said those words to you when we were not filming, I'm scared it would affect our close relationship that we've built all this time. I don't want you to be uncomfortable with me. I don't want you to be awkward around me. I don't want you to distance yourself away from me. I don't want all that to happen. I'd rather be a coward than to let all that to happen. If I let all that happen, that means I'll lose you. Losing you is the last thing that I ever want it to happen.....nope.....I never want it to happen. I don't wanna lose you, I never wanna lose you," 

Minhee froze. ‘S-So he meant it? Those three words that he always said to me…he meant it? H-He really l-loves me?’ she thought in disbelief. And all those questions were answered when he continued.

"Once I say 'I love you' to you, I really hope you wouldn't think that I did that just for the sake of the show. Because once I said those three words to someone, that means I really mean it. After my mom, you're the second woman that I love the most"

Minhee couldn't help but soften at the last part, tears started b in her eyes.

'He loves me that much?'

At the moment, she felt like she didn’t deserve his love, she didn’t deserve to receive his love. How could she be the second woman he loved the most when she didn’t even believe in love? She felt like this was unfair for him. He wasn't supposed to fall in love with her. And she supposed, hiding the fact that she didn’t believe in love from him was wrong. If she told him beforehand, he would at least try to stop loving her and find new love. But now it was too late. It had been two years. If she told him right now, he would surely be very disappointed. And that was the last thing she wanted it to happen. Moreover when she was the cause of it.

"I love you," Donghae uttered as he tenderly kissed her forehead.

And the moment she heard those three words come out from his mouth, a tear slid down her cheek. He always sounded sincere when uttering those three words to her and she should’ve known that he had feelings for her ever since he said those words to her for the first time, not doubting if he really meant it or not or he said those words just for the sake of the show or as a joke. Why was she so dumb?

Then she remembered how the fellow F(x) had kept telling her that Donghae liked her. And she stupidly didn’t believe them. Now she regretted it. Thinking about this made her feel like she was really fool, stupid, idiot, dumb and anything that related to it. She was so frustrated with herself for not realizing his feelings for her all this time before.

Thank God, she was awake when Donghae had decided to spill out everything that had been buried inside his heart all this time. Maybe God purposely made her awake so that she could hear his confession. If she wasn't awake just now, maybe up until now she didn’t know that it had been about two years since Donghae harbored his feelings for her.

Mentioning about 'two years', she couldn't help but to feel guilty. She felt guilty towards Donghae. Two years was not a short time. And she couldn’t even imagine how he could harbor his feelings for her till that long. It must be hard for him. He must’ve had a hard time loving her; confessing his feelings to her when she didn’t take his love confession seriously. And she also couldn't accept the fact that she only knew about this after two years. After two fcuking years. 

Then, she tried to recall back what she and Donghae had gone through in these two years. And remembering back all the memories made Minhee feel herself so stupid. She sighed for the umpteenth time. How could she not realize that what he had done for her all this time was all too obvious for anyone to suspect him liking her. No wonder F(x)'s members knew about it. Sighing again, she felt like she was the stupidest person on this Earth for God's sake.

She knew Donghae cared a lot about her and all but she thought he cared about her just like a brother cared for his sister. She thought she was only like a sister to him because for her, Donghae was like her own brother. But everything she had thought about him all this time was all wrong. For God's sake, seriously she was so stupid. How can she have a thought that he only considered her as his sister when he always treated her like a princess? You were so dumb, Lee Minhee. Seriously.

She was so deep in her thoughts till the point she didn’t realize that her cheeks now were wet with fresh tears. She didn’t know why she cried but what she was sure, she was so touched. She was so touched at what she just heard from him, his confession. From his confession, she could see how much he loved her even though she herself didn’t believe in love.  His words that touched deep in the bottom of her heart the most was when he had mentioned that she was the second woman he loved the most after his mom. She had to admit that it was still awkward for her to think about love when she never did it before. But when she found out someone had been loving her for two years without her knowledge, without giving up, she had to admit that it opened her heart a little bit to know about love.

She carefully wiped out her tears with her hand to not wake Donghae up since his arms were still securely wrapped around her. Sniffling, she stared at the figure beside her in darkness as she could hear his soft, calm breath filling the silent atmosphere.

‘Thanks, oppa, for loving me all this time. And I'm sorry for being so foolish for not realizing your feelings all this time,’ she said in the back of her head. She didn’t know what came over her because the next thing she knew, she was snuggling closer towards him and wrapped her arm around him, her face buried in his chest. His sweet scent filled her nostrils and that made her blush. His scent was calming and because of that, it didn't take long for sleepiness to take over her. 

The sun rays crept through the window and hit Minhee’s eyes. She slowly opened them as they practically met with blurry vision which soon focused more clearly, and the first thing she saw was Donghae’s angelic face when he was peacefully sleeping while his arms still securely wrapped around her. Their positions were nothing much different from last night. It seemed like they didn’t move much in their sleep, maybe because of tiredness.

Staring at his face, his confession from last night practically rang in her mind. She sighed as a pang of guilt throbbed inside her heart when she remembered back about it. How she wished it was just a dream. She still couldn’t believe it that the person she considered as her own brother all this time actually harbored special feelings for her. She just couldn’t accept the fact that she was so stupid for not realizing his feelings from earlier when he was being too obvious, and she couldn’t forgive herself for it. Because of her stupidity, she was pretty sure that she had made Donghae have a hard time within these two years.

Of all people in this world, why her that he had to fall in love with, someone who didn't believe?

She merely could sigh in reply to her own question.

As she was thoughtfully staring at Donghae, suddenly he stirred in his sleep. With that, she quickly closed her eyes, pretending to sleep without even knowing the particular reason why she did that. As she was pretending to sleep, she heard him sighing somewhat in content as his hold around her tightened. She felt her heart beat faster at that and her heart beat ten times faster when she felt a familiar, breathtaking touch on her forehead.

The feeling of being kissed on the forehead before and after she knew his feelings for her was completely different. Usually, he only kissed her when they were filming and this was her first time to feel him kissing her when they weren’t filming. The feelings were different; it was indescribable but what she was sure, her heart beat faster when he kissed her without any camera filming them. It felt…good.

She almost flinched when Donghae softly caressed her cheek, making her breath stuck in preventing her from breathing like normally. His caress was soft, sweet and lovely and she unconsciously leaned in to his touch, silently enjoying it. His kiss and caress made her feel loved and she loved the feeling, the feeling she rarely could feel back then.

She has always felt the feeling ever since she anticipated in WGM. If she still didn’t know that Donghae had feelings for her, she might probably say that it was because WGM was a virtual marriage show that she could feel the feeling. But now that she knew it, of course she might say that it was because of Donghae himself. If she didn’t get married with Donghae but other men in WGM, maybe she could never feel the feeling Donghae always gave her. Thank God, he was her husband. Her virtual husband, to be exact.

She slowly opened her eyes and she witnessed how his smile went wider upon seeing her awake. To be honest, it felt awkward now that she knew the special feelings he had for her compared to before she had yet known about it. But then some parts of what he had said from last night replayed in her mind.

“I don't want you to be uncomfortable around me. I don't want you to be awkward around me. I don't want you to distance yourself away from me. I don't want all that to happen. I'd rather be a coward than to let all that to happen. If I let all that to happen, that means I'll lose you”

'I shouldn't be uncomfortable around him. I shouldn't be awkward around him. I shouldn't distance myself away from him. Let's just pretend nothing happened last night. Just pretend that I never heard what he said last night. Just pretend that that was just a dream. Yes, a dream…'  Minhee thought to herself.

“Good morning, yeobo~” he said cheerfully. The last part made her blush since they weren’t filming right now yet he called her with that romantic name.

“Good morning…..jagi” she shyly said and a blush on her cheeks deepened. Meanwhile Donghae laughed shyly at it. “When are we going to start filming today?” she asked to cover up the awkwardness she felt right then.

“9 am,” he briefly replied. “We have like one hour left so let’s cuddle for a while,” he cheekily said.

Minhee chuckled shyly. “Mwoya~ We have to get ready now. We’ll be late,” she tried to remove his arms from being wrapped around her but failed as he tightened his arms around her. “Yah.”

“Give me a good morning kiss first,” he playfully puckered his lips and closed his eyes, teasing.

But then, something unexpected happened.

Chu~

His eyes shot open once he felt something briefly pressed against his lips and the next thing he knew was, Minhee was staring at him with a shocked expression. It took him