Happy Birthday to the love of my life, Bae JooHyun!

“Tell me a story.”

Between the both of them, SeungWan was the eloquent one, the one who knew how to make a heart beat faster and burrow deep into the crevices of someone’s soul with her words.

But at night, with her head tucked into the crook of JooHyun’s neck as they came down from the hustle and bustle from a hectic day, SeungWan would be the one who would request for a story.

And JooHyun, with her out of order thoughts and blunt manner of speaking, would try to spin a story for SeungWan, soft words spoken into the still of the night where nothing mattered more than the soft shimmer of stars in dark sleepy eyes.

“Okay.”

She fell silent, attempting to arrange her thoughts into a coherent storyline, SeungWan’s soft breathing anchoring her down to reality as the memories tried to draw her in. Settling on a particular memory that was dear to her, JooHyun opened to speak, shifting slightly in SeungWan’s tight hold to press her lips against SeungWan’s forehead, where she painted the words of their beginning onto her skin.

“How about the time when we held hands for the first time?”

SeungWan laughed, slow and sleepy, eyelashes brushing against JooHyun’s cheek.

“Back when we were trainees?”

JooHyun shook her head, moving her lips towards the meeting point of SeungWan’s eyebrows.

“No. When holding hands started to mean something more.”

She could feel the palpable confusion wafting off of SeungWan but she took her time weaving out the story, letting the words curl and roll off her tongue, the thought of that first hand hold that started to mean so much more sweet and lasting on her lips.

“First of August, 2014. It was our debut day.”

SeungWan pressed her nose into JooHyun’s neck, fingers pushing up the back of her shirt and pressing into her side.

“We were all so nervous then.”

JooHyun chuckled, her eyes slipping shut, comforted by the familiar scent of SeungWan.

“Yeah. But you were especially nervous.”

“It was the start of our dream coming true.”

JooHyun knew what she meant. The training years were long and hard, designed to break down the weak willed and ferret out those who would not be able to survive the harsh industry, and their debut, sudden, not as well received as they hoped, was everything they wanted, waited for, breathed and lived for. JooHyun knew how SeungWan must’ve felt, the same feeling still churning in her veins with the apprehensive fear that one day she might wake up and she’d still be back at the trainee dorms, sore and depressed with little hope for the future.

“A dream that we are still in.”

SeungWan murmured again, pressing a kiss to the dent in between JooHyun’s collarbones.

JooHyun nodded and continued her story.

“You were so nervous and I didn’t know what to say to you.”

(What could she say to comfort the girl who sang like an angel and smiled like the sun when she herself could barely keep up with the perfection placed on this Earth by God himself?)

“But I wanted to comfort you. So I did the only thing I could think of.”

SeungWan answered sleepily.

“You held my hand.”

JooHyun replied with a kiss to her temple.

“I held your hand. I held your hand and it felt like it wasn’t enough. So I pressed my fingers into the palm of your hand and held your wrist, hoping that it would anchor you down and remind you that you weren’t alone.”

The fingers at her side left, the lingering warmth burning and twisting up her skin and into her heart, as SeungWan trailed the tips of her fingers up, palm pressing against JooHyun’s chest lightly.

“It was like electricity flowed from your hands to mine, reminding me that no matter what I had you by my side.”

“Yeah.”

They stayed like that for a while, the cocoon of warmth that they had built from themselves shielding them from the outside world, until SeungWan spoke up again, at the edge of sleep and barely coherent.

“That’s when you felt that it was something more.”

JooHyun inhaled deeply, moving their bodies down till they were flush on the bed, legs tangling together, together and unbroken, sending SeungWan off to sleep with a smile cusping her dreams and words that came from a song.

“No. It was when I was staring at you on stage and wishing I could always hold your hand that I knew it was something more.”

*

Love in the entertainment industry was hard to find, often disguising the lust that they were actually feeling, born from the constant presence of beauties.

Love in the Korean entertainment industry was impossible to find as their every step was traced not only by the relentless paparazzi but also their own companies, the people who were supposed to protect them easily selling them out to make a quick splash on the headlines, playing the media game to ensure that they were the ones still relevant in the field.

But it was love that JooHyun found in this industry, impossibly small but managing to fill her senses with just the thought of SeungWan, someone she would have never found if it weren’t for the existence of this world.

It was love that bloomed behind the bright lights and screaming fans, with her fingers pressed into SeungWan’s palm and a soft murmur of SeungWan’s name under her breath to calm a racing heart.

(Quiet, reverent, like uttering a psalm or a prayer.)

*

Among all of them, SeungWan was the early riser, a habit born from her days of being an overachiever (truth be told, she still was), bustling about the dorm and making sure that they’d have things to eat and be ready by the time their manager came. Even on days where they don’t have any schedules, rare and hoarded like a dragon to its treasure, SeungWan would be awake early.

On these days, however, SeungWan wouldn’t be up and about. On these days, SeungWan would curl up beside her, breath painting her collarbones in jumbled colours of blue and purple, with the gold of the morning sunlight dripping over them like molten honey. On these days, if they could, they spend the whole day in bed together, just succumbing to the warmth that can’t always be there when they were Red Velvet’s JooHyun and SeungWan and just being SeungWan and JooHyun.

On these days, SeungWan would kiss every inch of her skin, scorching her love straight into JooHyun’s very soul, holding pieces of JooHyun’s heart that the brunette had given to her. On these days, JooHyun struggled to find words to match up to SeungWan’s beauty, often falling short because how can there be words, made from a measly twenty six letters, enough to describe SeungWan and all that she meant to JooHyun.

SeungWan, the ever eloquent one between them, put the feeling into words succinctly, eyes sleepy but bright, with fingers JooHyun’s jaw.

“It feels like falling.”

Humming, JooHyun turned her head to nudge at SeungWan’s hand.

“How so?”

SeungWan shivered when JooHyun pressed her lips to the junction where her palm met with her wrist, fingers curling over JooHyun’s face like a barrier.

(A shield, always there to protect JooHyun.)

“When I’m with you, I feel like I’m falling in you, an infinite loop that would never stop and all that I have to cling to is you.”

SeungWan edged closer, touching JooHyun’s confused smile with her bright one.

“And it’s a ride that I never want to end.”

*

“Unnie?”

JooHyun looked up from the laundry that she was currently doing, eyebrows raised when SeungWan plodded over to her side and laid on her lap, brown hair splayed all over and a soft smile on her face. SeungWan’s hands, though cold, went under her shirt and rested against her stomach, comforting and real and opened to request for something JooHyun never said no to.

“Tell me a story?”

JooHyun smiled softly, dropping Yeri’s shirt to the ground and smoothed the unruly baby hair at the edges of SeungWan’s hairline.

The memory this time came easily, one of the few memories that she treasured above all else.

“Ninth of April, 2015.”

SeungWan blinked curiously, probably wondering what it was from the darkest part of their relationship that could constitute as a story.

“That day, we were both tired, worn out from the schedules and the fights we’ve been having ever since that meeting with the management.”

Running her thumb past SeungWan’s creased brow, JooHyun took her time soothing SeungWan before continuing, SeungWan murmuring her name quietly when turmoil feelings calmed down.

(Like a song, a psalm, a prayer between clasped fingers.)

“We got to sit together that day, for the first time since promotions began and I was so happy, even though I couldn’t show it because I couldn’t risk us getting punished by the management again.”

SeungWan hummed sadly, JooHyun understanding where she was coming from as the same crippling sadness had lugged her down, shattered her heart into pieces held together by a fragile hope.

“And then that song, Coffee Boy came on.”

JooHyun smiled at the memory, her thumb trailing down to the bow of SeungWan’s lips.

“Do you remember what I mouthed to you at the time?”

SeungWan shook her head but the sparkle in her eyes told the older girl differently. Playing along, JooHyun continued their story, the same feelings evoked back then stirring at the base of her chest.

“I said to you someday we’d get married, someday for sure. And it was right then, with your eyes tearing and the shy hit you gave me, that I realised how much I wanted it to come true.”

SeungWan started to rise, confused when JooHyun stopped her, eyes widening when JooHyun followed up with another story, another moment they both kept in the corners of their smiles.

“And then, on the seventeenth of April, you wrapped me in your warmth and the touches of your smile, I saw it happen. It might be a dream and we might have to wait for a long while, but I saw it happen. I saw the wisps of a dream where I’d wake up beside you and be able to kiss you on the dancefloor and be able to call you mine.”

This time, SeungWan