“Are you sure about this, Soo?”

 

            Heart racing, in pure exuberance, Kyungsoo simply nods in response, not a word leaving his mouth.

 

            Jongin is looking at him with worried eyes, but all Kyungsoo can do is evade them and bask in his excitement. His apprehensiveness is toxic, and all Kyungsoo wants to be right now is happy. Purely, incandescently happy.

 

            And that happiness, evident through the gleaming grin etched on his face is enough to put Jongin’s mind at rest.

 

            “Okay,” he finally says, sighing. “We can work this out, right?”

 

            “Of course we can.”

 

            The searing heat of the afternoon floats into the room through the open window, causing Kyungsoo’s body to squirm as droplets of sweat made their way down the expanse of his neck and collarbones.

 

            Despite the hot spell of the summer midday, he remains fast asleep, unperturbed by the sticky sweat soaking his skin. Kyungsoo has fallen too deep into the world of slumber, where dreams project themselves into his head like a series of short films, and Kyungsoo and Jongin are the leading actors.

 

            A dimly lit room with a vase of fake flowers on a wooden desk. The greying woman glances at the couple with a raised eyebrow in suspicion, prompting a strained smile to appear on both Kyungsoo and Jongin’s lips. They manage to maintain a calm exterior, despite the jittery anxiety and shaky hands.

 

            The woman leads them to a room with numerous metallic cabinets and pulls out a manila folder from one of them. She takes out two sheets of paper, one for each, and places it on the wooden table.

 

            Tedious discussions ensue. Kyungsoo completely and utterly blanks out at this point, still glancing at the white piece of paper before him; eyes are affixed on the two lines below. The two lines where Kyungsoo and Jongin would sign their names – as a married couple.

 

            He feels Jongin’s finger tap on his arm, a signal for him to exit his little reverie and snap back into reality.

 

            “It’s time for us to sign our names.”

 

            The cool winds from the open window brush against his skin, and Kyungsoo shifts his position on the couch once again. This time, he lies on his front, head buried in the comfort of his pillow.

 

            The film continues, but a different scene plays. 

 

            Kyungsoo feels a pair of strong arms wrap around his waist. He twirls him around, ever so gently, so not to let the smaller male fall on to the ground. 

 

            After legalizing their marriage, Jongin and Kyungsoo climbed into Jongin’s car and drove off into the countryside, a whole other world from the somber cityscape they’ve spent their entire lives cooped up in.

 

            Gone are the tall, towering buildings and the heavy miasma of smoke and unhappiness in the air.

 

            It’s just the two of them know – Jongin and Kyungsoo – blissfully happy in a lush, green meadow under a cerulean-tinted sky.

 

            Kyungsoo falls from Jongin’s embrace and lands in between the grass, hands covering his face to shield his face from the blinding sunlight. His eyes are shut tight, but immediately flutter open when he feels familiar hands grazing against his skin. Turning his head, his eyes are met with Jongin’s, ardour radiating from each and every feature of his face.

 

            “How do you feel?” whispers Jongin in his ear, burying his face in Kyungsoo’s neck.

 

            “Surreal,” Kyungsoo heaves a sigh, lips curled into a smile.

 

            “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” His question causes a soft chuckle to fall out of the latter’s mouth.

 

            “A very good thing.”

 

            A few minutes pass and Kyungsoo realizes he’s gradually falling asleep, but is immediately woken up by Jongin gently nudging at his side.  

 

            “I made this for you, Soo,” Jongin’s finger points at the small flower wrapped around Kyungsoo’s ring finger. “I’m sorry I couldn’t afford you a fancy diamond ring, but this is the best I can do. I’m only nineteen, and there’s very little I can afford in this world.”

 

            Kyungsoo looks down and brings his hand up to his face, observing the flower ring enveloping his ring finger. “It’s beautiful, Jongin,” he says, using the other hand to touch its’ tiny petals. “I love it. I love you.”

 

            “I love you, Kyungsoo. Oh god, I love you.”

 

            Kyungsoo jolts up to the sound of the apartment buzzer ringing in his ears. Groaning loudly, he lifts his body from the bed, still half-asleep and drunken in lethargy. He unlocks the apartment door, unable to make out the figure standing in the doorway. He loses his chance to discern the figure of the person standing the doorway, because whoever just buzzed in his apartment was now storming into the living room like a petulant child.

 

            He feels fully awake at this point, only because he realizes that the person who had just stormed in the room was an angered Jongin.

 

            Jongin lets his body fall on to the couch, switching on the TV without saying a single word.

 

            “Something wrong?” asks Kyungsoo, arms crossed.

 

            “Nothing,” he hears Jongin mumble, who diverts all of his attention on to the gag show playing on the television screen.

 

            Biting his lip, Kyungsoo searches for the best reply to give him, not wanting to endure one of Jongin’s infamous fits of temper. “Okay,” he mutters quietly, almost inaudible to the other male’s ears. “Scooch over, won’t you?”

 

            Jongin obeys, though the disgruntled expression is still very much apparent on his face. Something’s ticked him off and it’s not good.

 

            “Why did you buzz in, instead of entering with your own key?”

 

            “I forgot my keys.” Jongin grumbles.

 

            Having known him for years, Kyungsoo acknowledges that anger is an emotion that Jongin very rarely experiences. Sure, he’s seen his husband annoyed, vexed, irritated. But those emotions would evaporate into thin air within a second, and Jongin would return to his mellow, nonchalant self.

 

            But something about this Jongin – it feels very off. It was as if this anger would not disappear anytime soon, and Kyungsoo can feel his heart tremble in fear.

 

            In an attempt to initiate conversation, Kyungsoo uses an admittedly highly cliché question, overrated and overused by many married couples. “How was work?”

 

            “It was good,” says Jongin. Still not a single look from him.

 

            Kyungsoo desperately wants to find a way to release the stress evident on his partner’s face, but that isn’t something he’s particularly skilled at. He would try to talk it out with him, but what good would that be if Jongin won’t even spare him a glance? So Kyungsoo decides on the easiest method possible.

 

            He crawls over to Jongin’s lap, hand tugging at the black tie around his neck and pulling it close. The crisp white shirt that he’s wearing has its’ top two buttons unfastened, allowing Kyungsoo to latch his mouth against the expanse of his neck and collarbones.

 

            “Not now, Soo.” He hears Jongin mutter after drawing a sigh of exasperation out of his mouth.

 

            “Okay.”

 

            The shattering sound of his heart booms in Kyungsoo’s ears.

 

           

 

 

            This would continue on for the next few weeks. Jongin would come home from work, looking deeply annoyed, and proceed to distance himself away from Kyungsoo. Despite the numerous failed attempts, Kyungsoo still hasn’t let his husband’s anger get the best of him. Kyungsoo’s immense patience is truly an advantage.

 

            Thankfully enough, Jongin hasn’t taken out his anger on him. Instead, he bottles it up, away from Kyungsoo and the world.

 

            But Kyungsoo isn’t an idiot. The lid of the bottle would soon unlatch itself and all the anger and frustration would pour out of him within seconds, something that he very much feared.

 

            And one day, Kyungsoo’s worst nightmare became a reality.

 

            He was home, checking the assignment papers of his third grade students. Being a teacher was no easy task, no matter which grade you taught. After leaving his home to elope, Kyungsoo decides that becoming a teacher would suit him best because he enjoyed working with children. But now his life revolves around forming lesson plans, creating assignments, and writing numerous reports.

 

            Jongin, on the other hand, took up an accounting job in a small company, a few miles away from the school Kyungsoo teaches in. And in Jongin’s case, his life revolves around grueling schedules and an abundance of complicated mathematics.

 

            Just as he was finishing checking the last assignment for the day, the front door of his apartment slams open and an aggravated Jongin enters the room.

 

            Kyungsoo rises from his seat and walks over to him. “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting so ing childish–“

 

            The look Jongin wears on his face is one that Kyungsoo would have not expected. Tears were forming on the brims of his eyes and pain, not anger, is written across his every feature.

 

            “Kyungsoo.. “

 

            “What?” It comes out a little colder than Kyungsoo had intended, but he hopes, he just hopes that Jongin knows he means him no harm.

 

            “Those ers fired me,” Jongin raises his voice, all the anger and infuriation now returning to him. “They think that they’re just gonna lay me off because they think I’ve been lazying off at work and now I don’t know what the to do, and everything’s a ing mess and—“

 

            Jongin pauses when he sees that it’s not him, but rather Kyungsoo, had erupted into tears. The sight of Kyungsoo muffling his tears with the sleeves of his shirt feels like a thousand blows to his chest, and Jongin, whose anger had quickly dissipated by this point, pulls him into his embrace.

 

            “You regret this, don’t you?” Kyungsoo mutters, tears staining his shirt. “You regret running off and marrying me. You regret leaving the comfortable life for this, for having to work some boring nine-to-five job just so you could put food on our plates. That’s why you’ve acted all sulky the past few weeks, because you just want your old life back, when you know you can’t go back because you’d have to you’re your parents and you can’t live up to the guilt.”

 

            He feels his heart break with every word that escapes Kyungsoo’s lips, gripping him even tighter.

 

            “You regret me.” Kyungsoo says with an air of finality, voice breaking.

 

            And with that, all of Jongin’s previous frustration melts away and is replaced with profound guilt. And it hits him.

 

            He’s hurt Kyungsoo.

 

            Out of all people, he’s hurt the only person who understands him the most, who is fighting the same battles as he is.

 

            And then he thinks about all those times Jongin had carelessly paid no heed to him, when all Kyungsoo wanted to do was help, to lend a hand because he understands. But all he did, all Jongin did, was simply waved off his presence, unaware of how deep the pain he had inflicted on him.

 

            “You think that I regret you? That I regret marrying you?” It isn’t easy to speak when your heart is breaking and your whole world thinks you no longer love them. “Do Kyungsoo, you are an idiot.”

 

            Kyungsoo looks up, eyes bloodshot and cheeks damp with tears.

 

            “The last thing I would is regret marrying you. Hell, if we could be nineteen again and repeat the whole process, the running away, the signing of the marriage papers, I would do it all over again,” Locking his arms around Kyungsoo’s waist, Jongin pulls him closer to him. His finger lifts the smaller male’s chin for their eyes to meet. “I just don’t know how to make you happy, Soo. I can’t do anything much for you, except to give you all the love that you so, so very much deserve. And then I think that in another world, how you could’ve married someone else, someone so much better than me.”

 

            Jongin presses his forehead against Kyungsoo’s own, something he realizes he very much misses to do.

 

            “Kim Jongin, you idiot,” Kyungsoo lets out an unforeseen chuckle. “If in that other world I’m married to some plain, boring man who would’ve never agreed to running off and marrying with me, then I send my prayers for that Kyungsoo living in that alternate universe.”

 

            They share a laugh, and it just sounds so right. Two melodies destined to be played together. “You really think I make you happy, though, Soo? Just look at us. We live in some shabby apartment, eating ramen noodles together when all I want to do is take you out on the most expensive restaurants in town.”

 

            “I don’t want you to take me out on fancy dinners,” says Kyungsoo in response. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to buy expensive gifts and spend every single penny you make on me.”

 

            “Then what do you want?”

 

            The answer is so simple, so obvious.

 

            “I want this,” Kyungsoo brings Jongin’s face into his hands, eyelashes practically fluttering against one another. “I want to spend every single day of my life with you, just as we promised after we signed those papers. I want us to be happy, because we make each other happy. I just want—“

 

            The rest of the sentence fails to leave his mouth because Jongin has decided to clasp his lips against Kyungsoo’s own. How clever of him.

 

            Just as the kiss begins to deepen, Kyungsoo abruptly pulls away and says in the most serious of tone, “Kim Jongin, if that’s your method of shutting me up and interrupting me when I’m speaking, then I do not appreciate it.”

             “You big liar,” A smirk creeps up on his face. “You appreciate oh so very much.”

 

            “Maybe a little.”

 

            “Correction, a lot.”

 

            “I said a little.”

 

            “Well, my suspicions tell otherwise, because—“

 

            Jongin still melts, utterly and completely, when he feels the warmth of Kyungsoo’s lips fastened on his own. And suddenly, he is fifteen again, when he and Kyungsoo were merely the greatest pair of best friends the world has ever seen, completely unaware of what the future has for them.

 

            “Maybe I should start using your method too, since you’re not the only one who won’t shut up here.” Kyungsoo chuckles as he breaks off the kiss.

 

            Weary of the devilish smile settling in on Kyungsoo’s lips, Jongin claims his revenge by lifting Kyungsoo above the ground, carrying him bridal style as he heads for their bedroom. Kyungsoo rests his head on Jongin’s chest, and Jongin hovers his mouth over his bride’s ear.

 

            “My Kyungsoo. All mine.”