UNDODGEDBULLET | eight

"......Aren't you going to go home? Change clothes? Take a shower? Have you even eaten yet?"

"I'm fine."

You don't look fine though, Joohyun frowns as she steals a glance at Sehun from where she's sitting on the bed.

It's already night time, their parents had come and gone and yet he is still loyally here with her. She’s been drifting in and out of sleep for hours due to soreness and the medicine the doctor had administered and yet somehow she knows that Sehun has never left her side.

She silently studies his haggard figure as he slouches on the loveseat in the corner of the room. He's staring at the random movie playing on the TV screen but his eyes look blank, as if his mind is a thousand miles away. Her heart suddenly twists with guilt. This thing...her being like this is really taking a toll on him, isn't it?

"You're gonna make me blush if you keep ogling me like that."

Her cheeks quickly turn pink. "I-I wasn't ogling you!"

He smirks and slightly turns toward her. "I take that back. Ogle as much as you want. All the good stuff you see here belongs to you anyway."

She splutters at his words but can't find any clever retort to reply to that. Such an over-confident jerk.

His eyes are on her now and he frowns when he realizes she hasn't started eating the dinner a nurse had placed in front of her several minutes ago. "Why aren't you eating, bab-" He quickly clears his throat, "...Joohyun Noona?"

He looks like it physically pains him to address her like that. She mentally sighs to herself. Ugh, everything feels just so freaking awful. She shakes her head and forces herself to smile. "I'm not hungry. Why don't you come here and eat it? You haven't eaten anything tonight."

He quickly gets up and comes to stand by the bed before he reaches for the lid covering the tray, his eyes now filled with worry. "Should’ve known... I thought you’re already eating... You need to eat. You have to."

Her eyes go a little wide at the assertive, no-nonsense tone of his voice. Sehun has always been so lay-back in all the short months she could remember knowing him that she suddenly realizes that there are more layers in him than she had previously seen. Is this what he's like as a husband? She suddenly wonders about the power dynamic in their relationship.

"Eat, Noona. You haven't had anything since the accident." He takes a spoon and is about to dip it in the bowl of soup on the tray before he hesitates and holds out the spoon to her instead. Did he want to feed her and then change his mind?

She reluctantly looks down at the tray. There is white rice, a steaming bowl of dried pollock soup, her favorite stir-fry beef, an assortment of vegetables and kimchi and even a small plater of fruit and layered cake for dessert. The hospital’s food actually looks pretty good and the portions are large enough to feed two people, but that is to be expected in the VIP ward. But really, has this weird metallic taste and she has no appetite.

She pouts and shakes her head. “But I don't feel like eating... My mouth feels funny and I want to throw up just thinking about food....”

Yaah, are you five Bae Joohyun? She winces when she realizes how whiny she had sounded but instead of disgust Sehun's eyes soften at her words. She watches with wide eyes as he unceremoniously sits down at the edge of the bed, the side of his hip brushing against her blanket-covered leg. He spoons some of the hot soup and carefully blows on it to cool it down before he brings it close to her lips.

His voice is gentle when he speaks. “Tomorrow, Eomma will make her special soup that you love and Eomma-nim will also bring something delicious but for tonight have this first, okay? It'll make you feel better, trust me.”

She actually hates dried pollock soup with a passion of a thousand suns. Shouldn’t he suppose to know that? Maybe she'd never told him before. She opens to explain but he’s looking at her with so much concern that she slowly nods before she leans forward to take a small sip from the spoon, blushing slightly at the intimacy of the action.

Eww, I don't know if I can swallow.....Eh?

He grins knowingly as he watches her eyes light up. “Good?”

She stares at him in amazement. “Really good. Give the spoon to me!”

Their fingers touch when she grabs the spoon and she blinks in surprise at the electricity buzzing her skin from the contact. He chuckles at her eagerness and nudges the bowl closer to her. His eyes are suddenly so much livelier than before and she silently sighs in relief.

"I knew you'd like it. You'd wanted bukeoguk for dinner almost every other night last week....even I grew tired of eating it. Careful, ba-Noona, it's hot."

She blows on the soup and takes another sip. "How come I suddenly like it? I used to hate bukeoguk becau-"

"Because your Halmeoni forced you to eat too much when you were six and after that, you couldn't eat it anymore."

So he does know. She bites her lips to stop from smiling and points her chin at the piling plate of stir-fry beef. "And I usually love beef cooked this way but now I'm nauseous just looking at it. Haish, what the heck happened to me?"

Is it just her or does his face change for a split second? "Err...You kind of hate oily food nowadays."

I do? Am I on diet or something? How does someone suddenly change their food preference in a matter of months? It feels weird that he seems to know what she likes more than she currently does.

He's just staring at her as she eats so she pushes the rice bowl toward him. “Eat with me, Sehun. I just want the soup, I’m not gonna eat the rice and beef.”

“I've told you I’m fine—"

She puts down her spoon. “You don’t want to eat? Aigoo...too bad, I also won't be eating, then.”

He raises a brow and she stares challengingly right back at him. He finally snickers and grabs the chopsticks on the tray. “Fine, I'll eat. You win.”

She tries not to smirk even if she feels smug inside. So the power dynamic in their relationship might not be as straightforward as she’d previously thought.

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They eat together with the movie on the TV as their background noise but it feels comfortable; much better than the awkwardness that has been hanging in the air ever since he had pulled her into his arms and whispered in her ear several hours ago. He badly wants to hold her close, inspect and kiss all her injuries, feed her soup and tell her he loves her but he’d forced himself to stay in the corner as she recuperates, suddenly scared that he’d overwhelmed her fragile condition with his confession.

But now she’s the one who had asked him to come near and eat with her. They’re sitting on the bed as they share the tray of dinner together and suddenly the stinging ache in his heart feels a lot more manageable than before.

"Sehun...." Her voice is small when she hesitantly breaks the silence. "Do you think I'll remember again?"

"Of course you'll remember again soon, b-Noona." He makes sure his tone is confident because he can't imagine the alternative.

His wife just nods thoughtfully, her eyes on the half-finished soup in front of her as she starts to play with her spoon. "You don't really call me Noona nowadays though, right?”

He swallows the rice he's been chewing and tries not to wince. Is it that obvious? “....No. Not since we announced our engagement.”

She nods again before she suddenly mumbles under her breath."Then don't."

He can feel his heart speeding up a little as he puts his chopsticks down. "....Don't?"

She doesn't look up, her fingers still busy playing with the spoon. He knows that she’s nervous and at that moment he’s fighting back his natural protective urge to pull her into his arms and just comfort her with his touch.

"When Eomma told me what happened... And then I saw our pictures..." She smiles and shakes her head. "It's like I just time-traveled from the past and jumped right in the middle of my future. I might recall everything back soon...but as of right now, there's a lot to process."

He nods. He understands that. That's why he doesn't want to push too much on her too soon. She steals a glance at him and quickly looks down again.

"But Sehun...you don't have to travel backward in time just to keep up with my malfunctioning brain. I don't want you to. Just be the Sehun that you are right now, continue living the life that you have right now. So call me whatever you would have called me if I didn't get into that accident. As much as everything feels confusing to me, the one who is hurting the most right now is you, so please--"

He can't do anything but listen and stare at her. This is the Bae Joohyun that he had fallen in love with. The one who is selfless and thoughtful, the one who always puts others before herself. This is why he'll never stop falling in love with her even if they meet again in another dimension or time.

“Baby.”

She immediately looks up. “Hmmm?”

“Baby. I call you 'baby'. Or 'Hyun-ah'...Or 'Bae Joohyun' whenever you’re in trouble.”

She looks at him blankly. “...Trouble?”

He suddenly remembers that they were supposed to be getting it hot and heavy in his office right now, fulfilling her promise from this morning. Who would have thought their wonderful morning would end up like this, sitting in a hospital room like two strangers just getting to know each other? He swallows and tries to keep a cheerful facade for her sake.

“When we first got married, I thought you're this innocent, sweet girl."

"Yaah!"

He grins at the indignant look on her face. "Wait, I didn't finish! Of course, you're innocent and sweet...most of the time. But turns out you can be quite a troublemaker when you want to. But I love it. Very much.”

He says it in a very suggestive manner and Joohyun's cheeks are suddenly flushing in confused embarrassment. Damn it, his wife still looks so gorgeous even with her bruises and bandages. How the hell is he supposed to handle being around her and not being able to touch her freely like before?

“Oh my God, I don't know what you mean and I’m scared to even ask...”

He just laughs at her appalled face. “Do you want to know what you call me?”

She nods and smiles at him sweetly. “Tell me! Wait, do I even call you something else aside from your name? It doesn't seem like something I would do.”

He shakes his head and pretends to think. God, she's so eager to learn about them that it makes him feel a little guilty for what he's about to do. She's going to kill him for this once she remembers, isn't she?

“Actually, you love using endearments so much you made up several names to call me. Like in the morning, you would kiss me awake and call me 'Sweet Sunshine'. At night you'd keep it simple and call me 'Handsome'. When you want to be playful you'd call me 'My Cutie Bunny'. And when you're being romantic you call me 'My Darling Prince'.”

He struggles to hide his amusement as her eyes get bigger and bigger the longer he speaks. “Oh yeah, and when you're in a y mood you call me 'Stallion'.”

"S-stallio---what?" She stammers in shock. “Yaah, are you pulling my leg? You're totally lying, aren't you?”

He shakes his head. “Hell no. I'm being totally serious.”

“I-I'm not going to call you—t-that!”

“Why ever not? They were perfectly fine to you before.”

She narrows her eyes in suspicion, the way she always does whenever he messes around with her. “I'm going to kill you when I gain back my memory and find out you're lying, Oh Sehun!”

His eyes widen at her words and hope starts blooming in his heart like flowers after rain. He knew it. His Joohyun is still here, just waiting to be awakened.

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"God, you stink. Go home, Sehunnie. Shower and then come back. I'll stay with Joohyun."

Joohyun giggles as her mother-in-law scrunches her nose while she looks at his son up and down when she comes to visit the next day. Sehun had spent the night on a cot in her hospital room, too stubborn to go home and rest like she had told him to.

"Joohyun thinks I smell fine, don'