“And in the end…I think I still love myself more…”

Till death do we part we repeated after the officiant at the altar when we married. Wedding dress. Black tux.

We got married that Saturday afternoon. With the gathering of our family. Surrounded by friends. Listening to earfuls of congratulatory advices. The overflowing joy that day was overwhelming.

The sun was hotter. Beating down on our backs and I was sweating in my layers of wedding dress. I needed to pee I remember. I just wanted to go to our new home and soak in a tub of warm water. Close my eyes and drift off.

A wedding, you see, belongs to a couple truly in love.

It’s logic.

Common sense.

Something we all learn growing up.

Is it not?

I know I’m not wrong.

Do I love my husband?

Kim Taehyung.

…

Maybe.

I know him. Our families introduced us when I was in the ninth grade. Off the bath they told me their plans. That after college I would be married off. Just like my sister to her husband.

Their wedding, you see, was very quick. A celebration of food, welcoming the groom into our house, showing them off, and then they walked out. I couldn’t say goodbye to my sister. Wish her well in her marriage. Tell her that if she needed me she could call. Tell her husband to love her and that I trusted him to treat her right.

My biggest regret is not seeing her one more time before she left our family to become another’s.

When you drop your maiden name for your husband’s surname you are his person. You become his people. You say goodbye to the family that birthed you, that you grew up with, fought with. And then when you get married it is farewell. That tie to your family is eternally severed. You give birth for your husband. You raise his kids, you become a mother. All things separate from your family.

Goodbye.

It is goodbye.

It is the same fate bestowed on me.

It is what I understood in the ninth grade. And as I grew older the honest truth became even more daunting. But reality only kicked in so fast when my father handed me away on my wedding day.

I am Kim Taehyung’s.

But was I?

He was not mean. Kim Taehyung was a regular man. Any man on the street. He left early for work in the mornings, he came home to lounge on the sofa, flip through the channels. Sometimes we spent our evenings in front of the fireplace reading our own books. Sometimes we watched a movie. Like a pair of friends.

When I was sick he bought medicine for me. When I got my period sometimes he left chocolate behind on the kitchen table before leaving for work. So discreetly that he expected me to think it was by accident, but I knew better.

Kim Taehyung was anybody’s regular man.

He knew how to laugh. Wound a joke professionally around his fingers, keep the atmosphere high for hours that we’d end up laughing the entirety of dinner. And those were especially good times.

Whenever something related to a family relative occurred we were required to be there. Show our faces, how well off we were living. It was expected since we got married. To put on that face, flaunt that smile that yes, I am very happy aunt. He loves me very much. Oh we are living just fine, he’s working, I am working, we’re constantly tired from our jobs. We have to work to put food on the table.

Kim Taehyung was a regular man.

Anybody’s man.

He treated me well. Compensated for my comforted. Adjusted his living conditions to meet my own. If I wanted something in our bedroom he’d say yes, sure. It is as I pleased. The beddings, the furniture, the house décor. All my job.

I live well, you are right.

I am treated well.

Just as I wanted to tell my sister when she got married, be happy. I hope you love each other for a long time.

Sometimes, life is funny. You expect the worst, but it is just the opposite.

I lived like a princess. At the same time, I was trapped in my own tower of gold. By my own doing. My family’s doing.

By Kim Taehyung.

Marriage is blissful. Love is fate. Is it not what the books teach us? A pretty woman. A handsome man. Destined together to build an extravagant life. You have some difficulties. Arguments one block there. Make up with a kiss or two. And then you have children. It is what the books say. It is what the shows teach us.

That after the storm there is a rainbow.

I always thought I’d see the rainbow at the end of the road.

It remained bleak. The path I walked rolled on forever. Without any blockades. I didn’t have to jump. Fight a war and come out bleeding. I was always happy. Like the blue sky forever stretching overhead.

Because…

Kim Taehyung was anyone’s man.

I know him.

He is my husband.

But today I draw the line here.

I sign the papers and I hand them over with the scribble of my signature.

Reminiscing of happy times past. That it was a good marriage. Our faces were once plastered with smiles which we may or may not have meant. Yet I had a good time even if sometimes I did not feel like I was truly in the moment.

Kim Taehyung is a regular man.

I am a regular woman.

People who deserve more in fruition of life and love. We deserve to give our best. Have our best. Living is meant to have hardships. Some tears.

We had neither.

We merely played house. Sharing meals. Jokes. Movies. A bed. A home.

Kim Taehyung treated me like a princess. He let me live in the moment, but he was not truly there…nor I.

Still, I cry anyway.

“If you see him,” I shed regretful tears, “please tell him I loved him.”

Because he is a good person. He is anyone’s man.

Kim Taehyung, who you’d see on the street with a smiling face and you’d think gosh, what a happy man.

***I am so sorry for the not so happy oneshot for them mysarahshikari  ;; You probably wanted a happy oneshot, but as a writer I am not always butterflies and hearts. Maybe after splitting up they'll come back together as happier people, who knows right?