[ C H A P T E R   S E V E N T E E N ]

They’re married. 

Yongsun stared at the sealed stack of marriage documents in her hand, and her heart skipped in the kind of beats she had never felt before. It still didn’t seem real to her that they’re really married now — they’re not just boyfriend girlfriend anymore, not even engaged, they just skipped directly to being married. She blinked, and brought her finger to gently traced the ring she’s wearing — plain, but beautiful, and it’s not just on her finger, not just anywhere on random stranger’s fingers sharing the same design, it’s only on theirs.

And she can’t wear them on her ring finger when she’s out in the public. 

Ugh, Yongsun groans.

They went to register their marriage just earlier in the early morning, probably too early for anyone to even start their days yet. It took a lot longer than they thought, but they both were equally relieved that the man who ran their papers was a middle-aged man who had absolutely no interest in who they were, and maybe even very much grumpy because they came too early in the morning. But they can’t really blame him though, because frankly speaking even to themselves, who else would actually even came to register their marriage at literally 6am in the morning? The poor man was in the midst of eating his breakfast sandwich, and they still felt bad about it.

It has been two weeks since they came back from Greece and Yonghee got married, they actually thought of registering their own marriage as soon as they landed in Korea, but Yongsun decided to postpone it a little in respect of her own sister’s wedding. Yonghee has been really excited about her own wedding that Yongsun would feel very bad to steal the spotlight away from her. So instead, both Eric and Yongsun decided that perhaps they should go on a house hunting together during those weeks they were free, because technically her members have been trying to convince them that it’d be easier to move into a proper house from the beginning than waited until they have their own children.

    “And, it’s not like you two haven’t earn enough to afford your own property. Sooner or later, you’ll need to get one and move into it again, so why go through the troubles of moving twice when you can just do it from the beginning?” 

Yongsun knew she could always trusted them for being straightforward, and they absolutely had a point. Byul jokingly whined that she won’t be able to visit Yongsun anytime she wanted to anymore, and Yongsun didn’t know why or how exactly, but she ended up giving Byul their new house’s passcode again — just don’t drop by every single time though, I’m not living alone. 

    “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I won’t bother you two much so we can become someone’s aunts as soon as possible.” 

    Yongsun remembered smacking the nearest pillow she could find in their practice room at the younger woman as they all roared in laughters, completely finding the fun in her horrified expression. “We both already agreed that we won’t be having any children anytime soon, so don’t press your lucks.” 

They groaned at her response, and complained that the baby clothes they bought would be damaged if left for too long, but Yongsun ignored them and called for another practice instead — she appreciated the advance gifts, but it’s not her faults they were the one who got too excited all by themselves. 

Yongsun snapped back to reality when Eric laid down on their bed next to her, he has already changed into probably one of the most casual and comfortable outfits ever with his hair down and fluffy, completely free from all the gels and hairsprays it had to went through for every schedules, but he looked so good and cozy — too cozy she really wanted to just fall asleep in his arms and do nothing all days long, but they still have an entire house to unpack and organize. 

    “Are you okay?” 

    She gives him a little smile and nods. “Just thinking about how surreal all of these still are, we’re actually married. Three weeks after we announced our relationship to the publics, that’s crazy.”

    Eric laughed, and naturally his hand found hers. Intertwining their fingers together, he brought her hand to his chest and just held onto it like he wasn’t planning on letting it go anytime soon. “To be very honest, this has been a rollercoaster ride — we went through so much, and it felt like it was only yesterday I’ve asked your parents for their permission to marry you and now we’re really legally married without having to do another escape room game and turning in our resumé to be husband and wife.”

Yongsun laughed, it was indeed a rollercoaster ride and she’s willing to go on it again anytime if she had to do this all over again. Scary rides weren’t really her things, but this kind of ride in their relationship, it might be very painful and all, but there was nothing she actually regretted about it — not even their temporary breakup, because if they both had to admit, that was one of the turning points in their relationships. Sometimes just because two people who are in a relationship together had never broken up at one point in their relationship, it doesn’t entirely mean that they have the most perfect relationship anyone could ever imagined. Sometimes a little break was also necessary, just to take a few steps back, relax and see from each other’s perspective what was wrong and what could have been done better. With theirs, they managed to perfect what went wrong for them.

It was tough and painful, but they’re happier now. 

Although she was the one to suggested that they got married in secret without hosting an actual wedding yet, Yongsun was slightly worried about how both sides of their families were going to take this news. Of course they’ve been secretly wishing for them both to get married, but getting married like this? No matter how much both sides of their families love each one of them like their own, she wasn’t really confident that they were going to agree to this easily. 

But then, Yongsun realized she could also be wrong sometimes. When they video-called their families later that night in Greece after she cried almost an entire sea, she found out that Eric had already personally met up with her parents and even her members to asked for their permissions, and that aspect did not just touch her deeply, but also both of her parent. They were already very sure of him as their potential son-in-law, but for him to really thought this through and even asked for their permission, Yongsun found out that her mom was a crying mess that day because she was too happy and moved. 

Her members though, Eric joked that they might have been a little bit harder to speak to than her parents and Yongsun had to agree with him on that. The girls are crazy, and although they joked around a lot, she also knew how dead serious they could be when it came to one another. Byul was the toughest, and Yongsun couldn’t stop laughing over that when he told her he spent almost an entire hour convincing Byul about this — only on one-note, you won’t escape when I come to kill you if you ever break her heart again. Not that he ever thought about breaking her heart again or was very intimidated by that, but Eric swore anyways that day that he’d never broke Yongsun’s heart again because he knew how scary Byul could be — he already had a little taste of that the last time he made Yongsun cried a few years ago. 

    Yongsun turned to him, and with a little sigh, she grinned just to comfort them both in advance for what they had to do the entire day today. “We should start now, or we won’t ever finish cleaning today.” 

There was a sudden ring from their doorbell, then followed by another continuously until it rang throughout the whole house and it didn’t take her long to figure out who it was — her members. Yongsun didn’t understand why they couldn’t just come in directly when Byul already had her door’s passcode memorized, but she opened her door for them anyways and they came barging in like little children dressed in their most comfortable sweatshirts and pants, screaming their greetings almost a tad bits too excitedly. 

Organizing their house with the girls wasn’t exactly the best ideas, and it might have been even messier at some points but at least they somehow managed to finish half of it by a little bit over lunch time. Yongsun suggested that they went out for barbecue lunch together only to have Hyejin giving her a funny look in response.

    “Are you kidding me?” She looked almost offended that Yongsun could only blinked confusedly. “We’re supposed to eat black bean sauce noodles on moving day, how could you forget that?” 

Eric laughed at the girls teaming up on Yongsun, but they ended up with a bowl of black bean noodles each anyways in their living room half an hour later. Finding their respective spots on the sofa after they emptied their bowls, they almost fell asleep from being too full until Wheein broke the rather comfortable and sleep-inducing atmosphere. 

    “Will you ever upload that proposal vlog in Greece? I mean, I wouldn’t mind watching it whenever I feel like crying.” 

    Yongsun sneered at her in response, her head still comfortably rested against Eric’s shoulder and she was just on the verge of falling asleep as well. They woke up way too early this morning. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t already know about the proposal.” 

    “We know about the proposal,” Wheein defended. “But, we never know how it went.”

Would she ever be ready to upload it and shared it with the world, she hasn’t really decided yet and it’s definitely not going up on her channel anytime soon after she uploaded that video about them three weeks ago. But maybe one day, one day maybe it would find its own space somewhere just like that one video, Yongsun just had no idea when exactly. 

    Byul threw a sleepy teasing  grin at her. “Look, I know you love us, but you guys got married today. Shouldn’t you be having a meal with your family instead of eating black bean noodles with us?” 

It was funny to the both of them that way — they treated this whole getting married process so casually now that they’re actually doing it. They had been too excited, a few heart fluttering every once and then every time they thought of finally being married to each other, and earlier today when they finally did, it was almost like any other typical day. Being together accompanying by their close friends with a simple meal, and probably just jokingly argue about literally everything then laughed over it. They weren’t complaining though, this was always what they had been intending to do with their relationships — to be very typical and boring like everyone else, because they already had too may flashy situations going on in their careers. 

We’re married but it’s too early, let’s go back to sleep or we’re really married, and I love you but we’ve been pretty much living like this even before we get married anyways. It felt surreal, but it still also felt like any other typical days they had that it’s funny to them.

    “Probably sometimes later this week when Eric’s family is coming to Korea.” A thought passed through her head and she broke into a little giggle. “It’s crazy how we’re already married but our parents have never properly met each other even once.” 

They had meals with each other’s family, going on trips with each other’s family, already addressing each other’s parents as moms and dads, being loved and protected by each other’s family, calling each other’s family every often, and yet their families never really got the chance to properly sit down and have a meal together once — yet here they are, happily newly wedded, belly full from that noddles completely ready to doze off into a long nap any second soon, and half of their house still remained untidy. 

They were living the life, and they couldn’t ask for anything better.