“Sweetheart,” Sehun calls.

Kyungha ignores him because, frankly, he’s a son of a .

“Sweetheart,” he tries again, sweetening his voice. “To be fair, it wasn’t my idea—“

She whips her head around. “You might as well drown me in a tub of water.”

“Okay, it wasn’t that bad—“

“I had frosting up my nose,” Kyungha snaps.

He clears his throat. “I it out for you.”

“And I will never have enough to bleach to unsee that,” Kyungsoo says as he attempts to fix the ruined cake.

Jungkook picks off some of the cake that’s fallen on the table and eats it. Jongin squints his eyes at his son. “J, are you sure you want to eat that?”

Byul, his friend, sits back with her arms crossed. “I can assure that he’s had more disgusting things in his mouth.” The two of them exchange a meaningful look, and Kyungha narrows her eyes at Jungkook. Her nephew ignores her as he continues to smile cheekily at Byul.

yeolSehun nudges her. “How long are you going to ignore me?”

B

“I’m not ignoring you,” she retorts.

“Happy birthday, baby. Here’s to new beginnings.”

“Last year, you ditched me for your ex. This year, you shove my face in a whole cake. I could’ve gotten a third-degree burn and went blind,” she retaliates.

Kyungsoo coughs out a laugh, and Sehun sighs into his hands. “Come on, guys. Back me up. It was a harmless prank. No need to get so personal, sweetheart.”

Her brother feigns disinterest. “You burned your own bridges, .”

Sehun groans. “Are we going to bring this up every year? Should I prepare anything else in the meantime?”

“Your prayers,” Jongin answers for him.

Kyungha smirks. “Sorry, sweetheart. I can hold a grudge. Try me again, and we’re over.”

Sehun ignores her and throws his arms over his girlfriend. “I’ll chase you to end of ing the world. You’re not going anywhere.” Kyungha’s natural inclination to lean into him takes over, and she forgets her irritation from his antics. She turns her head, grinning up at him. He has heart eyes and leans in to nudge her nose with his.

Kyungsoo makes a face. “We weren’t always this disgusting right?”

Jungkook deadpans, “actually, dad, you were worse. I will never unsee my own dads getting it in the family pool at two in the morning.”

Jongin snorts. “Oh, I remember that. And I also remember grounding you for sneaking out.” Then, he turns to Byul who is stifling a laugh in her palms. “Byul, I love you, honey, but we need you to make sure he doesn’t sneak out. He only ever listens to you.” Byul chokes on her water, her cheeks flushed, and Kyungha has a sneaking suspicion that the two are hooking up. She also has a sneaking suspicion that her sweet, innocent nephew is no longer the same person.

Sehun hums, changing the topic. “Sweetheart, let’s go. We’ve got places to go and s to bang.”

Kyungha slaps a hand over his mouth. “I’m banning you from ever hanging out with Jongin ever again.”

“Hey!” Her brother-in-law protests.

Kyungsoo merely shrugs. “She’s not wrong.”

“Is there anyone on my side?” Jongin complains.

Jungkook smiles at his dad before saying, “nope. I’m gonna chill with Byul in my room now. Don’t stay up too late and use condoms.”

Kyungsoo shoots his son a dirty look. “I should be saying that to you, mister.”

Kyungha’s heart warms at the scene, and she realizes how lucky she is. Right here and now. With her boyfriend by her side, hand-in-hand. With her two older brothers still hopelessly head over heels for each other. And her nephew. Her healthy nephew who seems to think with his more these days. But no matter. She’d gotten everything she’d wanted and nothing could take this happiness away from her.

Sehun leans down to whisper into her ear, “ready to go, birthday girl?” He doesn’t have to ask twice. With him, she’d go anywhere—even to hell and back.

“Where are you taking me?” Kyungha asks. Sehun has his arms around her as they weave through the crowd of people in Times Square. Everyone was out tonight, waiting for fireworks.

December thirty-first, last year, Kyungha had hated this day with a passion. A certain someone had shattered her heart so thoroughly that she’d lost her old one. This whole year, Sehun had spent all of his efforts making up for everything. They spent every single holiday together.

And sometimes that was at work like Halloween and Thanksgiving (this year, Kyungha and Sehun couldn’t get out of their shift). She’d been even busier this entire year after moving up the ranks to PGY2. When Sehun found out that she’d passed her intern exam, he took her out for her favorite milkshake, the creamy smooth deliciousness of kit kat goodness stealing her breath away. And he’d also stolen her breath away with his—but let’s keep things PG.

He’d given her a ton of new memories, and she’d appreciated how much effort he put in. They were always busy with work, yes, but he’d always made sure she’d eaten three meals a day. He would spam her with a million text messages if the girl didn’t reply. She would know—Joohyun and Seulgi fell over laughing when they saw her phone stop working from the overload of messages.

Oh Sehun was—and is the best boyfriend she could ask for. He’s charming as always. He comes up with new antics every day, and Kyungha always finds him giving herself a run for her own money. Bored? No, definitely not. Their bantering had kept the relationship fun and fresh.

At the end of the day, she would curl up next to him—whether it be her bed, his bed, or the tiny bunk in 1308. It didn’t matter. It’d been their ritual. They couldn’t sleep without each other. She couldn’t even imagine not feeling the heat of his body beside her. She couldn’t imagine not being overwhelmed by the smell of his soap and aftershave and sweat. He’d smelled like a million good things even after a twenty-six-hour shift.

She’d been an addict, and he’d humored her. So, honestly, if she’d died from overdose one day, Oh Sehun would have no one to blame it on but himself.

And those nights when they would have sleep-deprived but extremely heartfelt conversations. Sehun would tell her everything. The good memories with his mom—minimal, but he could finally talk about her without feeling bitterness and resentment. Kyungha had forced him to go back to therapy, and he’d gotten a lot better. More open. No more hiding behind smiles. He’d confronted her head-on.

Other than this. He’d tell her about his childhood.

He’d tell her about his dad. The good. The bad. Everything. She’d taken all of these words like they were shiny, wrapped, and had a bow on top. Because that’s what they were. Her daily presents. His way of telling her that she was his world, and he’d trusted her with his entire life.

Kyungha made sure that it wasn’t just a one-way exchange. She’d told him about all of the bad in her life. All of the suffocation she’d felt, being the youngest on the university campus. She’d told him about medical school, and she didn’t know it at the time—didn’t appreciate it properly. But thanks to Seulgi, it’d been the best experience of her life. Sehun had joked that she was the female version of him—sleeping with anything that had two walking legs.

Of course, Kyungha had kissed him and told him to shut his mouth. He did just that. And—you guessed it—Sehun is still, very much, whipped for her. She wouldn’t take anything less than that.

Now, Oh Sehun’s her lifeline. He’s the very oxygen that keeps her breathing. He’s the very sun that gives her essential vitamin D. He’s the very water that pushes her against the currents. He’s her fire, and she’d never let anything snuff out the flame. And he’s a magician, and she was also the girl who was madly in love—whether he’d used a love potion or spell casted. It didn’t matter because they were, quote, magic together, end quote. It. Just. Worked.

Sehun doesn’t weigh her down from her true potential. Not like when she was sixteen, and he’d held the power to make or break her. Kyungha now knows with all of her heart that if he’d left her one day, she’d be strong enough to hold her own. Yes, she’d probably keel over, but she’d held pride in the fact that he pushed her through intensive self-development.

She’d gone from a little girl who had been constantly afraid to get confrontational to a strong woman who thrived in her new colorful world. She’d basically told society to off. Because even if her boyfriend was thirteen years older than her, he’d taught her the most important thing that the world couldn’t offer her.

Love. Trust. Friendship.

The three things that she used to run from, but those days of running had gotten old really quickly. And even if she’d tried to, Kyungha had a bugging suspicion that Sehun, Seulgi, and Joohyun wouldn’t be very far behind her .

Love didn’t make you weak. It only made you weak if you didn’t know how to love properly. Love is a two-way game, and Sehun and Kyungha had shared that feeling mutually. They let themselves go with the flow; they’d go wherever the feeling took them.

Sometimes, Kyungha and Sehun would have fights that would seem irreparable, but they would find themselves in each other’s arms again, every hug tighter than the last—every breath bigger than the last. Life is simply too short to hold back. And their little routine of going to bed together had fixed most of the fights easily. The two of them would respectively force the other to fess up. Sehun says it’s not good to go to bed angry, and she’d felt the same way. Honestly.

Anger simply sits wrong with her, especially if it was directed at her sweet and gorgeous boyfriend. Kyungha’s lips twitch. To think the day she’d compliment her boyfriend in her own thoughts. He already had an ego the size of his head—the one on top of his neck and the very one in his groin.

“What are you smiling about over there, sweetheart?”

Kyungha exhales the night air. It smells like rain and gasoline. More importantly, it smells like home because with Sehun next to her, everywhere’s her home.

“Just thinking about you,” she answers, eyes twinkling with mischief.

Sehun waggles his eyebrows. “You’re a genius, Do Kyungha.”

“I’m already aware of that.”

He laughs, throwing his head back. “You’re so cocky.”

“I know. Imagine the destruction I would bring if I had a ding-a-ling.”

He freezes. “Great, now I can’t get the image of out of my mind.”

It’s her turn to laugh now. “You’d go gay for me, wouldn’t you?” Kyungha pulls at his arms, and he continues to move despite the horror in his eyes.

Sehun hums, “depends on the circumstance.”

She sticks her tongue out. “Let’s be frank here, as long as there’s a hole, you can’t deny that you wouldn’t stick your in.”

His jaw falls open. “You told me to stop hanging out with Jongin—christ, you’re ten times worse than all of us.”

Kyungha lets out a gutsy laugh, swinging their arms and feeling the icy air sting her skin. “At least I’m not a liar,” she acknowledges with a toothy grin.

His face brightens, and the corner of his lips upturn into a soft smile—her favorite smile. The smile that says a million things at once. Appreciation. Adoration. Admiration. Need her say more?

“The day you made us both promise to only exchange truths. Nothing will ever top that for me. That’s the day I realized I was in love with you,” he tells her, pulling her closer until she’s flushed to his side, and Kyungha can feel the thick material of his wool coat. She fixes her scarf—his scarf, actually—and closes her eyes briefly to inhale his smell.

“How interesting. I guess I fell in love first,” she murmurs.

His eyebrows disappear behind his hairline. “Bet,” he taunts playfully.

Kyungha shares a meaningful smile with him. “The very first day I met you. It’s creepy now that I think about it—but nonetheless, I was five and impressionable—even though I tried to pretend otherwise. You were joking about something with your friends, and then I corrected you when you claimed something to be true. But—“

She exhales a steady breath, meeting his gaze. “—you looked straight into my eyes. And you were the first person to confront me properly. Unapologetically. And most importantly, unafraid. You smiled at me, goodheartedly, and then you proceeded to correct me. Straight away, I was embarrassed. I’d wanted to hate you. Honestly, none of my peers, not even my older brother or my mom had done that before.

Because no one could keep up with me. But you did. The poster boy of high school douchebag. That’s how I knew I was face to face with a genius. How I knew that we were similar. And then I was hooked, and you’d never left my mind since.”

Sehun looks absolutely winded. Eyes wide. Lips parted. Blinking rapidly. He rubs his free hand over his face, laughing into his palm incredulously. “Congratulations. You’re the only person to have stunned me into silence for the third time in the same lifetime.”

Kyungha bites back a smile, and she leans into his cheek, pressing a kiss easily. Then, she murmurs against his skin, “I love you. Forever and always.”

He shivers against her. “Goddamn, you’re potent, woman. Let me live, sweetheart. You’re gonna be the result of my early heart attack.”

She laughs, mirroring his words to him, “then I’ll just resuscitate you.”

He nudges her playfully. “And what if it happens again, smartass?”

Kyungha hums, “then I’ll do it all over again.”

Sehun beams, eyes crinkling. “Can’t wait.”

“Will you tell me where we’re going?” He points ahead to the grove of leafless trees strung with Christmas lights. There are people everywhere on the grass. Couples on thick blankets, holding hands and exchanging their own sweet nothings. Families laughing beside each other. Kids running around without a care in the world. Kyungha’s eyes widen in recognition. “We’re at Central Park.”

Sehun nods, “the place we found Dani.”

Kyungha’s eyes grow glassy. Goddamn this man. He was too perfect, and she didn’t know how she was going to live another day without constantly having her heartstrings strummed. “The place where I realized what I’d needed to do.”

He stops her in front of a bench. Then, he’s tugging her down onto his lap. Kyungha and Sehun are face-to-face. She grins at him, and he returns it with ten times the potency. She encases both her arm around his neck, and he’s thumbing her ribs under her winter coat. A shiver runs down her spine.

Mine. Sehun didn’t need to tell her the words. She could hear it. She could feel it. She could taste it. And she agreed wholeheartedly.

“It’s a special place. I wanted to watch fireworks here,” he relays. “You changed my entire life, and it’s only fair that I return that.”

Kyungha squints her eyes at him. “What are you…?”

Sehun tilts his head, taking her bottom lip between his plump ones. She moans, letting herself delight in the taste of his mouth. Sweet. Heat. Floral. Spicy. Masculine. Hers. He pulls away, tapping her hand with the usual irregular rhythm of his—his heartbeat.

Kyungha glances down to see a ring. A simple silvery white band with a single-cut diamond. Nothing too flashy. Simple and elegant—just the way she’d liked it. falls open, a gasp slipping out. “Hoon? What—”

“I know it’s only been a year since we’ve officially been together,” he tells her. Kyungha can’t see him through her blurry vision. She opens to speak, but only a sob comes out. Oh ing hell. He did not just make her cry again. Sehun laughs, shaking his head incredulously. “Sweetheart, why are you crying? I haven’t even started my cheesy give-Shakespeare-a-run-for-his-money monologue yet.”

Kyungha closes , waiting for him to continue. He wipes her tears, leaning in to kiss under her eyes. Then, he pulls back so they’re close enough that only she could hear him.

“Like I said, we haven’t been dating for long. Technically, it hasn’t even been a year. But , sweetheart, I’ve waited for you since you were sixteen. I don’t need another year to see that you’re the one. I don’t think I can meet another girl who makes me want to laugh like I’m a fool and then next minute, she stuns me into complete silence. There’s only one of you, and I want you off the market—“

Kyungha laughs, pushing his chest playfully. “I’m not produce, .”

He shakes his head, eyes glinting mischievously. “No, but you’re a ing commodity.”

“Continue, stupid.”

Sehun caresses the side of her face. His hands are warm, but it doesn’t beat how warm her chest feels. “Maybe this could be the worst mistake of our lives. I mean, if our colleagues already think you’re a gold digger, which you definitely have the looks to prove—“

Kyungha pinches his stomach, and he coughs out a hurried joking!, goddamn, sweetheart, I was joking.

“As I was saying,” he begins again after recovering from his near-death experience. “Even though you’re the craziest little girl I know—abusive, mental—ah, ah, okay, please stop trying to kill me,” he chokes. “I have a goddamn speech to finish, woman.”

Kyungha laughs through her tears.

“Even though rumors might break out that I’ve somehow managed to impregnate you—with a devil child no less. I’m the greatest motherer in this world. And quite frankly, I don’t think anyone else can handle your high maintenance—white chocolate lookin’ . I mean—tell me I’m wrong,” he jokes, waggling his eyebrows at her.

She bites her lips, and he grins, snapping his finger.

“Exacta—ing—Mundo, sweetheart. Sorry, you better watch out cuz’ I’m coming after your title, you genius little girl,” he says, pressing a kiss to the corner of her lips. Kyungha rolls her eyes playfully. “Okay, okay. The point is—“ He interlaces her fingers with his. “I love you. It’s simple, but sweetheart, you make even the simplest emotions complicated.

My love for you is interwoven so deeply that’s it more complex than ing DNA. No scientist will look twice my way. Hell, they’re gonna run in fright. Because they’ll see how scarily happy you make me every day. And honestly, I think if someone defined me in the Oxford dictionary, you’d be the very definition because you just are. You’re every piece of me. You’re in my blood. You’re in my mind. You’re my anti-. The entirety of my ing world in one gorgeous woman.

And if you still can’t understand how it’s possible for me to love you so much, don’t. Because, , I don’t understand it myself. I just vibe with it because that’s how Seha does things. And sweetheart, I don’t want to wait another minute to put my name on you because time’s passing by too quickly, and why wait if I’ve already known since you walked into my life with that irresistible yellow slip dress?” He takes a deep breath, and honestly, it feels like forever until he says something again. But Kyungha doesn’t mind. She’d wait forever for him because she knows he’d do the same for her.

“Do Kyungha, are you finally gonna let me be the mother of your babies or what?”

Kyungha is shaking from everything. Euphoria. Love. Gratefulness. Gods. Is there a single feeling in this world that Oh Sehun doesn’t make her feel?

In short, the answer’s a fat no, and she’s so ing okay with it.

So with the biggest and most earnest smile, she could muster, she looks straight into his eyes—past the surface, deep into his inner workings. She answers with her usual affair of cheekiness, “of course, I wouldn’t miss a day in the world to see your bloodied and mutilated.”

Sehun is trembling so hard from laughter that she almost falls off of his lap. He’s shaking his head incredulously, but she knows that he’s so whipped that he’ll never take back his words.

At this moment, the sky lights up with fireworks. It’s beautiful, vividly rainbow-colored, and it’s in every direction. She can’t escape it.

It mirrors the current state of her chest. Messy. In disarray. Spelling shambles in a million different languages.

But hell, it is anything but indeterminate. She’s never seen her future more clearer than in this moment at this exact time. She imprints the image of him dying of laughter from her answer, storing it in the deepest parts of her brain. She will never forget this. And she’d be damned if she forgot even a second of it.

“I have one more present for you,” he whispers, tracing the shape of her nose.

Kyungha tilts her head. “What’s better than a ring?”

Sehun winks at her. “Trust me, you’ll be Kim Kardashian ugly crying when you see it.”

“Bet,” she retorts.

“Close your eyes.” And she does. Kyungha hears the ruffling of fabric, and then she hears the light clinking of metal in the distance. He places something around her neck—a necklace, she guesses. Sehun gently pulls her hair from under the necklace. She shivers when the cold metal touches her skin. “You can open them now, sweetheart.”

Kyungha lets her eyes flutter open again, and she glances down to see, indeed, a necklace around her. But the chain is longer, she squints at what looks like—she feels herself inhale sharply. A key. An antique key to be accurate. It’s a beautiful hue of gold, sparkling in the light. It’s been restored by a jeweler.

“Six years ago, you gave me back my key with tears in your eyes and utter heartbreak, but today, I’m giving you a key in return for choosing to stick beside me. You looked past my debauchery. Past my facade. Past my bull. You cherished my heart, and I still don’t think there’s anything I can do to make up for my mistakes, but Kyungha, you say I’m your magic. That makes you the spellbook, the wand—hell, the ing spell itself. I love you, and I still have a whole lifetime to make it up to you, but it’ll be a hell lot easier if you’re living with me.”

Her jaw drops. “What?”

Sehun’s teeth clamp onto the right corner of his bottom lip, and his beautiful smile is lighting up her world again. “The house that you’ve been eyeing for the past months. The cute red-roofed European cottage styled house—the one that looks straight out of a storybook—“ His lips graze the shell of her ear. “It’s ours. And it’s only fitting for my queen to have her happily ever after, isn’t it?”

Kyungha had thought that she’d run out of waterworks. Well, he’s proven her wrong again. Goddamn it. She couldn’t believe it. She was looking straight into the face of perfection himself.

“So, what do you say? Am I lucky enough to get two yes's in one night?”

She laughs, wiping away her tears briskly. “Yes, Oh Sehun. You can even ask me to jump off of a bridge, and I’d do in a heartbeat, you stupid, stupid—“

“You’re so bipolar, sweetheart. You called me a genius thirty minutes ago, and now I’ve been demoted to stupid again. Christ, woman.”

Kyungha ignores him. She leans in closer until their lips are barely touching, a measly centimeter away. “So when am I getting that New Year’s kiss, Hoon?”

Sehun crashes his lips against her, and this is it. The peak of her high. She’s officially an addict, and no amount of rehab was gonna pull her out of her predicament, but Kyungha couldn’t care less. And the answer is simple, really.

Because, right now, she’s being held by her entire world, and she’d never settle for less.

Kyungha buries her face in her lap. She’s sitting on the toilet with tears streaming down her face. Sehun should be dead for making her cry this hard again.

“Honey, I’m home!” His voice sounds from downstairs. She hears the clattering of keys when he drops it inside the bowl they keep by the door. “Sweetheart?” He calls for her.

She hurriedly wipes any signs of tears and attempts to stop the sobs from wracking her body.

Son of a . Oh Sehun is definitely the biggest one out there. She hears his footsteps clamper up the stairs. He’s rounding onto the hallway toward their bedroom.

“Sweetheart? Where are you?”

She doesn’t answer and sinks back down on the toilet seat in resignation.

“Sweetheart, if you can hear me, make a sound so I can make sure you haven’t accidentally become Myrtle.”

Kyungha bites down on her lips, feeling herself half sobbing and half laughing. She hates her fiancé. She hates how easily he makes her laugh when she’s smack dabbed on the opposite spectrum.

Sehun sighs theatrically. “Alright, fine. I’ll humor you. The things I do for you, I swear. Making me play hide and seek in the dark when it’s three in the morning after a twenty-eight-hour shift. Only for you, sweetheart. Only for—“

He seems to see the lights in their bathroom, and he wearily peeks his head in to see her. Sehun nearly loses his head when he falls onto his knees, hugging her waist.

His eyes are dead serious as he looks into hers. “Why are you crying? Tell me, who hurt you?”

Kyungha sniffles, pushing at his shoulders. She thumbs the slim plastic cylindrical tube in her palms. Sehun doesn’t relent, and his jaw is clenched, eyes that say he’s ready to fight whoever or whatever it is that’s made his baby cry.

But she doubts he’ll be doing any fighting tonight. Looking down at him, she cups her face with her free hand. “Listen carefully, Hoon.”

He nods tensely.

“You’re going to be—“

“A murderer? You bet I will.”

“No, stupid,” she says, fighting a laugh.

“A convict?”

“No—“

“A first-degree homicide case?”

“No, listen—“

“A—“

“Will you shut the up for a second?”

Sehun looks kind of butthurt when he looks away for a brief second to regain his composure. Kyungha’s heart squeezes in her chest. To her defense, it wasn’t her. Like it definitely came out , but it wasn’t…her. If that made any sense.

Kyungha continues, tilting his face toward hers again. “You’re going to be a dad.”

Silence falls in the spaces. Every single nook and cranny. She holds her breath. And frankly, he looks like he’d stopped breathing the minute the words left .

“What?” He whispers, eyes wide and in total disbelief.

“We’re going to have a shotgun wedding. Looks like everyone at work will have a field day. I can already hear Seulgi screaming in my ea—“

Kyungha doesn’t get to finish her words when Sehun takes her lips into the most passionate kiss she’s ever been engaged in. She closes her eyes, groaning when he bites her lips. And then he’s pressing his tongue into the space that she’d left open for him.

He’s conveying everything, and he’s also doing a damn fine job making her knees buckle in the process. Sehun releases her from his kiss, heaving in a lungful of air like he couldn’t get enough of it.

He doesn’t say anything, and it kind of scares Kyungha. But it gives her hope that she can definitely and confidently put making my chatty, social butterfly of a fiancé speechless as one her talents right under giving him s in point-blank.

“I was gonna tell you three weeks ago that I’d taken out my IUD and was too busy to get a new one, but you just had to seduce me with your y s and your big—“

“You’re pregnant?” He asks, interrupting her aimless rambling.

Kyungha grins. “Surprise! Honestly, I thought you were going to be pregnant first, but I guess you also have magical , so what can I say?”

“Oh my god, you’re pregnant.”

“Yes, I’m—“

“I’m—I’m gonna be—I’m gonna be a ing dad?”

“If you let me finish—“

“I’m really a dad? You’re serious. This isn’t a joke?”

“Hoon, April Fool’s was five months ago.”

“Holy ! I’m a ing dad!”

“Fantastic news. Let me just call all my bridesmaids and we can throw a ing party while we’re at it,” she says, a sarcastic smile twisting at her lips.

“I’m a dad? I’m a dad. I’m a dad? I’m a—“

Kyungha pinches her temples. “Oh gods, I finally turned you into a moron. We should break this engagement before it gets worse—“

“No ing way in hell that is happening, sweetheart,” he snaps.

Her eyebrows knit together. “I was joking.”

Sehun an eyebrow at her. “And I wasn’t joking. And I also wasn’t laughing.”

“And you’re calling me bipolar? I’m not the one who’s suddenly pissy, and my maternal hormones are having a ing party up in me right now.”

He caves, a smile blooming again. “I was just messing with you, sweetheart. You know I could never be truly angry at you.”

“Even if I banned you from ever going to Paris Baguette ever again?”

Sehun’s smile drops, but then he forces a wobbly smile on his lips. “That can be negotiated.”

“What if I’m crying?”

He snorts. “Since when do you cry at the sight of pastries?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. I’m the one who’s about to become fat with raging, temperamental moods in a couple of months.”

Sehun looks resigned when he glances back up at her again. “I think your existence was made purely to test me,” he notes.

Kyungha bites back a smile. “I’m sorry, Oh Sehun. Your trial period is over. Congratulations, you’re now ready to become a father. You’ve proven yourself worthy enough for me to bear your child.”

The drop in his mood is so disheartening that she almost feels bad for the joke. “Oh,” is all he says.

And then she breaks into a fit of laughter, crying again. Shaking her head, she pushes the pregnancy test stick onto his palms. “You’re so damn gullible.”

Sehun’s body wracks with laughter. “What do you expect? Your word is the ing constitution.”

Kyungha taps his nose. “The constitution is also a living document.”

“Smartass,” he quips.

She hums and checks her proverbial watch, tilting her wrist at him, “hmm, you’re still here?”

Sehun kisses the side of her jaw. “Yes,” he murmurs against her skin intimately. “And I thought I would never be any happier when you said you’d marry me, but here I am, clutching plastic covered with potential health hazards and happy—so ing happy out of my damn mind. But I guess that’s what I signed up for. Is it too late to back out now?”

Kyungha chuckles. “Not a chance, lover boy.”

He sighs dramatically, feigning sadness. “Darn, I was hoodwinked.”

“By someone thirteen years your junior no less,” she sasses.

“No regrets, sweetheart.”

“How could I ever?”

“Sweetheart?”

“Hoon?”

“I love you,” he breathes.

“I love you too, daddy.”

“You’re so naughty, mommy. Baby is gonna cringe from the sounds of you my name before he or she even comes out of your birth canal.”

“Well, I think he or she should get used to it—even when daddy’s relying on .”

Sehun gasps, placing a hand on his chest. “I would never.”

Kyungha’s brows lift as she pushes out, “oh yeah?” from her -eating grin.

He returns the same -eating grin. “You can bet your on that. You’ve been promoted from my personal sleeping pill to my -inducing pill, sweetheart.”

“Good to know that.”

“So how many kids are you thinking?”

She hums, wrapping her arms around his neck. “How many are you thinking?”

“I’m thinkin’ like sixteen at the least.”

Kyungha snorts. “Sweetheart, I’m a woman with one uterus, not an entire orphanage.”

“And you’re also a superhero.”

“Damn right I am. You’re gonna be my sidekick for nine months.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Aaaand the rest of my life.”

“Duh—now you’re just stating the obvious.”

Kyungha cannot even fathom the warmth blossoming in her chest. She’d thought she’d felt it all when he held her hand for the first time. Wrong. She’d thought she’d felt it all when he kissed her for the very first time. Wrong, again. And she’d thought she felt it when he offered to be the mother of her babies—okay, scratch that—she’d felt it then.

But nothing. Nothing prepared her for this. Right now, she’d felt like she was standing on the very top of the world. When Kyungha was eight, she’d decided that Sehun was high above her—on another pedestal. And no matter how much she climbed—no matter how many calluses she’d earned from the attempts, she couldn’t reach him. Never.

And now, Kyungha didn’t need to climb anymore. He wasn’t on another pedestal. She’d been so utterly wrong again, and yes, it’s probably becoming a pattern at this point. No matter. Oh Sehun is right next to her.

In fact, he’d always been beside her. She just couldn’t see past the mirage of the horizon. If she’d turned her head just an inch, she could’ve easily reached him.

But Kyungha isn’t here to voice her regrets because time is ticking by, and she’s going to walk forward and never look back again.

Nothing’s stopping her, and Sehun’s already given his word—promised that he would never slow down.

A tear falls from her eyes, and Sehun stops messing around, blinking at her in concern. “Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

She chokes on a laugh. “Nothing, nothing’s wrong. In fact, everything’s perfect. And I love you. I love you more than the ing sky.”

A cheeky smile plays onto his face. “Pity. The sky can’t exist without its sun.”

Kyungha gags. “Oh my god, I want a divorce right now.”

He ignores her, pressing a million kisses to her forehead and to her face and to her neck and to her everywhere. He’s putting his name all over her, and Kyungha is living for it.

“I know this is scientifically impossible, but I think our baby wants a little bro,” Kyungha jests, her nose crinkling.

Sehun lifts her, swinging his arms under her legs and propping her upright. She throws her arms around his neck, pressing her nose into his smooth skin and smiling so widely that her cheeks ache. “I thought you’d never asked,” he gushes with so much cheekiness that he was asking for a fight with Kim Kardashian's .

And then she can finally call it. Her happily ever after, except Kyungha knows the magic’s only just begun.