It feels surreal that he is standing right in front of him right now. 

“You’re really back,” he said with eyes b with tears. 

It feels like a dream, everything around him was blurry, as if time had slowed down for them. He had been waiting for this moment ever since the love of his life was deployed out, away from him. 

“I’ll come back to you, I promise,” he had said on the day they sent him off to what was described as an impossible mission. Some said it was a mission to welcome death to avoid death at a greater toll. 

He was reluctant to let the love of his life go. He had blamed fate, he blamed the gods for sending the love of his life, for taking him away from him. 

“I’ll be home to you, I promise,” he couldn’t hold his tears back, it streamed down freely down his reddened cheeks. He tried to make it easier for him, he really did. But to let his love go with no certainty of returning is hard on him. He knew if others were in his situation, they would feel the same. But, it was all for their country, it was his duty. 

It took his love exactly 19 months to come back to him. Some might say 19 months is a short period of time but to him it felt like forever for the amount of uncertainty, the low chance of his love returning back to him. 

He feels like his eyes are deceiving him, like his brain is playing tricks on him. Day by day his longing for his lover grew, he misses him more as the days grow, as the months pass, as the years go. 

“Please don’t cry. I promise you’ll never cry again,” his love said as he wiped his tears away but tears just won’t stop flowing. 

“You’ll always have my heart with you. Keep it safe until I’m back,” he said, soft hands caressing the other’s cheeks, memorising every feature of his love in hopes the face he loves the most would save him, would give him enough strength for him to come back to his other half. 

“I’ll make you smile, I promise,” those were his last words before he turned his back and walked to his uncertain death.  

After 19 months, after 19 long months, his love is standing in front of him. He’s standing in one piece, no wounds, no bruises, just that his soft curves were replaced by rough and sharper edges.  But all in all, he returned back to him safe and sound. 

“I just got back and I already broke my promise of not making you cry,” his love said with the prettiest smile, arms stretching out towards him. 

He was still trying to grasp reality, trying to figure out whether this all was real or it’s just his mind playing tricks on him, whether he has finally lost his sanity because of the ever growing longing. 

His eyes won’t stop crying, nose and cheeks turning red. He took his sleeves to wipe away his tears to make his visions clear again, to see if the image of his love would disappear right after. 

His love was really there, smiling at him, arms out for him, eye slowly b with tears out of longing. 

“Woohyun,” the voice he longed for, the voice that he wished to hear for the last 19 months is calling his name so delicately as if it was a sacred word. 

He was glued at his spot, hands covering his face, stunned at the sight before him. He’s dreamt of this day for so long and that day has finally come. 

Even as the love of his life walked towards him, he still couldn’t move. His emotions were all jumbled, he was happy, grateful, taken aback, all of the feelings humans were known to have, he was feeling them all at once. It makes him sick in the stomach as the whirlwind of emotion surges through him. 

“I’m home like I promised you,” his other half was finally centimetres away from him. He cried harder knowing that he has his love back with him. 

He opened his mouth to speak but only sobs came out of him. His love finally hugged him and only then he truly believes that it’s real, that his love, his Sunggyu was back for real. 

He sobbed into his love’s chest, hands grabbing his uniform tightly. His legs finally gave up and he sat on the floor still in the embrace of the man he loves most. 

“I’m back to you like I promised,” his lover’s voice quivered, finally letting his tears fall, finally letting the feeling of longing take control of him as he hugged his love tightly. 

They stayed like that until their longing for each other were somewhat relieved. They sat there staring at each other’s glassy eyes and red cheeks, taking in the image before them. 

“You’re back,” Woohyun said, voice raspy from crying, finally smiling for the first time in a while. Sunggyu’s heart flutters seeing his love’s smile, the one that he longed to see, the one that he prayed he can see again. 

“I promised to make you smile, didn’t I?” his love cupped his cheeks, staring intently at the face before him, the face of his Woohyun. 

“You’re really back,” his smile grew wider, eyes crinkling and his little snaggletooth peeking out a little, tears sitting at the corners of his glassy eyes. 

“I’m back for good this time, I promise,” he said as he closed the distance between them, bringing their faces closer together and finally kissing the pair of lips that he missed, that he dreamt of for the last 19 months. 

“I kept your heart safe like you asked,” Woohyun said after the kiss, head now resting comfortably on his love’s broad shoulder, fingers intertwined perfectly with one another. 

Woohyun had thanked god for bringing his love back to him safely and thanked fate for arranging them to meet again in this current life. He brought their intertwined hands closer to his lips and kissed his love’s hand. 

“Thank you for returning like you promised.” Even after death, even in the next life, Woohyun wouldn’t ask for a different love. He would ask for his Sunggyu and Sunggyu prayed for the same, to always be each other’s love in all realities, in all universe, in any given situation.