One year later

Donghae just finished signing his renewed contract with LSJ as part of the A&R Department, including clauses of being a composer. He’s excited to go home, thinking about how he and Hyukjae have plans to celebrate together tonight at home. It’s a Friday and they’ll be spending the weekend together as usual. He smiles as he feels the little box in his pocket, carefully concealed in his desk at the office for the past few months. 

In the January snow, he carefully drives back to their apartment and smiles as he feels the familiar thrill of calling that place their home. The past year has been amazing, and his heart swells as he looks back to it. They’ve been living together for about ten months now, and he honestly couldn’t ask for a happier home. It’s honestly not a walk in the park during the first month, but as usual with the two of them, they’ve worked it out. They’re really good at arriving at compromises, primarily because they prioritize each other a lot. They still have a lot of silly arguments and more than a few sulking days, but the love that they share continues to grow stronger and the happiness they feel with each other remains unsurpassable. Donghae wouldn’t have it any other way. 

His cafe is thriving and he’s produced several songs already. SKYE finished their tour in the first half of last year, and has just released another album last month. All the members are active in their own endeavors as well, and Hyukjae is as busy as ever with his regular shows, and even raked in more fame after opening a Youtube dance channel. He gets a lot of advertisements from clothing and footwear brands, cosmetic brands, and so on. He continuously trends on social media every time he drops another dance cover, and honestly, Donghae just about loses his mind over his very hot boyfriend every time. To this day, he’s still as crazy for Hyukjae as he’s always been, especially when he’s dancing. 

He arrives at a very dark apartment and for a moment he thinks Hyukjae isn’t home yet, but by the light from the hall outside, he sees a path of rose petals leading inside. He smiles, pleased at this romantic surprise. Hyukjae isn’t always romantic but every now and then he pulls something like this and it makes Donghae extremely touched and happy. He and Hyukjae are two very different people, but Hyukjae makes sure to cater to all his needs, both physically and emotionally. 

At the end of the path of rose petals is their dining table, now set for a romantic candlelit dinner, complete with mood lighting and a very elaborate dinner spread. Hyukjae stands on the side wearing a fitted button down shirt and skinny jeans and it takes all of Donghae’s self control not to jump him right then and there. He wants to relish this romantic dinner, and would settle to have Hyukjae as his dessert later. Frankly, Hyukjae might not even know the extent of how gone Donghae is for him. 

“Hi baby, congratulations on your renewed contract.”

Donghae beams. “Isn’t this too much just for a contract renewal?”

“Nothing is too much for you,” Hyukjae says as he walks closer to kiss Donghae’s cheek. “And besides, it’s something we both didn’t think could happen when we first got together.”

Donghae feels his legs weaken. His heart thrums loudly as he swoons. “I love it when your romantic side comes out, Hyuk,” he says gratefully.  

Hyukjae gives him a lopsided smile and shrugs. “Sit down, baby.”

And he just about melts even more. Hearing Hyukjae call him baby does things to his heart, even though he’s been hearing it everyday for more than a year now. He sits down and they eat comfortably, talking about their respective days like usual. 

“The members and I were discussing earlier that we will add Share My Love in the setlist for the next concert tour.”

“But your setlist is already final, right?”

“Yeah, just maybe as an encore song for the other stops. We don’t have choreography for that anyway, but it’s a fun song and the fans like it.”

“That’s nice then.”

“I told them I’d like us to sing it if you’re there. After all, it’s your song,” Hyukjae says as he looks at him with a smile. 

“Hyukkie, it’s our song. You wrote it with me.”

It’s true. Share My Love was that song he was humming randomly while Hyukjae was pampering him in the bath more than a year ago. It was when he was feeling drained at work and it kind of consumed his mind with insecurity about their relationship. But Hyukjae was there to take care of him and assure him with his love and his words and his actions. He still does until now, and Donghae can’t be any more thankful than he is with how lucky he is to be loved by Hyukjae. 

When he completed the melody, he and Hyukjae wrote the lyrics for it. He should have realized by then that Hyukjae has been planning to kind of leave his life for them to be together when he wrote specific parts of the lyrics.

“I share you my love, share you my love. I’m happy that I can give you my everything. I wanna share you my love, share you my love. My shoulders are here for you, come closer.”

“It’s not a waste to let go of the world. Even if I hold only you in both of my hands. Because you’re my world, have them all. It’s alright even if it’s a wrong calculation, so what.”

At that time though, he did not think much about it. When he learned Hyukjae was willing to basically leave his life for him, it broke his heart and filled it with so much gratitude at the same time. Thankfully, they’ve gotten through all their obstacles and didn’t need to be apart or sacrifice a lot to be together. Hyukjae being famous is a challenge, but Donghae loves it because it is a part of Hyukjae is. And from the very start, he has never considered Hyukjae’s career as a hindrance for them. Rather, it was Hyukjae’s mindset of what he thought his life should be, and Donghae's own responsibility to fulfill his promise with his mother. In the end, Hyukjae got over his mindset with help from Donghae to the point he was willing to lay it all down, and Donghae was able to change his mother’s mind with help from Hyukjae because of their powerful love for each other. 

In his mind, as a romantic, they’re now in their happily-ever-after era. Of course it’s not all rainbows and daisies, because they still have some problems and of course a lot of restrictions. But they’re happy and together. And that’s all they’ve ever wanted anyway. 

“Hae? You’re zoning out again, baby,” Hyukjae calls him out with a chuckle.

He grins sheepishly. “Sorry, love. What were you saying?”

Hyukjae shakes his head fondly. “I said, which countries would you like to watch the concert in?”

For their previous tour, he watched both days of the Seoul concert, and the Tokyo concert in which they did that Tokyo tour that he found out later on was Hyukjae’s plan all along (he cried in happiness and love, and spent three nights showing Hyukjae how thankful he was). He also went to the Macau and Melbourne stops, the souvenir magnets from those places now displayed proudly on their refrigerator, along with pictures from the places they’ve been together. He’s sentimental like that, wanting developed pictures and displaying them, and Hyukjae humors him as always. They’ve promised to go to more places both locally and internationally this year so they can fill their refrigerator. They’ve even joked around that they’d need more refrigerators in the future then. But he has this idea of filling their wall-to-wall glass window with their photos. Maybe on their twentieth anniversary, they’d be able to fill all the glass panels.

“I guess it will depend on my schedule? Anywhere is fine anyway, as long as I’m with you.”

Hyukjae does this expression of trying to hide his smile and then still smiling anyway like he’s suddenly realized he can be obvious that he likes it when Donghae says something cheesy. He’s been doing that everytime, and Donghae can’t help but feel so intensely happy whenever he sees it. Because there, the love of his life feels happy hearing those words from him. And he can show he’s happy because he’s let Donghae in his life and feels free to let him know what he feels. He’s still a tsundere sometimes, but he’s a romantic whipped cheeseball most of the time. 

“Okay, I’ll let you know of our scheduled stops as soon as I get it. And stop that smug smile, you cheesy brat.”

“Or what?” Donghae challenges. 

“Or I’ll kiss that smug smile off your lips.”

Donghae grins. “Come on then.”

Hyukjae gets up from his chair and walks to his side of the table, then leans in to kiss him. Donghae expected a passionate kiss but he’s instead rewarded by a soft and sweet one. He opens his eyes when Hyukjae pulls away.

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