Title: Before the Dawn

Rating: G

WC: 1,389

A/N: Hey guys! First of all, I apologize for the months I wasn’t able to update. It’s been pretty hard on me lately so, yeah. But I’m here now with the latest chapter, the start of the real story. It is short but I do hope this could be enough for something sort of like a prologue for the main story. I’m still trying to get back on my track with this story so expect short updates from me, if not, long absence before a new chapter comes. I’d also like to thank these people @iRkuyH @honeykeyla and @mjecipriano for patiently waiting and constantly reminding me to update.

 Lastly, happy birthday to the protagonist, Lee Hyukjae!

                Love comes in the most unexpected times. A long year of relationship between two can end up within the snap of a finger, however, a relationship that’s been going on for only a month or two can end up being forever.

Love is unpredictable and Eunhyuk never really gave it proper credits. He goes in and out, and thinks that love is just like that. But, when for some odd reason he felt extremely nervous while taking off his shirt in front of a blushing Gyuri, his heart flipped in ways he can’t explain.

For the first time, after coming down from their high, Gyuri securely fitted inside his embrace panting in his sweat covered chest, Eunhyuk gained a different view in love.

Love is unexpectedly unpredictable.

And he knows better now, that despite the amount of time he wasted in playing around, a day will come where he’ll stop everything and look back to what he had done to deserve happiness at a level that is supposed to be illegal. Because there are a lot more better man out there for Gyuri and yet, said girl is sleeping right next to him. Next to his arms where he decided to wear his heart on his sleeve right at that moment, there’s nothing for him to hide he had realized.

A real man never denies what’s obvious to the eye.

However, Eunhyuk turned into a coward since that day he had been cheated. A man like him – one who is not only as rich as one can imagine but also had experienced betrayal from the only girl he had loved so far – wouldn’t find it in them to change what they had feared. But they were living in the twenty-first century and he is undeserving but he thinks it is inevitable that they would meet; Siwon is a good friend after all.

Gyuri managed to worm her place in his life, secured his insecurities albeit the teasing (because Eunhyuk has tons of them and it doesn’t count his visual ranking amongst other men, he had been worried of that since diapers) and proved him that girls are not all the same. Yet, it wasn’t enough for the young CEO – until this night.

It was unusual, not just how they had made love. Uncertainty blinded the bachelor to see the different colors of the world, hindered him and fooled the man to hate on what could possibly bring him happiness. Maybe he did know, but for he has always been cautious of everything, he closed his eyes and continued what he was doing. The Heavens are having none of it – fortunately, for Gyuri (unbeknownst to her) won the battle in the end. And Eunhyuk was left nothing but to face what he had been running away from.

And boy was he an idiot for hiding from such feeling.

If what happened tonight is any indication, Eunhyuk sure knows he will regret ever being born. Stupid as it may sound; his heart is beating fast with just watching his girlfriend asleep. Added to that, Eunhyuk thinks, rather, realises that he looks good with marks of her. They weren’t just any ordinary bruise of hickeys but they were, he has figured it now, indications of belonging.

Probably he really is an idiot, one that is smart in life but fails in love quite miserably.

So he decides, that he’d rather die now than let tomorrow come were his proof of belonging will wither away slowly as tomorrow never ends with just the next day. He wants to belong, he wants Gyuri to be the one he belongs to, and Eunhyuk wants to claim her not just in intimate ways but in ways that it’ll be hard to escape.

It may be rash but what does it matter when they will get there eventually? The matter in hand is what he believes is the right thing, the only thing he had been secretly waiting for, the one thing he never wants to talk about but has now oftenly thinking about with a particular girl in mind. And now that he had seen a preview of what his future might be, it only takes one answer to make it happen.

Gyuri is woken up with no definite reason, Eunhyuk is as still as a statue, and the sun wasn’t up for the next few hours. The eerie silence ruled the room but two can hear the light breathing of one another – wide awake at an ungodly hour. She stretches and drapes her arm across his abdomen and shifts on her side, Eunhyuk smiles at the feeling of her out-stretched curve of lips kissing the ample of his shoulder.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that the girl is awake despite her closed eyes.

He stares, knowing full well that she could feel. He admires, knowing that it was him who makes the girl glow even more beautiful. He hopes that every single thing is real, and he prays, that this is forever.

“I may not melt with the stare, but I can be bothered you know,” her eyes fluttered slowly and blinked the sleepiness a few times. Eunhyuk kept his eyes trained on her, even when she looked at him and smiled and frowned when he didn’t react, he still kept on looking. Searching for his conciousness in her eyes, for him to reason out the flaws he sees within her. But there was none and he thinks he had already come to the stage were he had accepted whatever flaw she has that he cannot make a reason to stop himself for going too far.

He was already beyond when she looked down. “What’s wrong?” she asks hesitantly, fingers drawing circles in his chest. Too close to where Eunhyuk’s heart is currently having a protest to come out in the open. He thinks of the first girl he had love and compares them both. It was a mistake, however. Gyuri cannot just be simply compared to anyone without making the other look like a complete loser. Or probably Eunhyuk just realized how much bitterness he has for his ex – he doesn’t know them before and never thought he had it in him, just now maybe.

Left with nothing much of a choice, Eunhyuk tries to calm down the many emotions boiling within him. He thinks of the many reasons as to why the one question lingering in his lips should be asked at the right time and not at a time were everyone is probably asleep. He dismisses the thought that Heechul might be still wide awake enjoying the company of girls at his bar, that Kyuhyun must still be playing his star craft because he’s an addict, that one of Leeteuk’s radio show ends pretty late, and Donghae must still be on his last gig for the day, Siwon was probably out with his model friends partying, Yesung might be in his phone talking with his girlfriend, that Shindong is still in his honeymoon away from them, Ryeowook could still be up working for Eunhyuk hadn’t been capable of functioning properly as of late, and Kangin is now back in town, or that Sungmin is sleeping peacefully at the moment and can be pretty violent when woken up with no valid reason. No, he refuses to think of those. But he’s got one good reason to disturb them.

“Marry me.”

A crazy one reason, honestly. It wasn’t even a joke and perhaps the statement is too straight forward that Gyuri didn’t say anything. What could she probably say anyway? People are sound asleep and she wouldn’t admit but she thinks she’s also crazy for doing it right away, just like how she noticed the urgency in his tone.

Instead, she looks up when Eunhyuk didn’t say anything further and searched for his eyes. What she was looking for is something she doesn’t know but knows she found it when Eunhyuk looked back at her. “Marry me,” he repeats and this time, Gyuri leans forward with the biggest smile plastered in her lips to cover the line of his.

Maybe Eunhyuk is an idiot for running away, but he’s smart enough to know that silence means yes and that he loves the touch of thin lips against his plump ones.