A Healthy Bit of Space

            When I first came back from my enlistment, Kyuhyun and I couldn’t stand to be away from each other for more than a few hours.  Of course, real life doesn’t work like that.  He was still enlisted and worked during the week.  I was promoting with Super Junior again and found myself away a lot.  But whenever we were home at the same time, we were stuck together like glue.  Neither of us went out with our friends much when we knew we were both going to be free at the same time.  We wanted to catch up on all the lost time.

            But I want you to understand, that’s what I call a second honeymoon phase.  It doesn’t last forever.  When you’ve been involved with your significant other for as many years as Kyuhyun and I have, you also need a healthy amount of space in your relationship.  When you live and work together, it’s critical that you spend some quality time away from each other with friends or pursuing other projects.  This was never a problem before my enlistment.  I deejayed on the radio every weeknight.  Kyuhyun hosted Radio Star.  We were both involved in theater.  He tended to do a lot of photoshoots for advertisements.  I wrote music, played the piano, and took music lessons on my down time.  And we both had friends that we liked to hang out with.  Before my enlistment, we had a wonderful balance of spending quality time together and a healthy amount of time away from each other, engaging in personal interests. 

              Since I’ve come back from my enlistment, that hasn’t been the case.  Kyuhyun simply isn’t allowed to work, outside of doing his enlistment work.  So, he’s tried to fill his time, when I’m not available, by going out with his friends and taking vacations.  But that still means that he’s home—and incredibly bored—most nights after working.

            Kyuhyun sat on the couch, frowning, and flipping through the channels with the remote.  He’d gone through them twice already and was on his third run through them.  I was sitting next to him, sending Eunhyuk a text message, and trying to ignore his grumbling, but eventually I gave up.

            “Why don’t you play a computer game instead?”  I never thought I would find myself encouraging him to waste his time playing games, but it couldn’t be worse than this.

            “If I start a game, I’ll just stay up too late playing it.”

            Truer words have never been spoken.  “Why don’t you see what Changmin’s up to?”

            “He’s overseas.”

            “Minho?”

            “Isn’t free until about midnight.  I work at eight.”

            “None of your high school buddies can go out?”  Most of them had jobs at normal times.  I could count on them to get him home by ten or eleven.

            He stopped flipping through channels and looked over at me, narrowing his eyes.  “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

            “No.”

            “Because you’re free tonight, you realize.”

            The fact that he had a point didn’t mean I was going to admit that he was right.  “I just thought you seemed bored.  Every night, you come home and either pace around the house like a caged animal because you have nothing to do or sit around, complaining that there’s nothing to watch on television.  I thought you might like to do something different…see someone different.”

            “If you need a break, you can leave,” he reminded me, waving his hand at the door.

            “I didn’t say I needed a break,” I muttered.  I totally did need a break, at least for a couple hours, but I didn’t want to feel guilty about it.  He looked like a wounded puppy when I went out with my friends and he was stuck at home.  Which is completely unwarranted because he goes out with friends much more than I do!

            Kyuhyun’s phone vibrated and he picked it up.  He read the text.  “Hyuk wants to know if I want to come over and play MarioKart with him and order pizza.  Donghae’s busy and he’s bored.”

            “Perfect!  Problem solved!” I said, trying to push him off the couch.

            “Do you want to come with?”

            “No!” I quickly answered.  “I have all that laundry left to do, and the ironing, the bills to pay, and I have to call my mother back!”

            “You’re so full of ,” he said, leaning in to kiss me good-bye.  “I love you.  See you in a few hours.” 

            “Love you, too!”

            Kyuhyun stood up and headed for the door.  He quickly put on his jacket, texting Eunhyuk as he left.  I quickly grabbed the remote and turned the channel to a show that he’d passed by, three times, that I thought looked interesting and turned up the volume.

            A minute later, I got a test message.  I already knew it was going to be Eunhyuk responding to me and looked at the message.  You owe me!

            Thank you, hyung!  I love you!  I will bake you nummy cookies next time you come over!

Proofs and Truths

            “We need to stop and take a group picture,” I told the group, trying to get them all together.  “We need lots of group pictures!”

            “I thought you weren’t supposed to upload pictures of yourself online when you were enlisted.  You’re so dedicated to your fans!” Eunho teased, pulling out his camera.

            “It’s not for the fans.  It’s so Ryeowook knows I’m really on vacation with you and that I’m not lying about where I went and who I was with,” I informed him.

            He gave me a puzzled look.  “He doesn’t believe you?”

            “Mostly.  But he’ll ask me a million questions about where I went, what I ate, what I saw.  If something sounds fishy to him, he comes up with all sorts of scenarios in his head and starts to wonder if I’m leaving something out.  Did Kyu get drunk and do something stupid?  Did he really go where he said he was going?  Was he really with them?  If