One More Chance

            Kyuhyun texted me constantly when I first arrived at my parents’ house, asking me to come home.  But I made it abundantly clear that I wanted space and he immediately backed off.  My husband loves me dearly, but he is terrified of me when I’m angry.  But on the morning of his fan meet, he risked angering me to send a message.

            Please come tonight.  You have worked hard to help me get ready for this and for coming back after my enlistment.  It would not feel right if you weren’t there.  I love you.

            I want you to know, I never had any intention of skipping it.  We’re married and I feel that it’s my duty to go to all his major events.  I also wanted to see it.  I only told Kyuhyun that I might not go out of anger.  To be honest, I shouldn’t have done it.  He was stressed out from just returning and nervous about being onstage again for the first time.  But I was still mad at him and it was not going to go away overnight. 

            You can judge me how you want over it.  I was still upset that he’d lumped me into a group of people he goes out drinking with, plays video games with, or occasionally hangs out with.  I was just one of those friends.  I deserve so much more recognition than that. 

            The damn thing is, I have a soft spot for Kyuhyun.  So, even though I was mad, I still wanted to be nice to him.  Knowing that I’d already stressed him out by not being at the house for a couple days, I decided to call in some backup.  I wanted to bring someone with that he truly liked—and that wouldn’t drive me crazy—who would help lift his spirits up. 

            “Are you still coming?” I asked, on the phone with Henry, getting ready to leave my parent’s house.

            “Yes, although I’m probably going to run late getting there,” Henry confessed.  “I’m sorry.”

            “No, you’re fine!  I think Kyu will just be thrilled that you’re there!  He hasn’t seen you in forever!” I told him.  “He was recently complaining that you never call, you never come over.”

            “I’m sorry, hyung!” he laughed.

            I smiled at this.  He’s the only member that calls me hyung.  “I know you’re busy.  I’ll see you later!  Love you!  Bye!”

            Kyuhyun would be excited when he found out that Henry was there.  We used to refer to him as our adopted child, back when we used to do SJM promotions.  Kyuhyun still complained about never seeing him anymore and often wondered if we’d ever put together another SJM album so we could promote with him again, but I never held out any hope of it, especially with Sungmin gone.  I was just happy that Henry seemed to be doing well on his own.

            I headed out for the fan meet early, so I could spend time with Kyuhyun before it.  The manager accompanying Kyuhyun claimed that he was extremely restless and stressed out.  We didn’t let anyone know that I was coming, so the manager looked incredibly relieved when he saw me walk through the back door of the venue. 

            “Oh, thank God!” he said, collapsing into a chair.  “I thought he was going to have a panic attack.  He’s been pacing around for the last hour!”

            “Where is he?” I asked, looking around.

            “In the dressing room,” he said, pointing to the door.

            I walked over to the door and didn’t even bother knocking.  I just walked in.  Kyuhyun was sitting on the dressing room’s cushioned bench, arms resting on his knees, and his head in his hands.  His head popped up the moment he heard the door open and his watery eyes brightened the moment his eyes locked on me.  For a moment, he just stared at me in disbelief.

            “Hey,” I simply said, closing the door.

            “You came,” he said, his voice a little unsteady.

            I nodded.

            He jumped to his feet and rushed towards me.  Then he stopped in front of me and reached forward, wrapping his arm around my waist and drawing me in closer.  Kyuhyun gently grasped my forearm with his other hand.  As I looked up at him, our eyes locked together, and I could see the momentary indecision in them as he gazed into mine.  But it was only there a moment.  I could sense the moment it dissolved as his hand tightened on my arm, his gaze softened, and he took a deep breath.  Then he leaned in to kiss me.  His lips pressed firmly against mine and then began to gently my lower lip.  I found myself moving in closer and kissing him back, despite still being mad at him, because I still loved him and I missed him while I’d been gone. 

            I’m not sure how long we kissed, but considering I’d only intended on pecking him on the lips, at most, it went on much longer than I’d intended.

            “I missed you,” he said, finally pulling away but not releasing me.

            I nodded, still a little breathless from the kiss. 

            “Thank you for coming.  I was worried that you wouldn’t.”

            “I had no intention of missing your fan meet,” I confessed.  “I was just angry at you.”

            “Are you finished being angry?”

            I shook my head.  “No, but I’m still going to come to your fan meet.”

            He sighed heavily.  “I hoped this meant you’d at least come home.  I haven’t been sleeping well.  It’s kind of like you being enlisted all over again.”

            “I’m not coming home just because you can’t sleep,” I told him.

            “I wasn’t implying that.  I wanted you to come home because I’m sorry and I love you and I will talk to you before doing stupid anymore.  I promise that Aewol ri doesn’t have any girls in it, real or implied.  Would you like to watch the video first?”

            “I already made the managers show me the video,” I informed him.  If he thought I was going to trust him with his music videos anymore, he had another thing coming.

            “Well?” he asked, looking worried.

            “It looks great.  I didn’t see anything to object to.  You look good in it,” I informed him.  “I told you I thought the song was good when I first heard it.  Remember?  You sound good.  The music was written well for your vocal range.  I hope it does well.”  I know I’m supposed to be mad at him, but if I don’t tell him that I thought it was wonderful, he gets super self-conscious about it and wonders what’s wrong. 

            “What about the lyrics?” he asked.

            He had never asked me about that, back when I first heard it, but I knew he’d written some of them.  It’s interesting because, for so many years, he didn’t really grasp my drive to pour my feelings out by writing music.  He understands having passion for something.  He loves singing as much as I do, but he never felt the need to process emotions by writing about them before.  And then I enlisted in the military and he had no idea how to handle it.  He was a mess for a long time, bottling up his emotions, overworking, and drinking too much.

            The hyungs realized that he wasn’t doing well on his own and began to spend some serious time at the dorm.  Shindong eventually moved in with him until I returned because he couldn’t manage being alone.  And whenever some of the others had time, they would come over as well. 

            One day, when both Donghae and Eunhyuk happened to be on vacation from their own enlistments, they came over to visit for a couple days.  When Kyuhyun came home from a long day, feeling particularly frustrated, he found them working on songs at the table together.  Well, honestly, it was mostly Donghae working and Eunhyuk was scribbling out raps.  Kyuhyun sat down at the table and began to read through what Donghae was working on.  It was a nearly finished version of One More Chance, including the music, which he was tweaking a little.  He handed it off to Kyuhyun, who began to read through the lyrics. 

            He asked who it was about.  Donghae simply said it was about someone he’d been away from for a long time and missed.  Whenever he feels heartbroken, he ends up writing music.  It’s just how he tackles his emotions.  He’d started it one morning by scribbling lyrics that came to him on a napkin, after eating breakfast and looking at streaks of rain, running down the window.  He’d been playing around with it for several months since.  When he had a hard time with some of the lyrics, he sent it off to Eunhyuk, who fixed it up, rearranging the order and making better word choices until it sounded smoother, and then added a rap.  Recently, he had Team OneSound iron out the music with him and he felt it was nearly perfect.  He felt it should probably go on the next Super Junior album.  Kyuhyun asked him to sing it.  He could have sung it himself, but he felt that listening to the songwriter sing it usually felt more authentic to the song.  Something rang truer about the words.  He listened as Donghae sang the song and was blown away by it.  Not only had Donghae become a damn good writer in recent years, but he had also figured out a productive way to process his feelings.

            That was when Kyuhyun finally understood me.  And when I returned for my next visit, he told me that he’d begun to take piano lessons again.  He’d taken some several years ago and had mediocre abilities, but he suddenly wanted to become much better.  And then he began showing me rough drafts of song lyrics.  Piles of them.  The thing is, when Kyuhyun decides he wants to do something, he goes all the way with it.  Aewol ri is proof that his skill is starting to truly develop.

            “You’ve done a really good job on it,” I told him.  Even if I am still angry at him, I will not deny the fact that I’m proud of his efforts.  As I said, he finally understands that part of me and that was something I never thought would happen, after all these years together.  We now have another thing in common that I never thought we would.  As we get older, our interests seem to align more.  I never expected that to happen.  All these years, I feared that because we fell in love so early in our lives, we might grow apart more as we aged.  I never assumed that we might grow closer.

            “It doesn’t bother you that I write about the sad parts?” he asked, referring to our relationship.  Many of the songs he’d been writing were about when I was away or memories of harder times, such as when we’ve fought or even of before we were together. 

            “No,” I answered.  “And I hope it doesn’t bother you that I write about the annoying, frustrating parts because I’ve written about five or six songs about that in the last few days.”

            Kyuhyun’s whole face scrunched up.  “That many?”

            “I’m an extremely prolific writer when I feel motivated!”

            Kyuhyun smiled and wrapped his arms around me tighter.  “You must have had very strong feelings to write about!”

            “I did!”

            “You would not write so much about me if you didn’t have such strong feelings,” he said, leaning in and pressing his lips against mine.

            I tried