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One beautiful October morning, Jeongguk woke up in the best way possible; in Taehyung's bedroom, with Taehyung's slumped over him, after a night full of great sex, taking advantage of the fact that Hoseok, Taehyung's new roommate after Jimin had moved in with Yoongi, had left on a tour.
Yet, as soon as Jeongguk opened his eyes, he felt a crushing anxiety wedge its way into his mind.
He tried to push it back and snuggled tighter against Taehyung, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop thinking about it.
One word: wedding.
As a general rule, Jeongguk didn't like weddings. Well, he'd never been to one, actually, but introverted as he was, he already had trouble with parties, where he never felt quite at ease; and weddings were nothing else but enormous parties full of strangers and boring ceremonies.
When you knew the groom or bride, you could at least feel happy for them; but Jeongguk didn't know Hyungsik nor Ara very well. Ever since they'd met in the street, a few months prior, he'd seen them again once, during a double date organized by Ara, but as always with strangers, he'd been a bit shy and quiet, that evening.
And now he had to go to their wedding. Where he wouldn't know anyone except Taehyung - no, scratch that; where the only people he would know, Taehyung excepted, would be the ones who used to laugh at him back in high school and who had dared Taehyung to go out with him and then dump him.
He'd forgiven Taehyung for that, but he didn't have to forgive his friends, too.
"I can hear your heart beating like crazy", Taehyung mumbled in a sleepy voice, head on his chest. "What's got you worrying so early in the morning?"
Jeongguk jumped. Lost in his thoughts, he hadn't realized Taehyung was already awake.
"Hey," he whispered, smiling at his boyfriend. "Slept well?"
To Jeongguk's amazement, five months into their relationship, Taehyung didn't show any sign of planning to leave him, and although it still looked a bit too good to be true, Jeongguk was starting to relax and let himself enjoy what they had together.
Waking up with Taehyung, although a regular, if not daily occurrence, was something he could never get tired of.
"Always do, next to you," Taehyung replied, pushing himself up to hide his face in Jeongguk's neck and kiss him, to which Jeongguk, chuckling, didn't emit any objection. "Now tell me what's wrong."
It was one of Taehyung's superpowers about Jeongguk: wherever they were, whatever they were doing, he had like a sixth sense about his lover and was always able to tell when something was wrong.
Last time Jeongguk had asked him how he did that, Taehyung had shrugged and replied, "I'm always watching you. I know."
And wasn't that a better proof than anything that Taehyung really did care about him.
"It's the wedding, today."
"The wedding? Oh! Hyungsik and Ara's! Man, I completely forgot about that."
"Lucky you," Jeongguk sighed. He had been dreading it for the past two weeks at least.
"You know you're not obligated to go, right?" Taehyung raised his head, leaning on his elbow, to take a better look at Jeongguk. "They'd understand."
"I know that, but we already said we would go. I don't want to stand you up and let you go there on your own."
"You're not standing me up, since I'm the one telling you you can stay. I don't want you to be uncomfortable, Gukkie."
"Yeah, but you also want me to be there with you, right?"
Taehyung kissed him under the ear tenderly, before nuzzling Jeongguk's cheek with his nose.
"I want you to be everywhere with me. If I could, I'd stay with you all day, every day. But I can survive a few hours without you. How do you think I do when I have to go to work?"
"That's different," Jeongguk smiled, heart warmed by Taehyung's words. "You don't have a choice when you go to work. Don't worry, I'll go. I don't want to miss an occasion of spending time with you."
Taehyung grinned at him, expression bright. "You know we have the rest of our lives to spend together, right?" he said. "One night won't change much."
Jeongguk's heart started beating erratically in his chest again. He believed it now, when Taehyung said that, but he still wasn't getting used to how amazing it felt.
"I know," he whispered, "but I still don't want to spend hours watching TV that I could have spent with you instead."
Taehyung chuckled. "Ok. Well, since you already made up your mind, I can tell you now that I'm really glad you're coming with me. I would have missed you."
Jeongguk couldn't do anything else but kiss him, feeling his heart burst at the seams with love for him.
"I love you," he breathed, barely audible, but Taehyung still caught it.
"I love you too, Gukkie. So much."
One steamy hot sex session later, that ended up with a relaxing bath in Taehyung's gigantic bathtub, Jeongguk was back in Taehyung's room, trying out suits for the wedding under his boyfriend's critical gaze.
"Not this one. Too bright. Not this one either. Too dark. Not this one. With your thighs, you're going to rip the pants as soon as you sit down."
Jeongguk blushed, but didn't say anything, standing up in the middle of Taehyung's walk-in closet in his boxer briefs and waiting for his boyfriend to find him something wearable. Of course, he had to rely on Taehyung in this matter, since he didn't own a single suit. As a fitness trainer, he didn't need them often.
He only noticed he was back to gnawing his lips nervously, thinking about the wedding, when Taehyung planted himself in front of him, new suit in hand, and asked: "It's because of them, right? Not just because it's a wedding, but because it's the wedding of my high school friends?"
"Well," Jeongguk replied, carefully taking the suit Taehyung was handing him. "Yeah. I mean, it's not Hyungsik and Ara. They're good people, I know that now. Anyway, I'm guessing we won't even be talking to them much, they'll be so busy. But there's gonna be the others, too. Your other friends. What are they going to say when they see you with me?"
Taehyung gripped Jeongguk's hands, still holding the suit, and watched him in the eyes before replying slowly, articulating every word: "I don't give a shit what they think. I know I used to, back then, but not anymore. Whatever they say about you and me, I don't care. You're more important than anything to me. Nothing is going to change that. It's what's scaring you, right? You think their opinion still matters to me, that if they tell me to break up with you, I'll do it?"
Jeongguk bit the inside of his mouth, eyes cast downwards. "Well... yeah."
He wanted to trust Taehyung, and he did, but there was still this gnawing doubt inside his mind, soughing, what if...?
"Look at me, Jeonggukie," Taehyung said in a firm voice, and Jeongguk had no choice but to look up at him. "Nothing matters more to me than you. Nothing. Whatever they say, nothing is going to change the fact that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Do you understand? "
"Yeah," Jeongguk whispered, throat constricted, eyes burning. "I'm sorry. I trust you, Taehyung."
"Don't apologize, Gukkie. It's what we said, right? Proving it to you. I'm still doing it. I won't stop doing it, however long it takes. Ok?"
"Ok." Jeongguk smiled. "Thank you, Tae."
"Now put on your suit. We're gonna be late."
"Kiss me first."
Taehyung, in truth, didn't need much persuading.
"I told you we were going to be late," he huffed two hours later, while they were running to get to the wedding hall where the ceremony was being held.
"So worth it, though," Jeongguk replied, panting.
Luckily, after they slipped an envelope with money for the groom and bride to a guy behind a desk, looking bored out of his mind, and wrote their names on the guest list, they were able to sneak inside the room, where the ceremony had long since already begun.
Nothing there was worthy of interest to Jeongguk, who didn't know Hyungsik and Ara well, but he had to admit they both looked amazing, Hyungsik in his black suit and Ara in her western-style wedding gown. The room was completely packed, as it was custom for the bride and groom to invite as many people as possible to get a lot of gift money, and Taehyung and Jeongguk, like the rest of the guests, had to stand up during the whole ceremony.
It was Jeongguk's first wedding ever, and it wasn't very romantic, he thought, compared to what he saw in Korean dramas or American movies. The room where they were was one of many on the second floor of the hall, where numerous other weddings were happening at the same time, like an assembly line in a factory.
The upside of that was that nobody noticed they were late, and they only had to get through half an hour of ceremony instead of the full hour it normally took.
But the tricky part came after, when they were ushered to a dining hall. It looked more like a refectory than a wedding dinner room, with round tables everywhere and a buffet in a middle, but it suited Jeongguk very well; the less formal it was, the less stressed out he felt.
He and Taehyung found a quiet table at the far end of the room, and sat there with plates full of food from the buffet, which was, at least, way better than canteen food. It wasn't like a party, Jeongguk realized; no one expected him to mingle, and nobody would mind if he just stayed there, recluse, talking to Taehyung - which he did, except for when Hyungsik and Ara came to say hello, dressed in hanbok, and vanished again soon after.
By the end of the meal, Jeongguk had almost forgotten why he was so nervous to begin with; it wasn't such an ordeal, after all.
At least, until a voice shouting from behind him made him jump.
"Taehyungie! Is that really you? Look at you!"
Heart racing, Jeongguk turned to the voice; it belonged, as he feared, to one of Taehyung's friends from high school, whose name Jeongguk didn't know. Next to him was a smiling girl whom he recognized too as one of the members of the clique, and a tall guy he knew was called Seojoon - and he knew it because he remembered that girl Yeji pronouncing it in the hallway, back then in high school. "Hey, Seojoon, do you think Taehyung is soon going to get rid of his fake boyfriend? He should do something or the guy's really going to think it's real. It's amazing he's still pretending to love him, even though it was all just a dare."
His stomach was churning just at the memory. Her face, and Seojoon's, were burned in his mind, and he couldn't forget even if he wanted to. It was hard now, facing him again, especially since he didn't seem to recognize Jeongguk; in fact, none of them did.
Taehyung stood up. "Minho! Dain! Seojoon! I'm happy to see you guys, it's been such a long time." With a fluid gesture, he gripped Jeongguk's arm, forced him to get up, and slid his hand in his before linking their fingers together. "I'm so glad you're here, I can introduce you to my boyfriend! Remember Jeon Jeongguk?"
Three pairs of eyes converged to him, and Jeongguk thought he was going to throw up. Why had he even agreed to come here? What were they going to say? What if they laughed at him?
But Taehyung was firmly gripping his hand, as if to make him understand that whatever they said, it didn't matter, and Jeongguk straightened his shoulders. If Taehyung was with him, he could do it.
"Jeon Jeongguk? From high school?" said the girl, Dain, looking surprised. She was pretty, but Jeongguk couldn't see it, too scared of what she was going to say. "Wow, you've changed! Didn't know you stayed together all this time. I thought you broke up."
Minho and Seojoon, past the initial shock, were looking a bit embarrassed, probably because they remembered as well as Jeongguk did what had happened between him and Taehyung.
"We did," Taehyung replied, "but we found each other again a few months ago, and now we're together." He cast them all a defiant glance and added, a bit too fiercely: "For good."
Minho and Seojoon didn't seem to know how to react to that news, and to Taehyung's obviously belligerent tone, but Dain clapped her hands in what looked like genuine happiness.
"That's amazing news, Taehyung! You guys look really great together! And he's a looker, too. Be careful, or someone's going to steal him from you!"
"Not a chance in hell," Jeongguk muttered, finding his voice for the first time.
Taehyung smiled at him proudly, squeezing his fingers.
Then, unexpectedly, Minho extended his hand towards Jeongguk.
"Hey man," he said in a contrite tone, "it was lame, what we did back then. I'm sorry we were so stupid. Hope you don't hold too much of a grudge."
Jeongguk, taken aback, stared at the hand a bit too long, before finally extending his own to shake it.
"That's okay."
"I'm sorry too," Seojoon intervened. "It was a cruel thing to do. At any rate, I'm glad you and Taehyung are back together."
Jeongguk shook his hand too, but he was in too much disbelief to reply; luckily, Taehyung was here.
"Next time, it'll be our wedding you'll be invited too!" he exclaimed, grinning.
Fast as a whip, Jeongguk turned his head to look at him, gawking. What?
"Looking forward to it," Seojoon said with a smile.
The three of them left soon after, but Jeongguk kept staring at Taehyung, agape.
"Was it true, what you said? You'd really want to marry me?"
"I mean, we can't yet," Taehyung shrugged. "But the day the law in South Korea changes, I'm rushing you to the city hall to make you officially mine. Is that a problem?"
"I'm yours, though," Jeongguk whispered, feeling like his heart wanted to jump out of his chest and inside Taehyung's to snuggle with his. "Officially or not."
"And I'm yours, too," Taehyung smiled, taking his hands in his and pecking him on the cheek. "Forever."
"Forever," Jeongguk repeated.
He believed it, now.
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FIN
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Thanks for reading to the end, pals. If you liked this story, please vote and comment to let me know if you might be interested in reading more from me ~