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One.
“Bokjoo. Bokjoo. Booookjoooo .”
“What, what, what!?”
“I have to leave early for the gym,” he mumbles, smiling into her shoulder. It’s one of those toothy grins, the ones where you can catch his cheeks gleaming against the flushed sunlight. “I need to see my wife before I go.”
Bokjoo shakes him off, still groggy and misty eyed, barely awake and in the mood. She’s mumbling something under her breath (presumably a curse word or two) rolling over, burying herself deep into their covers. It’s too early for this. She doesn’t even have a competition coming up soon - there’s no reason to be awake at the literal crack of dawn.
But Joonhyung, her husband, has to be the one who whines until she starts to pity him. He pries the sheets open, letting the sun burn itself into her eyelids, showering kisses across her skin, giggling to himself. Does he think this is funny?
“Bokjoo. Honey. Sweetheart. Piggy.”
“Five more minutes,” she begs, her face contorting into a half scowl whilst her hands grip him by the ears, rocking his head back and forth. “ Please.” Her eyes are still shut, resistant to his endless pleas. This morning battle is somewhat the norm in their day to day lives, but much less vicious as it is today.
“But I have thirty left!” Joonhyung pouts, tugging at her wrists to release him (admittedly, it had started to hurt). “The coach isn’t going to be happy with me if I stay here waiting for you to wake up, you know!”
“No need to shout!’ Her hands flew back, eyes finally snapping open. Her elbow "gently" shoves him away from her (he thwarted backwards, his back almost edging outside the mattress).
Definitely not a good idea to be this angry first thing in the morning. But his persistence is so viciously unrelenting. He might’ve just started bawling snot into her sleeves just to annoy her.
Ramyeon and Chicken, their two toy poodles, had begun yapping from the ruckus. They liked to keep them inside instead of out in the cold, tied to a dog house - now they served as second and third versions of Joonhyung. Adorable. Loyal. A little loud. Terribly affectionate.
“ Bokjoo-yah ,” Joonhyung squeaks pathetically, supposedly imitating one of the dogs. He's still smiling. “Your husband wants you to wake up! Come on!”
“ Joonhyung-ah !” She retorts, lightening her voice in a similar fashion. Her lips pull into a tight smile, offering him a hard look as she finally sits up, running her fingers through Rameyon’s tinted beige fur once she comes up on her lap. “ You should shut up! You forgot to feed us last night, and now we’re angry!”
“Hey. I did not.”
“Yes, you did, because I fed them.” She shuffles over, planting a light kiss on his cheek. He smells the way he always does - laundry detergent, hints of chlorine and his breath. Jeong Joonhyung , in all his goodness, turning his head to face her, their noses touching.
“Good luck today, honey,” Bokjoo greets, smiling gently.
“Look who’s sucking up to me now!”
“Oh, shut up.”
Despite their earlier bickering, they’re both on the verge of laughter from this proximity; him letting his mouth close the distance with his favorite butterfly pecks across the corners of her chin, to the curves of her playful grin, to her lips; a messy route finally meeting its destination. She doesn’t let him deepen the kiss, only pulling apart to hop out of their bed, clearly satisfied with herself.
Her dark tangerine hair messily tumbles to her back, a catastrophe of knots and curls, wiping the sleep off her eyes. He in turn lets his gaze follow her briefly, half in disappointment, the other half simply because he likes watching her.
“I’m awake, I’m awake!” she exclaims, stretching her limbs. Bokjoo roars a loud yawn, shuffling her feet across the floor and into the bathroom attached to the room (They had only one. It's what you would consider a small space, mostly filled to the brim with random junk, but more than big enough to house their little family). “Okay, lieutenant Joonhyung, what’s on today’s agenda?”
They’d been married for a year now, sure - but they’d lived together for a little longer than that. It's a surprise how quick they got used to this bizarre concept - this pleasure of seeing each other wake up in the morning, or this resolve of falling asleep in each other’s arms at night.. Even now, as Bokjoo peeks through the bathroom door to catch his eye, toothpaste bubbling from the corners of her lips, waiting impatiently for some sort of response, he can’t believe he’s watching this unfold.
Not when years ago, he had found wonder in just looking around her dorm room, letting the fact that almost each and every trinket in that space belonged to her sizzle in his mind. He was giddy, as he always was with things that came to her, but his imagination had begun to run wild. What if this is what I would wake up to everyday?
And it’s been a long time since that came true.
Joonhyung would give his college self a pat on the back if he could. Perhaps offer a mischievous snicker, for the boy back then never knew how much this woman would change his life as much as it did.
“I have a train to catch,” he hums, letting himself into the bathroom. Flushed sunlight squeezes through the small window, creating a golden slash on her temples, for him on his jaw. “I’ll be back around noon. Then, you’re gonna be all mine.” His tone teases her a little, chuckling as he starts brushing his teeth.
“I’ve always been yours,” she teases back, muffled from the foam in her mouth, puffing her cheeks.
“ Gross . You look like you’re throwing up.”
“Hey, you know what my vomit looks like. It does not look like toothpaste,” she spits out, rinsing.
“A bit on the yellow side, maybe, but-”
“Ugh, now who’s being gross?”
Two.
Bokjoo and Joonhyung usually take turns making breakfast, today’s duty being left to Bokjoo. She keeps herself busy in their open kitchen, strands of hair sinking away from the loose bun wrapped on her head.
“Open the window, please!” she requests, her back turned to him as she begins chopping up the vegetables. Her favorite thing to make, and perhaps one of the meals she's best at making, is her special omelette (the contents of which he could only guess from watching her). He does as she asks, letting the morning air flood in, an exchange from the heated scent that exuded from the pan.
“Are we leaving town today?” she begins, sprinkling in the contents of the omelette. “Or the country, maybe?” She breathes a light chuckle, the memory of their past endeavours reviving for a brief moment. (For her 26th birthday, he had taken her to Japan on a week-long trip despite all the training sessions they had scheduled, and they weren’t even married yet.)
“Don’t worry about it,” he replies, that smirk of his dancing around on his lips. “You’ll find out soon.”
“Hey,” she grumbles. “You’re scaring me. Did you get Taekwon and Seonok to set off fireworks for me, or something?”
A silence envelopes the room. Well, almost, if not for the sizzling of the pan. Then, “Oh my God , Joonhyung, did you?”
“Wow, Piggy, that smells good,” he says, shaking his head violently as he seats himself at their dining table. “I’m getting hungry!”
She clicks her tongue, in defeat. There’s no use trying to argue with him, really. He’ll still do it, and she’ll still find it adorable, because she loves him too much to get truly angry at him.
“You’re unbelievable,” she sneers, shoving the omelette onto his plate with a spatula. “You fix it yourself. I’m gonna feed the dogs.”
“Yes, ma’am! Happy birthday to you!”
Three.
“Is that my beautiful wife?” Joonhyung calls, waving at Bokjoo across the room. She rolls her eyes, politely nodding at three faces she had never seen before in her life. Each of them expressed passion for watching her on TV - who knew people that attended swimming tournaments were also weightlifting enthusiasts? - and she had the delight of being on the receiving end of dozens of compliments. It’s something she had gotten used to across the years, but eventually grew more tiring with time.
“Ah, we’re married, did you know?” he announces, squeezing her shoulders enthusiastically. He’s just gotten off the pool - ranking in first, as usual - and his hair is still half damp, a mess of wavy curls falling over his face. She chuckles at this, running her hands through his locks, trying to make sense of what it had become
“Haha, yes. We are,” she sighs, partially turning to them. Their relationship had already been somewhat well known within their area of press - the country’s top female weightlifter and olympic swimmer, dating since university. Now married, slightly less than a decade later. They had garnered a bit of fans from such a story, too. Something about being relationship goals, or whatever. She’s never really paid attention to that kind of thing.
However, Joonhyung does, almost obsessively. He finds it hilarious. “They’re treating us like a celebrity couple,” he cackled one night, when they were in bed and he was scrolling through his phone. “What if we pretended to break up just to see how they would react?”
“Hey!”
“I’m just kidding, Piggy. Oh gosh, don’t look at me like that.”
That’s part of the reason why he’s so proudly announcing to people that they’re married. The other is that he just simply loved showing it off...and she didn’t really mind it, for the most part.
“We’re all gonna go celebrate with beef tonight,” Joonhyung hums, as soon as the strangers finally bid their farewells. “I know you can’t pass up anything with beef.”
“Sure,” Bokjoo nods, grinning from ear to ear. She makes it obvious how excited she is - or how hungry. He finds it adorable. If there were no one around, he’d pinch her cheeks and start cooing like a baby - still the lovesick fool that he always was.
However, if there’s anything he wants to keep secret from the prying eyes of the public, it would be how they love each other in silence. Perhaps just a little more idiotic and youthful than how they love each other out loud.
So instead, he takes her hand, his duffel bag swaying on his other arm. She looks around expectantly for his team, the people they would be eating with tonight. And together, they go.
Four.
Joonhyung is angry, but Bokjoo doesn’t know why.
He’s sulking, eerily quiet. He doesn’t kiss her when she comes home, greets her with a million different greetings (only the dogs bothered to come up and sniff her, their tails wagging like crazy). Instead he offers her a look of acknowledgement, before turning back to cook their dinner.
“ Hey,” she finally says, minutes after they begin eating. The silence was too supernatural for her own comfort. Usually when either of them were mad, they’d start yelling and bickering with each other, sparks of anger that usually died down as quick as it came. But this is nothing like that.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he mumbles, chewing on his food. He’s never been a worse liar than he is right now. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Jeong Joonhyung, don’t bullshit me. You haven’t been saying anything since I came home.”
“What if I’m just not in the mood to talk?” He’s looking up at her, his voice tired and rough. She can tell he’s cried a little now, the skin below his eyes sagging and red.
“...Hey,” she says, her voice lower this time, more gentle. She’s settled down her chopsticks, reaching her hands out to hold his face. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t respond, doesn’t react to her cupping his cheeks. A quiet ache suddenly surges up her chest, the kind where she wants to say something, but can’t, because she doesn’t know why he’s being this way.
Finally, “It’s my mom.”
“Oh.”
“She called me today,” he explains, scooping up another mouthful of noodles and shoving it into his mouth. “She said...she’s coming to visit.”
“What?”
‘She’s bringing her kid. And her husband.” Joonhyung swallows the food down, his gaze meeting Bokjoo’s, a little weakly. “I don’t think I’m ready to meet them…”
He sighs, trying to steady himself. “I haven’t even thought of her since she left. I thought...I thought I forgave her, but now this? Only now, when I’m starting a family of my own?”
She’s half used to that - calling them and the dogs his family - but now, it almost breaks her heart. His hands touch hers, still on his jaw, squeezing them tightly. After a moment shifts, she finds herself standing up from the table, her arms holding him tightly from behind, instead. The warmth is familiar, tangible enough for the both of them to make sense of.
“We’ll get through this,” she whispers, into his hair. “We’ll show your mom that you’re going to be twice as better as the parent she was. Doesn’t that sound like a plan?”
The food goes cold, but it doesn't really matter. Finally, she feels him nod into her skin.
Five.
They find themselves by the entrance of a place she had least expected to return to.
Well, to be more precise, she had visited their university multiple times as a proud alumni cheering on it’s students, but that had been around five years ago. Her olympic debut made visits difficult, what with press, all the competitions and brand deals that forced itself into her life. Hell, she barely had time for even Joonhyung until this week.
She could say the same about him, too. He’s just as much of a professional athlete as she is - not exactly a house husband with enough free time to plan something grand for her. So why was he grinning, ear to ear, clearly filled to the brim with secret events he had so obviously thought up before?
“So!” The man starts, promptly placing his hands on her shoulders. “Do you know where we are today, Piggy?”
“What do you mean, where are we?” she groans, raising an eyebrow at him. “I’m not dumb-”
“I know, I know, ” he whispers. “ Just play along. ”
There's a pause. An expectant look combated a hard eye roll. Finally, “No, I don’t know where we are, Joonhyung!”
A dramatic gasp leaves her husband’s lips - this reminds her a lot of how they were before they even started dating. When he just loved to get on her nerves or effortlessly babied her just to annoy her even more. The memory was so distant now, perhaps much more emphasized by the changes the university had gone through. New paint jobs, new plants, new faces... yet the flicker of it had brightened her mood almost instantly.
“How could you forget the place we met! The height of our youth!”
“I don’t know!” she exclaims, her tone filled with theatrics. “Gosh, I must’ve been so busy!”
“Well, don’t worry about it, my dear,” he sings rather merrily, enveloping his arm under hers, patting the back of her palm with his free hand. “We’re going to get your memories back!”
She couldn’t believe him. But if anything, she wants to laugh - they’re almost in their 30s, and yet here they are, standing in front of a university, yelling at each other. There’s nothing she can do but offer apologetic smiles to the students that throw them looks, perhaps wondering whether to call the faculty about the two lunatics arguing in front of the gate.
Just like when they were students, newly in love, and finding no shame in announcing to the world that they were.
“Wait,” she seethes under her breath, just enough for him to hear, scrunching her face. “Are we actually just gonna visit the university today? Gosh , Joonhyung, I thought you’d planned something more romantic than that for our anniversary.”
Joonhyung holds a finger to his lip. “Shh. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.” (He never fails to slightly frighten her with such a statement.)
With that light grin on his lips, the two of them make their way into the university, the paved roads filling up with chatter. She could see the track team making their rounds, the branded jersey jackets with names and numbers glowing against the morning sun. Sparrows chirp and hop above their heads, around the trees that seemed to have gotten bigger since her last visit, the rustling of their leaves pronouncing the height of fall.
Bokjoo had been presented with the true reality of how much had changed - even with Joonhyung humming next to her, throwing silly comments about the weather and how pretty she looked today (“I look pretty everyday,” she mumbles in jest).
However, despite the years that pass, or the age that settles into their skin, Joonhyung is still the Joonhyung he was when they first met.
Well, except for the fact that he had grown a beard or two, which Bokjoo heavily protested against (“I’m going to shave it myself!” she rioted, allowing him to finally give up on ever growing one again). Or maybe that he’s a little more tender with her, less vocal and more headstrong.
Similarly, Bokjoo’s still Bokjoo, even though her hair's grown long, cut short, and grown long again. She’s more calm than she used to be, though that isn’t exactly evident at the moment.
Her strength, too, grew more defined, as well as her willingness and determination, but the ferocity she once had to keep pushing forward shifted into nothing more than routine. Joonhyung’s records were getting better, almost skyrocketing alongside his popularity, but he’s more tired these days, more easily worn.
To many, it might be defined as maturity. A phase that shifts from youth to true adulthood. But to them, as athletes who built upon the same goals for the entirety of their lives, it’s a frightening reminder of how their capabilities and their time began to wane.
However, he’s still proudest when he talks about her - always referring to her as “my wife” or “my Bokjoo” in front of others - and the brightest when she does the same.
And time, truly, never comes to a standstill. It makes every moment spent together somewhat fleeting, as if something was threatening to escape from their fingertips, wriggling away.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she starts, tugging at his shoulder. “Did you invite Nanhee and her boyfriend for tonight’s dinner? They’re celebrating their 100 day anniversary soon. We can brag to them about the secrets to being a happy couple.”
“Yep, they’re coming,” he chuckles. “Should we do that? I think Nanhee would get angry.”
“Nope, I think she’d appreciate it. Bongjoo’s still a little clueless, y’know?”
And with that time, also came the many changes and growth that fell onto their friends, as well. Taekwon and Seonok had a child, a healthy baby girl. The couple had garnered a stable dynamic - Seonok an athlete with jobs on the side, and Taekwon, the bright house husband, the overprotective father. Their love was more quiet than one would expect, more tender and continuously growing. But they still loved to partake in Bokjoo and Joonhyung’s antics, still closely knitted friends.
Nanhee, on the other hand, had finally started her own salon after years of her imminent soul searching and path to self discovery. She found herself lovestruck by an old friend from her hometown, Bongjoo, who apparently was nothing like what she remembered of him. He's younger, a literature major still in his final year of university, tall and lanky, with soft features that matched his gentle personality. Nanhee’s perfect contrast , one might say.
Their sparkling youth still has its briefest moments, perhaps its final flashes before coming to a close. People come and go as the seasons shift, but the one thing that never changes is the faces that surround them, or the hands that find themselves itching for the other. It's a vow they made the moment they held each other in that track field, all those years ago. The same one they made on the altar, when their hearts were about to leap from their chests.
Why would they ever break it now?
Under the shade of orange trees lay the little spot that started it all - the toad’s house, they called it. The rock that supported the little pond had gotten a little greyer, but the coins had thickened within the water. As soon as they were in front of it, Joonhyung stopped, fishing through the pockets of his coat.
“Let’s make a wish,” he announces, giving her a coin as a grandfather would to a grandchild - presenting it before her eyes, then placing it on an expectant palm. “Do you remember what this place is?”
“I’m the one that told you what the toad’s house was,” Bokjoo grimaces. “You can’t tell me I forgot about it.”
“You’re so smart, Bokjoo!” he exclaims, ignoring the snide comment. “This is indeed the toad’s house.” He then squints, as if readying his aim, and flips the coin with both his hands, the way they always did back then. The silver plops into the water, settling within the rest of the wishes that simmered into the rock.
“Please let me and Bokjoo be married for many, many more years!” he pleads, now clasping his hands together. Chuckling, she follows suit, until her own coin makes a perfect landing.
“I hope Joonhyung and I will be together until we’re old and senile, so that he’d have to push me around in a wheelchair and I get to laugh as he cleans my diaper.”
“ Future Joonhyung is going to hit you with his cane, just you wait.”
“Not if I don’t first!”