Chapter Text
Jaeyun doesn’t know how he got here. How he ended up in front of his husband, feeling the world crumble because of a mere piece of paper.
“Please sign the papers.”
How did he end up here?
Jaeyun could still remember 3 years ago when they were in front of the altar. When his husband looked at him with all the love he could probably hold in his eyes, Jaeyun knew that he found the one. He knew he married a guy who would never leave him and a guy who would love not only him and their family. In that little pocket of time in that little church hosting their little wedding, Jaeyun felt like the world was his because Heeseung was willing to serve it all to him on a silver platter.
Jaeyun could still remember 2 years ago, when they lost their first baby after the second week. He could still vividly remember the overbearing guilt, the buckets of tears he cried, and the millions of apologies he made to his husband for not protecting their first born. He could still recall the humongous fear of feeling Heeseung slipping away from his fingers as his husband broke away from him in the wee hours of the night just to cry alone on their balcony. He could still feel the tight hugs right after on his skin, the way Heeseung promised him that they’d keep on trying and that he’d always be there for Jaeyun.
(The promises of ‘again’ and ‘I’m here’ and ‘I’d never leave’ and ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m never letting you suffer alone because we’re a team, my love. You’re my husband and I am yours, and no matter what happens that will never change.’ Jaeyun wonders how he got here.)
Jaeyun could still remember a year ago, when they lost their second baby after months of failed tries. He could still remember the shame pouring onto him like a waterfall and the feeling of hopelessness and disgust. He could still remember how tightly he held onto his husband after the doctor told them that they lost their baby after 1 month, and the desperation running through his veins as he saw nothing in his husband’s eyes—not the glassy-eyed look of pain, the wide-eyed look of shock, nor the ever-present look of love. Not even that. He could still remember the days and nights when he and his husband just stayed on their bed, holding onto each other like they were gonna die otherwise.
(‘I don’t think I could go on again, hon,’ he weakly told his husband, who was blankly staring at the ceiling as he always did. ‘What if having children isn’t for us?’
He could still remember how the words closed off his airways, leaving him choked since it’s not a life he’s willing to live through. The visions of him and his husband and their child living in this home they built for their little one were tattooed on the back of Jaeyun’s eyelids.
Yet, he still felt the rustle made by Heeseung as his husband trapped him in a tight hug. He could still feel the kiss on the side of his head, and the tears soaking his hair. He could still feel his own tears following through (as if he hadn't cried enough) and the way he held Heeseung’s hand on his chest.
‘We’re meant to have a family, my love. That’s how it was written by fate. We’re going to have that family we’ve wanted,’ Heeseung whispered so quietly, as if it was a secret that he was keeping from the cruel universe. ‘I am going to stay by you. I am going to be here. I’d always be a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on. Okay?’)
Still. Still. Still.
Jaeyun wondered how he got here.
“Please sign the papers.”
He doesn’t even know who the man in front of him is.
‘He has my husband’s face,’ he thought as he stared at the stone-cold man before him. ‘He sounds like my husband. He has my husband’s clothes. But he isn’t my husband.’
His husband looks at him as if all the wrongs in the world turned right. His husband looks at him as if he found the greatest and most beautiful secret of the world and he knew that he only had it for himself. His husband looks at him as if Jaeyun was enough.
This one doesn’t. Not in the slightest. Jaeyun should’ve left the moment he realized that this wasn’t his husband but—
Clutching his stomach, he remembered why he wanted to meet his husband. He remembered 3 months back when he bought 10 pregnancy kits and how he almost cried in front of the lady in the convenience store. He remembered 2 months back when his doctor told him that his baby was healthy and that there were no complications. He remembered a month back when he saw his little bean on the ultrasound and how he rambled on and on to his doctor about how his husband would be the best father there was in history because he’s the best husband there ever was to him.
‘I’d still be here.’
‘I’d still stay.’
‘I still love you.’
Still. Still. Still.
Jaeyun has something to protect.
“But,” he spoke up after a few seconds of silence. “I have something to tell you.”
“I don’t care. I just need these papers signed and I’m going.”
Jaeyun felt like he was hit by lightning. Gulping, he still tried to push, “I really need to tell you—“
“Sign it and I’m going. I won’t stay.”
“Is that why you don’t stay home anymore?” he asked the man before him, fiddling with his fingers on his relatively flat stomach. “I’m sorry for asking this, but are you going to meet someone else?“
Heeseung sighed and massaged the middle of his eyebrows in irritation. “Jaeyun—“
“I thought you’d stay?”
“I’m not,” Heeseung blurted out. “Not anymore.”
“…Why?” Jaeyun could only exhale out words at this point. (What do you do when lead starts to replace your blood? What do you do when everything seems too heavy and the man who used to lift you up would rather not do that anymore?) “Will you not let me tell you what I wanted to say—“
“Someone’s carrying a part of me,” Heeseung admitted. Simple. Clean. Straightforward. As if it didn’t shred Jaeyun into pieces. As if it didn’t break Jaeyun like glass. As if it didn’t make him feel such an acute pain in his chest that he hoped their baby won’t feel it. “I’m staying with them. I’m going to have a family.”
(‘We’re meant to have a family, my love.’)
Maybe that was the reason why the colors of the walls became bleeker. Maybe that was the reason why their furniture started to fall apart. Maybe that was the reason for Jaeyun’s sleepless nights.
Their home was falling apart. If their home was falling apart, does Jaeyun still have a reason to fight? When all foundations are weak? When everything is falling apart?
In everything that he remembered about Heeseung, he does not remember how he signed the papers and how quickly Heeseung left their home. (Or, Jaeyun’s home. Does Jaeyun still have a home at this point?)
The next thing he remembered was him still standing on the same spot he was when Heeseung left him. He watched as people passed by outside his window, and the children with their parents and the wide smiles they all had.
“Baby,” he cooed out to the little bean inside him right now. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry your Mama can’t be enough. I hope I'll be enough for you. I hope I'll be good enough to be both your Mama and Papa. I’m sorry, baby.”
Rubbing his little bean’s little home, he can’t bear to remember his little wedding in that little church, nor the little pockets of time when Heeseung and him were happy. He can’t bear to remember all the (broken) promises and all the assurances.
(He remembered how he thought this day would go. He remembered how he expected Heeseung to lift him up and twirl him around. He also considered how Heeseung would probably kneel down to cry, and how he’d probably hug Jaeyun so tightly by his waist just to get as close as he possibly could to their little miracle. He thought it’d be a day full of love.
Not heartbreak. Not Heeseung leaving. Not him and their little bean alone.)
You were here until you weren’t.