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“Saeyoung,” she started suddenly to her fiancé as she was attempting to make the smallest of braid in his hair while he rested his head on her lap. A direct result of a joke she had made earlier. She had made the mistake of saying that she, too, was good with her hands and so he challenged her to braid his hair as proof. Honestly, it seemed more like an underhand excuse to use her lap as a pillow while they sat on the couch together—something he could have done without any sort of tricks—more than an honest challenge. Still, she humored him and was braiding the longer and less curly portions of his hair. They stuck upright and made him look even more ridiculous, but neither of them seemed to care.
Though with her voice breaking the comfortable silence, Saeyoung made a noncommittal noise acknowledging her; he was busy playing some mobile game on his phone for the past hour or so. Something about puzzles and lizards? Either way, she continued despite knowing she had only half of his attention. Hopefully, he’d give her more of an answer when she asked him what had been idly coming to and fro in her mind. “Why is it that you want to get married in space?”
As soon as she finished the question, he shot upwards not minding how she was in mid-braid or the fact that his phone fell to the ground while he was right in the middle of something and turned to face her with an expression that was both panicked and worried. This was not the reaction that she was expecting from him. …clearly she had said something wrong. Fortunately she didn’t have to wait long to hear what it was.
“Do you not want to get married in space? I know I—we—were joking about it before but if you don’t want to then we don’t have to.” Oh, so that’s what it was. However, before she could get a word in, he continued rambling apparently trying to appease some imaginary issue.
“It might be best if we didn’t try—I don’t think even with all of Jumin’s money and connections we could manage to swing something like a wedding in a space station. Jaehee also said she wouldn’t attend if we held it in space, didn’t she? But I’m pretty sure she was joking and I know we could manage to convin—”
His words were become increasingly rushed and started blend together into an incomprehensible mess and eventually she just put both of her hands on each side of his face and gave his cheeks a pull stopping him mid-sentence. His look transforming from panic and worry to an almost child-like confusion as a direct result. Here was the man who she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. And even though he was chock-full of eccentricities and skeletons hidden away but not quite fully buried, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I mean why space?” She places a chaste kiss on the tip of his nose before releasing his face. “You seem to be so obsessed with it.” From talking about cats in space to flying to space together in a rocket ship—she hadn’t missed the way he seemed to always bring it up. Maybe it was a personality quirk that was made up for 707, but that wouldn’t explain how she caught him enjoying the night sky and hoping to see as many stars as possible. However, she still was prepared to hear that it was just something he made up for 707. That would be fine too.
The answer comes slowly as he rubs his cheeks as he considers how to reply. For a moment he considers giving her a half-assed answer and turning it into a joke but then reconsiders at the last moment.
“What’s there not to like about space? It’s every boy’s dream to grow up to be an astronaut. It’s so big and goes on forever—it’s where you can be with the stars and far from everything.” Saeyoung feels a little awkward after speaking so seriously and lets out a nervous laugh as he tries to defuse the awkwardness. It’s too late; she was clever enough to read between the lines and even though it was a little difficult to take him seriously with those sporadic braids sticking up all over his head, she leans in kiss him softly. ‘Far away from everything’—or more like far away from all of his problems.
He’s taken back initially when she kisses him, but quickly hums happily and wraps her up into his arms. As if he’d ever turn away any sort of affection from his cute fiancé, but as he tries to push for something a little less chaste, she draws back and presses a finger to his lips while offering him a little smile instead. Tease, but he obeys…for the moment.
“Girls can dream about becoming astronauts too, Saeyoung, but if that’s how you feel then I guess we’ll have to work hard to find a way to get to space. Worse comes to worse, you could make us a rocket ship, so we could fly up there ourselves.” Saeyoung swears that there’s a certain sparkle in her eyes that reminds him of the stars and with that flirty smile she gives him makes it feels as if he’s already engulfed by the sun’s rays. Suddenly it felt like going into space was no longer necessary. The moment of obeying her had passed and he kisses the finger pressed against his lips before moving her hand away entirely.
“Building a rocket ship seems a lot of trouble... Is it too late for me to change my mind,” he teases as he slowly pushes his fiancé onto the couch they were sharing. “What if we get married on top of a mountain in Africa surrounded by lions and tigers instead? Hopefully no one else has done something like that before.”
There’s no protest from her as she’s laid down onto the couch with Saeyoung above her and instead just quietly hums as she considers his new proposal looking as cute as she can be. An impossible task she always manages to pull off if Saeyoung had any say in the matter. She isn’t too sure why he was suddenly changing his mind but it wasn’t as if she couldn’t go with it. Playfully, she replies: “But then lovely Zen’s face will swell up from his cat allergy. We can’t have anything happen to that beautiful face of his,” she says with a faux scandalized voice. “I also don’t think there are any tigers in Africa.”
Her reply gets Saeyoung to laugh as he admires the sight before him. How was it that he could love a single person so much? Furthermore, how could this single person continue be this perfect at any given time? Every passing day—moment they shared with one another—he felt himself fall deeper and deeper in love with everything about her. He brings his face close enough so their lips were just barely touching before he replies, eyes half closed and head tilting to a side: “Oh yeah, I guess you have a point there. Looks like I’ll just have to build us a rocket ship after all then.”