#annfic

Even still, in the very beginning he didn’t touch you much outside of what he had predetermined to be expected for a relationship. Him wanting to kiss you had been a given from the day you met in person; a craving to taste you, to leave you breathless. Yet, lingering hands and cradling arms were not something that came naturally to him. Efficiency and independence had always stood at the forefront of his life, and his logical side subconsciously assumed the stance that touching for the sake of touching merely added time and introduced complicating variables.

You had opted to stay mostly on equal footing when it came to physical contact. He was walking on unknown territory and it was only expected that it’d take time for him to find his way; if he wasn’t touchy you wouldn’t push the boundary of touch. Still, sometimes you’d fall into resting your head against his shoulder or holding onto him just to hold onto him.

Your contact was never unwelcome, he found.

In fact, with passing time it almost became too infrequent. And with the lack of your warmth (just to be warm) came an urge—a longing—that took Jumin some time to be able to place. To be touched. To relive the memories of you, or your hands, or your lips, pressed against him.

So it started with subtleties. A test. He’d purposely brush your fingers together when you passed him something. Reach for something you were reaching for just for the chance to feel your skin against his when it wasn’t necessary. Nonchalantly slide his palm into yours when you sat close to him or he, himself, sat too close to you.

One day, his left hand in yours and a cup of still-too-hot tea in the other, Jumin tells you, “I have a proposal.”

“Another? So soon? I already said yes,” you tease.

He chuckles. “Indeed. This is not a second request for your hand in marriage, though I guarantee that I would be overjoyed to marry you ten times over. Rather, I was curious if you’d be so kind as to assist me in something.”

“Anything,” you tell him. “Though it’s nothing nefarious, I hope?”

His brows furrow slightly and he looks to where your hands are locked together. “You do not take me for a criminal, do you? In that case, it’s rather irresponsible that you should stay so contentedly in my company, let alone accept my request regardless.”

A smile breaks your feigned seriousness. “I know you’re a good man, Jumin.” The concern fades away from his eyes as he looks back to you and fondly shakes his head. “But hypothetically, I never said I wouldn’t help you commit crimes,” you add.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says through an amused exhale.

“Good. Then tell me, what’s my assistance needed for?”

“An experiment.”

“I’m intrigued.”

“Then allow me to explain,” Jumin says. “I have deduced over the last several weeks of us spending time together that I find my desire to touch you, to be touched by you, increasing substantially.”

“In what sense?”

He raises an eyebrow and a smile threatens the corners of his lips. “I am simply speaking in general terms. Though I would not be opposed to more sex, too.”

He doesn’t miss the twinkle in your eyes (and he does smile, then).

“Ergo,” he continues with a giddiness uncharacteristically present on his tongue, “I hypothesise that an increase in physical contact between us, in any and all forms, would lead to an increase in my quality of life. Only if that would be something you may also enjoy, of course.”

“You know, I never had you down as much of the type to put the fate of something as precious as your quality of life in someone else’s hands.” You lean in and kiss him in the way that always leaves him half-dizzy and wanting more; chaste but playful; almost saccharine. “But I’ll take good care of it.”

Truth be told, Jumin is not the type to give away his vulnerability easily. Not at all. But if he feels the need to explain himself further (and he does), it never comes. His need for you is not something he can effectively vocalise. Just because — that’s at the crux of it. Just because.

So subtleties shift to blatancies. When you drag yourself out of his bed in the mornings that you stay at the penthouse to greet him brewing tea or coffee for you both in the kitchen, you wrap your arms around his waist and sink into his back with no hesitancy or resistance. He lets you take the first cup and holds onto it longer than he needs to just to feel the way the heat passes between his hands and the ceramic and between your hands and his. He tucks your hair away from your face as you take the first sip, and revels in the way you gently rest your head against him with your eyes closed while trying to properly wake yourself up. The way you make a point of straightening his tie and smoothing out his jacket before he leaves for work, how you linger with your hands pressed to his chest, is something he savours. It means he kisses you with just a little more fervour than had previously been typical in the morning, and he won’t complain when you keep his mouth to yours for just a few moments too long. When he has the honour of coming home to you after an exhausting day he will happily lay on you as you run your fingers into his hair and listen to him talk. He will let himself be pampered and held and kissed silly. And he will reject that pesky null hypothesis: There is no significant relationship between physical contact and my quality of life.

The rain starts while you’re eating out. Tucked away in a cosy Michelin star place that Jumin had taught you how to properly pronounce the name of during the walk over, hands interlocked as he tapped the syllables against your thumb. One side of the restaurant half overlooks the lake through floor-to-ceiling windows and the clouds had seemingly come from nowhere, cloaking the sun as they did. As it turns out, however, the drizzle adds a pleasant atmosphere that makes your lunch feel more intimate even amongst the other diners’ soft chatter.

“I believe a Pinot Noir is an appropriate choice in both warmth and rain, no?” Jumin says as you scan the menu.

“Sure,” you hum. “You know I’ll always trust your judgement on wine. It’s sort of a shame about the weather, though.”

Jumin smiles, a sparkle in his eyes captured by the accent lighting. “It could snow for the rest of our trip and still I would rather be here with you than anywhere else.”

Both food and conversation are delightful as expected; so much so that the rain is resigned to nought but ambient noise or a light accompaniment to the live piano. You drink maybe one too many glasses of wine, maybe eat a little more than you had planned. Jumin even lets you pick his dessert for him when you can’t decide between two but insist it would be a waste to buy both just for yourself. You end up ordering a tiramisu alongside something with raspberry and chocolate—significantly sweeter—and you don’t quite manage to polish off both even between the pair of you.

There’s a shift in the atmosphere when you have to leave. You stare at the way dark clouds seem to roll ever closer as Jumin quickly converses with a staff member to inquire about getting his hands on an umbrella.

Your husband’s left hand is in yours and his right holding the newly acquired (very graciously borrowed) umbrella over the both of you as you start the walk back to the villa. His wedding ring is cool between your fingers as you lightly swing your connected hands with each step.

“Do you think the rain will slow anytime soon?” you ask. Jumin shifts the umbrella further over you, fully exposing his own shoulder to the elements. A few drops of rain stick strands of hair ruffled by the breeze to his skin.

“It’s difficult to say. It looks as though it should continue for a few hours at least,” he says.

It only picks up as you walk, and though the air stays warm you both decide after a little while longer that calling a taxi is more reasonable than walking the remaining thirty minutes.

“We’re going to have to run,” you tell Jumin as the car approaches the house.

Jumin chuckles in return—a deep, rich noise—and says, “I do have an umbrella.”

“We’re going to have to run,” you reiterate, and pluck the umbrella from his lap.

“I see. So we took a good man’s umbrella for nothing?” he says, a hint of playfulness in his tone.

“Of course not. We can leave it here for the next poor soul who gets caught in the rain.”

Jumin is enamoured by every word you speak. He smiles and it reaches his eyes in this pleasing little way that is reserved for when he looks at you. “Then it looks like we will have to run.”

And when you do it’s an intimate moment in its own way: the coveted Jumin Han and his wife hand in hand as they traverse a little winding path in the pouring rain. You both squeeze into the alcove the entrance is set into as he unlocks the door, water not quite sinking into your hair or clothes just yet but threatening, threatening.

No sooner than the front door is shut behind you Jumin finds himself being pulled through the hall to the glass doors that open out onto the back garden. Lightning flashes distantly.

“Dance with me,” you say, hand on the door.

“My love,” Jumin says. It’s just barely a warning.

A low rumble outside startles you and then keeps going, loud and disconcerting, and as you grip just that bit harder onto his arm Jumin grins. “The mountains function almost like a bowl surrounding us. The sound echoes.”

There’s a minute or so where you remain behind the glass, one hand on Jumin and the other on the door. You wait for another flash, and when it comes it’s just visible across the vast expansion of the lake. When the thunder booms again you look over to Jumin and find his eyes already fixed on you, as though he’s waiting for something.

“Dance with me,” you echo; words affectionate in a way the thunderstorm does not know how to reach nor infiltrate.

Jumin looks up at the clouds. The sun filters delicately through gaps in them and creates a stark contrast to the way the rain falls. “It would be irresponsible,” he says, but rests his hand over yours on the door handle.

“We’re already wet.” You lift his arm to illustrate your point and a well timed droplet falls from his sleeve.

“So this was part of your plan?” Jumin asks, an eyebrow raised in amusement.

You laugh and Jumin shakes his head. He drags the door open despite himself and water immediately finds you both, pattering against the tile in the entryway.

You dance in the rain the way you dance together in your front room late at night. Jumin had taught you basic ballroom steps properly years ago, but this– it’s this casual thing that’s reserved for each other’s company as opposed to a ball. Still methodical but less calculated and formal. It’s a step that’s exclusive to the two of you, one that falls naturally, one with more spins than are really necessary and little to no space between you where possible. The feel of Jumin’s fingers against the small of your back is all the more obvious through the wet fabric melded to your shape.

When you slow a ray of sun pours through the raindrops as clouds shift above you, and it rests so perfectly over Jumin’s face that you could almost believe it was a purposeful choice on the sky’s part.

If any artist, I am partial to sculptors, Jumin had once told you. You had been in a small, ornate gallery in France with V where Jumin, quietly admiring a marble statue, had seemed to fit in almost perfectly. That’s what he reminds you of now, too. His features could have been carefully crafted with a chisel—they’re bright and purposeful against a backdrop of messy grey. Beautiful. Untouchable.

Except you can touch him, and you do, swiping a strand of soaked hair away from his eye before draping your arms over his shoulders. A droplet of rain glistens as it runs down his nose and you laugh when it falls from the end.

“Whose idea was this?” Jumin asks.

“Mine.” You beam. Lightning flashes again somewhere over the mountains as Jumin runs his hands to the back of your thighs and lifts you to wrap your legs around his waist in one swift motion. The soaked fabric of your dress bunches strangely around your hips and yet you can’t find it in yourself to pay it much mind.

Jumin ducks his head and kisses your clavicle. “I am somewhat concerned,” he murmurs, then presses another kiss to your shoulder. “What if you catch a cold?”

“If that happens, it was your idea,” you say. He laughs against your neck, his breath hot on your skin.

Thunder rumbles again and the echo follows suit. When Jumin leans in to kiss your lips in the midst of it he still tastes like tiramisu and Pinot Noir. The latter does most definitely work well in both warmth and rain, you decide.

You sigh into his mouth and he grips your flesh a little tighter, wringing water out of your dress in tandem as if to prove a point.

He knows that in public they look good together. He knows that their careers slot together effortlessly. Despite what the media may suggest, however, they are human. Jumin included. The way he feels nothing for her does not match the way she feels nothing for him. The way she yells that he is robotic does not match the way he stoically calls her irresponsible.

They do not sleep together, or eat together, or do any of the romantic things Jumin wishes he hadn’t let himself privately indulge in the idea of. And it’s not that she’s not nice—she’s intelligent and beautiful and kind, when it suits her. Perfect on paper until she wasn’t. When she laughs with her chest Jumin can almost imagine a world where she smiles at him like she does others and it makes his heart weak. Part of him wishes, truly, that that was the case. In reality it feels like nothing.

It could be worse, he tells himself—repeats it like a mantra.

Concealed beneath it is fear. You could be like him. You could repeat his mistakes.

She throws her phone haphazardly onto the sofa beside her and looks up to where Jumin is standing in the doorway. He’s mostly backlit from the light in the hall, the lamp beside his wife barely grazing his features but lighting up hers in all the wrong ways. The orange glow casts unpleasant shadows over places she’s usually pretty. He should have the bulb changed to something less harsh.

“Not much we can do if you don’t want the press to kick up a huge fuss, sweetie,” she says.

The pet names are a jest he has learned to tune out.

“Will they not make a fuss over our divorce in three years’ time nonetheless?” Jumin asks. It’s hypothetical, of course. They will.

“Maybe we’ll have grown on each other by then.” Her tone is disinterested; feels almost mocking. Her phone chimes to let her know her driver is outside. “I’m going out. Shall I take my card or yours?”

“It makes little difference to me.” Jumin looks at his watch. It’s almost 10pm but he doesn’t ask where she’s going. A bar, perhaps.

“Could you adjust my necklace?”

She holds her hair up messily, and he does.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he tells her, then briefly wonders if she’ll meet someone tonight and sleep with them. He pictures her naked beneath a stranger. It feels like nothing.

She takes her own card and squeezes his bicep softly as she walks by him on the way out. She shuts the door more forcefully than is ever really necessary.

At some point Jumin suggests she move out of their—his—apartment and into the one directly below; just recently made vacant. He probably would have suggested it earlier had the apartment been available earlier, but their district of Seoul tends to be under high demand.

“I thought we agreed it was a bad idea to live separately,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question. They had done exactly that.

Jumin hums, tired. Tired from his trip and tired from trying and at some point, it seems, he has lost an indistinguishable part of himself to her for good.

“We did. Although I would say that that was long enough ago now for us both to have become quite aware that we do not do particularly well sharing the same space for considerable periods of time.”

“You’re gone a lot anyway. The place is big enough for us to avoid each other if needed, and I like it here.”

She exhales sharply; amused.

Jumin has no idea why until she adds, “More so when you’re not around, to be fair.” And that explains it, just about.

“Stay here when I am travelling if you must,” he tells her. Somewhere along the way his suggestion has morphed into more of an instruction.

“Fine. Don’t tell your father, though. Or mine.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

They buy it outright in her name, the cost split fifty-fifty. Jumin tells her to keep it all when she sells it later. She tells him she won’t.

They argue tonight, as usual, about who will be chauffeuring them to a company gala. They had agreed that Jumin’s driver would take them only for her to assert for the hundredth time at the last minute that she doesn’t trust him, though she has not legitimately spoken to him more than once and he has been working for Jumin’s family longer than she has been alive.

It’ll cause a stir if the two of them show up separately so they end up in her car, as usual. Jumin apologises to Driver Kim via text for requesting him when he wasn’t needed on the way there, and they arrive late.

The venue reminds Jumin of the last RFA party. His wife had not attended despite her invitation, so it is not proper grounds for conversation. However, when they are out like this they are a happy couple like the legal drabble says, so he says it anyway—if just to appear interested in her.

“I’m sure this is nicer than your friends’ charity get togethers,” she replies lightheartedly, and they are called over by her father before Jumin can retaliate.

The façade stays firm for the remainder of the event. Jumin can easily distinguish her fake laugh from her real one, and he can tell when she forgets who he is for a moment and touches him a little more tenderly than either of them really mean.

They are silent on the drive home. They are silent in the elevator, until it stops one floor below Jumin’s penthouse. “Goodnight,” he says. “Sleep well.”

“You don’t have to say that, you know,” she counters, and smiles softly as the doors slide shut between them. “Not when it’s just me.”

Elizabeth the 3rd is snoring softly when he unlocks his door, and it is the only sound he can hear. He basks in the bliss of having nobody around when he is already so mentally exhausted, and takes out his phone to see it’s just after midnight and Yoosung has opened a chat room.

He enters it, multitasking as he changes his clothes and brushes his teeth. His cat patters into the room and jumps up beside him when he perches on the edge of his bed. She smells frustratingly like perfume and something oddly like guilt threatens Jumin with a dull blade.

Wait!! says Luciel. Think someone entered the chat room.

Jumin checks. There is a name on his screen he doesn’t recognise.

Odd.

Who are you? Identify yourself.

“Jumin. It’s me,” your voice is soft and bubbly; maybe a little nervous but still pleasant on his ears. An intriguing introduction. He almost finds himself chuckling.

Jumin moves the phone from his ear and glances down at your name again, just to be certain he’s not imagining things, then focuses in on the plainness of the wall in front of him.

“I hope you realise blurting out ‘It’s me’ is not a proper way to identify yourself to the person on the other end of the line.”

He had hesitated briefly before telling you he is married. Now he has known you for five days and whatever he’s feeling is somehow, ridiculously, already far greater than any emotion he has ever felt towards his wife.

He invites her out for dinner at their usual restaurant the following evening, and she tells him if he has something to discuss with her she would rather keep it simple. As an alternative he invites her to the penthouse and opens a bottle of wine he knows she likes. When she arrives her hair is tied up experimentally and she is wearing a new shade of lipstick. She surprises him when she actually accepts his offer to pour her a glass.

“I am going to talk with my father,” Jumin says, and she knows what he means. It’s only later that he will find out she had already brought it up with hers. “For what it’s worth, however, I apologise that it ended up like this.”

“Me too,” she agrees. Jumin notices the light catch a glassiness in her eyes as she continues, “If I could have loved you, I would have.”

She stays for a few hours and it is the most sincere time they have spent together in three years.

You’re at the forefront of it, really. You’re special to him in a way no one else is; he’s told you that much already. Even so, he will preface his thoughts with a point that he’d surely be jumping the gun to say he’s in love. He met you barely a week ago. In the moments where he tries his hardest to stop the unemotional part of him from slipping through his fingers, he almost believes (or maybe tries to convince himself) that it must just be that there’s so much happening right now. Sarah, her name bitter on his tongue, seems to have forcefully slithered her way into his life, though he’d rather have never paid her a second glance. There is no reasoning with his father surrounding the absurdity of the arranged marriage and the trust at the foundation of their relationship feels suddenly fragile; unpredictable. Not to mention the impact yet another divorce and planned subsequent remarriage quickly took on business (with Jumin, of course, being left to pick up the slack).

Then, as if things weren’t dire enough, his dear Elizabeth the 3rd is seemingly under threat. He is riddled with both the need to protect and a simultaneous abundance of confusion from the dawning realisation that she could never understand him like he needed. It plays heavy on his heart.

Amongst it all though, here you are—a pillar of light in the chaos. Someone who cares about him with a deep sincerity and understanding he thought he could have never pulled from the depths of another human. Someone who might just care about him in a way that not even Rika had. He’s considered informing you that it makes him feel terribly vulnerable. As though you’re cradling his heart in uncertain hands.

Still, Jumin keeps assuring himself that things will fall back into place. They always do. Things will fall into their rightful place, and life will return to what he is accustomed to.

…Then again.

What if he doesn't want it to go back to how it was before? What if this is a rare occasion where he welcomes a sudden change with open arms? An open heart? (It’s okay if hands shake as you hold it, he thinks. Be it his hands or yours.)

Because it just doesn’t feel right to tuck you away with everything else in his brain the way he’s used to. You’re too different. It comes too easy to ignore everything else for you. Thoughts of you are spread all around in an uneven jumble; disorganised, distracting. From his stares alone it’s impossible for you to begin to visualise the scramble. He feels like he’s been ripped from safety and comfort and thrown as far from familiarity as possible. He has never been so out of his depth. He has never, even as a child, felt so out of control.

Part of him, strangely, welcomes it.

It makes him think unusually, however. Perhaps even unfairly. And so along with the scattered joy of you, you, you, develops an internal battle to gain control again. He wants your eyes on only him as much as he wants no one else to look at you. Something pleads with him to keep you here, keep you here, while something else begs him on its knees to never hold you back.

He’s watching you, sitting with your legs tucked up beneath you on his sofa. You’ve been quietly focused on some drama he’s never heard of and sipping a vintage wine he’d been saving for a special occasion. It makes him dizzy. Perhaps against his better judgement, he has wanted to kiss you since you walked through the door. A special occasion indeed.

The pleading continues, desperate screams of No matter what it takes! No matter what it takes!

But you have been so kind. He wouldn’t dare take advantage of it. On the contrary, he’d probably do anything you asked of him in a heartbeat as long as he could guarantee you’d be safe in the end.

Then he says your name. He’s not sure he intended to say it aloud. When you turn to him he scans your face for something, anything, that suggests maybe you’re losing your mind as much as he is. Instead he’s distracted by lips gently parted and vaguely stained red from the wine, and comes to no conclusion.

“Yeah?” you say.

You’re sitting in the spot where he’d usually sit, he realises. He’d been so shaken by your arrival that he somehow hadn’t even noticed. Not that he’d have made you sit elsewhere anyway.

He takes a sip of his own wine and wonders if his lips are the same colour as yours.

“Jumin? Everything okay?”

You seem too far away somehow.

“Yes.”

You tilt your head to the side slightly as you ask, “You sure?”

“Yes. Apologies, what I was going to say somehow slipped my mind,” he says.

“Alright.” Your eyes sparkle as you smile (always sweet, never pushy) and he has to turn away to stop himself from acting on foolish impulse.

And, well, this scenario is not in any way romantic, really. You’re both just trying to wash up as quickly as possible, and in all honesty, upon stepping into the hot stream of water you can’t help but feel it would have just been more convenient for one of you to brush your teeth and use the toilet while the other showered, then switch over. It ends up a kerfuffle of limbs getting in the way of other limbs and elbows to the ribs all wound up by a string of apologies and quiet laughter, and even more laughter when after an accidental hit with a bottle of shower gel you remember the penthouse has two showers.

You manage to beat the scramble to leave on time by only about a minute. Driver Kim asks Jumin why he seems so flustered as he puts your suitcases into the trunk of the car, and Jumin chuckles as he tells him, “it’s really not what you might think.”

You can’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it just a little bit, in the end.

The time after that you wake up sick, your head pounding.

“Perhaps we should call Doctor Jung?” Jumin suggests, pacing back and forth in the lounge. A look of concern is plastered across his face. He had left before you woke up this morning, and you wouldn’t bother him while he was working over an issue so trivial.

Neither of these things are an uncommon sight when he’s stressed, however.

“I’m fine,” you insist. “It’s just a cold.”

He stops pacing and turns to look at you, his expression softening as your eyes meet. Then you sneeze, as if on cue, causing Elizabeth 3rd to stir on your lap. She nuzzles her nose between her front paws. Jumin shakes his head.

“Still, I’d rather we were safe and have you looked over,” he sighs, walking over to where you're sitting. He puts his hands on your cheeks, then gently moves one to your forehead. “You have a temperature,” he adds, and the way you look up at him prompts him to kiss the top of your head. “Please?”

“I don’t feel as bad as I did this morning. We don’t need Doctor Jung to come all the way here just to diagnose me with the common cold,” you tell him. He goes to protest and you can’t help but giggle, preemptively cutting him off. “How about we compromise, and if I’m not better in a couple of days then I give you permission to call the doctor?”

“As long as you let me compromise, my angel, by staying home from work to care for you tomorrow. And running you a bath now.”

“You don’t need to do either of those things, darling. I promise, I’m okay. Though I do think hot water could do me some good. I’ll just shower.”

“Then let me join you?” he playfully proposes. You huff with a smile, defeated by how flat out charming he is.

“If you must.”

He quietly undresses you (another part of his compromise, apparently), leaving little affectionate kisses and kind words on your warm skin as he goes.

You feel a sense of relief immediately when the water hits you, it evens out your chills and aids your stuffy nose. Jumin steps in behind you not long after, wrapping his arms around your waist and bending down to place another kiss on your shoulder.

“Now let me take care of you,” he whispers. “My love.”

And he does just that. He shampoos your hair as though you’re the most delicate thing he’s ever touched; holds you in the warmth like he would never dream of letting go; gives you kisses even through your proclamations that you really really don’t want him to get sick.

(Of course he does get sick, a couple of days later, like you said he would. You joke that he did it on purpose to spend more time with you, but repay his gesture with no second thoughts.)

Then the most recent time, where Jumin has been away in Europe for work. For the last couple of years he has been taking you with him on business trips when he can – he’s a good negotiator, and realistically nobody can (or would) say no to him bringing you along. He tried this time too, but it was arranged at such short notice that there was no way you could have joined him. You hadn’t initially been too phased, aside from the fact you tend to struggle to sleep without him these days.

Tonight is one of those nights. No, this week has been one of those weeks.

Sleep deprivation has been consuming you at a swift pace. You're led to believe your lack of sleep has even begun to bother Elizabeth 3rd by now. You feel sorry for tossing and turning in bed so much that she can’t get any more comfortable than you can. But you’ve tried everything. Everything that usually helps you to sleep has been rendered utterly useless. Your last resort would be to call Jumin, but you know he couldn’t answer now even if he wanted to.

And it isn’t helping, you’re sure, that you expected him to be home to sleep with again tonight.

So you continue to toss and turn.

You get out of bed at about 2:15, head to the kitchen for water. Go back to bed. Get up. Go back to bed. Get up. Go back to bed. And you’re actually half asleep when you hear soft voices outside. The door being unlocked, and locked again. A heavy sigh. In the silence that follows, a wave of comfort so powerful washes over you that you’re almost certain you’re dreaming, finally.

Then the shower turns on, and no, you’re awake.

You get up again, make your way to the bathroom. You tap on the door gently, and push it open just enough to poke your head into the room.

“Jumin?”

The water gets quieter.

“Can I join you?”

You can hear the blissful relief in his voice when he responds, “do you even have to ask?”

He pulls you in tight as you step into the water with him. “Did I wake you?” he mutters into your hair.

“I’ve barely slept all week,” you chuckle.

“Nor have I.”

He chuckles warmly. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he says, stepping closer to you and moving his hands to rest gently on your waist. “But did I not already tell you that I promise?”

“Well, you did… but there’s no harm in making sure…” you retaliate, a slight aura of mischief to your tone.

Jumin quizzically raises an eyebrow at you, a small smirk appearing on his face as he catches on. You press your knuckles against the layers covering his chest, pinky still outstretched. His smirk drops to a playful pout as he murmurs, “You mean to say that my darling wife doesn’t trust me?”

You respond with a huff, but won’t be defeated so easily, you decide. “And what if I don’t?” you say. You flatten your hand finally, bringing your other one up to his chest too. He simultaneously moves to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, and afterwards subtly manoeuvres both of his cold hands beneath your pajama top to rest on your lower back.

You shiver under his touch, and his smirk returns.

“If you didn’t… Then I’d be ever so hurt.” He emphasizes his words as he speaks; blinks down at you and sniffles quietly to rein in the (albeit fake) emotion.

“You’ve never lied to me before, but I just never thought that such a loyal man would be so hesitant to commit to a pinky promise,” you continue to tease.

“I heard somewhere that upon its origin in Japan, the idea of the pinky promise was that they cut off your finger if you broke your word. They called it yubikiri, and there was a saying that went alongside it. Something like, whoever lies should swallow a thousand needles. Are you planning on doing that to me?”

“Now that you’ve suggested it, I might take it into consideration. Especially if you’re planning on breaking your word, as it seems you just implied.”

He laughs again at that, properly now, and you feel his chest shake under your hands. You couldn’t explain his laugh if you tried—it’s like honey, a blanket on a rainy day, a fresh bouquet of flowers. And so, even trying to keep a straight face, you can’t help but beam at the sound.

He leans down to softly kiss you as his laughter subsides. “I really have to leave if I want to be back on time,” he whispers against your lips.

“Hm… Let’s see,” you whisper back before kissing him again. You put intention into it now; it’s longer, deeper. And when you pull away,

“Not without pinky promising.”

This time he doesn’t hesitate as he takes a small step back and holds his hand out to you, pinky finger outstretched just as yours had been before. You link yours into it and he smiles softly. He continues to focus on your hands as he speaks.

“I never understood the point of this. As far as I’m concerned, a promise is a promise. I might have turned down every pinky promise ever offered to me, though I could probably count on one hand just how many times that is. Considering it now, would that have made me look like an untrustworthy man? Perhaps. Nonetheless, for you, my angel”—he tightens the grip between your hands and looks up from where your fingers are interlocked, his eyes warm as always—“I promise.”

You press your thumbs together to seal his words, and he smugly insists on also sealing them with another kiss on his way out.

You text him after he leaves, just for clarity’s sake.

For the record, you’re the most trustworthy man I’ve ever met

I love you. Have a nice day ♡

He responds immediately.

Jumin tends to wake up before her. But he doesn’t always. Occasions like today, where she gets to see him sleeping soundly beside her, are almost blissful. Fighting to open her eyes only to see his still closed, his lips gently parted in his dreaming state, breath ghosting against her skin. The sunlight collects in pools around him when it shines like this; rests over his form so beautifully. There’s a peaceful vulnerability that blooms from watching someone sleep, and perhaps she’d feel strange about it if she didn’t know it was a gesture reciprocated.

His eyelashes flutter as he brings a barely awake hand up to shade his eyes from the sunlight. He’s always been a light sleeper, too, perhaps contributing to how he can so easily wake without an alarm. For all she knows her gaze alone could have woken him, but he’d never mind. Enamoured eyes stay quietly fixed on him until he grasps his position in reality.

“Good morning, my love,” he murmurs after a minute or so. His morning voice makes her giddy, even after months of marriage. It makes her feel like she’s waking up with him for the first time again, over and over. “Morning,” she whispers.

A ray of sunlight shines over his face, the positioning of his hand slightly displacing it. Her eyes follow it down — across his cheek, just grazing his nose, perfectly framing his lips. She leans in and lazily kisses him; feels him smile into it; follows his lips for a few seconds longer when he tries to pull away. She only backs off once he’s smiling too much for it to even be a kiss any more, really.

Then without thinking, she tells him, “You’re pretty.”

“Pretty?” His smile becomes a teasing grin as he speaks, his voice still deep and groggy.

She hums in confirmation as she shifts a hand to his cheek, promptly finding herself drawing small circles with her finger around a tiny mole that she knows lives there. She feels his dark eyes continue to focus on her as hers drift to the movement of her own hand. “Maybe you don’t see it,” she says. And she’s right as usual, he doesn’t. “But I do.”

He laughs warmly and their eyes meet again.

His history meant it took a while for Jumin to accept her compliments with any form of genuineness. He can confidently vouch for some (he knows he’s handsome, good with words, etc.) but for too long hearing praise merely felt like a form of manipulation, a cheap tactic to get through to him, business. And she understood. Of course she did — she was always so understanding. Yet she kept complimenting him, never asking for anything in return, until he believed her wholeheartedly.

Occasionally his mind will still tell him in a haze of self doubt that she can’t possibly see him in the way she describes. Pretty is a descriptor he finds internally categorised along with others she uses: gentle and safe. Words he feels like he does not deserve, through fear of old feelings resurfacing, fear of losing control. They are too delicate to describe the possessiveness he knows stirs deep within him. But he reminds himself that the desire to own her is secure, under lock and key; he doesn’t need to own her for her to stay. She has no ulterior motive. Her compliments are not built to exploit him — she wants nothing but him in his authentic self, every part of it.

So ultimately, he believes her. He always does. He trusts her more than he ever thought he could trust. So in a moment like this, he won’t let his fears intrude. The way she looks up at him with the utmost love in her doe eyes won’t allow it.

“Can one be handsome and pretty?” he asks.

“Well”—she pauses to consider—“you are. Anyone can see that you’re handsome. Gorgeously so. When I look at your features though, when I really take in the details, they’re very pretty.”

“I’m not so sure,” he responds. She huffs quietly, though there’s a hint of a laugh hidden within it. “Sometimes I really wish you could see yourself through my eyes, Jumin Han.”

She drags her fingers up over his hand, still against his brow to block out the sun. She accidentally repositions a couple of his fingers as she does so, causing him to squint somewhat against the light until his eyes adjust to the brightness. “For example, you have pretty hands. They’re big, but gentle and soft. And… the way they hold me, the way they touch me—” she hears his breath hitch slightly at the way she emphasises it, causing her to interrupt her sentence with a giggle.

“The slope of your nose is pretty. The way your eyes sparkle in the sun is pretty.” Her hand finds its way back to his cheek, then, and gently guides him to tilt his head a little so that she can see the blemish she’d been circling minutes earlier. She taps it lightly. “And this is pretty, too.”

“I was never fond of it.”

“I’m fond of all of you.”

She lays her hand flush against the side of his face and he turns his head to press a kiss against her palm. “Shall I keep going?” she asks.

“I must be the luckiest man alive.”

“You must be,” she agrees, a playful tone in her voice. She shuffles in closer again and hooks a leg over his body so they can lie skin to skin but she can still look at him. “Hmm,” she muses. “You know, Juju? Maybe beautiful suits you better.”

Jumin laughs again, though he knows she means every word. He lets his hand roam beneath the covers to hold the curve of her waist as he tells her, “That one is reserved for you.”

She scrunches her nose at him. “I’ll just have to think it in secret then.”

He instinctively pulls her impossibly closer; kisses her softly as she had done him earlier. A thank you where words feel too much. He’s surprised when she runs her hand into his hair, kindly manouvres herself to allow him more comfortable access to her mouth. When she happily laughs against his lips, he doesn’t think any word nor gesture could thank her enough.

Jumin knows how he feels about you. He feels it so, so deeply that there’s absolutely no mistaking it — love resonates from his very being when he’s so much as in your presence. What you’ve done for him, what you continue to do for him, there’s no doubt that you’ve changed him for the better. He only hopes he can continue to be the same for you. But how to express it in words barely comes naturally to him after so long keeping all emotion bottled away. It still feels a bit awkward, sometimes, even confessing his love to you aloud.

“You’re good with words,” you’d told him once. “Do you know that?” He does know, he told you. Being good with words had always been one of his strongest capabilities. It’s something he’s proud of. He’s succinct, confident, persuasive. Usually. For some reason when it comes to you he often finds himself practically tongue-tied. Not to mention he’s never been put in a position that makes him feel so vulnerable.

He looks back to Elizabeth 3rd. “I can acknowledge that you won’t be at all insightful either way, but I could at least use a practice audience.”

He gently shifts her off of the paper he’d been writing on and picks up the most recent draft, clearing his throat as his eyes scan over the first couple of lines.

“Before I met you, I—”

Then he’s interrupted by a soft piano melody drifting from his phone.

“Jumin,” you chime when he picks up. Hearing you call his name immediately washes away the discontentment he’d been feeling just moments prior. “I texted you a little while ago but you didn’t respond, so I thought I'd call in case you didn't see. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be there soon. I know you don’t like sudden interruptions much.”

“Considerate as always. Thank you.”

“You better not have been working on your day off.”

He smiles. “Not a morsel of C&R related activity is going on here, don’t worry.”

“Good. I’ll see you in thirty minutes, okay?”

“Thirty?” he asks.

There’s a long pause before you admit, “...An hour.”

“Alright.” A warm chuckle. “I’ll see you then.”

“I love you!”

“I love you too.”

—

“Forty-seven minutes,” Jumin confirms as you let yourself into the penthouse. “I’ll try to be more precise next time,” you tease as you walk into the kitchen and begin to carefully unpack two slices of cheesecake from the bag you’d been carrying them in. You click your tongue upon noticing one of them is slightly messed up from the journey over.

“How was your morning?” Jumin asks. He leans to rest on the kitchen island beside you.

“I met a nice older woman while I was browsing in the bakery nearby. She stopped me to tell me I look like C&R Jumin Han’s wife.”

“Wife?” he echoes. He likes the way the word feels, he’s come to find. “What did you tell her?”

“Well I was a bit surprised. Nobody has ever told me I look like your partner rather than just asking if I am. Typically I try to avoid answering, because I don’t know who’s asking. Of course I’m proud beyond belief to be marrying you”—you bite back a smile as his face lights up—“but you know how I am with not wanting to draw too much attention to myself. I just wanted my cheesecake.”

“Beyond belief?” Jumin asks.

“Of course,” you reiterate, leaning in quickly to press a kiss to his lips before turning around to grab dessert plates from a cupboard. “But that’s besides the point! I wasn’t in a hurry, and she seemed sweet, so I laughed and told her I actually am his fiancée.”

“What did she say?”

“She didn’t believe me!”

“Oh? How dare she accuse my dearest wife-to-be of being a liar.” There’s a grin on his face when you turn back to him that couldn’t possibly disguise the fact that he finds it just the slightest bit amusing. “We ought to track her down and tell her off.”

“We could invite her to the wedding to prove a point,” you suggest as you move the cake to the plates and slide Jumin the less beat-up piece. Something about the gesture makes the idea of finishing his vows seem a lot less intimidating all of a sudden.