Zoestery Proposal
Zoey and Mystery were tucked under a blanket fort in Zoey’s room, technically on the floor, but surrounded by so many blankets and plushies and on a rug so thick that one couldn’t feel the hardwood floor. Mystery cupped both ears of the over-ear headphones as he listened to the final draft she’d just polished, and she could tell by his smile that it was good.
“You like it?” she asked, clapping softly in anticipation when he took the headphones off.
“It’s perfect, Aegi,” Mystery said, placing them on the screen of the laptop and tugging her closer. “And very you.”
“That’s what Rumi and Mira said, when I first showed them,” Zoey admitted, cuddling under his arm. “It kind of spawned out of my healing journey.”
Mystery kissed her head, and Zoey kept talking, moving her hands. “I just wanted to feel like I was taking that pain I’d felt and saying, you thought you could break me, but you can’t, because I’m unbreakable! I don’t break unless I decide to. Who’s going to stop me? Me?”
“Not me,” he said, softly.
Zoey smiled and squeezed his hand. “Not me either,” she cooed. “To stop you. Not me. We’re not going to stop each other!”
“No,” he agreed. “I knew that from the start. You shared all your big dreams and then celebrated my small ideas like they had already happened. I had forgotten how to dream big. You let our lives exist together when we had nothing to do with each other.”
“They do too have something to do with each other!” Zoey exclaimed. “Us! Together! The house and the four dogs and the five kids.” She sighed, staring off into space. “Of course, I don’t know how my tour schedule and Huntr/x will fit into all of that, but I know I want it with you and since the label is already seeing success from our comeback, then-“ she sighed and hummed happily and then squeezed herself into a smaller space underneath his arm, to get closer. Like a butterfly in a cocoon.
“바다거북,” Mystery said softly, and touched her nose lightly with a finger. “우리가 그럴 수만 있다면 내일이라도 당신과 결혼할 거예요.”
“Oppa…” Zoey smiled and kissed his cheek. “I want to marry you too. Not tomorrow. But I think Huntr/x is planning our next hiatus for fall the year after next? Maybe we could have a late summer wedding? Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Mystery said, then reached behind him. In the dim light, surrounded by stuffed plushies, he set a blue box onto the pillow in front of them. Zoey said, “Oooh!” and then flipped it open. Then, at the top of her very impressive voice register, she squealed. “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“Yeobo!” Mystery jumped, holding his ears. “Zoey, I just regrew these a week ago.”
Zoey wrapped her arms around Mystery’s body, crushing his lungs along with his ears. He hugged back, falling on her in a deadweight, until she began to laugh and lifted him up off her. Strong princess. “Zoey,” he reminded her. “Be my fiancée?”
“Yes, yes, a thousand times over, yes!” Zoey exclaimed and leaned to careen her lips towards his. They kissed over and over, smiling around each other, and Zoey even brushed his hair aside to kiss the receding bruises on his head. “I was going to ask you first if you didn’t ask me. I know it’s only been a few months, but we’ve got enough time moving forward, right? And I’ve liked you for aaaages! Did you ask Bobby?”
“I asked Bobby,” Mystery agreed. “And your parents.”
This made Zoey jolt. “How’d you get their numbers?” she asked.
“Bobby,” Mystery replied. He looked up, searching their fort, and frowned. “Where’d the ring go?” he whispered.
Zoey looked but didn’t see it on the pillow he’d set it on. “Oh, the stuffed animals must have it,” she said, and began to sift through them.
“Close,” someone said in the room.
Zoey and Mystery both froze, then Zoey lifted the roof of their fort. All of their friends stood in the room beside Zoey’s bed, examining the ring with wide grins. Even Bobby was there, standing on his tiptoes to try and see. “Hey!” Zoey exclaimed. “That’s mine!”
“We’re just lookin’,” Baby said, nodding in approval.
“It’s a good pick,” Abby said.
“Very Zoey,” Rumi agreed, leaning against Jinu’s shoulder as they examined it.
“Give me my ring. Don’t make me pull out my shin-kal,” Zoey said, frowning deeply. Mira laughed and passed the box back to Zoey. Before Zoey could see it though, Mystery was taking it back. He pulled the ring out, took her hand, glanced at the group to make sure it was the correct one, and then put it onto her finger. Zoey squealed again, jumping twice, and then held her wrist to keep her hand steady enough to see the ring. “It. Has. Turtles!!” She jumped into Mystery’s arms, slinging both her arms and legs around him, and nearly took him out.
Just as quickly, she jumped back off him. “Wait til you see yours!” she exclaimed, then squeezed through the crowd to get to her bedside table. She found her own little box and dashed back over. She fell on both knees in her haste to get to him and landed a little too close to make it elegant. Everyone – even Mystery – laughed at her energy. Instead of opening the box, he offered her his hand, helped her up, and let her remove it from its package and put it on his finger. Then, they compared them, showing their friends. Both were silver, which Zoey had requested about three weeks into knowing Mystery because it would match all her other jewelry. Zoey’s was an aquamarine turtle facing off-center in the ring. Its shell was the center stone. Mystery’s had a light purple streak running the center of the ring that matched his hair. She’d engraved it, “No Mystery that you’re the one.”
Zoey watched Baby’s face, because he could be particularly slow to impress, but when he nodded, she considered herself triumphant. “I’m so good at this!” Zoey exclaimed, clapping again.
“So,” Bobby clapped his hands together sternly. “You cannot get married until this tour is done.”
She knew he meant it, but she still leaned forward and batted her eyes. “Oh, pleeeease, Bobby?” she begged, batting her eyes.
Bobby leaned right back in, batting his back. “Not a chance in hellllll,” he sang back.
“You could be a grandpa a lot sooner!”
“You could be jobless a lot sooner!”
An unfortunate point, Zoey conceded while laughing. “Okay,” she agreed. “We’re thinking late summer, year after next. So… schedule away!”
Mira jutted a thumb at them, like, “can you believe these two?” But Mystery wrapped his arms around Zoey’s shoulders and she didn’t quite care to remark on that. She turned her face up, bumped noses with her fiancé – EEEEEE – and then he kissed her for a long, quiet moment. Everyone was nice enough to stay quiet for the first twenty seconds or so, but then Baby made the loudest fake retching sound Zoey had ever made.
“Okay, okay!” Romance groaned. “We get it, you’re in love!”
“Y’all are sickening!" Source: Too Far Gone by WanderlustandFreedom
