COLORADO II PATHCODES VOL. II
COLORADO || PATHCODES VOL. II
ACT II. “To have and to hold”
Length - 7,236
Mood - grief stricken, indelicate
Pairing - Kyungsoo x Reader
Warning - Mature content for sexual references, mention of miscarriage
“I've been homeless, hopeless with no address
'Til my heart, you chose
Now I got a home, baby
Out here in the world I'm not alone
As long as I've got you, I've got a home
If you just don't let go so I don't feel the cold
As long as I've got you, I've got a home
These four walls, they can't hold me like you do
You already know, babe
And I'll just fit my life inside you
Taking you everywhere I go, babe”
“Home” by - Snoh Aalegra
____________________________
You made it so easy
To forget the world beyond ours
But then I realized
I never wanted
To know anything
Beyond you
©️Asteria-Amphitrite
________________________
“Have you decided _____?” He asked, a slight quiver of nerves disrupting the smooth cadence of his voice as your eyes rose to his at his sudden question.
You sat beside one another in the town car Minseok and ____ (Berlin Reader) had arranged for the departing Pathcodes board.
Earlier, Jongin and his dear ____ (London Reader) had alighted from your vehicle, ____ (London Reader) waving after leaning forward to hug both you and your husband while Jongin held the door open, his farewell hugs already given.
“I hope to see you again soon. Take care,” she beamed at you, her smile as brilliant as the sun’s first light in winter.
“Take care ____. Be of good health,” your husband called after her nodding as she turned once more to wave, Jongin’s hand enveloping hers that wasn’t sparing you a parting greeting.
“Travel safe and well hyung. I love you both. See you very soon,” Jongin leaned down, ducking his head inside to wave once again now that she was by his side, leaning against him, her eyes on him.
You both waved.
“Take care Jongin. It’s good to see you both again. Please be well until we see each other again,” you called out and Jongin nodded in acknowledgment before gently shutting the door as they walked away, their eyes on each other.
Now you looked at him, slightly confused.
“I’d like to go with you. I know you planned out the alternative for me and I appreciate it. But I would like to see the family home and I would like to support you, if that’s ok?” You were sure that your smile was sweet and harmless. That’s what you intended and meant it to be.
But he watched you still, even as your hands took his within your own.
He allowed you to bring him closer, his eyes large and ever patient.
“I know this event has been hard for us. I know it’s not fair to you and I haven’t been fair in how I tried to hold back everything I felt. I know it’s not easy for us to come back into our relationship after so much time spent apart. I’m not sure where we start over but I want to start again. Please Soo. Please let me go with you,” you asked, feeling the resolve in your intended harmless, guileless smile cracking to reveal your anxiety that he was actually indifferent to you after so much time.
He sighed, breaking eye contact to look down at your hands in his.
After studying them for a moment, he brought your hands to his lips, kissing them with the ultimate tenderness, caressing the skin at the back of your hands over and over and over again with kisses as he began to murmur, “I have missed you so much.”
________________
Together, prior to your departure from your semi rural home, you decided that you would return with him to his home city in Seoul following the New Year's gala in Berlin.
Your in-laws seemed altogether surprised that you would return to the family restaurant to invite them to your family home for dinner where the announcement was made.
And you felt the telltale sting of guilt, embedded like a stitch in your side, as you watched their reaction to your husband’s declaration.
“Will you return together?” Your father-in-law asked, pointedly pausing in his meal to place his utensils down to give you his undivided attention.
A chilled silence fell over the usually hushed dinner and your husband quietly protested after a moment, “father, yes. I will return home with my wife.”
______________
You knew then of course how much rode on this journey.
You knew also how far you had fallen in their eyes.
You knew then a feeling of such intense foreboding that broke the false security that you thought your relationship had always held tethered about it.
You understood how much he shielded you from and how selfishly you had expected him to do so.
Your vows came to you as you washed the dishes that night from your family dinner, looking at his traveling bags that he had dropped at the front door just the night before upon his return to your broken home on your request following your phone call all those months earlier.
You remembered again the way he had allowed you the illusion and the dream of an alternate place you two entered.
You remembered how easy he had made it to be for it to always just be you and him, separate from everything and everyone that chose to inflict hurt.
You realized that you counted on him to protect you in this way.
You realized that you had depended on him to sacrifice his needs before yours even to the detriment of your relationship.
What vows had you truly upheld?
What had you promised?
_______________
“This may take some time,” he spoke to you as he always did, patiently and with great consideration in his inflection.
Never to worry ____. I have it all under control.
“I can wait. I am not anxious for anything,” you lied.
You fidgeted all the way from Berlin to Seoul, 14 hours straight.
You couldn’t sleep.
You couldn’t eat.
But you pretended you did to allow him to rest.
His eyebrows seemed to quirk up as if he knew you were only running on maybe an hour or two worth of sleep.
“If you’d like to tour the city? I’m sure I could ask my aunts to take you with them on an outing-”
“Oh I...well I don’t want to trouble anyone. I’m happy to go with them. It’s been a while since we saw each other last. But I would like to stay as well...I. Well whatever you think is best,” you felt strange trying to hide your worry in front of him and you knew that he knew you were trying despite your promise to be transparent.
“I don’t want anything to happen as it has before. Promise me that whenever you feel anxious that you will tell me and we’ll figure out an alternative,” he asked of you the first night you arrived in Berlin where he had resigned himself to sleeping in the guest room of your hotel suite.
You were dumbfounded that he refused your offer to spend the night together after such a long time spent apart but knew that it was frightening to you too to consider resuming intimacy as if nothing had been stolen from you both after all this time. Even when he returned to your home from his personal business schedule abroad, you hadn’t laid together as husband and wife even once.
Suddenly you were shy about being naked in front of him, preferring to change your clothes in the bathroom after your shower.
He also wore longer pants to bed, and asked you if it was all right if he brought an extra blanket to bed to keep warm with.
You were too shy to ask him to hold you instead and he was too reserved to cross the space your blankets now created between you.
You wanted him just as you did before and you could see that he wanted you.
You could smell it on each other.
The heat of your mutual lusts.
But it was as if you were assessing whether you were ready to face not only yourselves but the many, many hurts collected along the way.
He looked at you with the same consideration and understanding, reaching forward with a heart filled gesture, taking your face in his hands as he leaned in to kiss you wholeheartedly.
“I need you to trust me. I have been trying to put this off but there is now an issue with the family that I need to take care of. After I take care of it, I can tell you everything. I’m not sure if I was ever ready to tell you all of this but I cannot keep this from you anymore. But no matter what happens or what you see or what you hear please remember that I do love you, ok,” he seemed to be warning you that the anxiety you felt now would be nothing compared to the devastation that awaited you.
And as the gentleman he was, as the true prince of peace that he was to his earthen core, he prepared you ahead of it, readying himself to take the sword in his own heart all the way to its hilt if but to spare you the searing pain of judgement.
_______________
His family home, belonging at this time to his paternal grandmother, was settled in one of the bustling satellite cities of Seoul and a gathering place for many generations of his family.
You had visited once many years ago upon the initial news of your engagement for a brief introduction during a winter family holiday after his birthday.
The family was welcoming of newcomers but distant even then, asking through your husband then fiancé about your career and what aspirations you held.
“A modern woman,” you had heard his cousins chatter behind manicured hands, followed by raised full and filled-in eyebrows at his answers to his aunts and cousins.
You returned now to that house, all these years later seeing those same manicured hands now sporting engagement and wedding bands of their own, the children of some of those cousins twittering parroted conversations of their parents.
“Cousin is back”
“His modern woman came too!”
______________________
Your husband went ahead of you into the private room where his grandmother waited on him alone and you waited in the kitchen, attempting to help with meal time for his younger cousins.
The youngest girl, who couldn’t be more than two years old, that you were helping to feed, snuggled against you, smiling at you genuinely as you raised the spoon to her lips.
She clapped as you mimicked the eating action to encourage her, giggling open mouthed before taking a bite that you offered to her.
“She usually does not eat so well with others. What kind of magic is this?” One of his cousins muttered, once again behind her hand.
The young girl’s mother had gone in behind her cousin, your husband, as she apparently also had paperwork to fulfill.
“Ah...I don’t know. She does seem to be eating very well,” you acknowledged her statement but she didn’t look at you and instead turned further away towards her companion, another distant cousin.
“They say when children are sweet to you like that that you must be pregnant.” You felt a sudden tempered blaze budding against your cheeks as they pretended to hush their voices in front of you.
The little girl in your arms tugged at your sleeve, waiting on you to serve her.
“I’m so sorry. Were you ready for another bite already?” You shifted your focus to her, guiding the spoon gently as you heard them gasp.
“But I thought she was barren?”
“That’s what Aunt told us.”
“Well she has every right to be upset. He gave up so much to marry her and now look what this marriage has done. It has no future.”
“But what alternative does he have? He can’t dishonor his vows.”
“But he would forsake the family?”
You finished spooning the rest of the pumpkin porridge into her mouth and carefully placed the dishes on the table before turning to face his cousins.
“Excuse me...excuse me what are you talking about?” You asked, waiting on both of them to turn to you.
They waited you out, finishing another spoonful of porridge before turning to you.
“Aunt came to visit us when you were mysteriously ill and told us how you had ruined her son. That your family was negligent and how much you depended on him.”
“What could have attracted him to you? He could have had any woman within our country.”
“I’m sorry? What are you talking about?”
His cousin rose to her feet abruptly, leaning forward as she planted her hands on the table before her, grounding herself as she lurched towards you until your noses almost touched.
The child in your arms yelped and began to cry aloud in shock at the sudden commotion.
You were surprised that her mother didn’t rush out to tend to her with the way she shrieked and refused to be consoled.
“You have no idea who we are. He made sure to keep you out of it. I told him that he would regret it. And now he does. You’ll see,” she spat in your face before wrenching herself away from the table, picking up her child she had been feeding.
The cousin who sat beside her reached for the young girl who was crying and clinging to you, wrestling her out of your grasp as she followed her cousin down the hall.
“C-come back here! Come back!” You called after her, wiping away the spit from your hair and face, reaching frantically for a cloth to clean yourself with.
There was a slammed door and a shuffle of footsteps down the hall as the children shrieked again at a sudden enraged shout.
“내 아내한테서 떨어져요!”
As you opened your eyes and stood to follow them, you saw your husband at the entryway of the kitchen and the women retreating from him, the rage in his eyes dimming.
His expression was gray and withdrawn as he came towards you, hurrying around the kitchen table to help you sit down.
But you felt yourself resisting at first, alarmed by his sudden shout at his departed cousins.
“Kyungsoo what-”
“Please sit down 여보,” he asked, reaching for the cloth you were at dabbing your hair and face with.
“Kyungsoo what did they mean?! What were they saying? Why did she spit at me?! What’s going on?! What’s-”
He helped you clean up the rest of it speaking in hushed penitent tones.
“I never wanted you to be part of this. But now I don’t have a choice.”
__________________
You departed from his grandmother’s house on foot just as quickly though not as peacefully as you had originally come.
He held your hand gripped tightly in his, brusquely leading the way.
“Kyungsoo please let’s talk about this now. I want to understand. Is there something about being married to me that your family doesn’t like? We have never had a close relationship but her anger towards me caught me off guard...did something happen-”
“I would prefer that we wait-”
“Please Kyungsoo. I-i understand that you want to wait but-”
“Can we at least just get inside and not be on the street?” He demanded, motioning towards the rental car you’d purchased.
You hurried along after him, jumping back as he wrenched and slammed at the car door and gasped as he pulled away from the house quickly, moving along the street at a jilted pace.
“Kyungsoo-”
He shook his head, continuing to drive in agitated silence amongst the traffic cluttered roads until he came to a lesser populated rural highway road where he pulled over.
“Kyungsoo-”
He leaned forward to kiss you then, taking you in his arms roughly, hungrily as if he was aching for nourishment.
You melted against him, pulling his arms closer around you.
“여보,” he moaned against your parted lips.
“Kyungsoo please tell me what’s going on. Why did we come here? Why did your grandmother refuse to see me?”
He slowly sat back, his head resting against the top of the seat.
“____. I would have never told you all of this because this isn’t your world. I brought you here today in response to my grandmother’s request and my family didn’t appreciate that-”
“What request?” You asked though you remembered again now his father’s pointed question.
“Will you return together?”
“What did your grandmother ask you to do?”
He turned his eyes towards you, reaching for your hand as he said, “she asked me whether I was still considering a divorce.”
_______________
The word shattered your mind.
_______________
“Were you? Did you want a divorce?” You managed to squeeze out of your throat and he shook his head resolutely.
“I don’t know what I want anymore-”
“What does that mean? What-what-what paperwork did she ask you to sign?”
“Rights to our family company-”
“Through the Pathcodes? I thought-”
“No...it’s…” he paused again, seeming to grow exhausted by the perpetual onslaught of your questions.
He dispiritedly folded forward until his forehead rested against the car horn at the center of the steering wheel.
“Kyungsoo talk to me. What don’t I know? There’s something you’re not telling me? What did your mother say to your cousins about us? Did she tell the whole family?”
“Yes. Yes she did. It was at dinner. She had been drinking-”
His tone became increasingly subdued in its delivery though he remained exasperated as he answered you and that only heightened your anxiety.
“Kyungsoo. What-what-what don’t I know?! What-”
“Everything ____! Everything! I kept everything from you-”
“What do you mean? Like you lied about who you are-”
“I didn’t lie about who I am. I just didn’t-”
“Even if you kept certain parts to yourself that is still not telling me the complete truth-”
“Oh now I’m not telling the truth?!? Now I am the one keeping things from you? We have spent an entire year and a half away from each other because you chose to shut me out. You walked away from me for an entire year and a half ____.”
His tone was stricken as he spoke to you but he remained eerily calm as he brought up your chosen separation and solitude from your relationship.
“I am guilty of that yes. I did walk away from you. I am sorry-”
“I don’t want you to apologize to me. I want to know why you did it-”
“I could not face you after that...after that ma-many miscarriages. I was embarrassed...I-”
“Did you think that I thought it was your fault? Did you think I was angry at you?”
“But weren’t you angry at me? Even just a little bit? Weren’t you disappointed in me? Weren’t you sorry that you married me?! Weren’t you?! Just say it! Just tell me the truth! Didn’t you hate me?!” The resolve you had held so close, gripping it between not only your fingertips but between your teeth as well was finally torn from you.
You tasted blood as you continued to speak, feeling a stinging pain within your cheek that you had bitten through.
“You’re all I have. I hated that you would keep yourself from me. But I don’t hate you ____. I have never hated you. Never.”
The tears welled up in your eyes as you looked at him, shaking your head in miserable disbelief.
“What don’t I know Kyungsoo! What aren’t you telling me?! Is there someone else?” You pulled away from him as he reached for you.
And he sat back from your reluctance, allowing you space from him once again.
“Yes,” he admitted after what felt like an eternity.
—————————
He told you in that weary grief stricken tone that he belonged to an older farming family who had grown from their small rural field to comfortably support territories in South & North Korea, Japan, China, Thailand and Cambodia.
While they steadily acquired and maintained a significant profit from their satellite operations, infighting for redistribution of wealth constantly threatened to topple their family’s dominance within their own empire.
As part of their created tradition, an available male member of the founding family was required to marry into the neighboring farming families to maintain the founding family’s domination and to “secure their future” as he derisively put it.
“I always thought that I could live a normal life like my peers. I thought that I could marry the person that I wanted and have the career that I wanted. I thought that I didn’t have to be what others wanted me to be just because of the family I was born into.”
“I knew a dear friend once whom I thought that I could have married...but she was married young because her family did not agree with mine over land and territory disputes. I thought that if I could convince my grandmother to reconsider some of our land development here that would be a sign of good faith to her father…but in the end she loved her husband and when I learned that...I gave up on that entirely.”
He was quiet after confessing that there had been someone before you.
Someone he had loved a lifetime ago.
What of himself had he shared with her that you had never known?
What of herself had she shared with him that he still treasured and missed?
Was there a man other than your husband that you knew?
Never.
Not in all the years had you been together had he ever mentioned this family history.
Not the Fourth of July celebration where your paths first crossed.
Not after the first time you went to his family’s restaurant.
Not after your first official date.
Not after you moved into your shared home.
It had never slipped.
Never.
Even when you had traveled here after your engagement.
They were just family.
No secret meetings to sign paperwork.
No forward and bold faced aggression.
How and why had you been kept from the truth?
Were you a weak and willing pawn so taken by the comfortable, unassuming life he had offered to ever wonder if there was more to the story?
“I chose to leave home and to be stripped of my birthright. My grandmother allowed me until my 25th birthday to choose someone to marry. If I hadn’t found someone I would still be considered an available suitor…”
Cars rattled by on the lone country highway.
The sun shifted behind the clouds, peeking from above, below, and in between.
You felt the fabric of your dress sticking to the back of your legs and smelled the faint scent of sweat mingling with his cologne.
A dusty whirl of wind caused a slight tremble to shake your vehicle.
All the while you struggled to breath past the reality that had overcome you, your tongue puffed and sticking against the roof of your mouth, bearing down upon you within this car’s deliriously unbearable heat.
Hot seat.
“When you came here for the film festival...did they...had they found a suitor yet?” You counted the years again knowing that his 25th birthday had well passed since your first year of marriage since the miscarriages began and again the weight of the knowledge he shared pressed you further back into the car door’s frame jumping away from its metal brackets and pieces.
“My brother...his health issues kept him from ever being considered. But because of my example...there are quite a few people in my generation that have done what I did. Many of us have moved away to other parts of the world and that puts a strain on our family…”
“And my miscarriages...the way that my parents handled the engagement and our marriage...that reflected poorly on you. Your mother...she told them everything and they thought badly of you didn’t they?” The tears welled in your eyes as he nodded.
And you finally understood the extent of your transgressions.
“I was so selfish. I was so embarrassed Kyungsoo. I thought if we just got married then everything would figure itself out. My parents would come to their senses and you and I would be as happy as we always were. But we didn’t truly know each other did we? I didn’t know everything that was riding on our marriage...I didn’t know how much you were risking...but why did you never tell me?”
His gaze shifted to his wedding band.
“I gave you space because I knew it was incredibly hard for you to deal with that heartbreak in front of me. I knew that you blamed yourself and that no matter how much I told you that it wasn’t your fault and that we weren’t the only ones faced with that kind of hardship that you would not believe me. I wanted to comfort you. You knew what it was to be neglected by your family but losing our children broke your heart. It broke my heart. I wanted to mourn our children. So many of our children with you,” he had reached down to turn his wedding band on his finger and tightened his grasp as he uttered the end of his phrase, his mouth wrenching closed.
He sniffled after a moment, exhaling as he opened his tearful eyes to go on turning his band about his finger, “but I knew you wouldn’t let me be there for you and that I had to wait until you were ready. And that waiting was agonizing. I hated it more than anything. I second guessed us. Many a time I considered divorce to spare you and to spare us because I didn’t know whether you would ever have the heart to try reconciling. It was around that time that my mother mentioned the divorce to my grandmother that I met her again, my childhood friend, when I came back for the film festival. She came to one of my press conferences. And seeing her again was like a breath of fresh air that I needed. She knew everything about me since childhood. I didn’t have to put part of myself away for her.”
You felt your heart shrinking and straining to continue its mournful beat at his words.
“She was newly widowed. Her husband served in the unit my father and grandfather and her father and his grandfather served in. He carried a wound from training that developed into a sickness that he ultimately passed away from. But she still seemed hopeful. She was at peace. And I had a moment where I wondered what life would have been like if I hadn’t left. Just a moment,” he looked at you as he disclosed his brief emotional betrayal and you allowed him that waiting helplessly as he went on.
“We talked for a little while after the press conference just standing to the side and she asked about my family. She already knew about my marriage and our hardships. And she offered us sympathy...she said ‘I know your heart aches for her. You must be patient with her.’ And I knew she was right.”
“I didn’t come back to you because she told me to. I didn’t come back to you to spite my family. I came back to you because that world, with its politics, and its traditions is no place for me. I came back to you because I want our life. I want the simplicity of our life. At one time or another yes I loved that woman when we were children and rebellious and carefree. But as the man I am today...I have made a commitment that I have given my heart to. I would gladly give up that life for you ____. I was wrong to keep that from you. I was wrong to think I was doing the right thing by shielding you from it.”
“Because I kept it from you you didn’t understand my anxiety about delaying the marriage or even tossing it altogether. You didn’t even know who I was. I didn’t allow you to and I am sorry,” he reached for you again, with both arms, but you held your position.
“I haven’t held you as your husband in such a long, long time and I don’t know how we get back to that point. I don’t know how we come back together when you’re just learning all of these things about me before we met. I don’t deserve your forgiveness for concealing myself but I want your forgiveness-”
“How could I not forgive you? After everything I have done-”
“It’s not...I don’t want you to forgive me as a way to punish yourself. I want us to move past that now ____,” he sternly disagreed, his arms dropping, allowing you to keep distance from his soothing touch.
“Is this life not second best to you? To everything you could have had? If she is a widow now...why not marry her? You don’t think that you’re settling for me? For us? For this life? When you deserve so much more? Don’t you think they were right? That you deserve more?” You asked.
“Loving you even through the lens I allowed myself to love you was what I needed. Before I would have said that I chose us because your world was so different. You were so separate from everything I knew growing up. I fell in love with the worlds you illustrated and I wanted to remain in the dreams of those worlds rather than face the reality of my own.”
“And now?”
“And now I see how selfish I was and what heartache that has caused us both for me to not live in the truth-”
“And what is the truth-”
“The truth is that I am from an older farming family that advocates for inhumane labor conditions and financial and political domination in multiple regions. If I stayed within that family structure I would have had a hand in some of those despicable things. I chose to leave as a child to find new opportunities for my family. I met you and I hoped that you and I could find a way to be happy together. I didn’t tell you everything because I didn’t want you to be tainted by that but I ended up hurting us and tainting our relationship anyway. The truth is that I hadn’t given you the chance to get to know me and now I hope you will…”
He looked at you with those hopeful eyes, brimming with unshed tears as he waited for you.
But you couldn’t breathe.
“I need some air,” you rasped, coughing past a dry patch in your throat.
He fumbled with the car keys turning the car’s A/C on and blasting it in your direction.
He leaned over to your side to turn the fans on you and you caught his arm before he leaned away.
You briefly caught the look in his eyes as you leaned forward to kiss him.
He moaned against you, bringing his arms around you to hold you firmly to him.
“I don’t know how to do this…” you started breathlessly between kisses.
“Together. We do this together,” he insisted and you nodded, pulling away to look at him.
“What do you want this life...our life together to be like?” You asked him, his hands holding you just above your hips.
“I…”
“Knowing there’s another woman out there...that there’s someone who loved you and that you loved. I know it’s over now but Kyungsoo...I have a hard time believing that you love me for who I am. I...can we actually be together? Is it possible to move past this?” You couldn’t stop the questions and he seemed to understand, his hold on you loosening as his arms came around you to pull you closer again.
“It’s a lot that I am asking…”
“What exactly were you going to sign?” You asked quietly as he finished and he stiffened in your embrace.
“I...they did...my family wants me to allow them partnership in some of our operations in the Pathcodes especially if we do plan to pursue work in Seoul. If I won’t give you up and come back then I have to do that. I told them that I cannot make any decisions until our board has a chance to discuss it.” He kept his voice low as he spoke against your shoulder.
“And if we got a divorce?”
“They would give up their interest in the Pathcodes but I would have to go back to Seoul with my family. It would be easier for my brother to stay where we are. It’s healthier for him to stay where he is now. But my parents miss everyone. Even if I want to stay they want to go home.”
You shifted out of his embrace wiping the tears from your eyes and nose.
“I don’t want you to continue to miss out on things in life because of me, Kyungsoo. I don’t want to hold you back ever in life-”
“You’re not holding me back-”
“Kyungsoo!”
“___! You’re not holding me back! Don’t you ever say that! Ever-”
“Kyungsoo!”
“Why would you say that?! Why wouldn’t you just say that you would go with me?! Why don’t you just say that you’ll be by my side?! Do you want me to leave you? Do you want me to hurt you like that? Do you want me to break my own heart like that-”
“But am I the one you actually want by your side? Is it wrong for me to question that now? Kyungsoo how do we actually do this-”
“We just do it ___! We just-”
“Could you really be here without your family? The family you just said you did everything for? I may have been a terrible daughter in law so far but I know better than that…”
You realized how heavy you both were breathing, and how much stickier your skin was at all the added hot air.
You gripped at his forearms, your nails tentatively digging into his flesh.
He looked down at your hands, stopping abruptly.
“___?”
“I can’t bear this heat anymore…”
“Ok let’s...let’s at least get back-”
He hurried to put the car into drive, turning up dust and dirt in his rush to get you both back to the hotel in the city where you had planned to stay.
You reserved yourselves in normal company, politely thanking the staff for their accommodations as they guided you up to your lodgings.
You went to the bathroom immediately, tearing at your clothes, hearing Kyungsoo come in after you.
“Kyungsoo-” you fumbled with your dress’ buttons, trying to pull the fabric back together modestly at least.
But he charged across the marble bathroom floor, pulling at your arms until you released them.
“Don’t hide from me anymore ___. I need you,” he groaned, crushing you against him as he pressed you against the bathroom wall beside the couple sinks.
“Kyungsoo!” You cried out in anguished desire as he took your chin between his fingers, pressing your face away from him so he could kiss your neck, pulling your dress open until it fell from your shoulders to your waist.
Your hands frantically scaled him, from his forearms to his chest where you teared at his dress shirt. As you pulled it from his taut and twitching shoulders, he pushed himself forward, pressing your legs apart as you brought your thighs around him struggling to lift yourself higher.
His kisses became more insistent in their sucking, and you cried against his lips as he lifted you up against him turning with you abruptly to head back into the bedroom.
A flash of lights from the hallway made you gasp as you realized that the door was still open where the staff was bringing in your luggage behind you both to the suite’s living room.
“Kyungsoo!” You whimpered against him, shrinking in his arms but he didn’t mind them and continued carrying you into the bedroom down the hall, kicking the door closed behind him.
Just before he had closed the door you had heard their bashful choruses of “excuse us” before they closed the door to your suite behind them.
“I don’t care who is looking…” he grumbled as he came to a stop before the bed.
You felt yourself slipping slowly to its surface and as you went you pulled at where your dress sat at your hips.
His hands found yours, pulling determinedly at the fabric until it gave way and you shimmied out, rising on your shins to help him pull off his dress shirt that hung bound at his forearms as he pulled at his belt buckle.
“Hurry…” he groaned hotly, waiting for you to finish getting his arms through though his pants and briefs were already at his ankles.
“I...I’m trying-”
“Don’t make me wait anymore ____. I want you right now. I need you right now…” he groaned as you finally pulled both of his arms free.
Reaching down he grabbed underneath your thighs as you reached for his neck, whimpering at the singing heat of his bare skin as he crushed you against him. Finally.
“I am sorry for how rough I am going to be…” he apologized as he walked around the bed, lifting himself up as he brought a hand down to anchor you above him, crawling with you in his arms until he found the center of the bed.
He let you fall and you trembled as he moved down and away from your hands that reached to bring him back to kiss and caress him.
Following the trail of his kisses in your mind’s eye you knew where he was headed.
“I haven’t tasted you in so long…” he whimpered aloud, expressing desires he had always only ever done in quiet reverence.
“Kyungsoo!” You screamed as he brought himself down into you, kissing and suckling at you zealously.
You writhed onto and against him, crying as he brought you higher and further and further until-
“____...come here,” he murmured lovingly, sitting back to give you room. He stood now where he had kneeled before you.
But even in your quaking surprise you found strength enough to move to stand and take tremoring steps back towards him, turning to look at him over your shoulder as you swept your hair away from your gaze.
“I know you love it that way but I need to look at you this way…” he whispered, bringing your hips towards him as you rose and turned to face him.
You sat where you prepared to bend over and he laid you down, your hands spanning the expanse of his waist to crest over the top of his broad shoulders holding him as he slowly pressed into you, pushing further until you wailed before pulling away and crushing himself against you again.
“Haaaaaa _____. Baby...baby I….baby…” he whimpered against you as you hissed and cried, forgetting yourself in your movements, your fingernails scratching at his shoulders.
You went on like this until he stood, your hands trying fruitlessly to keep him directly above you as he barreled on.
He pulled your thighs aching and sweating from round him to rest upright against his chest.
“Show me that sweet face you make when it feels good,” he murmured under his breath and you gasped as his rhythm increased feeling yourself bouncing and bucking harder against his swift pulsing.
You turned away shyly as the curl of a fevered hedonistic smile broke your consumed amorous gaze, putting your hands over your face in lieu of calming the bounce of your body against his every thrust.
“Mm there you are let me see you. Don’t hide from me. Tell me how much you missed me. Tell me ____,” he called aloud to you.
“Kyungsoo we’re too loud already. Baby I-”
“I don’t give a damn. Tell me how much you missed me. I can feel that you missed me. I feel it everywhere. And I love that so much baby. Tell me ____. Tell me baby. I want to hear you say it,” he stopped mid motion to push you up further so that he kneeled above you, your thighs around his waist again like you liked.
His grip slipped from the backs of your calves as he leaned down into your whispering.
“I can’t hear you,” he taunted, leaning back up, the change in position while maintaining consistent motion making you flush hotly.
“Kyungsoo-ah…” you moaned but he wouldn’t relent.
It had been a while but you remembered the stubbornness of your husband.
Especially in this capacity.
“Say it ____. For me, baby. I need to hear it,” he demanded, enunciating every word with movement.
You uncovered your eyes, looking into his as you said it, for once, finally, forgetting who was around, who was listening and what the consequences might be.
You told him plainly how much you missed him and how much you needed him and how much you wanted him, luxuriating in the way he moaned your name at your submission to his request, riding the blissful high when it came to you and followed for him.
You knew, though you had heard him apologize earlier, by the way he helped you to his chest, carefully tucking you into him as you wiped away the tears from your feverish cries, that he was sorry that he needed to be that rough with you.
Even in your special place, the private place, where you loved, he hadn’t loved you as fervidly as he just had. There were pauses and coaxing, so much goading on and on until you did.
But it had been so much time and space between loving.
And in his gestures, his intense gaze, his open hearted cries of ecstasy in union with you...you knew that there was no one else for him just as you felt for him.
There had been no one else that loved him as you did.
...and there never would be.
The fears you kept in your heart, the way you thought yourself less deserving, a peon worth no more than the spit hocked in your face earlier that afternoon, all of that pitiful miserable self wallowing and search for commiseration, were suddenly abominations in your eyes.
Think again about who this man is that is lying here with you.
Think again about what he told you.
Yes he didn’t tell you everything.
Yes he kept things to himself.
Yes.
But did you ask?
Did you ever really wonder?
What were you so focused on?
And whomever she was...that person whom he had loved then...it was you who he came back to.
Think again about how he pleaded with you, worshiping you as he begged you to affirm him and his place in your heart.
How powerful is the love you share for him to endure all that he did?
Think again about what you must mean to him?
Who is this woman he is looking to with such trust?
Who is this woman that he so desperately needs?
It’s you isn’t it?
What does that say about you?
You touched your husband, his chest rising and falling slower as he settled into sleep, his lips parted as he breathed, his eyelids fluttering briefly until they closed, his hands on the small of your back, feeling yourself wrapped around him, cradling him as he cradled you.
That’s right.
He is my husband.
And me?
I, am his wife.
