Last year, when Taehyung was on a business trip to Japan, I discovered a thread online titled "Sisters, how do you guys normally tease your boyfriends through text messages?". The answers in the thread were hilarious to say the least.
Coincidentally, I had just changed my mobile number that day. As such, I sent Taehyung an anonymous message: "Hey Sir, do you need any special services?"
He didn't reply.
I persevered in my efforts, sending him yet another text message: "Little lonely wild pussy cat has a fiery and burning passion, and will be delivered to your doorstep. Satisfaction guaranteed."
After a while, he called me. On picking up the phone, the first sentence he said was, "Are you very bored at home?"
I was extremely shocked by his sudden call, "How did you know it was me?"
He said, "Only you would be bored enough to pull such a stunt." He paused momentarily, thinking before continuing in his usual baritone voice, "I'll be returning the day after tomorrow."
"So soon? Aren't you only scheduled to return next week?"
"Sudden change in plans."
Some time afterward, one of his colleagues came over to our house for dinner. The conversation naturally turned to the recent Japan trip, and the colleague said, "Mr. Kim didn't even attend the celebratory dinner. The moment his work ended he rushed to the airport without a moment's delay, claiming that there was nobody at home and he had to return to take care of the pussy cat."
He surveyed our surroundings, and asked out of curiosity, "Speaking of which... where's the cat?"
I flushed immediately. Taehyung placed a piece of fish in my bowl, and replied calmly without a change in expression, "It's easily scared and is afraid of strangers."
I wanted to bury my face in the bowl.
~ 2 ~
Kim Taehyung was always an extremely stern and proud person in front of outsiders. As such, people often referred to him as Ice Man. Conversely, I was the exact opposite. As an experienced lunatic, I had a burning passion for acting, and Taehyung always tells me off by claiming that it was a pity that I haven't pursued an acting career.
Once, while we were eating out, I suddenly stopped and told him seriously, "Brother-in-law, how can we face our sister after what we have done?"
Initially, he would, along with the waiter, stare at me with a thunderstruck expression. However, he gradually got used to it over the years, and even managed to give a calm reply– "I'm sure your sister give us her blessings from Heaven."
There was another time when I was suddenly struck by inspiration, and I told him enthusiastically that I wanted to act as the lovestruck and loyal second male lead.
I managed to meld into my role fairly quickly, and roared at him, "I am the one who loves Kim Y/N the most! I will never let you have her!"
He leaned against the bookshelf, browsing through his book cursorily whilst managing a half-hearted reply, "Take her then."
I was stunned – according to the script, the story should not have unfolded in such a manner.
I continued, "I'm going to take her away tonight, and she will leave you forever!"
He snapped the book shut in an instant, and said coldly, "Try taking her away – if she dares to leave with other people, I'll break her leg."
Hey! Who authorized you to change the script!
~ 3 ~
The neighbors living above us had commenced renovation, causing each day to be filled with incessant loud noises. As such, I decided to book a room in a hotel in an attempt to find some peace when writing.
At night, Taehyung arrived to deliver my dinner. My two eyes shone brightly and I asked him mischievously, "Doesn't this feel like we're having an affair?"
He glared at me severely.
Who could have predicted that on entering the room, this man would start to disrobe himself immediately? I asked him what he was doing.
He replied to me with a serious expression on his face, "Hurry up, my wife ends work at 5 PM."
Me: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~ 4 ~
When returning from a business trip, I received a phone call from my best friend at the airport. She had just experienced a breakup and was crying uncontrollably. Dragging my luggage, I met up with her for drinks.
It's often said that a long-lasting relationship is an anomalous phenomenon; it's akin to a treasure that descended from heaven and is simply extravagant to hope that it's like the distribution of lunch boxes at lunchtime in that the moment lunchtime arrives, everybody will manage to get one set.
On returning home, I felt particularly melancholic and hugged Taehyung tightly. "My luck has always been rather bad; the only lucky thing that happened in my entire life is my meeting with you, so I'm extremely grateful for our relationship. Having grown old, the one and only thing that I have relentlessly persevered in is loving you."
He replied, "Yup, I'm touched you think this way." He paused, "But don't think that just because you said this I'll forgive you for returning home at 4 AM in the morning."
He glared sternly at me and headed to the kitchen to brew a cup of honey for me to help me neutralize my alcoholic drinks.
~ 5 ~
I am a chatterbox, and I often ramble relentlessly to his ears. One day, I asked him rather abruptly, "Do you feel that I'm extremely boring?"
He was driving then, with his eyes glued to the road ahead. He replied expressionlessly, "Yeah, pretty much boring."
I was slightly unhappy – so he has been feeling annoyed by me all this while.
He broke into his adorable boxy smile, and said, "I have to listen to your boring speeches my whole life anyway. It's fine since I'm used to it."
~ 6 ~
We were high school classmates. When he was studying, he was exactly like how he is now – although he appeared to be extremely cool on the surface with a poisonous tongue, he had an extremely good heart within. Subsequently, because of various incidents, coupled with our immaturity at that point in time, we severed our friendship.
He went abroad to study, and we lost contact for many years. During one of our class reunion dinners, someone mentioned that he had previously dialed Kim Taehyung's old number by accident and surprisingly, the call actually managed to connect. It was then that I realized that Taehyung had kept his original number all these years.
"But isn't it very inconvenient for him, since he is staying overseas?"
Nobody could understand why Kim Taehyung chose to retain his original number, but the final conclusion we reached was that the mind of a great genius is not something we mere mortals can possibly understand.
Not long afterward, Taehyung's birthday arrived. I mustered sufficient courage to send him a text message, hugging my phone throughout the night. But there was no reply. On the second day, he finally replied, with a very distant and courteous phrase – "Thank you."
When he subsequently returned to Korea, I brought a body solely filled with courage and traveled to Seoul to look for him. There, we made up and decided to be together. One day, whilst rifling through his bookshelf, I found the old Samsung phone that he used in the past. I turned it on – the call history and messages were all deleted, and only the draft folder for text messages had anything left. Out of curiosity, I clicked it. There were more than ten draft messages inside the folder.
Today, I met a girl here who looked exactly like you.
Jimin came out with a new song, and it feels like you're sitting right next to me when I listen to his song.
The weather has grown colder in Daegu, so remember to keep warm and wear more clothes.
I forgive you, so please give me a call.
...The final message was: I really miss you. The time of the message was his birthday.
~ 7 ~
Last year, our company conducted a program in a relatively rural mountainous area. Stuck in the crowd, I was shoved and fell onto the ground. My legs struck a rock in the process, and it feels like stars appeared before my eyes. My colleague helped me up, asking me whether I felt okay. I crawled up and dusted the dirt off myself. I told him that I was fine.
It was only when I returned that day to the camp I discovered that half of my pants were soaked in blood. I hobbled to the infirmary, where the doctor informed me that he had to stitch my wound. However, there was no anesthetic presently. As we had to continue with the program the next day, we could not afford any delays. Thus, I grit my teeth and told the doctor to go ahead.
I endured the pain obstinately, refusing to make even a single sound. My colleague, Kim Namjoon – a 6 ft. tall man– watched on the sidelines, his eyes reddening during the process. He told me that he had nothing but genuine respect for me.
I was rather abashed, and said, "This is nothing. When I was young I had an operation once – and even though the pain was a hundred times worse then, I managed to endure it."
Taehyung came to pick us up when we returned to Seoul. I knocked out the moment I sat in the car, only rousing halfway through the journey to hear Namjoon chatting with him.
"Is she this strong even at home?"
Taehyung replied, "No. She loves to whine at home, and she frequently cries when she watches movies, to the point where I have to comfort her as though she's still a child."
Namjoon was bewildered, "Why?"
"Because she doesn't have to be strong in front of me."
Listening to their conversation silently, I felt myself tear up.
I saw a line in a book once, and it left a deep impression on me then. It is said that during one's lifetime, one can find love, and one can find physical pleasure, but these are unimportant things. What's important is that one finds understanding.
I thought, ah, this must be understanding.
~ 8 ~
The company wanted to plan an event relating to the reminiscence of youth.
I sent a mass text message to my friend circle, asking: The person who you crushed on when you were studying – what is he or she doing now?
I received various answers:
Friend 1:- He became the father of other children.
Friend 2:- He married, and has children. I dreamt of him last night, and even in the dream, he was as nonchalant and dismissive as ever. No matter how hard I try, I can never catch up with his footsteps. I was very sad in the dream because he didn't do anything wrong, it's just that he didn't love me.
When I was studying, I only loved my assessment books.
I read the answers slowly and discovered that I had accidentally sent the message to Taehyung as well. However, I did not possess any hope that he'd reply as he generally tends not to reply to these types of mass text messages.
We were engulfed with work during that period of time, and when I returned home it was already 11 PM at night. He was even late than me. Whilst I was half-asleep, I felt him carefully making his way onto the bed and tucking my blanket in for me.
He was gone when I woke up the next morning. It was only when I arrived at the company that I discovered an unread message on my mobile phone. I opened it, and saw his answer:
"She became my wife, and she's sleeping beside me right now."
Time - 2:45 AM in the morning.
~ 9 ~
Even after my marriage to Kim Taehyung, I was rather unsure about the relationship. This, coupled with his extremely obstinate nature, resulted in me continuously being the first to apologize and make amends whenever we quarrel.
Once, when we were quarreling, he engaged in a cold war with me and ignored me for a week. Despite my shameless efforts to try and make amends, he still chose not to bother me or respond to me. That day, when we are on our way to our respective offices, the radio in the car was broadcasting a song. There was a line in the song that goes "My little rascal, little rascal, I'll make you laugh, to let you like this world."
After listening to the lyrics intently I said, "Look, you're like a little child who feels that this universe is yours."
There was no response from the other side.
After conversing with myself for a while, my voice grew softer and softer, and I gradually choke up, feeling extremely wronged and unappreciated. I thought in my heart – Fine, ignore me then, at most we'll just divorce.
The entire journey was filled with silence. The car stopped in front of my company, and I prepared to alight. Suddenly, he grabbed hold of me and replied sullenly whilst keeping his eyes glued to the floor, "But... But I don't like this universe, I only like you."
Tears streamed down my face.
~ 10 ~
My grandmother is extremely old, and her brain has become slightly fuddled. To everyone's amazement, however, she can communicate with Taehyung despite not being able to communicate with the rest of us. There was one year when we returned to our grandmother's home to celebrate New Year. I was helping my mother prepare the dishes whilst Taehyung was in the yard chatting with grandmother, and I overheard him teaching grandmother English.
"'I love you' means Saranghae."
"Wait, speak slowly... I... what?"
Taehyung patiently said, "I....lo...ve....you."
Grandmother confidently nodded, "Committed to memory!"
At night, when we were eating dinner, I intentionally asked Grandmother, "Halmeoni, I heard that you have learned how to speak English?"
Grandmother was delighted, "Tae Tae taught me how."
Taehyung turned to her, asking, "How do you say Saranghae in English?"
"I... I... I..." Grandmother tried her best to recall, and finally blurted out "I...glub u!"
The whole table roared with laughter.
Late at night, I came out to retrieve a cup of water and saw that the light in my grandmother's room was still turned on. I assumed that grandmother had simply forgotten to turn off the light as usual, and walked over to her room. Upon reaching the doorway, I saw grandmother sitting alone in an armchair whilst holding my deceased grandfather's portrait, saying "Oldie, I glub u."
...
That night, when Taehyung and I were lying on the bed, he hugged me and said, "Halmeoni is very lonely, we ought to come back more often to accompany her."
All of a sudden, I felt like crying.
Those who are unfamiliar with Kim Taehyung always feel that he is like a rock – extremely cold and unfriendly.
Only I know that he isn't like that.
He is very gentle, the gentlest man I have ever met.
~ 11 ~
The night before we obtained our marriage certificate, I asked him, "When did you start to develop feelings for me?"
He answered, "I don't remember."
"But, why me?"
"Why not you?"
"I'm very petty, and I get jealous very easily."
"So am I."
"I'm afraid I'm not worthy of you."
"So am I."
"I haven't really dated, so I don't know what is love."
"I don't know either."
He held my hand gently, "But I know this. When I think about spending the rest of my life with you, I feel that my future is filled with hope."
At 16 we used the same class desk, with less than a 10cm gap between our arms. My peripheral vision was full of him.
At 26, I woke up in the morning and saw the sunlight softly shining on his face. I thought this is how I want to grow old – gradually, together, with him.
I guess this must be love.