WHEN I WAS 15 :: seungjin ✔︎

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(was so caught up with the comeback i forgot to update lmao)

but itS SO GOOD OMG thunderous is amazing and only gets better and better the more i listen to it, the music video is so cool !!

i love red lights probably way more than i should.. the song is incredible though and the beat drops are immaculate

all the songs are great and so fun and i can't wait to listen to them more and get to know them better — and hopefully get more mv's!!

>>><><<<

When I was twenty-eight, I proposed to Seungmin.

I had no fancy ring, but I did have a fancy plan, and enough connections to get me a fancy reservation at Heaven's Kitchen.

Heaven's Kitchen, a direct contrast to Gordon Ramsey's "Hell's Kitchen," was run by a friendly celebrity chef, Lee Felix. While I didn't know him personally, I knew of Felix's seemingly endless bounty of warmth and enthusiasm.

And his delicious food.

The restaurant was definitely too exquisite for me to afford on my own, and the last thing I wanted to do was split the bill with Seungmin. So I called Bang Chan, who was by now a good friend of mine, and asked if his adopted little brother would host me and the man I was going to propose to for a discount.

Yes, adopted little brother. The world worked in marvelous ways sometimes.

So we went. Seungmin was blindfolded while I drove him, and his curiosity was almost intense enough to rival my own anxiety.

When we arrived, I finally allowed Seungmin his eyesight back, and he grumbled—"This had better be a really fun night you've got planned out, my love"—before turning around and realizing where we were.

"You brought me all the way here so we could stare at a restaurant neither of us can afford?"

"I brought you all the way here so we could dine at a restaurant neither of us can afford," I corrected him. "I may have blurred the lines of what I can afford a little. I thought it would be fitting, since it's Valentine's day, eleven years since we got together."

"Our food budget consists of one restaurant date and four grocery trips a month," Seungmin said, bewildered. "Unless you've been hiding some kind of treasure from me, Mr. Celebrity."

"Only some connections and friendships," I replied. "Now come on. We're two minutes late as it is." I grabbed his hand and brought him inside, both of our expressions freezing at the wonderful smell of the place. It's not often that you know why expensive and highly rated things are the way the are. But if the smell was anything to go off of, Felix's restaurant was correctly named.

The food was really good, Seungmin and I agreed on, for lack of more eloquent ways to describe it. After we ordered our desserts, but before they arrived, I did it.

I slid out of my seat, standing and rounding the small table to be at Seungmin's side. Almost in a dreamlike state, I felt my right knee hit the floor, my shin rest against it, my hands fumbling to pull a strange box out of my back pocket.

It was a box, yes, but a semispherical one. Shaped like a bowl with a lid on, to commemorate the souplike meal we shared on our first night alone together. I flipped open the flat part of the bowl-like ring box, and pulled out a simple silver band. It was, after all, just the engagement ring—although the word just undermined its importance. The wedding one would be fancier. If there was to be a wedding ring.

"Kim Seungmin," I began, noticing that the commotion of the restaurant had quieted down as other diners paused to watch. The world was going to know who Hwang Hyunjin's boyfriend was, now, but I'd had already made sure to discreetly check with Seungmin if this was okay, not revealing my plan.

"Kim Seungmin, I have known you since we were fifteen and met in the school bathroom during a drill. We have laughed together, cried together, spent countless nights with each other, worked together, learned together, moved together, traveled together, and gotten to know each other for the last twelve years. Even before our first 'I love you's, my deep feelings for you were undeniable."

His eyes widened, but every other part of him was still, waiting.

"Kim Seungmin," I said a third time, because his name just felt so right, the name of someone I wanted to spend my whole life with. Or maybe Hwang Seungmin. Maybe I'd be Kim Hyunjin. Either way, just his name—Seungmin—was a rollercoaster of emotion. I loved him, his name, his being, and so it was with absolute certainty and confidence that I proposed the marriage itself, finishing up the preamble.

A fourth time. "Kim Seungmin."

"...Yes?"

His wide-eyed look hadn't faded, but he was still beautiful.

"Will you fulfill all my wishes in the world, make me the happiest man in the universe, and marry me?"

And again, in a completely different tone than before, he said: "Yes."

Dessert may have been sweet, but I wouldn't have noticed it. Nothing could overpower the sweetness I felt inside, the joyous mush of bliss that I called my heart.