Whenever You Ask Me Again (EXO Sekai)

Prologue

Title taken from Try Again by Jaehyun and d.ear
Hey hey y'all! It's been a minute...well a lot more than that but I'm happy to be back with a fic starring my second favorite ship, Sekai. This is a story my sister and I have been working on and since she couldn't be bothered to make her own Wattpad account, we're posting this on mine. We put a lot of effort into this one and I hope that y'all can show us some love as you read. Thank you I'm advance!
Enjoy!

I was always told that kindness, no matter how little, would always be returned in time. That people should live decent lives so good things would happen to them. That love conquers all else and even if you can't see it, you can always feel it. In that moment, when I was nearing the end of the twenty-fifth year I'd been alive and attending what was supposed to be the greatest day of my life, I felt no love from the hands I held so tightly nor the eyes that barely looked at me.

Jongin was elsewhere, so far away that if he wasn't standing with me at the altar, no one could convince me that he was here at all or that this was our wedding night. The date we had so carefully planned so that Jongin was no longer a minor in my family's eyes; having turned twenty-two only a month ago.

A logical person would tell me I was being ridiculous and that I couldn't see him staring back at me because of his veil. That statement would be the ridiculous one. My gaze shifted to the priest that stood next to us; journal in hand and reading off some century-worn script that was mandatory at traditional weddings. My hanbok was itchy but Jongin's was most likely stuffy from how the straps clung to his slightly bulging waist and chest.

Silk, satin, and other materials I couldn't name cloaked his entire body in purest white, making him look like a little snowball. A beautiful little snowball with his head hung low as if it had transformed into a rain cloud.

I rearranged my hands and made Jongin hold mine instead, just to see if he would react to my movements and look at me at least once. He did but just as quickly averted his gaze again. For a second I wanted to speak to him, ask him what could be wrong on such an auspicious night. The priest was halfway through his monologue when the question I had been waiting for him to ask had finally been uttered.

"Do you, Oh Sehun, take Kim Jongin to be your lawfully wedded mate so that in the sight of all man and deities, he will only belong to you till the day you die?"

"Yes," I said. I didn't even hesitate but I heard a small noise escape Jongin's throat.

It sounded like a whimper. Not like the ones he makes while he's sensitive and can't go another round, but the ones that tear through the night while he's having a nightmare.

"And do you, Kim Jongin,"

The priest had barely started his sentence and suddenly Jongin was shaking. Terrible tremors shook him where he stood as the priest went on to recite the question to Jongin as he had to me. Jongin didn't answer him, just stood there shaking with my hands in his and omitting small noises as if he was trying to say something. Or hold back his tears. Jongin's head turned from the priest to my friends and family sitting in the chapel with anxiousness on their faces.

My mother, uncle, and cousins all looked at me with matching expressions of worry and doubt. I rearranged my hands once again and gently pulled Jongin towards me so the subtle wave of my pheromones would soothe his nerves. But as soon as I pulled, Jongin froze in his tracks, going from a trembling leaf to a frozen icicle within seconds. He was staring at me now, eyes wide and fearful like a deer in headlights. The scent of sour green apples drenched in spicy cinnamon assaulted my nostrils relentlessly, warning me that Jongin didn't want to be any closer to me than he already was.

I couldn't make sense of his behavior, and neither could I understand why he refused to answer the priest who had now made his third attempt to get an answer out of Jongin's mouth. The shaking was back and with every fleeting moment, the distance between the two of us expanded. I whispered his name and he flinched as if I'd spat on him. I said it again and he began to cry. Pitiful hiccups caused him to slightly convulse every few seconds.