Our Little Lives, in this Big World

[INTRO:] Just as we are right Now

When you experience life in the moment, everything feels so real, so genuine; that is what you know to be your truth because it's where you are in time and space: it is your present. Then, time keeps going by and what you know becomes tarnished by the natural forgetfulness of human memory. You may even begin to question the authenticity of the things that once passed through your present and at some point in time, the emotions connected to the memories slowly start to dissipate.

Only a few memories hold on and stay intact in our busy minds and don't drift away into nothingness. Childhood is our foundation, yet it's the time in our lives that we remember the least. Next is puberty, and that is the start of when we question the world around us. In our teen years, we just try to stand and not topple over as the ground quakes below us. Everything is just so different, change never stops and, if anything, speeds up. So many new experiences, it's easy to feel you know nothing. Hell, how do you know what is real when everything's so blurry and shaking? Would you even know if you met your soulmate? During that time, Yoon Jeonghan certainly didn't. In fact, it took many years for him to even ponder the probability.

It was the new kid in school who transferred in at the beginning of his ninth grade year. The whispers in school said he was foreign and had a delicate, cat-like smile. Everyone was curious about Joshua Hong, and that included Jeonghan, too... only a little, though.

At first, he didn't even notice it was him at the other end of the cafeteria until a classmate whispered, "Oh look, that's Joshua Hong." Jeonghan tilted his head and thought, Huh. Doesn't look American, maybe half? Eh, who knows. Then, the boy smiled, laughing at some random joke and Jeonghan saw tunnel vision.

"Oh wow," the classmate casually noticed, "he does have a kind of cat-like smile. Cute."

Yes, it was cute. So cute to where Jeonghan didn't know what to do with himself, didn't know how to react, and his brain went completely numb.

"Ya, move up, will you?" Says some random irritated kid behind him. Jeonghan shoots the person a side-eye glance then fills the gap between him and his sniggering classmate. After that, Jeonghan felt Joshua was everywhere. How could a curiosity not develop into an infatuation?

The poor boy's mind went into overdrive when Joshua was the first to approach him, even if it was only to ask where the science room was. Has he been at the school for weeks by then? Yes. Should he have maybe already known where the room was? Sure. But those questions didn't matter, not a bit. All that is important in their story is that this was the beginning of a bond; one tangled tighter and tighter every year that passed. One year flew by in the blink of an eye, then became two.

Two years became four when they got into the same college, then in the blink of an eye, five became six. Jeonghan thought Joshua was crazy when he proposed to him in their junior year of college, their seventh year together. He even turned him down claiming they were too young, but it was then that Jeonghan truly realized just how bottomless and irreparable the Joshua-sized shaped hole was inside his heart because "no" has never felt more wrong in his life. He told himself to wait to be sure what he was feeling was certain, but he couldn't wait longer than a week before he got down on his own knee.

They got married a couple months after graduation, tying the knot in the winter of their eighth year together.

If Jeonghan thought Joshua was crazy for proposing back then, that was merely child's play: It was their ninth anniversary of being together and the expensive champagne they ordered from a fancy restaurant nearly went up Jeonghan's nose when his new husband brought up adoption. To add more of a toll on Jeonghan's body, the man nearly fainted when Joshua's gift to his husband was a key: A key to the home they toured just that weekend and adored, it was just too good to be true. A few months later, Jeonghan had picked out a fifth parenting book off the shelves of the library then they were signing papers for two baby boys.