When the stars align

Rue de SanTae Remembers Her

He broke her favorite mug once,
and she forgave him with a laugh.
Now everything is broken,
and she is not there to laugh it off.

San's gaze remained fixed on the two tiny bundles nestled beside her. Their delicate breathing filled the room, the softest counterpoint to the quiet hum of hospital machines. She stared in silent awe at the babies—her babies. Their skin looked like rose petals touched by morning light, their little chests rising and falling in perfect synchrony with the fragile miracle of life.

A profound stillness settled over the room. Not an awkward silence, but one that throbbed with meaning, dense with the weight of everything left unsaid. Taehyung sat close, his hand cradling hers. His thumb moved in slow, comforting circles across her knuckles, grounding her, anchoring her.

San leaned back against the pillows, her mind trying desperately to sort through the emotional avalanche.

He's my husband...

The thought rang in her mind like a bell struck in still air. We've been married for two years. We've shared a life... a home... a bed. We've built a family together.

Her breath caught.

A family.

That meant... those lips—his lips—had kissed her. Not once. Not shyly. But again, and again. With familiarity. With the kind of right you earn over time. Those arms had held her, had wrapped around her body in the quiet intimacy of night. She must have curled into him, felt the steady rhythm of his heart beneath her cheek, breathed in his scent in the dark, the scent that now stirred something deep inside her chest.

And it couldn't have just been kisses. No.

She must have fought with him—over little things, over big things. Must have argued with furrowed brows and crossed arms, only to fall into his embrace minutes later, unable to stay mad. She must have made him tea when his voice turned hoarse after long days, rubbed his temples when the stress lines grew between his brows. She must have touched that nose of his playfully with her own during some sleepy morning, giggling under her breath, tracing her fingers along his jaw.

She must have cradled his head in her lap when the world outside was too loud for him to carry. Held him—not because he asked, but because she knew he needed it. She must have whispered his name in the dark, not out of habit, but out of affection.

She must have loved him not in grand gestures, but in the quiet ways—by curling into his hoodie when he wasn't around, by sending him ridiculous selfies, by kissing the corner of his lips just to tease him.

Because she had dreamed all those things with him even before meeting him in her imaginary world in which he was her loving and caring husband who loves to tease, and she used to love all his antics.

Her breath hitched again.

He kissed me.

That kiss.

The one he'd given her when she woke up, overwhelmed and confused. She hadn't remembered anything, hadn't even known why her body ached or why his eyes brimmed with tears.

But he kissed her then. Not with restraint, not with uncertainty but he had kissed her like he had done it a hundred times before. Like she was his.