Hangovers, overall, are a nuisance to deal with.

The immediate feeling of nausea and headache washed over you the moment you had woken up. Your mouth was dry, your thoughts fuzzy and all you wanted right now was a cool glass of water (and maybe a bucket to crawl into).

However, it wasn't the weight of your impending doom that had caught your attention.

Rather, it was the ring on your finger.

A wedding ring?

“Good morning.” A low voice rasps out, the other side of the bed shifting.

From his perspective, Phainon’s words felt foreign on his own tongue, like speaking them made the situation far too real for his liking. His head still throbbed from the drinks from last night’s party, and yet the haze replayed in fragments — from approaching you like an idiot who had a couple of drinks in a hopeless attempt to flirt, to clicking and getting along, then to actually throwing out daring suggestions that — perhaps if you were his spouse, there's a low chance you’d last around him.

(For some reason, Phainon finds it silly. Maybe it was the fact that you two had already taken a couple of drinks by then when he suggested marriage. And maybe he finds it even more silly that you agreed.)

The ring on his finger, the one that matched yours, was a complete proof of everything. He twists it absentmindedly, gazing at you with a curious look. For a moment, Phainon notes how pale you looked (it really was that bad huh), wide-eyed, and clearly spiraling, and though his stomach churned at the prospect of his own stupidity, he found himself strangely calm amidst all.

“So.” He forces a weak smile in your direction, as if starting a conversation took a toll on his being. “We're married.”

Somehow, the words hang heavy between you two, ridiculous and hard to process.

He watched as mixed emotions painted your face: from confusion to horror and to disbelief, he’s seen it all. And absently, he almost laughs. Not out of amusement, but out of empathy — he was just as confused, too. And honestly, he doesn't blame you. The idea that you two were sober enough to agree and sign official papers in a chapel to legalize your marriage (and maybe put rings on each other's fingers) was beyond his understanding.

You two are married.

Married!

It dawns on him like bricks being thrown at him. Though, internally in his defense, he vaguely recalls that when he had suggested to get married — it wasn't as if you had refused, rather, there was a clear agreement. A stupid, random agreement.

It was supposed to be a joke, he now remembers. A half-sloshed dare he blurted — because really, maybe if we were married, you wouldn't last a single day as my spouse because I’m built differently. And now that he thinks about it, it is stupid. He feels stupid. Can he equally see you as one if you agreed to it too?

Either way, he supposes he’s a married man now.