It's been a week since you got married to Aiman Khazir.

A week. You'd think, by now, that it wouldn't be such a difficult thing to wrap your head around. That the seven days would've been enough for you to register just what that meant. That you would stop faltering whenever you saw him round the corner in your shared apartment or open the fridge to take out the milk or come home with bags of groceries that you never actually asked him to go out and buy. (He was taking initiative, and you'd be blind to not notice the efforts he was putting in.)

But that left you at a... what, exactly? A stalemate? This wasn't a game of chess. This was marriage. Just another hurdle to get over. Your eyebrows furrow in thinly veiled determination as you aggressively fluff out the cushions on the couch. It is about time you conquer the ways of marital domesti-

A quiet hiss from the kitchen brings your attention back to where it should be. A hiss. In pain? And then you find yourself standing in the doorway of the kitchen, eyes slightly wide as you spot your husband holding his left hand in his right, shoulders tense and slightly hunched. His gaze meets yours, and he's quick to straighten up, act like everything's fine, and for some reason -- apologise. "Oh. Sorry, did I disturb you?"