A Colorful Dream

When the thunderstorm came, the aerospace ship was about to launch, no one expected it to come today, the astronauts had been training nonstop for months just for this day, but now they had to get off the ship and wait for another day to start their journey.

Ming was one of the astronauts, he was not this country’s first Asian astronaut, but he would be the first openly LGTBTQ+ Asian astronaut. Well, that would be years after he came out. On that day when the launch plan had to be postponed due to the thunderstorm, he was still a suburban family guy with a wife and two kids, like all the other astronauts.

When Ming was in kindergarten, when the teachers asked him what he would like to be when he grew up, he always said an astronaut, even though his answers changed as he grew older, he would always remember the first dream he had. He didn’t go to college for astronomy or aerospace engineering, instead, he went to an art school and learnt to draw and paint. He wouldn’t expect learning this would lead him to become an astronaut one day.

When Ming walked down the tower and came to the ground, his family was waiting for him with all the other families of the other astronauts. His wife had dark brown hair, long and curly, like a waterfall on her shoulders, beautiful but also made you feel uncomfortable if you stared at it. Each of her hands was holding their two children, the older boy was Skyler, he looked like five years old, he had the same dark hair as his mom, and he was smiling at his dad when he saw him walking out. The younger boy was Hank, he looked pretty bored standing there, even after he saw his dad, it was his third birthday today, he was not happy he couldn’t have a birthday party on his birthday like all the other kids.

“Oh, my dear, don’t worry, I am sure they will find another day soon, after all safety is the most important thing.” Michelle walked to Ming and gave him a hug, her hair smelled really good, that was what Ming was thinking when he hugged his wife.

“Come here boys!” Ming squatted down and opened his arms to his sons.

“Go, come on!” Their mom pushed their backs.

The boys didn’t seem as enthusiastic as Ming expected, but he didn’t mind. Both were quiet and didn’t say anything to him.

Ming and his wife met before he became an astronaut, it was when he was still at his first job as a marketing specialist in an advertising company. After graduation from college, he still couldn’t figure out what he wanted to do, some friends went to the west coast to pursue their Hollywood dreams, some of them wandered on the street and became street artists, and some of them had to work from eight to five like a white-collar employee, Ming was one of them. He was from a small town in upstate New York, staying in New York seemed to be a safe choice for him since he was close to his family, just in case he needed help.

Ming was adopted from China by a couple from New York when he was five, when they went to the orphanage to pick him up, the couple couldn’t believe they were so lucky to have such a perfect healthy boy. From what they knew, most of the abandoned children in the orphanage were either girls or kids with handicaps, and they didn’t mind either or at all since they believed they would love them with their full hearts. They were beyond excitement when they realized it was not a dream.

Ming’s parents were both teachers in a high school, they were very sociable and always held parties at their home, since Ming was still in elementary school, they would encourage him to give presentations in public and run for positions in class. Ming did well since he was very smart, but soon his parents realized that he was not happy when he was doing it, so slowly they just gave up pushing him and let him be. He was not afraid to do any of those, but he was just not interested, most of time he would rather stay by himself and be a quiet person, sometime maybe too quiet, his friends always joked with him that him being too quiet was the reason why he hadn’t dated anyone yet. He was good-looking in any typical standard, tall, fit, and handsome, he worked out regularly. There were girls threw themselves at him in high school, but he didn’t show any interest, people just thought he had high standard, he was very good at sport, and he was also in the drama club, everyone thought whichever girl he fell in love with would be the luckiest girl. He stayed the same for most of his college time, some of his close friends started to doubt on his sexuality but he just denied it, he never tried dating either boys or girls, his friends just thought he might be an A-sexual, and his parents just thought he might be still too young to realize any of that, which he didn’t mind them thinking that way.

When he first met his wife Michelle, it was the second week when he started working at the advertising company. As a new employee and fresh graduate, he didn’t know much about the corporate world, people were nice to each other, but he still felt lonely at the beginning, he went out for lunch by himself, he didn’t chit chat much with coworkers, there would be people popping up by his desk and asking him questions, but he couldn’t hold the conversation for too long. Most of the coworkers were like him, they spent most of the time in the office at their desks, they had lunch by their desk, they greeted each other when they ran into each other in the hallway. Except one person, Michelle, who might be the friendliest person he ever met.

When they first met, he was still one week new in the company, he was sitting at his desk and working, suddenly he felt someone stand by him, he lifted his head and saw a smiley face, with long brown hair on her shoulder.

“Hey, you must be Ming, I heard we have a new employee, welcome and nice to meet you, I am Michelle, and I am one of the marketing managers, how do you like it so far?”

“Nice to meet you, Michelle. Thank you, I like it, everyone seems so nice.” Ming smiled at her.

“Well, everyone is nice here, are you really sure, haha.” She laughed and then asked, “did you bring lunch today?”

Ming didn’t expect anyone would ask him that, but he was glad he didn’t need to have lunch by himself. “No, I didn’t.”

“Me neither, wanna go out to eat later?” Michelle sounded excited.

“Sure, I am not familiar with this area, and I can eat anything, so you pick.” Ming answered with a big smile on his face.

They had one and half hours’ lunch that day, Michelle talked most of the time and she kept asking all kinds of questions, she also talked a lot about herself. Ming didn’t mind at all, he kind of enjoyed the conversation, it was the first time he felt he could communicate with someone without any pressure, he felt like he could finally open himself a little bit instead of hiding in the shells. After that, Michelle would always ask him out for lunch, and he never said no. They would invite other coworkers once in a while, but slowly, almost everyone thought there was something going on between the two of them.

Until one day, one of his teammates asked him, “Hey Ming, how is it going with Michelle?”

Ming looked at him confusedly for a second and said, “Oh, we are going out for lunch today, wanna come?”

“Come on man,” The guy started laughing, “don’t pretend you didn’t understand what I meant, how is she?”

Ming got what he meant, but he didn’t want to continue the conversation. He was very confused since he never dated and he didn’t really know if he could call this dating, in his mind, they were just close coworkers that always hang out at work and occasionally outside of work. Were they dating? He didn’t know. He also didn’t want to ask his coworkers because he knew it would be embarrassing.

It was not until one day at work, when Michelle was talking to him about work, the same person kept smiling at them like he knew something was going on, he also kept whispering something with other coworkers while looking at them laughing. Michelle looked at Ming and asked him, “Do you think we are dating?”

Ming didn’t answer her directly, he just shrugged and said, “I think so?”

Years later, when they were asked by people who made the first move, Michelle insisted that Ming’s answer to her question was “Of course”, but Ming never remembered he said that.

Michelle didn’t hesitate and leaned forward to give him a kiss on his cheek. Everyone around them started clapping and screaming. Luckily, there is no rule at their company forbidding office love affairs.

After that day, they started acting like a couple without hiding. She held his hand as soon as they stepped out of the office, he waited for her after work if she was held up by a meeting, they went out for lunch all the time and almost exclusively. They were together all the time during daytime, but neither of them stayed overnight at each other’s place. It was not until one month after they were officially together, on a Saturday night after their dinner together, Michelle asked him if he wanted to stay overnight. Ming knew what she meant, and he agreed.

Their first night was ok, not as exciting as Michelle expected, but also not as dull as Ming thought. He still felt joy at the moment when he was finally inside of her, but the joy disappeared almost immediately once he cum. He didn’t know if Michelle enjoyed it, but he knew he was a little bit disappointed, if this was what everyone was so excited about, how come he didn’t feel the urge to do it again? Michelle just wanted him to hold her in his arms after he was done, he didn’t ask her how she felt, she seemed satisfied just lying in his arms.

Like many other couples, their dating life was sweet and happy, but it didn’t take too long for Michelle to feel like something was missing in their relationship, sometimes she didn’t feel the passion between them, not only in bed, but also in other activities. At first, she noticed she always initiated the activities they would do together even though Ming was never against her idea, then Ming would be late for their dates quite often, not to mention he didn’t reply to her text as fast as she liked. She started to feel like they might not be able to go too far together, she had mentally prepared to break up with him or wait for him to break up with her.

But he never did. Ming was never in a relationship before, he didn’t know what he was supposed to feel in a relationship. This was new to him, and he thought he was happy, there was someone that he could share life with, all the jokes in his head, all the little secrets he didn’t know who to talk to before, all the things he wanted to do but was too embarrassed to do them by himself. Now he finally found someone that he could feel very comfortable to share together. He was glad he had found Michelle, just like all his friends, he thought he finally understood why his friends all tried to encourage him to date. But he still couldn’t understand something that his friends explained to him before, that kind of feeling that you would feel this would be the end of the world if you couldn’t see the person you loved. Sometimes if they didn’t see each other for a couple of days, he would miss Michelle, but he wouldn’t feel like that would be the end of the world if she didn’t want to see him again, he would feel sad for sure, but he knew there were other things that could make him feel better. He never thought about ending their relationship since he thought everything went well, but he also didn’t think about moving one step further on their relationship.

All of this suddenly changed in one day.