By The Water #6

"When you finally get to love somebody," It's Gonna Be Me by N'Sync.

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Credits to iproperty.com.my

"Tilt it a little to the right. No, I mean the other right," and with that, Aliff gave a "what?" face to his wife, to which Nur laughed to. "Come on, you get what I mean," Aliff couldn't help laughing along with his wife, albeit while shaking his head. That laugh is just too amazing. That face is just too cute. Never thought hanging up a picture could bring out a laugh. "Okay, just nice."

They moved into a new house together after four days of being married. The house wasn't too small, but nothing luxurious either. Just an average one-storey semi-detached house near the city. The rent was reasonable and it wasn't too far away from the city. And the area's surau was in walking distance. They were content.

They spent most of the day unloading their things from the moving lorry, and it was now nearing sunset. There were still several boxes left to unpack, left stacked in the corner of the living room. Nur decided to call it a day and went to hit the shower. Aliff smiled back and told her to go on ahead. He still had some things to fish out of his boxes, mainly clean clothes.

He went to the box stacks and started looking for a box labelled "Clothes". He removed a small box on the top of a stack and read the label, "Nur's". His curiosity got the better of him and he opened the box after checking that his wife wasn't in the room.

In the box, he found among other things, a picture of a small Nur. She didn't seem like she was even old enough to walk yet, and holding her was a smiling woman who looked very much like Nur, not her mother that he met during the wedding. In another picture, Nur was wearing her school uniform and it looked as if it was her first day of school. Nur wasn't smiling, but she was cute nonetheless. Sandwiching her in the picture were her late father and the same smiling woman who held her in the picture of her as a baby. Her late father wasn't smiling though.

Another picture showed a teenage Nur, still wearing a school uniform, still alongside her late father, but this time with her mother that Aliff met at the wedding. Everyone except Nur was smiling. Aliff was confused now. He stared at the three pictures.

"What are you looking at?" Nur came into the room fresh out of the shower to find her husband staring at some pictures.

"Who's this?" Aliff asked, his face asking a thousand more questions.

Nur covered her mouth. Oh no. "You looked into my box?" said Nur on the verge of tears.

Upon seeing his wife's reaction, Aliff went straight to her and put his arms around her. "Why? What's the matter?"

Nur's arms acted as a barrier between her husband's body and hers, but she didn't push away. She couldn't push her tears away either.

They stood there like that for a few minutes with Aliff stroking his wife's hair gently with one hand and holding the pictures with the other hand whose arm was around Nur.

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May peace be upon you.

Cheers!