It was happening again. I had no idea what caused it - allergies, perhaps? Regardless, I felt the familiar sensation of my eyes welling up for no discernible reason. I wasn't sad. Or happy, for that matter. Or nostalgic. I was just... neutral. In terms of my emotional state, that is. My vision started to blur and my tears stood, dangling from my lower eyelids, threatening to plunge down my cheeks.

My wife walked in and I turned towards her, the sudden motion ending up being the last straw for the tears that'd been holding on for dear life to gently trickle down my cheeks.

"Oh, your eyes are watering again!", she said, having seen this numerous times over the 5 years we've been together.

The sight no longer fazed her. Gone were the days when she'd have been concerned and asked me if I was crying. Not because the woman I held in my arms every chance I got didn't care about me. Neither yet because she was calloused to the sight of tears in general - o, how often she came home from her nursing shifts, weeping tears of grief and compassion over a patient she'd lost, or simply because she'd witnessed a new mother's tears of joy as she'd held her newborn. No, it was simply because the love of my life knew me too well, well enough to be able to instantly tell the difference between my emotional tears and my eyes just doing their shenanigans.

"Maybe we should get your eyes checked, dear. I think your tears look amazing and I thoroughly enjoy wiping them, but I want to make sure there's nothing wrong with your eyes. I don't think them constantly watering like this is normal," she said as she wrapped her arm around me and wiped my tears with her fingers. Perhaps the only sensation I enjoyed more than the feeling of the tears themselves on my cheeks was her soft fingers caressing my face as she wiped the tears off my face.

"Perhaps we should," I replied, kissing her fingers and feeling the saltiness of my tears on them, "but should something be wrong, and we get it fixed so that I don't produce any tears anymore for you to wipe, I'll be sore disappointed."

"Haha, you can always, you know, actually cry, like I do almost every night in your arms. I know you love wiping my tears too. Maybe I'll just cry extra tears for the both of us, or maybe I can cry into your eyes so it feels like you're crying too!", said my gorgeous wife in a tone that was the perfect blend of playful and earnest.

"Sounds sweet!", I said, grinning as she continued to wipe the tears that steadily streamed down my cheeks, "Though, I must admit, I always feel torn when I wipe away your tears because the sight of your tears is absolutely mesmerizing! Maybe we should swap eyes, since I enjoy the visuals of your teras more, if you had my eyes, you could shed tears all the time without actually crying, and I'll enjoy it even more!"

"Fun idea! But then I won't get to wipe your tears unless you're crying, and you don't cry all that often, so, maybe not?"

We both had a good laugh. We were past those initial days when I'd first opened up to her about my attraction to her tears, when I had to explain to her that I found immense beauty in the sight of her tears while simultaneously feeling loads of compassion for her and not wanting to see her cry in sadness. Thankfully, she was quite accepting of my weird quirk, and has been ever since, and has granted me the pleasure of countless drops of unchecked tears that she's deliberately not wiped so that I can appreciate them, including rivers of tears of joy that are the most beautiful sight I've beheld. As I held her in my arms, my eyes still wet, I hoped for many, many more tearful, fun memories with this exquisite, kind, gentle, sweet, hilarious woman I'd married.