sooji has never particularly liked we got married. something about the way it crosses the thin line between fiction and reality scares her and she thinks that love shouldn’t be scripted, that a marriage shouldn’t be given out so freely and end so easily. maybe it’s because she’s still naïve in love but it’s probably because of jokwon, whose smile was never really the same after his six month run with ga-in unnie.

so, when they tell suzy she’s going to be on we got married, suzy smiles politely and thanks them. (nineteen-year-old sooji, with the pure heart is unhappy. she wants a beautiful first love, one that puts all those in fairytales to shame. she doesn’t want a scripted, televised relationship with preplanned kisses and hand-holding.)

they tell her, her partner has been decided but to make it for “suspense”, she’s not going to be told. suzy smiles and tells them she’s excited. (sooji inside scoffs because suspense is just another word for high ratings.)

may 1st 2013. moments before he enters, suzy pats down her ivory-black hair, smoothens the edges of the white dress she recently bought with minyoung unnie – one with small eyelets and cascades lightly around the knees and bites her lip, an act of nerves. (bae sooji, the nineteen year old reminds herself that this is simply another drama she is filming for. there are words that have already been written out for her, actions that are prepared for her and she is just a main character in a sadistic television series.)

and the boy enters, approximately two minutes later, tall and lanky, wearing a simple white shirt and blue jeans. her eyes crawl their way up to his face – imperfect eyes, one slightly larger than his other; cheekbones that could cut through ice and a soft smile that graces upon his blood-red lips. (wow, she thinks. he’s quite handsome.) she’s sure this is pretty unexpected. minyoung unnie had bet that it would be infinite’s visual, saying that she had heard rumors about how they’d make the cutest couple – the girl next door and the boy with the frozen smile. chansung oppa had shrugged it off, declaring that it was more likely that she was going to be paired up with teen top's changjo. they’d be the cute maknae couple and he needed the publicity, he had said. it had led out to an hour-long argument, name after name thrown out.

‘jaejin of ft island!’

‘he’s too old, oh my god. maybe a rookie? b.a.p.’s daehyun?’

‘they don’t let rookies on, idiot. i’ll bet on ramen that it’s going to be a cube member!’

(sooji hates the fact that out of everything they have already taken away from her, the only thing she was in control of was her heart and now, it’s been stripped away from her too.)

“hi, i’m b1a4’s maknae, gongchan, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’ and from one sentence, an endless bound of possibilities open. sooji gives him her trademark smile and it’s awkward and stupid and sooji thinks that she’s got her work cut out for her.

***

they tell sooji the next episode will be filmed in a haunted house. suzy smiles and bows politely, thanks them for their reminder. (but bae sooji, the nineteen year old who is deathly afraid of the underworld and hell and ghosts panics and wastes sleepless nights over it. minyoung unnie tells her it’s going to be okay but it only makes sooji dream of bloody-eyed ghouls following her.)

sooji wears a thick woolen jumper and her unnies’ hugs on her lithe frame. the night is dark and humid when she arrives and chansik is standing there awkwardly, rubbing the nape of his neck. they share an awkward greeting – a smile & an a half-handshake, half-hug. they put on their microphones, they’re given instructions. ‘just protect her, okay? suzy-ssi, you can act a little scared. viewers have been complaining how gongchan isn’t manly enough, so we need some action. okay?’ suzy smiles and nods, pretends like she’s got it all under control but as much as she can deceive other people, she will never be able to fool herself. the director continues with his drones, they flow into her left ear and promptly runs out the right. (sooji normally is attentive, she’s been praised for it but this time, all she can hear is the loud thump of her heart.)

“filming time!” he orders and suzy catches a reassuring smile from chansik. suzy gives him a weak curl of the lips, but sooji, the nineteen year old who worked her off, resists the urge to tell him to off because i don’t ing need your pity. she never gets the chance because they’re pushed into the ghostly mansion, wails and screams echoing through the dark walls. it’s pitch black and she can’t see anything except the camera right in front of her. it changes when a girl, with painted eyes and powdery-white face jumps out at them, and sooji lets out an ear-piercing scream. she vaguely hears chansik asking her about her condition and she nods vaguely. he doesn’t believe her and silently puts his hand into hers and it speaks more than any words can. and despite everything, sooji feels her a little bit safer and she turns to give him a grateful smile in darkness.

they continue to make their way into a hollow corridor, the shrieking voices echoing everywhere. sooji feels nothing but pure fear and the hopeless dread that clogs every part of cell. she gulps in the air, desperate for escape. sacrifice my sleep, fill my schedules up for more, i don’t care, i don’t care, just let me go, she begs. the feeling of being trapped envelops her and it’s so overwhelming to a point that she doesn’t even notice chansik’s arm wrapped tight around her waist.

out of nowhere, a face pops out, her hands gripping all over sooji’s clothing, tugging and she screams, piercing and loud and unscripted and it sounds so foreign to herself, she doesn’t even know how to stop. there’s a combination of fear and anxiety and fatigue and it overwhelms her to a point where she bursts into tears.

yet, they don’t even stop filming. her tears fall fast and heavy and her breathing is shaky and she tells him, she tells them, she can’t do this, she can’t do this, she can’t do this. (because she’s been strong for so long, she can practice for twelve hours straight, she can act like she’s in love, she can be the nation’s first love but every superman has a kryptonite and for bae sooji, it’s haunted houses.) chansik crouches down to her sobbing frame and pulls her closely to him and she breathes in the scent of laundry and bubblegum. she expects herself to grow tense in the touch of someone else because they’ve only known each other for two weeks and she knows the producers don’t expect them to fall into skinship so quickly. (but this is not scripted. this is just two scared teenagers, both trying to hold it in.)

he wipes away her tears with his thumb, an action that catches both of them off guarded. sooji blinks once, twice, the sobs slowing down to soft whimpers. “sooji, sooji, listen to me,” he whispers, voice filled with tender and genuine concern and she stares at him with teary eyes. (because she actually believes him.) “you’re going to be okay, i’ll protect you, i’ll them fight them off. you’re my wife, remember?” he continues, squeezing her fingers tightly. sooji looks at chansik, standing in front of her and stares into his eyes, wondering and finding any trace of insincerity but all she can see is a nineteen year old boy who is almost as frightened as she is. (about ghosts, about life, about everything.)

(and that night, her tears blur the lines between fiction and reality.)

***

it’s s that first visit the couple on their first month together, all cheery faces and smiles. she expects it to be awkward silence, inside jokes because well, sooji isn’t really good with words and what if they don’t like her?

“there’s so many things wrong with the way you call him,” sunwoo states, shaking his head disapprovingly, a tint of mischief glowing behind his tired eyes. (sooji respects them. admires them even. she might have the popularity and fame and everything but miss a would never be able to be this close-knit as them.)

“yeah!” dongwoo agrees, nodding his head enthusiastically at sooji, grinning from ear to ear. a smile threatens to smear across his face but he pushes it aside, winking ever-so-slightly at sunwoo. never the dense one, sooji catches on quickly and a small smile curls up her pink lips.

“oppa?” she calls out, high-pitched and cutesy and laughs when she sees chansik’s face turn bright red. sooji’s eyes glitter because it’s cute how chansik is blushing and hiding his face and not meeting her eyes. (the next day, chansik sends her a short and sweet text that keeps her smiling for the whole day: they love you sooji. welcome to the family. )

***

their first date – their first real one – where the cameras aren’t there to film happens after the episode when they share their first hug. (technically, they’ve hugged a million times before, when chansik had cried after learning the truth of his contract; when sooji had fainted on the set and everyone was too busy to notice.)

it’s a park close to nowhere and they’re dressed in their most comfortable clothing. sooji bares her face (and her soul) and she can’t help the smile (nor the butterflies in her stomach) when she sees chansik. she’s not sure when it happened but she’s in love. a day doesn’t go by without thinking about chansik, counting down the minutes till their filming.

and sooji hates herself for that. because this is just a drama, this is just short and when it’s late at night and when minyoung thinks she’s fast asleep, sooji wishes there was another way. if she had met him before, if the show could go on forever. (she doesn’t mind the cameras, she doesn’t mind the comments, she doesn’t mind that her love story is published worldwide – because it means she gets to have chansik out in public and chansik, chansik, chansik. but sooji knows, it’s only a matter of time before they get bored of them.) they’re just hopeless wishes but sooji’s always been a hopeless dreamer.

“what are you thinking about?” he asks as he wraps an arm around her, eyes twinkling like the moon above. she shakes her head and stares into those beautiful brown eyes and time freezes.

under the dark seoul sky, where the stars shine bright and the light streetlamps are barely visible, chansik kisses sooji. gently, as he’s always been with her, he cups her cheeks and tilts her head before placing his lips on her. (sooji’s kissed many, many boys before – either for the camera or for the sake of being kissed but even though she doesn’t want to admit it, chansik is her favorite. yes, soohyun oppa has the most luscious lips. yes, myungsoo oppa sure knew how to work his mouth in the dark. but they’re not chansik, with the fumbled movement and the clumsy, misplaced tongue.)

sooji doesn’t go home that night. her manager pick her up at a nearby convienent store, eating a cup of noodles dreamily and she goes to a filming immediately. (but as she lies in the car, she thinks about chansik’s lips, the taste of mint and how he smelled like love and she thinks and smiles and she’s relieving it – she’s with there with him in that small spot again until her manager turns to her with a weirded out look. sooji just grins back at him and tells him, “wow, oppa, did you lose weight? you look handsome!”)

***

two days later, they’re off to jeju island and even though there are cameras around, there are still eyes on them, she feels a light lifted out because there’s twenty-four hours in a day and filming make take three quarters of the day, there’s still the remaining two hours. besides, running from room to room is much easier than running from her dorm to his. they spend half the day strolling around the town, acting like tourists. they take photos in the restaurant, his eyes squinted, trying to block out the sun, her smile, pure and innocent and much more clean than the ones the audience have been used to. the narrators coo, squealing that sooji is ‘becoming more beautiful with love.’ 

when the night falls, and the cameras are still on, they decide to have a picnic in the middle of the beach. a campfire is lit and it gives off a feel of romanticism and idealism. it’s beautiful, isn’t it? with your husband, underneath the bright stars with the glowing of flame. (sooji scoffs at the idea of that. what’s romantic about having six cameras film them from different angles. what’s romantic about everything being written out and prepared and being commented by some old people who need to get laid and having thousand of people watch it. she prefers their dates in the halfway-point, when they’re together and he makes her smile with those shy moves and she thinks she’d give it all up to be with him.)

the viewers think they’ve gotten up close and personal with chansik and sooji as he hands her his hoodie and she tilts her head to that perfected forty-five degree angle, gives the camera that familiar bashful smile before giving him a soft hug.

but what the viewers will never know is that sooji creeps into chansik’s room five minutes later, when the cameras are off and the producers are editing and prepared to show viewers cuts of their romantic getaway. (she falls asleep in his arms and they walk up in the morning with their feet entangled together, her head lying on his chest and she thinks, this is what love feels like.)

***

after a year and a half, their run on we got married ends. sooji knows she should feel lucky that they even lasted so long but instead, she feels a longing pain inside of her that pleads with everything and anything, in a sullen voice, a dull hope that has faded into nothingness; can i have five more years with him? no, five more months. even five more days would be more than enough.

suzy bae smiles politely and thanks them for everything. (the twenty year old bae sooji, who has grown weathered to chansik’s weekly touch and smiles, who is no longer able to differentiate between the truth and scripts, holds back a choked sob.)

their last episode is filmed two days after their first meeting. her emotions quiver and shake when she sees him walk through the door, with that perfect posture of a dancer and the navy-blue sweater that she had bought for him on his birthday last year. (because even though he is everything she doesn’t want in a guy, she loves him more than she would ever have expected.)

unlike most couples, they don’t have anything grand and fancy because chansik doesn’t really like crowds and sooji’s a type of girl who would stay home on weekends. she’s in a white dress, one that cascades lightly around her knees, one that she wore on her first date with him. they sit in the living room, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. it’s a quiet silence between them, words hanging in the air. “i wrote a song for you sooji. jinyoung hyung helped me though,” he says, breaking it, staring into her eyes, bashfully, the edges of his lips curling up into a shy smile.

and before she knows it, she tells him she loves him. in front of the cameras, in front of her fans and in front of sixty thousand people whose eyes are glued onto the television screen. there’s a ghastly silence and someone drops their camera in shock because this isn’t in the script. sooji and chansik are portrayals of innocent first loves with soft whisperings of ‘i miss you’ and ‘i like you’ but definitely not ‘i love you’. sooji keeps to herself that this is not the first time she’s said those three words. in fact, it had been chansik who uttered them first after a filming when she had been exhausted from filming her drama, promoting with miss a and being with chansik. she remembers her eyes blinking once, twice, her head lying cautiously on chansik’s lap and he had whispered, ‘i love you, bae sooji.’ their words are a reminder to her, that despite everything, the lines they receive to say, the actions they are reminded to portray out, there is still a bit of truth in the fiction – a bit of truth to chansik and sooji’s hand-holding and soft smiles.

(they cut the scene out and skip to chansik’s singing but fan-accounts, diehard shippers of chanzy eventually find out sooji said those sacred words and they swear chanzy is real, chanzy will not end unlike the show, chanzy isn’t scripted. sooji creates an anonymous account and joins in.)

the soft strums of guitar fills her eyes and chansik’s quiet voice enters, strumming and singing lightly about a boy and girl. (sooji barely makes a minute through before she bursts into bucketful of tears. it’s not the most beautiful song she has heard and the lyrics aren’t heart-wrenching but it’s so earnest and so sweet and so chansik and it kills her to think that this might be the last time they’ll ever be so close, that he’ll be gong chansik, the young boy from suncheon who learnt how to love and not gongchan.)

chansik’s voice wobbles and cracks a little and before she knows it, the music abruptly ends and a tear rolls down his porcelain cheek. “oh sooji,” he murmurs and she cries into his arms for the last time. the filming takes an extra two hours because sooji cries so hard that her makeup’s smeared beyond belief and chansik is so choked up he can barely say a word.

and finally, their run on we got married, the chanzy couple ends. (their finale is the highest-rated episode of we got married.)

but later at night, when it’s far too late to be considered a platonic meeting, they meet at a small, secluded park. his hair is wet and he has his pajamas on and sooji wears one of his oversized sweaters that he handed to her during a filming. they don’t say anything but he extends her arms and she runs straight into them and they spend the rest of the night lying in each other’s presence, a silence holding above them. (sooji will always be thankful for their numbered infinity.)

in the early morning, when the sun appears, suzy hands back his heart and they’re back to being suzy and gongchan.

(no one understands why sooji and chansik don’t keep in touch after we got married. she doesn’t tell anyone he sends her weekly text messages, updating her about his life, always ending with a ‘i miss you’ and she never replies because in the end, even though the world of fiction is a little flawed and extremely beautiful, it is not reality. reality is being miss a’s maknae, suzy, acting and singing and dancing and watching her every move. fiction is being sooji, twenty-year old with bright laughter and shining eyes. it’s falling in love.)

***

let's be real i'm a lazy feggito who can't code ok and this is quite rushed and stupid because i haven't written something in 932849 years and i'm starting again but yeah thanks for reading and i hope you liked it!!!1 

enjoy some kawaii suzy bc suzy is my princess 

also whispers did you see the ninja!myungzy & ninja!soozy (is that soohyun x suzy's ship?? idek) 

oh oH AND IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN MULTIFANDOM CRACK SHIPS KINDA LIKE I DO PLS LOOK OUT FOR MY UPCOMING FANFICS OK SARANGHAE