He caught me for the second time as he turned his face to the door.

I opened my eyes at the interruption.  “What is that?”

Jae-rim oppa let me down at the moment, caching me off-guard once again.  My husband was doing all the work by lifting me in the air, and yet my legs felt all wobbly. 

I fell on my knees on all fours and I heard him laughing in surprise at the sight of me like that on the carpet.  He helped me to my feet.  “Jagiya…”

I giggled, trying to camouflage my embarrassment.  “It kills the atmosphere.”

“It really kills it!” Jae-rim oppa concurred, moving to answer the door.

There were two big and empty blue boxes left outside.

“What’s with the boxes?” I wondered out loud as we pulled them into the house. 

My husband closed the door when I found a mission card on one.  I looked at Jae-rim oppa nervously.  “I don’t want to open it for some reason.”

“No way,” he muttered, as if not knowing what to do. 

“This feels weird.  Hold on.”  I saw him look at the ominous mission card in my hand.  We both heard that the two other couples from Season 4 had recently just concluded their run in our variety show.  We had no idea how swift their warning had been or if they had been given sufficient time for a meaningful send-off. 

 “Let’s not look,” I deferred, as he walked over to the boxes.

“Is it going to say…” Jae-rim oppa guessed carefully, looking into my eyes again.  “… SoLim couple, your virtual marriage has just ended…”

An anxious laugh came out of me, not wanting him to preempt what could be the fate of our marriage, not even aware that I was crumpling the mission card I was holding.  “No way!”

But he still kept on, as if trying to prepare both of us by enacting it—in case MBC was giving us the axe.  “Today’s your last day… Review your…”

“Memories?” I finished for him, and everything that had happened between us since September 11^th last year flashed into my mind. 

We had been dubbed the LTE Couple by the fans because of our speedy skinship and natural closeness, even from the first episode.  My onscreen husband had gone from cheesy oddball to hopeless romantic because of how he expressed his feelings for me.  While my response to his affections wasn’t always automatic, it had become easy for me to reciprocate… and even initiate in time, which made my ever patient and eager husband mostly flustered but transparently happy.

Perhaps it was true what real married couples would testify to, that intertwining your life with someone else was an endless uphill journey.  When a dating scandal involving me and a friend of mine went viral, I thought I would receive a directive from MBC that I would be booted out of the show. 

However, my first concern had been Jae-rim oppa, and how he would feel when he’d read the reports. 

I wanted to talk to him in person, so I hadn’t called him.  I wouldn’t be able to, anyway.  My two phones hadn’t stopped ringing the day that rumor came out. 

MBC had asked us to film most of that initially awkward conversation.  We would have preferred to talk in private but Jae-rim oppa and I both considered that our fans needed to hear the truth from me, too.  

That was how big of a heart my onscreen husband possessed.  When he graciously gave me his full support without hesitation, it dispelled any residue misgivings I ever had about his sincerity towards me.

I personally felt even closer to him after that hurdle, and he had sensed this positive shift in me, which made him relax a little.  I wanted to give him a sense that he didn’t have to try so hard all the time, because I was fast catching up.  Our skinship with each other had become second nature, just like a real couple settling down and completely comfortable with each other.

But was this it?

Our last date together?

I sighed and took out the mission card, anyway, with him standing next to me.

“Huh?!” He exclaimed, positioning the card closer so we could read it at the same time.

The mission card said we were getting a new house after seven months of marriage. 

Jae-rim oppa chuckled, which I believed was out of relief.

“A big kitchen for the both of you,” I continued to read out loud.  “A single family residence where you can wrestle for 24 hours with ease.”

My husband’s breath hitched.  “A single family residence?”

“Neighborhood with fresh air close to nature,” I read some more, wondering why my excitement was draining after every word. 

I would rather it just to tell us to go somewhere, but it had all these features listed.  I felt worried with all that explanation on the card.  My husband later told me that he felt the bad energy emanating from it.

And how right he was.

“It’s in Gimpo!” I bellow incredulously.  We couldn’t believe it!

My husband closed his eyes, sighing.  “I got it.  They want to send us into exile.”

Exile?  Wasn’t that a little too extreme?

“We shouldn’t have complained about the kitchen,” I lamented, a little too late.  As early as our second date, the producers had been aware that while this little house was totally my style, I wasn’t too fond of the size of the kitchen… especially when we had to clean up.

I sat down on the arm of the sofa, with his hand on my back for support, as we continued to mull over the mission card. 

“But maybe this will be nice,” I tried optimistically, looking up at him.  “A big roomy kitchen, maybe just like the one on the pension house in Jeju?”

Whenever I was slaving over the stove, or cutting up ingredients, my endearingly obsessive-compulsive husband had the incessant habit of hovering and washing dishes—and tying his hands hadn’t solved the problem—because he wanted to “be close to me.” 

 “Really?” Jae-rim oppa’s eyes brightened a bit, picturing the possibilities.  “A place like that?”  Then he thought to look up the address online, so we could have some idea what MBC had up their sleeves for us.

We laughed as we huddled on the couch together, searching on his phone.  We were getting suspicious, but it was just uncanny how we were thinking so much alike now.

The map on his screen had stopped loading.

And all we could see was white.

“Huh?” Jae-rim oppa blinked.  “Nothing’s there.”

He typed the correct address on the search box, I was sure.   I tried zooming in and out, moving my fingers on the screen to scan the vicinity but…

There were no roads.

“The sea is in front?” My husband took his phone, looking at map in disbelief. 

Oh dear Lord, where were they sending us?

Jae-rim oppa went into character suddenly, upon seeing my crestfallen expression.  He laid a comforting hand on top of mine and said, “My lady, we’re going into exile.”

I looked at him wistfully, trying to suppress my laughter.  “Go ahead.  I’ll wait at home.”

He chuckled, still playacting of a failed man who could not accept reality.  “We must sell this place.”

“No way!” I wailed in denial, as he reached for me to wrap me in his embrace.  “No way!”

“My business went bankrupt!” He added as a joke, but I collapsed forwards and his arms caught me.  

He rested his head on my back and we held each other like that for a couple of seconds, as I let this new development sink in. 

Jae-rim oppa recovered a little more quickly than I did.  He patted my shoulder in assurance while I stared into space in disappointment.  “Let’s pack,” he told me softly, getting up from his seat.

And the tedious task of gathering our things and putting them in the boxes began.  I felt sad, and I knew my husband did, too.  We spent some of our dates just staying in this tiny yet cozy house, decorating it and putting our personal taste and style in it, with our memories embedded in its walls.

Seven months later, it was time to go.

When we were done, we looked around our home that we had reluctantly cleaned out of our trace.  I glanced at Jae-rim oppa, who was holding at the bottle of the bellflower liquor still half-full morosely. 

“I don’t know what to say right now,” he murmured softly.

I knew exactly how he felt.  We had become so attached to this place, and now we were going far away. 

We turned back for one last look.   True, it could have been more spacious and it didn’t have a lot of furniture.  No TV, even.  The kitchen… could have more room.

It needed a lot of work back then.  I even bought a bidet for my husband because it didn’t have any.

But it was perfect, for my husband and I, to turn into a home.

Jae-rim oppa was exiting the door, hauling the last of the heavy blue boxes with him, and I knew I should follow. 

My eyes skimmed everything in my view, regretful that we had to leave it all behind.  I wanted to take the wonder of our first house with me, as it had impressed upon both of us the very first moment we stepped in its door seven months ago.

If only I could.

“Annyeong,” I whispered one final time and stepped out the door. 

~~ To be continued ~~