❝ chapter seven

s o l a r ’ s

As soon as the stage goes pitch black, I run downstairs into our waiting room and get change into a white dress. My stylist rushes over to fixes my makeup and redoes my hair, simply putting it into a low ponytail and gives it a slight curl. Another one of my stylists run over with two pairs of heels in both of her hands and puts it on me then exchange it into the previous pair. 

My members, however aren’t faze at all at the chaos. Hyejin bites onto her crackers while standing in front of the huge fan and swaying her body left and right following the direction of the fan. Wheein plops down on the couch, one mini fan in her hand and her phone in another. Byul finds her place comfortably in the chair next to mine with her legs cross together. Her phone is on display on the desk so we both could stream the award show together while I’m getting my makeup done and while she’s eating her pudding. At times, she feeds me a few spoon then has the rest for herself. 

    “Ric hyung looks extremely good today.” Wheein said, her hand swiftly scrolled to another picture of him on Naver. “Seems like the reporter made him stand in between Cao Lu and Jinkyung. They don’t make that bad of an image together.”

Byul tosses a pillow at Wheein, giving her a hiss and glances at me. I act oblivious, focusing on the ongoing award show in front of me instead. Wheein’s right, that one time during Chuseok Special, I actually think he would makes a great couple with either of them and on a side note, they are more expressive than I am. 

    “So, are you going to pretend nothing happened at all between you two even after that confession?” Byul asks, tossing her empty pudding cup into the trashcan. 

    “Unnie, what about this? Do something so we know what will your answer be tonight.” Wheein sits up straight almost immediately, her eyes glistening with excitement like a little puppy. 

    “I told you I already gave him my answer that night.” I ask. 

    “Stop being so stubborn.” Hyejin groans. “What is the point of living if you don’t take a risk?”

    “Yeah, Yongsun. If you keep on treating this like nothing, someone is going to snatch him away. He’s called The Nation’s Boyfriend for a reason.”

I feel my whole inside churning in every direction possible. One minute, I feel like throwing up from the nerves and another minute, I feel giddy like I'm about to own the most precious thing in the whole universe. At this point, it is no longer whether I want to or not, it’s the matter of the members and everyone around us. My happiness would not exactly be equivalent to everyone else’s happiness and we are well aware that not every moomoo likes us together. I don’t want to drag the members down for something that’s purely my happiness but they’ve been telling me otherwise for a week that they don’t care as long as I’m happy. 

    “If you actually win the Best Couple Award, dust his shoulder on stage before you receive your award if you accept him but if you don’t, then you don’t have to do anything.” 

    “Why would I do that?” I frown then snatch another pudding from Byul’s hand and she silently grabs another one from the table. “Wouldn’t that be too obvious?” 

    “Come on, we can’t wait until you get back here to tell us what’s happening there. Give us a sign so we can prepare ourselves.” Hyejin shrugs. “And plus, people even kissed on camera. What’s so obvious about dusting his shoulder?” 

My stylist finally decides that everything goes well with my dress and hair and give me a little spray of my perfume then I’m really ready to go. Hyejin gives me a fist bump and Wheein hands me my favorite bread and strawberry milk. Byul walks me to the van like she usually does with the rest of us when we have our individual schedule. I give her a wave and hop into the van. 

    “Unnie, do you think this is right?” I ask after a while. “This whole thing the girls just said.” 

    “You’re the only one who can decide that, Yongsun.” She smiles through the mirror. “But if it helps, I agree with them for once.” 

I sigh then take a sip of the strawberry milk to calm my nerves. I don’t even remember being this nervous. As the van slowly approaches the venue, I decide to scroll through Naver to catch up on the award show a little. The live streaming doesn’t really show him and mainly because, I’m actually genuinely interested in that pictures of him with Cao Lu and Jinkyung on the red carpet too. So much for a life-size standee of me.

    “Come on, Yongsun. We’re here.” 

I nod, closing the Naver app off and fix my lipstick a little bit before getting out. We take the backstage path, because the show is in the middle of broadcasting live right now. As soon as I get inside, I catch a glimpse of the previous and new couples sitting together and Eric sitting alone. Next to him is an empty seat even though the last time I watch this with Byul a while ago, he’s sitting next to someone else. His eyes are completely focus on the stage, he looks good even from the side. I snap out from my little bubble almost immediately when the staff tells me I can just walk inside and sit next to him. 

Jinkyung is the first one to notice me when I walk in. I greet everyone I walk past and the other couples at table but he still seems oblivious to it. Quietly, I slide into the seat next to him and he jumps a little in surprise. 

    “I thought you said you have another schedule.” 

    “I did.” I nod. “How is it going?” 

    He frowns confusedly but eventually lets go of the topic. “How an award show always is except it’s a bit more entertaining because it’s an entertainment awards.” 

    “Mr. Eh Yoondo, looks like you really need to polish your Korean jokes a little bit more.” 

    “That wasn’t entirely a joke.” He said. 

He’s not joking nor laughing. Eric Nam is actually giving me a straight face. I realize how stiff we both are together right now and although it may be a part of my hallucination, it still makes sense to me that the confession will never make everything alright between us again and tonight might be the last time I could actually see him. But, that’d be the last thing I want right now. I know I still want to see him. I know I want more. 

My body is yearning to pull him into a hug and apologizes for everything, for being so hostile because I’m a coward, for hurting his feeling again and again, for not taking his hand when he reaches out to me but then it hits me that it will probably seems wrong, I don’t even have an actual reason to hug him anymore. It has been a while but the other couples remain completely friendly and affectionate. Maybe, none of them actually have to accidentally step over the boundaries and actually fall in love. Maybe, none of them confess to it. Maybe, none of them are a coward like I am. Or maybe, they actually overstep the whole boundaries but choose to run straight in without any second thought. Not everyone is like you, Kim Yongsun.

    “Are you okay?” He asked. “You seem out of it.” 

    “Yeah.” I said. “I guess.” 

Maybe he’s just exhausted, Yongsun. 

A small part of me was slightly relieved that he wasn’t entirely upset at me. It was until a few more stages till they got to the Best Couple Award. Honestly, ever since they released the nominations for this category, I thought we had no chance of winning this at all. The possible winner would probably be the 33 Couple, they joined later than us and they displayed loads of skinship and wasn’t that the whole point of We Got Married? I knew what I was signing up for but I couldn’t bring myself to actually do it and he respected me for that. Gradually, we had less skinship than everyone else and that was boring and disappointing for the viewers.

    “Have you thought about any award acceptance speech?” He asked out of the blue.

    “No.” I shake my head. There’s no reason to. “And you?” 

    “Me neither.”

    “I don’t think we will win the award.” I said and he nodded in agreement and for the first time in a while, we finally looked like ourselves again.

The VCR played a variety of clips of the couples who were nominated since last month. Ours were the stage for My Ear’s Candy and his still-perfect proposal. It still made my heart flutter that I once received a perfect proposal from a perfect man too. I was once married to this amazing man who completely respected me, understood and accepted my flaws. 

    “2016 MBC Entertainment Awards, Best Couple Awards.” Yoo Jaesuk announces. “We Got Married Season 4, Eric Nam and Solar. Congratulation!” 

The artificial snows exploded all over the area, the other couples stood up and congratulated us. Even our seniors from other tables looked over with a huge grin and clapped. We were the only one remained seated in our own chairs as if someone glued us to it. The staffs motioned for us to got up and got to the stage but everything was too bewildered that neither of us could believed what actually happened. Eric looked as blank as I did, he probably thought the same way as I did about us compared to the other couples. When we could finally digested the reality and stood up half-frozen, we made our way to the stage and I finally felt the excitement that left me an hour ago while I was approaching this venue. 

Eric gestures for me to walks ahead first then swiftly buttons his tux. I let out a laugh out of embarrassment and bewilderment and he finally laughs again. As we approach the stage, he allows me to climb over the little stairs connected to the stage first and like a gentleman he is, he extends his arms behind my back without touching me so as to protect me from falling if I ever accidentally slip over my own legs. We all know the wonder I could do with my own legs. 

The excitement was soon replaced with anxiety as Hyejin’s words came to me. Should I dust his shoulder? Would he say something about it? Would he even notice it? But am I really ready for all of these? Should I just wait again until everything is nothing once again? 

Eric bowed, both of his hands reached out to received the award. Subconsciously, I reached to dust off the little artificial snows on his shoulder as if it was a usual habit of mine. I quickly removed my hand and sighed in relieve, relieved that it was over, relieved that I didn’t really regret doing that, relieved that I finally made a choice of my own. He didn’t say anything but I didn’t want him to anyway. Maybe, the idea of us together wasn’t as exasperating as I thought it would be. Sure, it might be exasperating but definitely in a way that I’d totally enjoyed every second of it. My mind shifted back to my manager who probably had an even harder time trying to keep my phone under control from the girls’ constant texts. 

It was my turn to received the award. Then, we were both asked to give our speech. He gestured for me to go first and I had the urge to tell him right here how much he meant to me ever since that one time I don’t even remembered anymore but that’d be too much of a shock for our fans and for him too. So instead, I gave the usual speech and choked on a few words for no reason. All of these suddenly overwhelmed me and he gave my shoulder a soft squeeze from the back so it wouldn’t be visible on the camera. 

    “It’s okay.” He whispers. 

I wish so. Considering the chaos we’ll soon create, I really wish so.