Genre: Action, Adventure, Angst, Art, Comedy, Crack, Crime, Drama, Dystopia, Fantasy, Fluff, Historical, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Medical, Music, Mystery, Romance, School, Sci-Fic, Slice of Life, Sports, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller, Time Travel, Tragedy, Psychological, Satire

Summary: This oneshot is a wild ride, I tell you. I honestly do not know what exactly it's about. If you ask me to summarize this story, it would be

"Stay in school kids. Avoid sweets from doubtful sources."

OR

Chaewon and Hitomi are story writers who have been given a chance to write a TV series for a major television company while eating brownies.

Word Count: 11835

Hashtag: #SSBB_ASeriesOfDarnedFiestas

 

A Series of Darned Fiestas (August 9, 1975)

 

“Coming!”   It was Chaewon and Hitomi’s third wedding anniversary that day. They had just gone home from their date when they got a message from their friend Yena that she and her wife Yuri were headed over to give them some food left over from a get-together with some of their mutual friends, Nako and Minju. Chaewon was headed to the door to let the couple in when her wife grabbed her arm and pulled her close.   “Do we really need to get their food?” Hitomi whined before her eyes narrowed into a sly smirk. “You know that I’m already a full-course meal, right?”   Chaewon felt herself gulp for air due to her wife’s seductive nature that she has learned that she cannot resist, “B-but, since when have we said no to free food?”   “There’s always a first time,” her wife replied in her deep, sultry voice.   “O-okay,” said the still flustered Chaewon. “I’ll just get the food and make them leave. It looks like I’ll need the energy for later.”    “You’ll need it, tiger. Hurry up, okay? I’m going to get ready… for you.” Her wife gave her a teasing peck on her lips and walked towards their bedroom.   Chaewon hurried to the door and opened it, revealing Yena and Yuri with big smiles on their faces, holding a tray of brownies.   “Nako made these for us, err-- you, in our kitchen,” said Yena in an overly enthusiastic tone that borders on sarcasm.   “It’s mint chocolate brownies!” Yuri added, her voice having the same tone as Yena’s.   Chaewon was suspicious of how the two were acting, but she did not care that much. However, she was bothered by one thing, “I get that you gave me these, but did you have anything for Hitoma? That girl hates anything made of mint chocolate.”   Yuri sniggered and said with a shrug, “Guess she’s starving today. She has you anyway.”   “What?”   “Oh please, we both know it’s your anniversary today. Somebody’s going to get lucky tonight!” Yuri raised her eyebrows with a knowing smirk on her face.   “Yes, I am getting some tonight. Now, please leave before you actually stop me from getting lucky tonight.Thanks for the brownies.” Chaewon grabbed the tray of brownies and slammed the door on the couple’s faces. She was headed to the bedroom after hastily dropping off the tray on the kitchen counter when her phone rang. She checked the caller ID hoping that it was someone she could ignore so that she could get to her waiting wife but decided against it when she saw who it was. It was Lee Chaeyeon, the manager of primetime broadcasting for TVN and also part of their friend circle.   “Hello Chaeyeon, why are you calling me this late?” Chaewon answered the phone with an annoyed tone. It seems like the universe is acting against her getting laid tonight.   “Sorry Chaewon, I know it’s your anniversary but it’s urgent.” Chaewon could recognize Chaeyeon’s tired voice on the other end of the line. The TV executive is known to be a very chill woman who always takes things in stride and avoids stress through good time management. Chaeyeon would have been really stressed if she sounded like that.   “Okay, make it quick, I got some things to take care of,” she replied while looking at the slightly ajar door of their bedroom.   “I’m calling about the email I sent two days ago. Did you receive it?”    Chaewon was confused about this information, “What email? I didn’t receive anything.” Even though they have been spending a lot of time the past few days, Chaewon and Hitomi were always connected online. The couple are a known pair of story writers for dramas and movies, so the two always had their emails updated for news regarding the stories and scripts they have sent to different media outlets and producers.   “Have you checked your spam?”   Chaewon opens her spam folder and discovers an email sent from Lee Chaeyeon. She wondered how it ended up there until she read the subject of the email:   Here’s an offer you can’t refuse! Read for details!   No wonder it ended up in the spam folder.   “I just saw it now. What about it?”   “Well, our show about a food trip to Germany scheduled for the end of the year has been cancelled because our supposed tour guide Dominik ran into some problems with the government. The higher-ups have been on our for the past couple of days to find a replacement show for the primetime slot at the end of the year. I sent you that email since you told me a year or so ago that you had some ideas for a TV show that you wanted to pitch as a ‘multiverse concept’ and the bosses and the prospective actresses want to hear more about it.”   Chaewon was shocked to hear this. Chaewon and Hitomi were amateur storywriters for independent filmmakers and their main goal is to get a story writing gig for a TV series broadcasted in a major TV company. One of her brainchildren is “New Order New Tomorrow: A Series of Darn Fiestas”, an idea that was inspired by the series “Black Mirror” on Netflix, but instead of being an anthology of sci-fi episodes, the series will be about two main characters in different universes. She had multiple stories lined up and all these stories were not confined to one genre. The problem was it did not fit any of the general trends in the Korean drama market, so it was difficult to pitch the idea to the big broadcasting companies. She vaguely remembered pitching (more like ranting) the idea to Chaeyeon knowing that she was part of the “mainstream system”, but she could not recall what her friend thought about the idea along with whatever happened that night.   Needless to say, Chaewon was shell shocked when she got a call from her friend on behalf of TVN’s producers.    “Anyway,” Chaeyeon continued, “I sent you that three days ago and now I’m calling to remind you that tomorrow is the deadline for the story prompts for the six episodes of the mini-series.”   “What?” Chaewon exclaimed, surprised by the abrupt deadline set by her friend. “Why did you give us such a short deadline?”   “Well, you said you already had prompts lined up, so I thought you’d just have to do minor edits on them when you submit them to me. It doesn’t need to be perfect. We just need to have Kang Hyewon and Kim Minju to look at them to make them agree to do this project with us.”   Chaewon could not believe what she just heard. “Kang Hyewon and Kim Minju? They’re the most famous actresses in the industry right now!”   “Exactly. Their agents said that they just needed to know what the overall feel of the series will be, if you know what I mean.”   Chaewon answered, “Alright, I’ll let Hitomi know. We’ll try to send it to you by tomorrow morning.” She was sad because she knew that this project would be amazing but it would cost her an amazing night with her wife. She dropped the call after sending her regards to Chaeyeon and finalizing the details of what the manager wanted for the show. She took a deep breath before calling out to her wife to tell her about the news.   “Hitoma!”   Hitomi came out of their room wearing a silk robe that barely covered anything underneath. It took all of Chaewon’s self-control to not drop the project and just take her woman right there and then.   “I have good news and bad news.”   “What’s the bad news?”   “We might not be sleeping tonight.”   Hitomi moved closer to Chaewon and whispered in her ear, tempting the older, “I know that, baby.”    “No. Chaeyeon just called. She says she needs story prompts for the first five episodes of our love anthology project by tomorrow morning to present it to the actresses.”   The Japanese woman’s face fell as soon as she heard the bad news from her wife.“And the good news?”   Chaewon scratched her head and shrugged, “We got brownies.”   --   “Chaewon, what is this?” Hitomi asked as she flipped through Chaewon’s notes.   “Those are the prompts I came up with when I pitched this idea to Chaeyeon a year or so ago.”   “But Chaewon, most of these have already been done.”   “Huh? What about this story about students of witchcraft falling in love without the influence of a love potion?”   “That’s already been done. Ever since Harry Potter came out, a lot of people have already written stories about young love between wizards and witches. Some of them have won awards too.”   “What about this story? A young girl thinks she found an alien in the attic so she calls a radio show who might have experience in dealing with aliens. Then they fall in love after a few calls---”   “Already done. It won an award last year,” Hitomi interjected, dismissing the idea as she continued flipping through the pages of her wife’s notebook of ideas.   “Okay,” Chaewon was in charge of reading the notes on her phone. Hitomi had nagged her about her lack of organizational skills, to which Chaewon always defended by “I have to be made imperfect in some way, right? Nobody’s perfect.” Today was the first day she cursed herself for being a slob with her ideas.   “Here’s an interesting one! What about this story about a grim reaper--”   “Chaewon,” Hitomi was exasperated, slamming the notebook down to the tabletop. “Stories about grim reapers and people associated with death have also been done. Remember what our friend wrote two years ago? What happened to that story about a grim reaper and a travel agent who can foresee death? IT GOT SHELVED, CHAEWON! SHELVED FOR TWO YEARS! Do you really want that to happen to our first TV series project?”   “God! I need a drink!” Hitomi stood up and headed to the kitchen, leaving a teary-eyed Chaewon looking down on her phone.   “Chaewon-ah, where’s our bourbon?” Chaewon blinked her eyes to impede the tears from falling. “W-We finished it last week, remember? There’s wine here at the table if you want.”   “I am very stressed, Chaewon. I need something stronger than that. Oh wait, there’s brownies!” The Japanese woman’s tone turned from angry to excited as she shuffled towards the tray.   The last statement shook Chaewon out of her trance. She knew what was bound to happen if Hitomi got to taste mint chocolate when she was already in a foul mood like she was right now. She scrambled out of her seat and ran towards her wife to warn her.   “Hitoma! That’s mint choco---”   But she was too late. Hitomi had already bitten into the brownie. Surprisingly, however, the woman looked happy after eating the brownie.   “Mint choco? I couldn’t taste anything though! I think the fudge just overpowered the mint flavor,” she said as she took another bite.   “Anyway, Chaewon. I’m sorry for bursting out on you earlier. I was really stressed with this deadline and I don’t want us to miss this opportunity. We can still use some of your prompts and modify it a little so it becomes novel again. For talented story writers like us, coming up with storylines should be a piece of cake, right?”   The older woman could only manage a slight nod. She was still shocked about the abrupt mood swing of her wife. Nevertheless, she smiled at her wife for not completely dismissing her ideas for the show.   “Speaking of cake,” Hitomi continued after seeing her wife smile again, “These brownies are really good. We should take the whole tray to the table.”   ---   It was not a piece of cake.   An hour had passed since they sat down to work on the prompts that they were going to submit to Chaeyeon, but Chaewon was struggling to finish even one. She looked at her wife and saw that she was uncharacteristically chirpy while writing her stories. The rapid clicking of her wife’s laptop’s keyboard indicated that the ideas were continuously flowing from Hitomi’s brain to her fingers, much to her jealousy.   She was working on her prompt, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s when she heard Hitomi call out to her.   “Chaewon-ah, how many have you written so far?” She pursed her lips together before answering, “I’ve got some ideas, but I’ve only written one so far.”   When their eyes met, she noticed her wife’s eyes had a tinge of red on them as if they were crying. She brushed it off thinking that it was because of the eye strain for looking at the laptop for so long. Or maybe it was because of a sad prompt that she was writing.    “Let’s read it then.”   “Okay, the scene is Person A, a doctor, just lost their patient to a difficult surgery and went to a bakery to clear her mind and meets Person B---”   “Wait, calling them Person A and Person B makes it sound lame. Why don’t you just name them Chaewon and Hitomi?” Hitomi asked. She had a smirk on her face like she knew it was one of her best ideas, to which Chaewon agrees.   “Alright,” Chaewon sighs before starting again, “Chaewon, a doctor, just lost their patient to a difficult surgery so she goes to a bakery to clear her mind with pastries and coffee. There she meets Hitomi, a chipper young lady who makes her day bright again.   Hitomi nodded, pleasantly surprised with her wife’s idea. She then walked over to her wife’s laptop and began reading the prompt.   ----   A long beep from the patient monitor confirmed the worst for the short-haired doctor. She could still see the red hue on the floor due to the incessant bleeding of the patient on her operating table. Or it might have been her bloodstained goggles when the blood splashed onto her after making the incision. Right now, it was irrelevant. Nothing was relevant anymore. She just lost a patient; a patient who trusted her with her life, a patient whom she reassured before the surgery that she will get to eat ice cream again after the procedure. She tried telling herself that it is normal. It was normal for patients to expire after a risky surgery like this, but she cannot help it.   After all, it was her first table death.   She felt a hand touch her shoulder. It was from one of the attendings who assisted her during the surgery, “Doctor, you need to call it. I’m sorry.”   “It’s fine,” she replied, trying her best to keep her face straight and devoid of emotions. Her juniors should not see her overly emotional because she thought that it would teach them the wrong idea on how to behave as surgeons.   “Yabuki Nako. Time of death: 20:21.”   After pronouncing the patient dead, she turned to the attending who she saw to also be struggling to keep a straight face. Her watery eyes indicated that the floodgates will be opening soon, but the doctor had to look out for herself first. She did not wait for the attending’s response and immediately bolted out of the operating room to inform the patient’s parents about the sad news about their daughter.   She took a quick break out in the hospital’s open area to get the edge off. Was it effective? She did not know, but it was what her seniors recommended her to do. Maybe it would have been more effective if she smoked, but she thought the coughing and the smell would make her more anxious than she already was. Her thoughts were interrupted by her grumbling stomach, which had not digested anything for the last eight hours because of the long surgery. She went out of the hospital and headed to the newly opened cafe across the street.   She browsed through the unexpectedly wide selection of bread to see if anything suited her taste. She settled on getting a white chocolate cream-bun topped with whipped cream. She was about to go pay for the bun when a hand dropped off a strawberry flavored muffin on her tray.   “Wait. Excuse me. Why did you give me a muffin? I did not ask for one,” said the doctor. She looked up to see a blonde woman in a black blazer and matching pencil skirt.   The blonde woman replied, “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. When I saw you, I knew… they got muffin on you.”   The doctor was astounded by the boldness of the woman to flirt with her in a public space like this.    “I’m sorry, what?” was also the doctor could manage to say.   “Huh, I thought for sure that was going to work,” the blonde reached into her blazer pocket and handed the doctor a business card. “Honda Hitomi, Attorney-at-law. You can call me Hiichan if you accept that muffin though.”   The doctor gave a slight chuckle, almost forgetting the unfortunate event earlier in the operating room.   “Kim Chaewon. Surgeon. I’m accepting it, so you can call me Chae.”   “Alright, Chae. I need to go now but I think we are going to be seeing each other sooner than you think.” With that, the lawyer known as Hiichan turned and left the bakery.   Chaewon was about to pay for her cream buns when she received a message on her phone from the attending doctor under her wing that said   “Dr. Kim, we were just notified by the Yabuki family that they were going to sue for malpractice because of the surgery. They said that they have already contacted a law firm that will take their case. You need to get back here ASAP.”   She glanced at the business card that was just given to her and laughed at the coming meeting that the lawyer implied.   Well, I’m going to make sure you got muffin on me too.   ----   Chaewon looked to her spouse hoping to get any reaction on her story, but the reaction she got was not what she expected at all.   Hitomi started laughing.   The older woman tilted her head in amusement as she watched her spouse lose it because of her story, which she did not find funny at all except for the pun.   “MUFFIN ON YOU! OH MY GOODNESS CHAEWON YOU ARE SO FUNNY!” Hitomi finally managed to blurt out in between laughs.    On any other day, she would have just dismissed her savagely for her poor attempt in word jokes. Chaewon found it weird that Hitomi was laughing at her poorly made pun, especially when it was not the main point of the story.   “And you killed Nako too! We’re definitely going to add that in our series. Damn, that was good!” Hitomi said, laugh-crying as she walked back to her workspace.   “T-thank you, Hitoma--”   “Do you have any other ideas?”   “Hmm--- I was thinking about a soulmate turned soul mate prompt where the ghostbuster meets the ghost that she falls in love with---”   “WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT PROMPTS ABOUT GHOSTS AND THE DEAD?”   “They never get finished,” Chaewon said, raising her hands to show that she has resigned to her fate. “I do remember that series about a ghost agency that helped people to move on.”   “Yeah, that was good while it lasted,” Hitomi laughed again, but now she managed to catch herself before the laugh turned into guffaw. “Alright then. Speaking of soulmates, one of my prompts here is about that.”   “Let’s hear it.” ---   It was noon when Chaewon rolled into the Payless shoe source. She was determined to get these new shoes that she saw online, but the pair was pick-up only and she needed to find it on the sale racks.   She entered the store and headed towards the sale rack on the far-left side of the store. After a few minutes, she found the box of stilettos that had her size at the bottom of the shelf. When she was about to reach for it, another set of hands grabbed one side of the box and pulled it towards her.   “That’s mine!” It was a blonde woman, probably the same age as her. She was wearing a fur coat that complimented her blonde hair and her pale skin. Her face was divine, or as Chaewon would describe it: innocent. Her sharp jawline can cut like a knife, but her cheeks were not well-defined and were rather full. If Chaewon were to be honest, she would say that the heels would suit the other woman more than her, but her pride won’t allow her to admit that publicly.   “No, that’s mine. I saw it online first.”   “But I got my hands on these first, so your argument is moot.”   “Let’s be reasonable here, okay?” Chaewon crossed her arms in front of her as she tried to look intimidating in front of the shorter woman. “I spotted it first and I put it on my cart last night. This means that this pair is rightfully mine.”   “Nah-uh. I got my hands on it first, so this is mine!” The blonde started pulling the box towards her, starting a tug-of-war between the two women. They did not notice the entire store was watching them as they fought for the pair of stilettos inside the store. Before security got the chance to break them up, the box ripped into two, sending the two women flying opposite of each other with one shoe in hand.   Chaewon expected to feel the shelves on her back as she fell.   But the feeling did not come.   And everything went dark.   When Chaewon opened her eyes, she was standing in front of people on their knees with their head down, all gazes directed to the floor. She looked around to see Ionic columns supporting the high ceiling, which was an art form on its own. The mural painted on the ceiling rivaled that of the Sistine Chapel that she had only seen through pictures. Before she could marvel any further, one of the armored individuals who were bowing in front of her broke the silence.   “Your Majesty, we have received information from our spies that the owner of your other shoe is in the neighboring fief. We await your order to seize the said fief and recover the owner as you requested.”   “Excuse me, what did you just say? What is going on?” Confused was an understatement if she were to describe what she was feeling right now.   “Queen Chaewon. You ordered us to find the one who took your other shoe because you said that she was betrothed to you,” the knight answered with his head still down. Even though he could not see the puzzled face of his queen, he felt that the queen was as confused as he was when he got the order from her a few days ago.   “You described her as an innocent-looking blonde with a sharp jawline and full cheeks when you asked me to search for her.”   The description was vaguely familiar, but she could not place it until she looked at her feet. One of her feet was bare while the other was wearing the stiletto shoes that she fought for earlier.   Wait. Blonde. Innocent-looking. Sharp jawline. Full cheeks.   Well, .   In the neighboring fief, a blonde woman stirred from a long sleep. She woke up in a hut in a shanty, unlivable to her standards. Although the room that she woke up in did not fit her aesthetic taste at all, the bed was comfortable. It was comfortable enough for her to get a good sleep. She moved to try to get out of bed, but as she did, she felt something on her foot. It was the stiletto shoe that she was trying to get in the store. How did she get here? And where was the other shoe?   Her thoughts were interrupted by a short woman entering the hut. The short woman was wearing a dress that matched the hut: gray and full of patches. Even with this dreary state, the short woman was smiling at her. This place is weird, she thought.   “Lady Hitomi, you are awake.”   “How do you know my name?” asked Hitomi. She had never seen this woman before, yet the woman looks at her with familiarity.   “Please, my lady, of course I know your name. What’s important right now is we need to keep moving. Minju and Yuri have prepared the carriage for us outside. We cannot let them catch up to us soon.”   “Who?”   “The Queen’s guard. They have been hunting you since yesterday.”   “And why is that?”   The small woman looked at her one shoe, “It’s because you’re her… sole mate.”   ---   Hitomi lost it again, even if it was her own prompt.   Chaewon could not shake the puzzled look on her face while she watched her wife laugh so hard that she was slapping the table so hard it shook. The horrible pun aside, the story line did show some promise to turn into a great episode. It also intrigued her that Hitomi wrote a story like this. Her wife usually wrote sweet but serious stories and she stayed away from jokes, let alone puns.   “Hitoma, are you okay?” she asked worriedly.   Hitomi took a while to catch her breath, “I’m fine! Never better!”   “You seem… Weird.”   “Pshhh...” Chaewon got dismissed by her wife with a wave of her hand. She was about to pry further when she received a call from Yena. She answered the call hesitantly; she did not want more weird things on her plate right now.   “Hello Yena, now might not be a good time. We’re busy---”   “Sorry to interrupt whatever you two have going on right now, Chaewon, but have you eaten the brownies yet?”   “No, but Hitomi did.”   “Oh no,” said Yena. Chaewon could feel her nervousness through the phone.   “Why?”   “Remember when we went to Las Vegas for my bachelorette party last year and we took some of the stuff back home?”   Chaewon’s face dropped as she realized what had happened, “That stuff?”   “Yeah. Wonyoung and Nako thought it was crushed mint leaves, so they added it to the butter mixture made for the brownie mix.”   “Then that means…”   “Yeah, Nako and Wonyoung, well, they’re completely zonked right now…”   Chaewon looked at the now half-filled tray of brownies, “So that also means Hitomi is high as a kite.” She turned to her wife who was presenting her laptop to her with arms stretched out and hands shaking for emphasis, like it was a prize from the sweepstakes.   “CHAEWON! I HAVE FINISHED SOME MORE PROMPTS!”   Perfect. This will be fun.   She dropped the call and turned to her drugged wife, “Sure, Hitoma. Let’s see it!”   “I call this The B of the Queen Bee.”   ---   “Chaewon! We’re counting on you!”   As the star player of her school’s baseball team, she was never a stranger to pressure-packed situations like this. The score is 6-6 with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning. It was a cracker of a game. Their opponents were no pushovers; it was the national championship after all. She could see her teammates staring at her with their chests heaving and their eyes filled with hope. The trophy is so close that they could feel it in their fingertips, but they need her for that final reach.   A home run.   She could feel her heart racing because of the pressure and the brevity of the situation, but it was not the game that was making her feel this way. It was not her teammate’s stares, nor her coach’s loud commands.    It was because her long-time crush Hitomi, the high school Queen Bee, was in the crowd cheering for their team. She never really approached her junior because she was, as her teammates liked to tell her, an airhead