When she tied the knot to Yoo Jin, there was one thing that Rian did not foresee and that was she had grown to be more mawkish than she had allowed herself to be.

She had been glaring quite some time at the laptop, contemplating whether or not should she switched it on and read the news. She tapped her fingers on the desk furiously, and then glanced over her shoulder. There was no sight of her young sons or even her rock star husband.

Yoo Jin had offered to send their sons to preschool instead, on normal circumstances, it was her duty to send her boys to school and Yoo Jin was tasked to fetch them.

Given the recent events, Yoo Jin had forbid her from showing up in the public, fearing for something bad happening. Since the number of her anti-fans had been increasing steadily since she entered a different type of entertainment industry (acting), the possibility of having extreme anti-fans also had spiked up. For that, Yoo Jin had been restless.

Deciding her thirst to satisfy her curiosity, she the laptop and typed her name in the search engine. In a matter of seconds, articles connecting her to a despicable act of adultery with a married producer began to crowd the screen.

Exhaled noisily, she clicked on the first article her eyes landed on and began to read. Though the articles were less damning than yesterday’s, the comments written by the internet users were more vicious and spiteful as time dragged on. There was a post demanding Jin Yoo Jin to divorce her and ‘let her rot in hell and in court’.

Unintentionally slamming the laptop shut, she immediately pushed the laptop away as tears threatened to fall. A couple of seconds later, they fell across her cheek as she buried her head inside her hand.

What’s wrong with her? She had scandals like this before, way back before she was married to Yoo Jin or even dated him in public. She merely deflected it as if it was nothing. It had left her slightly humiliated, but not leaving her in the state of despair and frightened. All her hard work, all the years she spent trying to achieve her dreams- now, her career crushed by a single rumour was taking effect on her life as well.  

Marriage had soften her exterior, always causing her to be emotionally unstable for most of the time and she hated that feeling.

Just then, she heard the door behind her unclicked, nearly made her jumped out from her seat. She quickly wiped her tears away with the ends of her sleeve and tried to force herself to smile when she turned to face him.

Yoo Jin’s cheery voice echoed in the living room. “Yah, I bought the ice-cream like you requested!” he bellowed, the smile from his face vanished. “You have been reading the articles again, haven’t you?” he questioned, quietly as he placed the ice-cream tub inside their fridge.

“N-no,” she choked. She knew he could detect her lies, yet she still made the effort to lie. He did not bother to rat her lies out either. “So, this time, what did they want?” he asked, hurrying to get the bowls and spoon from the cabinets.

“The bowls are located on the upper cabinet, next to the oven. The spoons are in the drawers,” she pointed out, slightly grinning at his ineptness around the kitchen (though she thinks that he deliberately made a fool out of himself). It was silent for a moment of two before she replied, “Err, nothing much, just- she trailed off.

He spared a quick glance at her direction, shrugging before returning his utmost attention to scooping the ice-cream from the tub. Rubbing her arm slightly as she leaned against the fridge.

“Maybe we should get a divorce,” she blurted out, after her eyes lingered on his back. This immediately made him snapped his attention away from the ice-cream, threw dagger looks at his wife like he thought she was spewing rubbish. “Your career is beginning to receive the damaging effect thanks to that stupid rumour. Even the kids- it’s better this way. ”

“Don’t be stupid, I will never let you divorce me. Stop worrying, will you? I got a plan,” he replied, smugly. Rian shook her head, she had been thinking about this for the last few weeks and she had seen the looks people threw at her and her husband. Yoo Jin could easily ignore it, but she can’t.

“What plan could you have that would possibly get us out from this mess? My career is over; yours will be if you stick to me any longer. It’s better if we parted now. Think of this as damage-control,” she cried, staring at him.

“Listen to me and get this to your head.  When I married you, I married all your faults, flaws, and problems as well. As your husband, best-friend, father to your sons and karaoke partner, it is my job to solve your problems, no matter how small or big is the mess. That was in the marriage description, which you neglected to read properly.”

Then he broke out a grin on his handsome, youthful face (for a thirty-something year old men, he looked like he hadn’t age a day since she saw him in high school). “You’re not the only one suffering from this. You and Eunjung were victims in this baseless rumour, so Soohyun and I came up with a solution of our own that is bound to make your rumours go away,” he said, beaming like an idiot- as usual.  “It’s going to commence tonight,” he added, as an afterthought.

“And that is?” she questioned, staring sceptically at her husband. Yoo Jin shoved the bowl filled with strawberry ice-cream into her hands and began to scoop a spoonful of ice-cream and ate it. “We are going to initiate a fist-fight after a drinking session, either that or crash the SUV into a lamppost while under the influence.”

She furrowed her brow, taking a scoop of her melting ice-cream and asked, “Really? That’s your plan? Want to know what I think? It’s not going to work and don’t be stupid.” She snorted at the moron, she called her husband. “Eunjung is going to murder me if anything happens to her husband,” she muttered.

“It’s the only plan I could think of and we are going to make it work or die trying since dying or doing nothing is not an option.”

“Entertainment likes bad boys. The repercussion from this won’t be as bad as yours, my queen. But, it will draw the attention away since I am a famous rock and roll star while Kim Soohyun is acting royalty- he’s untouchable with the bad press. Believe me,” he carved a lopsided grin and walked up to Rian.

Ignoring the fact that she was still trying to eat her ice-cream, he titled her chin up and their lips touched lightly. He pulled away from hers after a couple of seconds, “I hate it when you cry and I am not the cause of it,” he spoke, gently wiping a single tear that managed to escape from her eyes.  

Their tender moment, ruined when Yoo Jin decided it was alright to burp when their faces were close to each other. Rian’s reflexes had her hand swung up, executing a quick, mighty hit at the back of his head. “What was that for?” he hollered.

She just grunted and left her husband standing in the kitchen as she returned to the living room. Then yelled back at Yoo Jin, “Make sure none gets hurt! Or I will strangle the life out of you!”

That night, he came home with a cut on his upper lip, a black eye and a bruised knuckle- and a triumph smile. He held up his smartphone for her to see, but her eyes were glued to his face. She went to fetch the ice pack from the fridge and placed it on his black eye.

“So, how did it go?” she asked, eyeing him wearily as her brain tried to digest the stupidity of his actions. “Success! See,” he replied, jostling the phone to her face. “The number of articles is increasing by the minute and the comments were more vindictive than yours. Told you it would work,” he answered, exultantly with a huge grin on the rock star’s face.

“Whatever,” she replied- but secretly, she was grateful of having him by her side. Time to time, he never failed to amaze her. He had always was, always is, always be her knight with a shining guitar. For that, she was thankful for once that her relationship with JB did not work out- or she might never get the life she now has.