Chapter 1

Onew tapped his fingers against the knees of his brand new black jeans, still stiff from the hanger.  He shifted in his red sweater vest that was pulled just too tight over a starchy white shirt and glanced furtively out of the window at the passing buildings. 

It was just him and their manager alone in the car.  He was being driven to a meeting where he was going to meet his “bride.”  They started filming next week and they wanted to see how she and Onew would get along and see what themes they wanted to play up as a couple if they could find any.

And he was late.   

“Ack!”  His shoulder slammed into the window as his manger took the corner just a little too fast.

“You alright?” the manager mumbled belatedly as Onew rubbed at his shoulder, rotating it slightly to make sure everything was fine.

He grunted a little, “Yeah, it’s fine.” 

The car jolted as he coasted over a speed bump way too fast causing Onew’s hand to grasp at the door handle in surprise.   

“Here we are!” was the announcement.

Onew stared up at the nondescript black and grey office building with trepidation. 

He still could not figure out why he was acting like this.  He’d had to do plenty of things that he didn’t want to as an idol, so why was this such a big deal?

Onew squared his shoulders and released his seat belt, leaving the car in one surprisingly fluid movement.  Without waiting for his manager he started for the office that he knew was on the fifteenth floor. 

His manager caught up at the elevator and gave a mild glare before the doors shut. 

“I know you don’t like this show, but it’s popular and it is a great venue to remind people that you guys are around.  You have an album coming out next month and we need to get your faces into the public eye again.”

If there was anything else to be said it was too bad because the elevator dinged and the doors slid open on their floor. 

They walked past aisles of people sitting typing away at computers and answering phone calls.  A few cell phones were raised to snap a shot of the passing Onew, but the idol himself barely noticed.   

Their meeting was being held in a conference room at the end of the hall.  Three of the walls were solid but the fourth, with the door, was made out of glass.  Onew knew this from past experience doing shows for this network and so he knew that he would be able to see his bride-to-be before he even entered the room.

They rounded the corner and Onew craned his neck…and almost tripped from the shock.

He honestly didn’t know who he had been expecting.  Rumors had been flying after someone leaked that Onew was joining the show.  Everyone from Kim Yuna to Jung Juri to Shin Bongsun had been mentioned, but no one had thought of her.

She quirked an eyebrow at him through the glass with a slight smile and tapped her chin as she reached forward for a glass of water. 

Onew realized his jaw was hanging open and clapped it shut with an audible click that jarred his ears. 

He was given a terse look before the door was opened and Onew’s slid his idol persona smoothly back into place, a smile locked on his rounded face.

Well this was certainly interesting.

“Onew!” a voice boomed from the head of the table.  It was the head PD of We Got Married!  Onew had met him before during one of his sporadic appearances as a side character or a panelist commenting on the couples.  “Good to see you again!”

“It’s a pleasure to be working with you again,” Onew bowed, concentrating on keeping the smile locked in place.

“Well, time to meet your wife eh?” he winked conspiratorially and gestured to the other side of the table.

For the first time Onew realized that she was alone.  There was no manager there, buzzing at her side.  He had been so startled upon seeing her through the glass that he hadn’t taken notice of anything else.  That was a bit puzzling to him and he noted it in the back of his mind as something to think over later.

“Onew meet Lex Green.”  He pronounced it, “Le-xa Gree-na.”

Onew hesitated a moment, caught in a partial bow as she stood up.  Instead, he leaned back up and reached out his hand, saying in English, “Pleased to meet you.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”  Her hand felt rough in his.  She didn’t have the soft hands that he was used to dealing with from female idols.  They were bigger too, though she was bigger in general to most Korean women.  She came up to about his nose, and would be his height in a decent pair of heels.  But she stood before him in a pair of worn jeans with a hole in the right knee, a plain dark blue hoodie, and dirty pair of converse sneakers that may once have been a light purple or blue, but were now just a dishwash grey color. 

Her hazel eyes smiled up at him from behind a pair of rectangular purple framed glasses that sat high up on her nose.  He had seen them on her before, in pictures and on screen, but looking at them now he realized that they were real glasses, with prescription lenses that up close made one eye appear just so slightly larger than the other, and not just an additional accessory intended to promote a certain image of her.

She wasn’t skinny, nor was she fat.  She looked sturdy was the only way that he could think to describe her, with slightly wide shoulders and only a slight curve to her waist.  She was leanly muscled and rumor had it that she hid a nice set of abs away under her shirts that were never particularly form fitting, unlike the typical fashions that ran through Korea. 

Her skin was pale, excessively so, though what could you expect from someone of Irish ancestry?  Maybe that was what was throwing Onew so much about her being chosen?  He couldn’t remember there ever having been an inter-racial couple on the show before. 

Medium brown hair fell around her shoulders, all of it was a slight curl and a little bit of frizz that told Onew that the look was entirely natural and not the product of a stylist’s daydream. 

Her eyebrow quirked once more and there was an amused twitch of her lips which told him that he had been hanging on to her hand for too long.

She gently shook her hand free and said, “I’ve been a fan of yours for years.  SHINee is one of my favorite groups.”

Onew noted that her voice was low for a woman’s, but it sounded strong and steady.  There was a tone to it that told Onew that she probably had a decent enough singing voice.  She probably wasn’t going to be on any stages anytime soon, well outside of a noraebong anyway, but it wouldn’t be unpleasant, just not memorable.

“Th-thank you.  I’ll tell the rest of the guys.”

She smiled and nodded a little before returning to her seat and Onew scrambled into his, wiping his suddenly sweating palms on the legs of his pants. 

“So you two haven’t met before?”  The PD inquired.

“No,” she answered in slightly slow Korean.  “We’ve never been to the same shows or at the same events before.”

Onew thought her accent was odd.  She had the slight lilt of an American, but at the same time he could almost hear a country dialect as well, almost like what Key had sounded like when they all first met.  She must have learned from someone who lived in a province. 

“Good, good.” He rubbed his hands together, “So you’re starting off as strangers.”  He nodded to himself and hummed.

“Alright!” He clapped his hands together.  “You are a first as a couple.  A truly international couple.  Onew is Korean and Lex is American.  We want to play on that angle – of two cultures coming together.”

Onew nodded slowly and Lex knitted her brows together. 

“So am I supposed to play down what I know about Korea and Korean culture?” she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly.

“Only as much as you feel is natural.” Was the response, though it was said in such a way as to imply that she really should not let on how much she knew. 

I wonder how much she actually does know.  He thought.  He had wondered when he saw her in television shows if she had just been reading off of a script or if she really understood the words she was saying – and seeing her speak Korean today showed him that she actually had a grasp on the language.  Well that at least would make doing this show that much easier.

“With SHINee’s comeback next month and your movie coming out the month after that,” the PD said with a gesture towards Lex, “I figure we can milk a solid few months out of you.  People will tune in if only to see a bi-racial couple.” 

Onew could practically feel the glee emanating off of the man.  He knew he was going to cause a controversy and he was loving every second of it.  He looked across the table and Lex and they met eyes, they were both thinking the same thing: We’re screwed.

The man prattled on for at least another hour.  Onew paid half-attention, nodded regularly and adding in a “yes” or an “of coarse” to make it sound like he cared.

His manager would fill him in later.

For now he studied Lex and ran over what he knew about her.

She had shown up on the Korean small screen about two years ago.  She had been the member of a cast on a TV show cooked up by the brains at MNet.  As a station that airs shows both in Korea and overseas, it wanted a show intended to appeal to both audiences at the same time.  So they came up with the idea of bringing a bunch of foreigners to live in a house in Korea, where they would do Korean things and have to try and get by in Korea.  (Think Real World: Korea)

She was one of three girls and the only American on the show.  There had been cast members from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England and Ireland as well.  Koreans had been fascinated.  The followed the subtitles with rapt attention, so intrigued by how Westerners would react to their culture.  Some reacted better than others.  Lex was one of the ones that took well to living in Korea and people had been intrigued by the girl who was actually one of the youngest in the house, but ended up taking on the role of caretaker to the others, their own house mom.  She cleaned, cooked and took care of the others when they were sick.  Netizens started calling her the ‘waygook mama.’  

After the show was over though, she fell into some hot water when it was revealed that she wasn’t exactly new to Korea.  In fact, almost half of the show’s cast had been found in Korea.  Some were traveling through Asia and happened to be in the right place at the right time, some, like Lex, had been here to work.  She and the boy from Ireland had both been teaching English for a couple of years already when they were cast. 

No one had ever said that they had to be complete newbies to Korea.  The fervor eventually died down and after a couple of months, she peaked up again in the media.  This time she had been cast in a small part in a TV show called Clash, as in culture clash.  The show was following characters, both foreign and Korean, and their interactions with each other.  She was playing a tutor to a chaebol’s spoiled son.  It wasn’t a big part, but she didn’t really have any acting experience.  She did well, even doing some physical stunts for the role during an episode about the dangers foreign women can face in Korea, when her character was physically attacked and couldn’t report it without someone else being there to translate – violating any sense of privacy the character might have wanted to have about the situation – and the reaction of the Korean police to a foreigner's distress. 

Onew hadn’t watched the show but Minho had.  The rapper said that he had liked it.  Said it was different from other shows he had been seeing on TV.  “And the romance part isn’t obnoxious like it usually is with most shows…” 

That show had wrapped to mild acclaim and a couple of months later she had landed another role.  This time she was playing a college professor.  Not a main role still, but best friend to the main character.  Critics derided the acting of the leading lady, but spoke highly of hers and she had been called one of the new actresses to watch. 

She had started up on variety shows after that, and people were surprised by the fact that she knew Korean (“Well, I’ve lived here for five years.  It’s not perfect but I can understand most of what people say most of the time.”).  Her confused expression when she didn’t understand, or someone made a reference to something that was before her time in Korea, was beloved by the fans as she tried to suss out just what that had meant before she finally caved and asked someone to explain it to her.  It became something of a running gag when she was on shows to use obscure references just to see her react to them.

Her appearance was often made fun of on these shows because she wasn’t a typical Western beauty.  And she played right along with it, not getting offended but going with the flow.  She used to argue that she wasn't much of a beauty period.  She wasn’t particularly tall, she wasn’t slender, her thighs were wide, and she was a little overly full in the and chest regions, but she tended to wear clothes that camouflaged that.  While it came together to create something not particularly noteworthy, in her own words, individual assets were often discussed and admired.  She had deep double eye-lid, typical of a Westerner, and the other girls on the shows would swoon over them.  She had full, pink lips with none of the trickery of make-up.  They were so deep a pink that she would not wear anything on them and would they would still draw attention. 

She had even got an add deal out of it.  With her full lips, a lip gloss campaign wanted to use her as their lip model.  So for a while posters of her lips and chin were everywhere in Seoul. 

And now apparently she has landed a movie role.

“And with your relationship here mirroring the relationship of your character in the movie, it should segue nicely for you.” 

“It should, thank you.” 

Onew jumped back into the conversation and was thrown for a moment.  Lex looked at him with laughter in her eyes and he knew he was busted.  She knew damn well that he wasn’t paying so much as one iota of attention to the people in front of him.  But at least she didn’t seem mad about it.  She seemed amused by it more than anything.

A sudden clap brought their meeting to an end. 

“Well now, here are the details for next week, where you should meet and when.”  A piece of paper was shoved into Onew’s hands but he didn’t bother paying that close of attention.  He’d look at it later. 

They all stood up from the table, and as his manager had a few last words for the PD, Onew stepped around the table and up to his “wife.”

“So, excited about the show?” He began, drawing out his words cautiously.

She shrugged her shoulders and adjusted a plain black, worn black tote bag that he hadn’t seen sitting on the ground during this whole meeting.  “It’s whatever we make it.”  She said, eyeing him with a knowing glance.

“Alright, to be fair?  I never wanted to do this show.”  Onew just dropped the cards on the table and waited for her reaction.

She nodded, “To be fair, I don’t particularly want to either.  The studio says I have to though so how about we just make it fun, yeah?”  She looked up kind of hopefully.  “Just be goofy and low-key.  Don’t plan anything without the other knowing ahead of time so there aren’t any horrific reactions, you know, just be friends about it.  I’m not looking for any relationships, pretend or otherwise.”  There had been a temporary shadow crossed her eyes but it was gone before Onew could be sure if it was even there.

Instead he just nodded.  “Sounds fair enough.” 

She reached into her bag and came out with a bright green pad of large, lined post-its and a purple pen.  “Here,” she said, scribbling something and pulling the page off of her pad, “here’s my phone number.  Call me and I’ll get your number from there.”  She smiled at him.  “Is it weird that I’m glad that neither of us is really gung-ho to do this?”

Now it was Onew’s turn to shrug.  “At least we’re on the same page.”

She nodded and glanced down at her watch. Not a nice delicate gold or silver like most girls in the entertainment industry wore, but a bulky black and grey plastic one that looked quite badly beat up by time and use.  “I’ve got to get going, I have an appointment with my studio to keep.”

She bowed and said her goodbyes before making her way out of the door.

Onew smiled then, as his own manager began to herd him from the room.  This might work out well enough after all. 

*****

“So she was fine with you being all weird about the show?”  Taemin asked around his chopsticks which were still planted firmly in his mouth.

“Seemed to be.  Guess her studio is kind of forcing her to do this too.”  Onew shrugged, “Works well enough for me though, I’m glad that she’s not taking this so seriously. 

Key huffed from the other side of the table, next to Taemin.  “I was jealous that they gave you the show when I’ve wanted to do it for years, but hearing how she is treating this whole situation I guess it really doesn’t matter that they chose you.”  He placed his chopsticks down carefully, “I probably would have gone crazy with someone who didn’t care.”  He pulled a face, “and Lex Green isn’t really my type anyway.”

Onew wondered for a moment just what that meant.  For a moment he was left wondering whether he should be offended about what Key had just said or not.  Onew shook it off and instead just laughed, “I was just so damn grateful.  Now I don’t have to make some big production out of it just for the girl.  And she doesn’t have to either – it’s perfect.”

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