12th March 2015, Yuksamdong

I was lying on our bed that lazy Thursday morning when I heard my husband, Song Jae-rim, calling from the kitchen.

“So-eun-ah!  Coffee?”

I thought for a moment about what I wanted if I were to order from a menu.  “Iced tea.”

A smile cracked my face as I pictured him going still for a second. 

I laughed and got to my feet, exiting the bedroom.  I was met with an incredulous stare.  Knowing him, he would try to find a way to grant my wish, even if it was early in the morning.  “I want to drink something new today.” 

I walked over to him. “Iced tea.”

He mischievously poked at my white undershirt, which hanging out from the loose baby blue sweater I was wearing.  “There’s iced cake.”

Then that derpy, wide grin unfolded, followed by his goofy laughter. 

While I convinced myself I was familiar with Jae-rim oppa’s unique sense of humor, I couldn’t believe he managed to fluster me again.  “What are you doing early in the morning?” I asked, blinking at him.

All right, it might appear as though he was being byuntae lifting the hem of my blouse just then, but I would fervently defend my caring husband of 7 months—he might be an oddball, but never malicious. 

He patted my shoulder apologetically.  “I’m still not fully awake yet.”

I smiled and forgave him instantly, informing him of my real requested drink this morning.  “Americano.”

“Americano-ro,” he sang good-naturedly, preparing just that.

Taking our cups to the living room, I noticed a mission card placed on the table. 

“What is it?” I queried, settling down on the floor beside him. 

Oppa took hold of it, taking the card out of the red envelope.  “I received it.  Shall I read it?”

“No, I want to,” I said, as he handed it to me.  One look, and I knew that it wasn’t an ordinary mission card. 

The mission was written by hand, and I recognized his slightly uneven, yet legible penmanship.  “What is this?  Did you write it?”

I knew I was in for a surprise when I read it out loud:

To SoLim couple who breaks conventions:

Make special candy and spend sweet time together.

Suddenly, we were standing face-to-face and he was presenting me a modest, thoughtful bouquet of flowers.  I wasn’t sure why I threw my head back in laughter at the sight of him going down on one knee as he did it. 

Maybe I was still bashful whenever he expressed his romanticism.  Never in my life had I been showered this much attention before.  Sometimes I still speculated if it was real.  Just when I thought I had him all figured out, that I could predict at least 95% of what was on his mind, he never ceased to amaze me. 

What if we weren’t in a variety show, but in our own little world? 

Since my husband had always been consistent with his actions, I had come to trust his sincerity.

I had almost forgotten about White Day, which exact date we wouldn’t be able to spend together.  Leave it Jae-rim oppa to make an event out of it, even if we were just at home.

Despite his busy schedule, with an ongoing drama and several concurrent CFs, he still managed to make these heart-warming preparations, which made me wonder…

Did he even sleep?

“It’s not fun just making candy,” he was telling me as we sat down on the floor again.  “We’ll make candy with flowers in it.”

First time I had heard of such a thing. 

So that was why he had candy-making tools and a small stove and fruits all spread out on the kitchen counter.  I thought the fruits were for breakfast.

“And…” Jae-rim oppa continued, pulling out a rectangular plastic packet underneath the table, “our pictures will be in it.”

He took them out and showed me several of our memories together.  I smiled, because he was so sentimental that he even had our photos printed, as I gladly browsed through them. 

I grinned even wider when I spotted my favorite.  “I was happiest with this,” I pointed out, showing it to him.

He looked at it, a bit confused.  “Why?”

It was the time we were making the couple T-shirts and he had helped me by holding two ends of the sleeves with his hands.  Going the extra mile, my husband had pulled the last end of the triangle with his teeth, “to make it taut.”

“You were really silly back then,” I remarked, already setting it aside to turn it into a preserved sweet.

“But I’m always silly.”  

Well, Jae-rim oppa was the definition of silly... but in a good way.

“Let’s go look for the recipe.”  I went for my phone to search online when I glanced up at him sporting the most exaggerated duck face on a grown man that I had ever seen.  “Hey, that’s not bad.”  I activated my camera, and asked him to do it again.

And I took a snapshot of my second favorite picture of him.

We helped each other to peel the kiwi and oranges for the candy.  “The pension kitchen on the house that we stayed in Jeju Island was nice, huh?” I commented, missing all that space already.

“The island kitchen,” I heard my husband sigh wistfully.  “It was like a dream I longed for.”

I smiled just a little, seeing a couple of things from our left-over ingredients that would make him feel better.  “Nampyeon, for your health, I’ll put dates in the candy.”

He looked baffled as he chewed on an orange, watching me open the packet. 

“And… garlic candy!” I announced excitedly, since he looked so tired.  I remembered him mentioning how ancient Egyptians used to consume garlic for rejuvenation.  “Let’s add garlic.”

He began to shake his head, declining, when I cut open the packaging.  “We can’t do that.”

“No, I want to make it for you.”

He attempted to take it from me, though half-heartedly, with only one of his arms over my left shoulder and he wasn’t even trying very hard.  Still his arm was way longer than mine so I struggled to keep the garlic away, determined to make healthy candy along with the traditional, teeth-rotting ones.

Yes, he was hugging me.

And I was letting him.

“Manura,” (Wife) he protested.  “Manura, no garlic.”

“Nampyeon,” I insisted, “you said you were tired.  This will give you energy.” 

He tried to seize it from me one last time but I was too fast for him. 

“I’ll cut it for you.”  I looked around for a knife to slice a miniscule bite-size for him.  I poised it over his mouth.  “Here, try it.”

He looked at me with a bit of exasperation but ultimately opened his mouth and chewed.  “It’s spicy.”  And then he laughed.

I cut a couple more cloves of garlic and turned back to the sink to wash the knife. 

How was I supposed to know what my mischievous husband would do next?

I felt him tap me on the arm so I turned to him, and he blew hard on my face.

The pungent odor that I absolutely abhorred reached my nostrils and down my throat, making me gag.  I instantly averted my face from him, wiping a sliver of garlic that landed on my lips from his mouth.

Sometimes I was conflicted about Jae-rim’s oppa’s eccentric antics—if they were his way of relating to me or subtle attempts for indirect kisses? 

Now, how romantic could he get when he was cupping his hand over his mouth—with his extra-strength garlic-infused breath—and sighing down my hair and calling my name?

“It smells so bad,” I groaned, cowering while he curved over me, realizing that my joke on him had backfired, which almost always happened. 

“It does?” he asked innocently, as if he didn’t know.

“Yes, oppa,” I confirmed, hoping to change the subject as I pulled out the next ingredient.  “Have some ginseng candy.”

Thankfully, he relented on me, giving me some space to peel the ginseng while commenting in puzzlement that this candy-making activity was getting weirder.

“No, you’ll get healthier,” I assured, busy with my own task but full of good intentions.  It wasn’t lost to me how much weight he had lost.  I knew he had been starting his diet and exercise regimen after our honeymoon in Turkey, and he fittingly looked the part, playing the dashing Kendo master in his new drama.  He had a tendency to overexert himself, and now he was leaner and even more toned than when we first met.

I supported his goals and I understood his dedication to his craft, but the last thing I wanted was for him to get sick. 

I began skewering a super-healthy cocktail of sliced fruit and spices for him, combining garlic, ginseng and a date in one. 

While he was smiling, he didn’t seem too amused.  “That’s chicken skewer!”

“No, it’s ginseng kebab!” I kidded, setting it aside while I pierced a whole apple with a stick and pretended to challenge the Kendo master in a duel.  “Apple candy!”

He guffawed.  “Is that my punishment?”

“Aniya!” I conceded.  He wasn’t getting any punishment today… yet.

My husband fetched a bag of white sugar to warm up for the syrup. 

“In the recipe earlier, it said it’s 2:1 ratio of sugar and water,” I told him, while I skewered some more fruits.

He looked confused as he stared thoughtfully into space, probably doing a mental calculation. 

He had that exact same befuddled expression when we had experimented with making 100 pieces of red bean and custard fish bread last January as thanksgiving to some of our fans.  The rather complicated recipe instruction had indicated a 2-egg-to-8-fish-bread equivalent.  He even had written it all down with elaborate columns, as if seeing all the factors on paper was going to magically reveal the quotient.

Give an equation as such to both Theater-Arts-inclined people, who were initially capable of solving simple arithmetic problems, if you want our heads to burst.  Even then, we still wouldn’t have figured out the answer.

So far, we hadn’t received any complaints from the fans we had gifted the fish bread to. 

Especially the custard ones.  Hahaha!

“2 parts sugar to 1 part water,” he clarified, bringing the bag of sugar over to the counter.  “Should we also put a bit of starch in?”

“It says to put 60% to 70% in,” I told him, referring to the sugar.  “But I don’t know what that means.”  I looked up from my slicing with a grimace.  “It’s hard.”

“It is hard.”  He began to cut a small diagonal opening on top of the bag of sugar, weighing it carefully in his hand.  “I don’t know Math.  We were Arts majors.”

I liked the way he justified it.

We both opted to just measure it instinctively, as we did with the fish bread.  He poured the sugar in the pot and I told him to put in more.  Then he added the water, just enough to make the mixture thick.

I went over and the mini-stove, stirring the concoction with a spoon.  My ever-attentive husband noticed that I had a scratch on my hand. 

“What’s with this?” he asked, touching it.

I didn’t even know how it got there.  “I get hurt easily,” I replied casually.

I thought he was going to tell me not to get hurt without his permission again. 

Good Lord, that was so cringingly cheesy.

Months ago, I read from one of his interviews that he even thought so. 

“Take care of your body,” he reminded me gently, being this protective oppa/husband/father again all rolled into one.

“I am,” I promised, concentrating on the syrup.  “That’s why I’m making healthy candy!” I pointed over to the counter. 

“That’s why you added ginseng and garlic?”

“Of course.” 

But I wasn’t going to eat the healthy variety.  Those were for him.  (kekeke)

So we started dipping the fruits and spices into the thickened syrup, including the whole apple.  We also put the syrup over the neon pink circular candy molder that we decorated with some of our pictures to commemorate White Day with.

I was taking a rest on the sofa while waiting for the candies to harden when my husband came up behind me.

I almost jumped out of my skin as he was looking at me upside down, his adorable yet serious face suddenly so close that I had to look away.

“It’s White Day,” he said, smiling. 

His lips pressed gently on the top of my head and I even grew more nervous, tucking my hair behind my ears.  “You have to confess then.”

I hoped he didn’t see the flush rapidly creeping up my cheeks.

“Hmm…” he murmured, his lips brushing on my hair.  His voice grew kind of hushed now, almost… husky. 

Or maybe it just sounded like that to me.

“Just a plain confession is boring,” he whispered, his lips now unmistakably kissing my head with every deliberately uttered word, “so I brought something fun.”

“You did?” I asked, half-anxious, half-anticipating.  “Araseo.”

I knew he was still smiling when he retreated to the bedroom to get my surprise.  I had opted not to give him chocolates for Valentine’s Day.  Instead, I had arranged an event at a live basketball game and danced to AOA’s “Like A Cat”—not knowing where that courage or audacity had sprouted from—because this man had done so much for me.

I wondered what else this busy namja had up his sleeve for today.

Each time we spend the day together was like a never-ending proposal of feelings for him.  I had learned not to curl my fingers, as was my initial knee-jerk reaction in our first months together.  However, on the inside, nothing had changed.

My heart still fluttered like that of a butterfly’s wings taking flight.

“What is this fun thing?” I called out, a bit of excitement bubbling up in me.

And then I was almost blinded by a huge box—wrapped in gold paper—that he swiftly set down on my lap.

“It’s a gift,” he proudly revealed, going around to sit next to me on the couch and opening it for me.

He started singing this silly song about going back in time and then going to the future as he pulled my present out, which turned out to be this small and cute version of an arcade clawing machine where you could get prices when you “grabbed” them using the mechanical crane. 

And it was pink and purple, which pleased me the most.

There were tiny boxes inside. 

So were all of them gifts for me?

“You have to put in 50 cents so you could take them all out,” I vaguely heard him say as I sat down in front of the table, already forming a strategy in my mind as to how I was going to claim all of my prizes. 

I tried the controls, which were harder to handle than I expected.  “I do?”  My eyes inspected that deceptively childish contraption meticulously, searching for a way to input the most minimum effort. 

On top of the machine, I discovered a pink door where my husband must have dropped the tiny gift boxes in.  I opened it, peering inside, to which he grabbed hold of my hand automatically.

“Yah!” he scolded playfully, as I snatched my hand away.  “You can’t do that!”

We both cracked up.

“That’s not the right way!” He whined, securing the tiny door to its place. 

Okay, fine.  Since he invested time and money preparing this small surprise for me, I might as well show him I appreciated it by participating in his mini-game.

“There’s a time limit,” he cautioned, to which I paid no heed. 

I was pretty competitive, so I was confident I would win in the shortest time possible.  “Okay.”

I felt him gather my long hair gently in his hands, pulling it away from my face so I could focus. 

I loved that my husband was thoughtful that way. 

A minute later, I was still not successful.  “I can’t get them.” 

However, I wasn’t one to give up easily so I kept trying. 

Another minute and I could feel failure slowly drenching my spirit.

My eyes narrowed now, my brows furrowing, as the toy crane clawed on a box and then dropped it again!

Was it doing it on purpose?

I sat back in frustration, my annoyance now transparent on my face.  I glared at the yellow-green crane, its cuteness fast losing its appeal to me.

My husband leaned in and stared at me in amusement.  I knew he was especially delighted when I got riled up like this, referring to my death stare my “Fraxel glare.”

My determination took over and, finally, I was able to get one box into the shoot. 

“Daebak,” my husband complimented, encouraging me to open my prize.

Curiously, it had a coupon inside.

Jae-rim oppa and I were indeed influencing each other.  I had given him coupons on our honeymoon, now he was giving me some.

As… payback?

He was looking over when I was about to read mine, so I snapped my hands shut, warning him with a look.

I giggled when I read what he had written in it.  “Three hugs.”

He laughed happily.

I wanted to say he didn’t need to give me a coupon for that.  Didn’t he just hug me in the kitchen minutes ago?  “But we hug all the time,” I pointed out instead.

“I’ll hug you differently,” he promised, which made me slightly uneasy.

Still, I couldn’t help looking forward to what he meant by that so I gave him permission.  “Araseo.” 

I saw him opening another of the tiny boxes.  “What is that?”

He handed me the orange coupon.  “Piggyback ride,” I read out loud eagerly. 

Afterwards, he tapped his index finger impatiently on the grabbing machine, where a small red gift tied with a brown ribbon was still inside, buried under a few more boxes. 

“I want to get that one,” I told him, grinning. 

He was whining like a huge moody toddler that I was laughing, handling the controls as best I could.  “Arato!  I have to get the other boxes on top of it first.”

“Hurry and grab it!” he appealed touchily, on the verge of a tantrum. 

Mercifully, the crane cooperated, and I was able to align it to the shoot before long.  Unfortunately, the gift was a little too big to get through.

“Let’s just consider it gotten,” my husband replied, breaking his own rules.  He turned over the grabbing machine and used his “manager privileges” to access the door on top. 

“Is this my gift?” I asked him, undoing the carefully tied ribbon.

“Yeah.”

“What is it?” I removed the transparent tape, my voice inadvertently dripping with aegyo.  “Earrings?”

“Something small.”

“A hair band?” I gasped, pleasantly surprised, as I pulled out a pretty bronze elastic hair tie with a ribbon as a center piece, studded with shiny crystals.

It was the same color as my hair.

“Oppa, you bought this?” I couldn’t believe it.

“It’s a small gift,” he revealed shyly, watching me as I pulled my hair up to try it on.

“It’s cute,” I told him, unable to look him in the eye for some reason.  It wasn’t what I expected.  It might have been a small gift, but the thought behind it was enormous beyond words.  “Gomawo.” 

I imagined my big and manly husband looking at different hair bands, picking them one by one and comparing them, and then choosing what he thought I would like.

He was right.

It was cute and I was thankful.

We set the grabbing machine aside as he tried cleaning up the counter. 

“When are you going to use your coupons?” he queried out of the blue.

“Coupon?” I echoed, picking up the two that I had won.  “When should I?”

I sat down on the sofa and decided to use the three hugs.

He looked at me and asked me to stand up.

Oh-kay…

I yelled out, caught completely off-guard, when he hooked one of his powerful arms under my knees while his other arm supported my back, carrying me honeymoon-style.

This was different, all right.

I could feel the strength surging through those corded muscles.  Perhaps his Kendo training really did wonders…

I was so embarrassed that I covered my face with my hands, laughing in mortification. 

Eottheoke!  The cameras were recording this!

“I’m hugging you three times,” he said, smiling really widely.

And then he tossed me in the air, causing another shriek from me. 

He caught me effortlessly and tossed me once more like it was nothing.

What was I?  A pizza dough?

I was deliciously anticipating my third hug, thinking maybe I should repay him by putting my arm around his neck when I landed, when the doorbell rang. 

~~ To be continued ~~