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The field day events in Korea are way different than the ones I grew up with in America. We have things like dodgeball and tug-a-war. But flower arranging? That’s a new one. Is this how they always do it, or is it just because I'm on a reality show?
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The Pepero game went off without a hitch, at least on Letty and Ki Tae’s part. Ji Ah trembled so hard that the cookie stick broke almost the moment they started. The only couple that did worse was Sana and Chance. When the whistle blew, he yanked the cookie away with his teeth and swallowed the whole thing in one bite.
Chance wasn’t taking any chances.
Mimi and Young Joon were their closest competition, but Letty and Ki Tae nibbled their cookie to a tiny sliver that no one could beat. Even though there wasn’t actual lip contact, Letty got close enough to see every nook and cranny of his sparkling white teeth. No toilet paper awards this time. They accepted their fake gold medals and posed as if they were true Olympians. The tally board showed their day long competition was evenly matched. Each couple had won one event, and the final game would determine who emerged the ultimate victors.
Letty dreaded another contest that required actual athletic skill as she hobbled back to her camping chair. Fun as it was to roll around in the grass and play almost kissing games with her ultimate bias, her muscles felt older than twenty five on this chilly winter afternoon. She collapsed in the seat and pulled her fuzzy pink blanket over her shoulders.
Mimi walked to the chair beside her with a similar tired limp. Letty noted the dark shadows underneath her eyes that the makeup failed to hide. Ben had told her Mimi spent all day filming the television show, then went back to the agency for singing and dance rehearsals until the early morning hours. She was preparing for her upcoming debut with a new girl group.
Mimi groaned as she inched her way down to the seat. She balled up a fist and pounded it behind her shoulder for a few seconds, before her hand slid down to her lap and she sat in a crumpled heap.
“Oh, sweetie!” Letty leaped up and squeezed between the two chairs to stand behind her. Mimi jumped when Letty touched her shoulders.
“Relax.” She patted her. “I'm an expert at working the kinks out of back muscles. When I was a kid, my dad used to have me rub his shoulders every night when he came home from work.”
Mimi didn't understand a word, of course. But her shoulders unbunched and she allowed Letty to knead her tired body like a ball of dough.
“I don't know how you do it! Reality show, singing lessons, dance rehearsals, interviews, and who knows what else. You must want this bad.”
Mimi's response was a long, exhausted sigh.
“I'm ashamed to admit it, but I can't remember anything I've ever worked that hard for. I've never been particularly career oriented. My dream was to be the 1950s housewife raising her kids and wearing cute little aprons as I prepared dinner for my husband. I know! Not very 21st century of me. But I think there's hidden honor in raising a family. That's what my mom did. And I wanted to do it too. Get married.”
“Marr-ee Mah-ee Staw-kuh,” Mimi murmured in halting English.
“I know, right?” Letty laughed as she stiffened her hands and chopped tiny little patterns up and down Mimi's back. “Who would have thought my first marriage would be with an internationally loved K-pop star? Not that this is real or anything. I'm not that delusional.”
Mimi's head drooped forward and Letty saw she was asleep. She went back to rubbing but kept talking, more to herself than anyone else.
“I've been driving to work every day, sitting at a desk, whiling my life away as I wait for Mr. Right. It's very safe and peaceful. And mind numbingly boring. What if I have to wait a long time to get married? Is that really how I want to remember my twenties?”
Mimi's body started to lurch forward and Letty grabbed her shoulders and gently leaned the tired girl against the chair. She tilted Mimi's head back until it rested against the canvas material and grabbed her own blanket. Letty whispered as she tucked her in.
“This experience taught me how it feels to wake up excited every morning. Doing something that makes my heart pound.” Letty wrapped the fuzzy pink fabric around the sleeping trainee as lightly as she could. “It makes me wonder if I got it all wrong. Even if I got married, no matter how great it was, would it be enough? I think something might still be missing. Not in him. But in me. I don't know ... I just—”
A familiar megaphoned voice blared over the set and Mimi woke with a jerk. Her hands tangled in the blanket wrapped around her and she looked up at Letty. She stood and passed it back to her with a soft smile.
“It's time, ladies.” Ben walked up to them with clipboard in hand.
From the expression on his face, it was like their earlier Pepero practice had never happened. His tone was all business as he filled Letty in on what their last challenge would be. When he was done, Letty needed a moment to process.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “They brought a famous flower arranger in?”
“Flower artiste.” Ben emphasized the last word with a smirk.
“Flower artiste then. And he watched videos of us from the show and designed bouquets that are supposed to represent each bride?”
“You got it.”
“The guys have to study the bouquets and pick the one that matches their wife?”
“Yes. Whoever gets it correct in the shortest amount of time is the winner.”
“So what are the brides supposed to do?”
“Stand there and accept the bouquet when the husband hands it to her if he guesses right. If he doesn’t, you refuse it.”
“Sounds simple enough.” Letty smiled. “Way better than running across a soccer field!”
After a long day of jump rope, water balloon tossing, and three-legged races, Letty was relieved that her part only required her to stand there. Ben led her to the filming area where four flower vases stood on separate wooden stands.
“Do you know which arrangement is for which bride?” Letty asked.
“I think it’s pretty obvious which one is supposed to be Sana.”
They both laughed as they looked at the bouquet in the middle comprised solely of Birds of Paradise. The sharp pointy flowers that looked like the head of a woodpecker with an orange and purple mohawk perfectly captured the passionate bride’s more unique qualities.
“I’m not sure about the other two.” Ben walked up to the stand on the far right. “But this has got to be you.”
He stood beside an arrangement of vibrant sunflowers.
“Why do you think so?”
“They’re bright and friendly like sunshine. And the warm brown centers match your eyes.”
Letty’s heart stuttered at his words. Or was it his smile as he said them?
It was a good thing Director Cho appeared because she couldn’t have uttered a coherent sentence if she wanted to. The man approached them and handed Ben a paper while giving him instructions. After briefing him, he hollered at the crew and everyone got into filming positions.
“Looks like I was right.” Ben studied the list in his hand. “You’re the sunflowers. The long stemmed roses are Mimi. The daisies are Ji Ah. And the Birds of Paradise are Sana.”
The other brides arrived and Letty joined them while Ben headed behind the cameras. The ladies stood in a line by the flower stands and waited for their grooms. The B4U members played rock-paper-scissors to see in what order they would take their turn, and Ki Tae came in last. They led the men away from the scene so that they couldn’t observe what their bandmates picked.
Chance went first and strode up to the pedestals confidently. He snorted as he looked at the pointy orange flowers and then reached for the bunch of roses without hesitation. Sana stamped her foot when he tried to hand her the wrong bouquet. The cheeky wink that Chance gave Letty confirmed that his “mistake” had been no accident.
Young Joon went second, followed by Jin, and they both identified the correct flowers, but it took them awhile. It was finally Ki Tae’s turn. He walked in front of the cameras and slowly released a breath.
“Don’t be nervous, sweetie!” Letty called to him. “You can do it.”
He listened to the translation and gave her a thumbs up.
The other band members waited beside the women. Chance must have gotten bored with the slow proceedings, because he stepped forward and mimicked the cheesy voice of their Master of Ceremonies.
“Now we begin. Which bouquet will Ki Tae choose for his beloved? Pick carefully or you might break her heart.” Chance switched back and forth between English and Korean as he waved his arms.
Ki Tae approached the stands and studied each. He passed in front of every bouquet twice before he made a comment and the crew laughed.
“He said he better get this right or his wife will give him trouble later,” Ben told Letty in her earpiece.
Ki Tae walked in front of the sunflowers for the third time and reached for them as he said something.
“These look familiar,” Ben translated.
Letty beamed at her fake husband. Did he sense her warmth radiating from the flowers like Ben had? She knew she picked the right bias.
Ki Tae held the flowers over his head, shouted something, and Ben started to translate once again.
“It’s her. It’s Letty.”
Ki Tae yelled something else and Letty actually recognized two things he said - gwiyeowo and tong tong.
Her smile disappeared as she recognized the Korean phrases for cute and chubby. She heard Ben’s voice pause before he continued.
“Uh, I ... I’d recognize my cute, little wife anywhere.”
Letty’s eyes cut over to where he was sitting and Ben averted his gaze, flipping through the script on his lap. She pasted a smile on her face as Ki Tae strutted over and presented the flowers to her. Letty accepted them and he grabbed her in a hug. She pounded on his back, perhaps a little harder than necessary, and tweaked his chin with her fingers.
“Such a clever husband.”
He puffed up and she stepped out of his embrace, dropping the flowers to her side.
“Good job,” Chance said in English as he stepped between them. He draped his arms around both their shoulders and squeezed Ki Tae’s so hard that he yelped.
The Master of Ceremonies rushed up to join them and handed over a large golden trophy for Letty and Ki Tae to hold together. He talked for quite a while in Korean, but Letty didn’t get a translation. She glanced at where Ben was sitting. He snapped out of his silence and gave a general overview of the MC’s speech.
“He’s thanking everyone for coming. Saying that true love always finds a way, blah blah. And giving a teaser for next week’s episode.”
Letty kept the smile on her face as the director’s strident voice broke in and ended it for the day. Then she walked over to her camping chair that was set next to Ji Ah’s. The girl jumped up and placed a coat around her shoulders as she drew closer.
“Cold!” she told her in English as she pulled out a hot pack and placed it in Letty’s hand.
Letty thanked her in Korean and slipped her arms through the sleeves as she turned to her own camp chair. She sat down and pulled the fuzzy pink blanket over her lap. Letty enjoyed the warmth of the hot pack as she grasped it in her “chubby” hands.
She let out a shaky breath and blinked rapidly. It was ridiculous to be so sensitive over one word, right? It wasn’t the first time someone had called her chubby. She knew Ki Tae meant it in an endearing way, and that the word could have an affectionate connotation in Korean. And he had also said cute, right?
Letty leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She hated being called cute almost as much as she hated being called chubby. Just once, she’d like to be the knockout that everyone turned to stare at when she walked through the door. Instead of pleasingly plump. More to love. All those adjectives that slender people thought were less offensive. But the fact that they pointed out your weight at all spoke volumes.
Ben ran over and crouched in front of her.
“Are you warm enough? Would you like me to get you some cocoa?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
“What about a hot pack or another blanket?” He scanned her from head to toe like a father checking on his child at the playground.
“My cute, chubby hands have this hot pack from Ji Ah to keep them warm.” She held up the small white bag.
Ben grimaced. “You caught that, huh?”
“I understand more Korean than people think. I’ve heard tong tong a lot in the dramas and variety shows.”
“The entertainment industry can be very unprogressive when it comes to weight.” Ben put one knee on the ground to steady himself and leaned towards her. “The poor female singers at our agency often live on nothing but a salad and one hardboiled egg a day.”
“With dressing?” Letty asked with a twist of her lips.
“Only on holidays.” Ben smiled back at her.
Letty sat up a little straighter and squared her shoulders. “I’ve already given my pretend husband some English lessons in between scenes. I guess I’ll just have to add positive body image education to our study schedule.”
“It’s not surprising he said something that stupid.” Ben lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “I’ve heard he has the lowest IQ at UStar.”
“Hey!” Letty pulled both of her hands out from under the blanket and pounded him on the shoulders. “I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but don’t hate on the husband.”
“Ow! Ow!” Ben fended off her flying fists with overdramatic karate poses but she got in a few more whacks before she stopped.
“Don’t even pretend my chubby fists made a dent in those broad shoulders,” she said.
Ben reached over and picked up the hand closest to him. He studied it for a long moment, flipping it back and forth between his larger ones before he looked up and smiled.
“Looks pretty perfect to me.”
Letty snorted and swatted him with her free hand. “Player.”
“If I’m such a player, I must know what I’m talking about. Right?”
Ben waggled his eyebrows and she smacked him again. But she did feel better. Letty had always been easy that way. Easy to wound, but easy to forgive. It was like her friend from Texas used to say.
Life is too short to walk around with a mess of hurt hanging off you.
Besides, it was almost worth the heartache if it meant she got a sweet, handsome supporter like Ben to boost her back up. Every chubby cloud had its silver lining.
