Work Text:
Click. Drag.
“He’s in love with her, you know.” The words are quiet, filling the editing bay softly and completely in the late night. The speaker leans back in her rolling chair, one hand still on her mouse, and waits for a response.
“What?” her friend and supposed-to-be supervisor asks, removing one earbud, his face illuminated by the glow of their screens in the dark room.
She rolls her dark eyes, turning back to her own screen and the scene there. “I said, he’s in love with her.”
File. Open. Ddongi 161004.
“Well, duh,” he responds. “Aren’t they all? Isn’t that why we’re getting paid?”
Click. Drag.
She frowns. The coloring here’s not quite right. Maybe if she just… ahh yes. That’s much better. “No, I mean, really.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You really believe that? After all we’ve seen?”
Left click. Properties. General.
“Well, it’s not like he’s the first…”
They’re driving down the California highway, volume at full blast, when Teesa suddenly shuts it down. She pulls over, turns her head to the side, and gives him a look.
“So,” she starts. “Who’s this Solar chick?”
Eric laughs, like he always does when someone brings her up. Always on the line between some truth and fiction, like VR, he once described it, or Pokemon Go. “We’re on this show together in Korea. It’s kind of like the bachelor, but-”
She waves a hand. “I already know about the show. I watch it sometimes.” At his expression she explains. “There are subs online. But that’s not what I was asking. What I was asking is who is she? Like, who is she to you?”
He shrugs his shoulders, eyes suddenly very focused on the scenery. “We’re married. But it’s fake. But it’s also not, I mean. We text and call and I see her at awards shows sometimes, although not for a while.” Eric rubs his hands on his khaki shorts, wiping off the sweat that sometimes comes when he talks about her. “She was at K-CON,” he adds.
“So… Facebook status is currently It’s Complicated?”
He laughs. “Yeah, you could say that. If my Korean fans weren’t going to mob me for it. If we were just normal people. But we’re not, obviously, because then we wouldn’t have even met, so…”
“But you want to be?”
Eric looks at the road ahead of them, wide and long and endless-seeming in the way only American highways are. There’s a fork in the road up ahead: a dirt path leading further into desert farmlands, unknowable in a much different way. “Yeah…” he says. “You could say that.”
Solar’s collection of movies is probably unbeatable. Only probably because she always likes to account for the fact that someone, somewhere in the world, is bound to be better at the things she’s good at than she is. Someone’s always smarter, prettier, more charming.
Someone always has better movies.
Whatever those movies are, though, she doesn’t have them. They’re not here right now and she really needs a movie right now because movies are how she processes things. She watches and waits and reflects and escapes, and by the end, everything is worked out.
By the end the couple gets together and all the secrets are revealed and everything works out happily ever after. Solar really needs a happily ever after right now.
Because happily ever afters are good and permanent and they’re something to look forward to at the end of the day. When all this is over and she’s successful and happy and actually settles down - for real, not in a simulation - they’re going to be there. But right now these will have to do.
Snowpiercer. She’s heard it’s good. She never saw it when it came out, but movies are always better like this - in her bed with a blanket wrapped around her. Everything just absorbs better that way.
Solar watches for a while, getting absorbed in the futuristic ideas of it all. It’s so far away that it almost makes her feel floaty.
And then, suddenly, there’s chaos onscreen and no one says any words about it really, but there it is: a choice. Left or Right. Curtis Everett looks one direction and then another, and then chooses.
Solar turns it off.
This is the downside of watching movies, she thinks. Sometimes she can get a little too invested in them. It wasn’t that he made the wrong choice, per se - she’d have to keep watching to figure that out - but more that he made any choice at all.
He still had time, didn’t he? He still had time to figure it out, to think about it a little longer before everything blew up in his face. And the choices weren’t really quite as simple as left or right, were they? They must’ve needed a little more time so he could make sure he was choosing correctly.
Just a little bit more time.
She’s on a train chugging full speed ahead towards a destination she hasn’t quite figured out yet, a fast approaching choice on the horizon. But she still has more time, doesn’t she? It’s not going to all be ripped out from under her quite yet, is it?
She pulls out her laptop.
The title of this song is something I’ve been wanting to tell you all along.
He rewatches this, sometimes, when thinking about the end of it all. It’s right up there on their YouTube page, after all, autoplaying every time he so much as tries to check up on the other couples - never himself, though; he knows where that leads.
That was always their problem, he’d thought; they never knew where the line was. But he knew. He was more and more aware of it every day. They watched and rewatched and re-examined and got so caught up in the whole thing that neither of them could tell up from down by the end of it.
Eric knows the game, though; it’s partially why he was so willing to join in. He knows the rules and the stakes and that’s why he gave her his number that night he walked her home - because eventually the show ends and the couple app is deleted and you have to pack up your house. And, sometimes, you never talk again.
He’s heard other stories, though.
These ones, the failure ones, are the worst, though. They’re also the ones closest to them. Henry and Yewon were… you know… Seho and Cao Lu didn’t get nearly enough time. And then there’s this one; Sungjae and Joy, who did them the courtesy of promoting them before their first episode even aired, who only felt real at the end.
Well, he’s heard differing opinions on that subject (mostly from Ailee), but he knows the way he sees it.
Eric rewatches the goodbyes sometimes when he needs a reality check. When the moment’s too full of things he’s not willing to describe. When there’s a phrase flying around his head just begging to be a controversial song lyric.
And, then, when the unfriendly reminder of what’s to come has sobered him up, he sends her a text, because, it’s like he keeps saying in his interviews; relationships don’t mean anything if they’re not based in friendship.
Hey.
Nice Hair.
It takes her a little bit, but she responds, like she always does.
Don’t make fun of me! I know it looks terrible!
It’s a wig.
And there he is, already drunk on her again.
Click. Click. Select. Delete.
“So you really, don’t see it, is that what you’re telling me?”
“I’m not saying that,” he responds. “All I’m saying is that all we get to see is what the camera records. You don’t know if they’re like this as soon as that light is turned off. You don’t know anything about them. In a way, we’re just as blind as the audience.”
She draws a heart on the screen. “You can’t fake this kind of stupid-in-love.”
Click. Filter. Drag. Click. Click.
“You can if you do this.”
Eric Nam is now sporting red cheeks. It works, though. In fact, it cements it into her mind even more. “Ok now I’m just more convinced.”
He clicks his tongue at her. “We’re going to have to turn on some lights. I think all this darkness is getting to your head.”
“They’re bad actors. They wouldn’t be able to pull off a stunt this big.”
“Well,” he admits. “You got me there. They are pretty terrible actors.”
“They were robbed! I tell you! Robbed!” the queen of the apartment bemoans before bringing the chopsticks back into her mouth.
“Ailee, we know these people.” Eric shouts, looking up from his phone and the photos he’s spent the past hour going through.
She shrugs her shoulders and the caps of them just barely brush her new short hair. “I know. But, you’ve got to understand, Eric, they’re different on camera. It’s different when you’re watching two people fall in love than when you’re sitting backstage with them at a music show.”
“You and Joy literally were on the same show together just last night! And now you’re sitting here talking about them being robbed.”
Ailee narrows her eyes at him and stabs her chopsticks accusingly. “They were robbed! They could’ve been happy together, Eric. But those producers caught wind of real feelings faster than a bloodhound and squashed them like a bug. I’m telling you. It’s all a conspiracy.”
“Great…” he mutters, going back to his pictures, smiling at a particular one with a witch’s hat in it. “That makes me feel so much better.”
She sits up, pikachu slippers hitting the carpet. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. All I’m saying is you don’t just have something; you know how to keep that something. You’ve been doing it since the beginning. All it’s going to take is five little words.”
“Sungjae and Joy were robbed?” He guesses, enjoying pushing her buttons. She really is much more fun to be around when it’s comeback season. Maybe because she spends all her time not onstage in pajamas.
Ailee rolls her eyes. “Not those five little words. The other five little words.”
Eric adjusts his position on the other couch, switching to lying on his stomach. “She’s not going to say yes, Ailee. She doesn’t feel that way about me. It’s like… I know her so well and yet I still can’t get a read on her.”
“Would you have quit your job and flown to Korea for auditions if you needed to get a read on something? No. All you need to do is know your facts. Fact #1: You’re actually Korea’s poster-child for a perfect boyfriend. Fact #2: You like Solar. Fact #3: You’re an amazing guy, Eric Nam, and anyone would be lucky to date you, so if she says no, then that’s fine. It doesn’t change any of what I just said.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Are you offering?” he jokes.
“God no,” she replies. “I’m not dating anyone until I beat this level in Candy Crush.”
Lying back down on the couch, phone held above her head like it’ll shelter her from an impending rainstorm, she goes back to her game. “Excuses, excuses,” he mutters, shaking his head.
The phone falls on her chest with an exasperated sigh from its owner.
“Just ask her out already, Eric.”
Moonbyul starts wearing the t-shirt mostly as a joke.
It’s one big, weird, comfortable reminder for feelings that just sort of dissipated. Now all that’s left is this slightly bitter aftertaste, like morning breath. It’s dry and cracked and makes her feel parched, but she doesn’t hate it. She doesn’t hate the shirt either; it’s pretty comfortable.
So, it was supposed to be a joke. A big, giant, ironic only to her, joke.
Except then Wheein joins in. She sees her in the shirt, and rushes over, the little fringes on hers flying in the air like they were trying to escape. “Couple shirts!” she proclaims them, and then they… are.
Mostly because Hwasa never wears hers, despite being the one that was most excited about this whole “marriage” thing Solar was doing.
And Moonbyul tries not to let that mean something, because she’s been down that road before. In a way, she thinks, her line is even more blurred than Solar’s is, because she has to live with them. She has to look at the girls around her, her friends, and wonder if the reason none of them are having the same existential crisis she is has anything to do with the fact that it’s just not as big a deal to them.
She’s not sure any of them realize how big of a deal it sometimes is to her.
They wear the shirts together, about once every two weeks. Usually when Solar’s in the general vicinity so she can look at them and start laughing in the way that made Moonbyul title her “Yeba” in the first place: with her hand cupped over her mouth and her head thrown back, long hair dangling over her back like a waterfall. A very violent, dolphin-filled waterfall.
“Stop it you guys!” she’ll protest, as if they all can’t see the smile behind her eyes.
“I don’t know why you want us to stop,” Wheein says in response, tying some of the fringe pieces into little bows as she’s started doing lately. “You’re the one who made these for us.”
Solar’s dark eyes widen, and a red color starts to flood her face. Yeba indeed. “I didn’t think you’d actually wear them!”
Moonbyul sees her entrance, and walks to stand beside Wheein, putting her elbow on her shoulder and leaning over like this is just a casual beginning of a casual conversation and not a declaration to the world that she’s moving on. “Well, I think I look pretty good in mine. What do you think, Wheein? Should we leave them on.”
The younger girl turns to her, newly blonde hair rising and falling like a beautiful sigh. “Yeah, Byulie, you look amazing in yours.”
It takes her a moment to process.
Solar’s only ever written one really emotional song.
Never Letting Go was different, though, because she knew how she felt about the MooMoos. They were - and still are - everything. They’re coming home after a long day to a phone full of hugs that reach across distance and space and time and make her feel warm inside.
It was easier with them.
Now, she’s sitting in front of a piano, notebook in front of her, and wishing she could write something bubblegum pop to describe her feelings, but she knows them; they’re not that shade of pink, if they even are a shade of pink.
All the words in her head won’t let her catch them. She reaches and grabs, but they fly away, and she supposes that’s the way it’s always been with him. She can never quite articulate exactly what it is she’s feeling.
Only one phrase ends up on the piece of paper that day: Time is running out.
She didn’t need two hours and a piano to figure that out, though. It’s all over her clothes, her room, her phone. Every text is a wish for something to go on a little longer. They don’t have the time, though.
Well, they might. But she’s never been that lucky of a person.
“Okay,” he throws his hands up. “I give up.”
Her smile tastes like victory. “What was it that did it?”
Click. Drag. Click.
He shakes his head, pushing up his glasses before going back to his work. “Nothing. I just wanted you to be quiet.”
“Well,” she protests. “You still gave in. That means I’m right.”
“Wait until the ending. If their ending is believable I’ll bite. Until then…”
Click. Drag. Paste.
“I know, I know. Love is an illusion and nothing is real.”
The end approaches before Eric can really prepare.
The trip was a warning, though. He knows the way budgets work; he knows what it looks like to blow one.
But, he has her number in his phone, he reminds himself. He has her number and her photos and a standing invitation to her next concert and things are going to be okay.
Except they’re never going to see each other again, probably. If neither of them have time to shoot - which is what his manager tells him when he asks why they’re ending - they’re not going to have time to do anything else together, either.
No more Ddongi Road. No more polaroid pictures. No more late night talks in the inflatable pool.
Oh yeah, and he has a checklist of all the items in the house. They want to know what he wants to keep. Like a real divorce. You’ll take the plastic chairs where I proposed and I’ll take the table we made together and why don’t you just take my heart with you too since it’s already yours.
He cringes. That was cheesy. Probably should put it in a song, then.
They’re supposed to do it this way, he knows that. He’s supposed to put a check next to the thing he wants, and she’s supposed to put a check on her sheet, and the items will show up on their doorsteps and neither of them will have any room for them in their lives.
That’s why this is happening, though - neither of them have any room for each other in their lives.
Except for the achingly empty space in his chest that reminds him if its existence every time he so much as thinks about their goodbye episode. There’s plenty of room there. A whole ocean’s worth of room, really.
Did you get the sheet too?
He really doesn’t want to ask her about the end, to even bring it up. He doesn’t want to taint whatever time they have left together with the thought of goodbye, but he figures it’s okay over text. Texting her has always been a reminder that there will be an ending at some point.
Yes.
I don’t know what to not take.
Too many memories.
Eric smiles, but it’s stiff - the way someone might smile when hearing a love confession too-late. It’s not too late yet, though.
I know the feeling.
Too many memories. The cause of that empty space in his chest. He remembers once saying in a BRI that he was glad they’d done so many new things together, because it would mean she’d always think of him when doing them. He’d forgotten it also works the other way around.
I want the pool.
The pool. He would ask which one - they’ve been to quite a few at this point - but he knows which one she means. It’s the little blue plastic one. The one where they stared at the stars and he looked at her and told her he didn’t want things to change.
And they didn’t. They didn’t change. Everything was beautiful and wonderful and then they came back from their trip and she got into that accident and he could no longer put I’m In Love on his list of wedding songs because it all just felt wrong without her.
Only if you have a real pool party with it.
We never got to.
She’d have to wait until summer, he knows that. It’s far too cold now for a pool party. He doubts she could even have a real pool party with it, since it’s so small, but that’s his caveat. He wants confirmation that they’ll see each other again. A date and a time. And maybe a promise.
Okay! I will!
You’re invited, of course.
Of course. This is why he’s always had such trouble reading her. Why he’s been so hesitant to follow Ailee’s advice and just ask her out. She’ll say things like this that are so incredibly sincere that, if she were anyone else, they would mean something. But she’s not. She’s Solar. And all she is is incredibly sincere. Kind of clumsy and very honest and very very sincere.
Even if she didn’t feel the same way, she’d probably still invite him.
They’re friends, after all.
The words of the interviewer at K-CON echo back to him: “Artists can be friends.”
And, he supposes, he wouldn’t mind if they were. He would get over his feelings, eventually. There would be jealousy and guilt and lots of nights staring at his ceiling with a song he never can publish in his head. There would be a few awkward interactions backstage of events, but they would get over it. They’ve come through awkwardness before, they would again.
In the end, it’s really up to her. Because he’d be fine either way. He would, really. He’s not going to compromise a chance to have her in his life for real for a date-related ultimatum. He’s never been that guy.
Eric looks over the list again.
Then can I have the bar?
Someone’s going to need to bring drinks to this party of yours.
As if Solar, who, by the way, is the lightest lightweight he’s ever met, isn’t going to already have a bar stocked and ready in the hope that people will have a good time.
Sounds good.
And one stool for each of us.
If he’s being honest, if he showed up at her pool party six months from now and saw the way he’d so diligently carved “I ❤️ U” into her stool, he’s sure all his feelings would return in a tsunami.
But, it’s like he said. It’s all up to her.
They go back and forth like this for a while, until all the important things are with one or the other of them, with the promise they’ll get to see them again, eventually - although he doubts either of them are going to be allowed to go into each other’s houses by their managers. She doesn’t have the excuse the rest of his friends do - there’s no American culture to explain it away.
No one’s going to believe the truth, which is, when you’ve sort-of-lived with someone for the past six months, you don’t really have any worries about showing up at their house.
But still, Solar means every promise she makes. She’s sincere like that.
They wrap on a Thursday.
When she gets home, all anyone wants to know is if she’s okay. So many people are texting her and calling her and the fancafe is blowing up because someone saw her leave and now they’re all worried about her.
Solar doesn’t know if she’s okay. All she knows is she is currently buried six feet under a mound of blankets, watching some retro spy movie that Eric had recommended to her once upon a time. She’s not watching it because of him, though. She’s just watching it because she needs a movie and it’s the last one on her list because that’s what happens when you watch 6 movies in a row on your one day off.
That’s why this movie marathon exists, though. It’s halfway healing and halfway if she has even a moment of indecision, she’s going to end up watching every episode of her run on We Got Married in order, with no breaks. Sometimes with replays.
Joy had warned her about that, though. Everything seems so much more romantic in the replay; when everything’s edited and there’s music in the background and you get to see the interviews.
She promised her members she wouldn’t do that without them, which is probably a good idea, since someone’s going to need to remind her she’s still real. It’s all still real.
Her phone buzzes. She doesn’t touch it.
It’s been buzzing off the hook since she left. She got through the first hour of it, and then vowed she wasn’t going to answer texts from anyone but her manager until she finished the movie.
It’s called the Man From Uncle. It reeks of their first concept. There’s also spies. And history. She’s enjoying it quite a lot.
And then, Gabby’s standing in a dressing room in a dress too-close to one Solar owns and Ilya walks in and Solar sees the word “marriage” on the subtitles and has to pause it.
She’s sure Eric didn’t mean anything when he recommended it to her. Overall he was right; it’s just her type of movie. It’s pretty and informative and just far enough away from all of her problems. At least, it was. Now it’s just hitting too close to home.
Her phone buzzes again. There’s nothing on the television to keep her from looking. She opens it.
13 missed texts from Moonbyul. 10 from Wheein. 7 from Hwasa. And one from Eric. One really long text from Eric that she can’t even read on her lock screen.
Either he’s accidentally pasted in song lyrics again or…
She doesn’t know what would prompt him to send her something this long. Maybe it’s a thank you, like the kind she’ll post on the Fancafe. That might do something to the pain in her chest. Maybe he’s just decided to spoil the plot of the movie for her. She doesn’t really know, though.
He once told her he was bad with words in person, that that’s why he liked when they’d write letters to each other so much.
She glances over at the three letters on the bed in front of her, crinkled from over-reading. Maybe he’s decided to give her one last gift.
If he has, she doesn’t deserve him. She never has. She was worried about their marriage from day one because of this. He’s perfect and everything and she’s… not. And, yet, for some reason, he still wanted to be close to her, and not in the way she was expecting at all.
He made her feel like she was a little closer to perfect.
Yep, and there are the tears in the corners of her eyes again. This is exactly why she was watching movies. She didn’t want to think about what losing him meant, about what not having that space where she could do anything in her life anymore. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel confident without him by her side, reminding her she can do anything.
One last gift. She might as well open it.
“He’s in love with her, you know,” Wheein says one afternoon, her head in Moonbyul’s lap, watching the birds outside her window.
She stops braiding her hair and sits up a little. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s obvious. It’s been obvious for a while. I was worried he might try something that she’s not ready for because of it, but he hasn’t. He’s barely even confessed.”
“Wait…” her girlfriend shakes her head, confused. “Who are we talking about?”
“Our dear brother in law.”
Moonbyul gives a look towards the door, like she’s seeing through the walls into Solar’s room. “Oh. What do you mean barely confessed?”
Wheein adjusts her position in her lap, and then goes back to staring at the ceiling. “He sent her this really long text thanking her for their time together. It was so cringey…” She crinkles her nose thinking about it.
The braid is taken back up again. “I thought Solar hated cheesy things like that.”
She sighs, lifting her hands up in the air to examine them. “She does, usually, but he never outright said he loved her, so I think she’s dealing with that more than the cheesiness.”
“Do you think she wants him to?”
She looks up at her girlfriend, smiling. “Well, I for one think it’s a pretty great experience. 10/10 would recommend.”
Moonbyul blushes. “Shut up.”
There’s still one more BRI to do.
She’s probably not going to be there, he knows that. After all, if they had any extra time to spend together, they probably wouldn’t have ended. Still, he finds himself looking down the hallways when he enters the building, eyes yearning to catch sight of even a flicker of long hair whipping around a corner or something.
Eric doesn’t see her, though. Instead, he sits down in the room, and answers the questions and before he knows it he’s getting emotional. Not quite crying yet, but on the edge. A discerning viewer will be able to tell.
Really, he blames whoever picked out these questions. They must have been someone looking for a reaction like this. Or maybe these were just the only ones written. Either way, he can’t even think about their goodbye scene without thinking about her and how much he misses her already and all the things he didn’t tell her.
“There’s so much I still wanted to say to her and to do with her,” he confesses to the camera. Then he shrugs his shoulders, and they feel even heavier afterwards. “But I guess it’s too late now.”
Afterwards, the interviewer looks at him with the worst kind of empathetic smile. It just makes him feel worse. “You should do dramas, you know,” she says. “You’re really good at this.”
“I wasn’t acting,” he says, and then he leaves.
Solar breaks down again during her interview.
She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s cried more in the past week than she has since they got their first win. It’s all terrible ugly crying too, now forever immortalized on film. It’s okay, though. She probably ruined her image on here a long time ago.
“Is there anything you wish you could have done that you didn’t?” they ask her.
There’s no good answer to that. No real one that she can articulate, anyways, because the answer is everything, but the everything is all things she wanted outside of the show. She wanted him at the concert, she wanted a duet, she wanted all these little things that she wasn’t going to get. And now, now all she wants is time. She misses the time the show gave them together. She misses him.
So her answer is complicated. “Not really,” she says. “I wouldn’t trade any of my moments with him for anything.”
They don’t correct her on her interpretation of the question. There’s no need to; they have the quote, no one cares about the original question. It’s how she’s been dodging being too honest for months. Because, really, there’s only one person she’s willing to bare her soul to about this, and he’s not here. He’s somewhere else. Doing something else. With someone else.
Or maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s just as torn up about this as she is. It’s hard to picture, though, since their time together involved so much smiling. Smiling and laughing all the way until the end. She’s only seen him upset once.
When she’s finished, she stands up, wipes her tears off with her sleeves, and leaves. Then Solar breaks down in the hallway.
It’s not hard, when she’s been trying to maintain a relatively pretty crying face and at least answer some of the questions. But now, no one expects anything of her for the next half an hour. She doesn’t want to leave, doesn’t want the MooMoos to catch her when she’s feeling like this. They give her so much, and all she can give them today is tears.
Or maybe she can give them more. Solar opens her purse and pulls out her phone, wiping her tears once again so she can see her screen, and then she begins to add to her list full of song lyrics. Words are flowing through her head, words about almost and maybe and things like that. She’s still waiting for things to not feel real, still wondering how long it’s going to be before everything good and memorable fades away into nothingness. Those thoughts become her lyrics.
How long will it take before we come undone? Solar writes. And then she writes another one.
Before she knows it she’s got a verse and a chorus. It’s messy and unedited, and she knows she’ll have to get Moonbyul and maybe Esna to look it over, but it feels good to get it out. She can figure out the piano for it later. Maybe it’ll even actually get to be on the next album.
A door opens from down the hall. Solar looks up and freezes, because he’s right there. He’s right there and he’s looking at her and she’s an absolute mess and it’s all because of him but…
They’re not out of time quite yet, are they?
Ten fast steps and he’s next to her, crouching down to wipe her tears away with his big hands. “Hey,” he murmurs. “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”
Solar can’t believe he’s here. He’s here and he’s next to her and he’s touching her and… she’s crying again. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
“What’s wrong, Yongsun?” he asks, voice softer than she’s ever heard it.
Solar sniffles, leaning into his touch. “I just did my interview,” she says, hoping maybe she’s been clear enough that he’ll understand why that hurt her so much.
Eric’s eyes darken. “What did they ask you?”
“No, no,” she shakes her head. “It’s not what they asked me, it’s… We didn’t get enough time.”
It’s only then when she realizes there are tears in his eyes too. “I know,” Eric says, and he sits down next to her. “I know.”
“There are still so many things I wanted to do. So many things I wanted to…”
“To say?” he asks, finishing her sentence.
Somehow, in the midst of it all, he can still make her smile. Solar rests her head on his shoulder. “We’re out of time now. There’s no more time left.”
Eric shakes his head, like he’s still fighting that battle against time she’s long ago surrendered to. “Not yet. Not for…” he checks his watch. “Fifteen more minutes.” Instead of letting his hand fall, it comes up around her shoulders, like how they were on the boat in Dubai.
She leans into his shoulder, and lets her sobs fall heavy there. When she feels all cried out, she speaks again. “I just wish,” Solar starts, between labored breaths. “I wish we could stay like now forever.”
Those were his words in the pool, and now the pool is hers and the words are hers too and she doesn’t want them to be hers; she wants them to be theirs.
He strokes her hair with one of his hands, running it through curls slightly lighter than they were in their time together - already evidence things are changing. “Me too.” Eric’s voice falters for a minute, and then he seems to find his courage. “I don’t want to start living a life without you in it.”
Solar looks up, removing her head from his shoulder, searching his eyes for the truth. There’s no on in the hall except them; no cameras, no interviews, no reason he would lie to her, and yet she still can’t believe her ears.
Something tugs on her gut, some strange kind of bravery that usually manifests itself in the form of dance. This time, though, it’s something else.
Solar’s hands come up to cup his face, and then, slowly, as if it’ll make the moment last longer, she leans in. It’s almost agonizing, but she needs it to be. She needs it to hurt the way she’s hurting, because at least when it’s hurting she knows it’s real.
Eric’s eyes close before their lips touch, and his breath is soft and warm, but she can feel his pulse under her thumbs, and he’s just as nervous as she is. When she kisses him, the rest of the world disappears.
For a moment, Eric wonders what she’s doing. He’s had moments like this with her before, where it almost seems like something’s going to happen, and then it doesn’t.
But now, now she’s kissing him so gently he’s afraid she’s going to fall apart in his arms. Solar tastes like bubblegum, and her tears are hot on his face. He brings his hand behind her head, and deepens the kiss. Solar gasps into his mouth, and then goes with it.
When he pulls away, she’s finally smiling again. Eric kisses her face until there are no more tears left and she’s hitting him softly with her hands.
“So,” he starts. “This isn’t the end anymore.” At the look on her face he clarifies “I mean, it isn’t if you don’t want it to be.”
“But your fans-” she begins to protest, but it’s halfhearted.
“They’ll manage.” Eric smiles. “Yours will too.”
Solar kisses him again, harder this time, like she’s all impulse today. He doesn’t mind.
“I’ve loved you for so long,” he says, when they come up for air. “God, you’re incredible.”
Her smile could bring people back to life.
The panel cried when watching their last scene together, she hears.
Solar wouldn’t know; she didn’t watch the episode. She got a few texts from the G-Friend members about it, though. They said they cried too. They asked if she was okay.
“Yeah,” she says, leaning back on Eric’s chest. “I’d say I’m okay.”
“Only okay?” he asks her, but he’s teasing. “I declared my love for you on social media for only okay?”
Solar reaches back and pats his cheek. “You were very brave for that.”
“Well,” he says. “I had to reassure everyone we were okay after that episode aired. People were wailing in the streets.”
She laughs at that. “I heard the panelists cried.”
“Good,” he responds. “
There’s no surprise about the panel’s reaction, though. She has a sneaking suspicion they were their favorite couple so far. They certainly were the only one they’ve ever visited. She would know; she’s always been a fan of the show. The only bad part was that they never got a happy ending.
But now, sitting in Eric’s arms, watching a movie together, she feels like this is a pretty happy one.
They comeback. He does too.
She meets his eyes across the crowded room, accompanied by a shy smile. He doesn’t even have to look around the room to know what little corner he’s going to be spending his time in tonight.
Her members are with her, dressed similarly but not quite exactly. Wheein and Moonbyul are filming something, probably for their MMTV. He doesn’t want to interrupt, so he just walks over, sits next to her, and smiles.
“Hi,” he says.
She laughs, hand immediately covering her mouth to block the sound. “Hi,” she says back, in English this time.
Her hair’s lighter now, kind of the color it was when they first met on After School Club. She’s got a pink blanket wrapped around her waist since she’s sitting on the floor. It has unicorns and dragons on it. He can’t help but smile wider.
She smiles back.
“It’s been a while,” he notes, eyes wandering over to where her members are filming.
Solar nods. “A few weeks since the last episode aired. Did you watch it?”
Eric shakes his head. She knows he doesn’t watch them - despite the fact that he’s been tempted to these past few weeks, when he has her by his side to tell him what parts were real and what parts weren’t. “No. Did you?”
“No yet,” she says. “I heard people are still crying about it, though.”
“Good. We’re very emotions-inducing.”
Her acting side comes out again as she does a little wave with her hand towards her face. “I know. We’re amazing. Everyone was in love with us.”
“You wish, unnie!” Hwasa calls from a few feet away. Solar continues her acting with a bout of terribly fake crying.
It’s strange how easily they fall back into their rhythm, how he forgets there are other people and their agents in the room. How he puts his hand on her shoulder without even thinking about it.
And then, someone comes over with a camera.Wheein shoves the handheld camera in their direction. “Solar-unnie, please tell us why you’re crying.” She sticks out one of her heels (which are no longer on her feet) and pretends it’s a microphone.
Solar looks up, still frowning so expressively. “Hyejin said no one was in love with me.”
Wheein points the camera at Eric then, and he feels his ears get hot. “What do you have to say about that?” she asks.
He plays along, assuming this footage won’t be what’s posted. Eric looks at his crying not-really-wife-anymore and smiles. “She was lying.”
The camerawoman wrinkles her nose at the cheesiness. Solar starts hitting him, embarrassed. “It’s true!” he protests.
Hwasa snorts. “You two are terrible.” Solar continues pummeling his leg with her fists.
“Are you going to post this?” he asks.
Wheein shrugs. “Depends. Only if the managers are okay with it.”
Two days later and it’s all over the internet. Eric doesn’t mind the talk, though; he’s got everything he needs right there in his arms.