[Mission Card]
Today is your first meeting. Today’s theme song is “I Guess It Is Summer.” Proceed with the date to match the lyrics!
The lyrics tell of a man and woman who feel awkward at their first meeting, go to an ice cream shop and share ice cream, and afterward keep thinking of sweet ice cream even though it is not summer. They wonder whether they want ice cream or whether they want to see you. The time is spring, but to me it feels like summer right now because I want ice cream. It was the classic of a fresh first-love song.
“We should go to an ice cream shop first.”
He calmly opened a map app to search for an ice cream shop, but it happened to be at the far end of the park, so it was quite a distance.
It looked like it would take at least a solid thirty minutes on foot, but despite winter the weather was as mild as autumn and the open scenery was pretty, so simply spacing out and taking a walk seemed like a good choice.
“Let’s go.”
Once he had a rough idea of the location, Cheonghyeon set off with long strides toward the ice cream shop, and Ko Yeonhee followed behind him in a dazed state.
Does this man even realize this is a romance program? He was acting like he was carrying out an escape room mission.
After they had walked for quite a while, Yeonhee fell farther and farther behind. Maybe because she was wearing new sneakers, her toes and heels throbbed, and as she forced herself to keep walking, her ankles began to ache with a slow burn, so her steps grew even slower.
“Excuse me, just a second.”
When Cheonghyeon turned around, Yeonhee looked at him with a tearful face.
“My feet hurt too much. I cannot walk.”
When they went to a nearby bench and took off her shoes to check, the condition of her feet was quite serious. Perhaps because the sneakers were too small, her pinky toenail was bleeding, and a blister on her heel looked about ready to burst.
The moment he saw her feet, Cheonghyeon furrowed his brow and stood, then looked straight at the camera and spoke.
“PD, I think we need to go to a hospital.”
But there was no response on the walkie-talkie. The cameramen exchanged troubled looks with one another. Closing off a park for a full day of filming also cost quite a bit.
Lunar New Year’s broadcast was only a week away, and Ko Yeonhee had a full slate of upcoming schedules, so they could not postpone.
Perhaps because she knew this, Yeonhee bit her lip for a moment and tugged at the lapel of Cheonghyeon’s coat.
“There is no need for a hospital. I think I will be fine if I rest a little.”
“In that case I will go to the ice cream shop alone. Stay here. I can get it to go and we can share.”
Then the control room, which had been silent until now, urgently came through on the radio.
— The two cast members must always be together!
At that, both Cheonghyeon and Yeonhee made awkward faces.
In that moment, Yeonhee became truly furious.
She was angry at the new stylist who had handed her ill-fitting shoes, and she was angry at this man who, with not a single romantic line, made her question whether he even intended to do a broadcast.
But all of that was an excuse. The person she was most angry with was herself. What she hated most was that because of her alone everyone wore troubled expressions and this uncomfortable mood spread.
She forced herself to calm down and spoke as if nothing were wrong.
“Could someone bring slippers, at least?”
“Even with slippers, I do not think you can walk. Will you be all right?”
At his words, Yeonhee bit her lip hard. He was right. Because she had pushed herself to walk on painful feet, even her ankles were beginning to smart.
Still, what could she do? They could not end the shoot with her just sitting on a bench. Her biggest worry now was that even after bringing slippers the filming would be delayed.
Of course she had no intention of delaying the shoot. She would rather have her toes torn to shreds and walk in slippers.
She hated even more the thought of people later whispering that she made a fuss over a little scraped heel.
“It is fine. I think I can manage if I wear slippers.”
Cheonghyeon stared at her steadily, then suddenly took off his coat. He took off the thin cardigan inside, handed it to her, then put his coat back on.
“Wha, what are you doing?”
“Wrap that around your waist and get on my back.”
“No, I am really fine. Slippers will be enough. We have to walk back to the base anyway,”
“I will carry you on the way back too. So just get on.”
When he turned around and kept bending his knees, Yeonhee hesitated a moment, then tied the cardigan around her waist and carefully climbed onto his back.
At a glance he looked lean in the way of a male idol, but once she was on his back, his shoulders were broader and his body firmer than she expected.
He had even lent her his cardigan and tied it around her waist so it would not be uncomfortable, which struck her as quite considerate.
They say a person who jaywalks while picking up litter exists. She had thought he was a king of bad manners and an idiot for his fans, but he had a surprisingly thoughtful side.
The two walked in silence to the ice cream shop. In truth, the current atmosphere between them was nothing more or less than a medic carrying a patient, but once it was edited it would look perfectly sweet and cozy. Even so, to fill the audio, Yeonhee opened her mouth.
“Cheonghyeon, am I heavy?”
“Yes.”
Hey! This is where you are supposed to say I am light as a feather. Yeonhee’s face flushed red with a surge of heat and she shouted.
“Excuse me. I am not heavy, all right? I am 168 centimeters tall and weigh 48 kilos.”
“I have never in my life carried anything with my own hands. You are the heaviest thing I have ever lifted.”
“Do not lie. When men go to the army, they say they march with a forty-kilo rucksack, right? You served in the military. I know everything, so are you going to keep lying?”
Ah. He had carelessly started talking about his days as Isaac. After a brief silence, Cheonghyeon changed his words.
“You are eight kilos heavier than a rucksack.”
“What? In that case just put me down.”
When Yeonhee fidgeted and squirmed on his back, he hitched her up once and spoke calmly.
“I was joking. We are almost there, so try to hang in there.”
Even after that, perhaps because she was uneasy, Yeonhee kept chattering.
“Am I heavy?”
“Yes.”
“Excuse me, I am asking if I am heavy.”
“Even if you ask a hundred times, my answer is the same. You are heavy.”
“Good grief, have you never given a girl a piggyback ride?”
“Not once.”
After their meaningless back-and-forth, they reached the ice cream shop. At the outdoor terrace, Cheonghyeon found a table and gently set Yeonhee down.
“I will go buy the ice cream. Wait here.”
He went inside and searched the lyrics of the song again. Since it did not name a particular flavor, anything would do.
“Please put it in cups, not cones. Yes. Thank you.”
As he came out carrying the ice cream, the cameramen were hurrying about and talking about something.
He glanced a question at Yeonhee as to what was going on, and she shrugged. When he sat down with a puzzled expression, one cameraman approached.
“The link between the control room and these cameras is down. Maybe the distance is too far. We need to go check the situation for now. We have to take all the cameras, so please wait here.”
“All right, then.”
He nodded as if it were no big deal, and the cameramen, as if they had been waiting for that answer, flowed out like the ebb tide. The atmosphere grew bleak. The area had already been blocked off so there was no one around, and now even the cameramen were gone.
Without a word, Cheonghyeon took a bite of the ice cream. Mm, tasty.
“You can eat ice cream right now?”
“It is good. Are you not going to eat?”
“I need to diet, so I cannot. What if I get heavier after eating this?”
He tilted his head as if he could not grasp why she had suddenly brought up dieting, and Yeonhee snapped sharply.
“Honestly, you just said I was heavy.”
“It was a joke, so just eat. Otherwise, I will eat all of it.”
While eating their ice cream and bickering, Yeonhee suddenly spoke.
“Let us drop the honorifics. Forget the polite talk and all that.”
This was exactly what Cheonghyeon had wanted.
“Suit yourself.”
Once they finished the ice cream, there was nothing in particular to do, so both of them stared blankly at the scenery.
When Yeonhee kept fiddling with her foot as if it ached with a slow throb, Cheonghyeon watched quietly and then spoke.
“Give me your foot.”
“What? Are you going to give me a massage? But we should at least wipe it with wet wipes….”
Before she could finish, Cheonghyeon stepped over and took Yeonhee’s foot in his hands.
From the first impression of someone whose manners you would think he had thrown away and whose cynical way of speaking suggested his hands would be cold as ice, you would expect his touch to be chilly, but his hands were unexpectedly warm.
Feet that had been in the cold air began to thaw. As he pressed and kneaded, the frozen foot loosened and the fatigue melted away.
Feeling strangely abashed, Yeonhee fired off words in a rush.
“You are really good at this. Have you always been interested in things like this? Male idols never wear high heels, so they do not know the importance of foot massage. Instead, their dancing is intense, so they usually worry about knee injuries.”
“That is not it.”
For a moment, Cheonghyeon pictured Henry’s kindly face. Even if his gait changed only a little, Henry noticed immediately and would give him a piggyback ride.
Once they were back at the Ivory Palace, he would wash his feet warmly and then massage them like this. That was when it became his time to grumble at Henry. He would grouse that no one recognized him anyway, so what was the point of going, and Henry would jump up in protest.
“How could anyone fail to recognize Your Highness?”
“When I was young, I often had to go to important places. When I wore new shoes and my feet swelled, there was someone who would lift me up right away, and when I came home, that person would do this.”
“Did you learn it from him?”
“No. I did not learn it separately, but I remember the feel of those hands. I think just having someone beside me do this when I was in pain made me feel better. So even after I got better, I kept pretending to be hurt. I worked hard to attend important functions I did not want to go to.”
Leave a Reply