My piece for @juminfanzine ! I was so honored to be a part of this amazing project, and I appreciate all the hard work of everyone involved!
The following story endowed by Mrs. Han herself explores the private lives of the Executive Director and the RFA Party Planner weeks before their wedding. According to Mrs. Han, the then-engaged couple had a small dispute over which colors to have displayed on the day they would finally speak the words, “I do.”
“Okay, tell me again why teal, mint green, and creamy white are an ‘ordinary’ choice, Jumin.”
Jumin swirled the dark red wine in his glass tentatively. “Don’t get me wrong, darling. They’re fine colors, it’s just… wouldn’t you prefer something bolder?”
The brunette faced her fiancé and cocked a brow. “Like royal purple and midnight black?”
“Those are only two of the colors I chose,” Jumin hummed. “You forgot to mention silver.”
“Those colors are too heavy, Jumin. Besides, you wear them every day, aren’t you tired of them?”
Jumin took a sip. “Not at all, my love. These colors are clean and professional.”
“Yes, which is one reason I have a problem with them. They’re just… too gothic-looking, and I don’t want our guests to feel intimidated.”
Jumin reached over and grabbed her hand. “Mm… I hear you. Why don’t I adjust one color from royal purple to lilac?”
She tried to force a smile as her eyebrows scrunched together and her hand balled into a small fist against his palm. Without so much as a glance at her, he knew she didn’t like his proposal.
“I’m not… I’m not feeling it, Jumin.” She moved her hand from his and pushed the bedsheets away. “Purple just does nothing for me.”
“All right.” Jumin pulled his hand to his lap and cleared his throat. “You have thirty seconds to tell me why teal, mint green, and creamy white are the perfect color choices.”
She scoffed and playfully rolled her eyes. “You aren’t seriously going to time me, are -”
“Oh. Oh, okay, um, well, they complement each other, and… and they’re inviting… they aren’t gothic, they’re stylish, and ah… they… ah…”
“… I don’t know, what do you want from me?”
Jumin smiled mischievously. “You haven’t convinced me, my precious princess.”
She bit her lower lip. “Tell you what, Jumin. I’ll play you for it.”
“… You’ll play me for it?”
“Darling, this is our wedding. I figured you’d be a little more serious about this.”
She grabbed a quarter from her drawer. “Do you have any other suggestions?”
“… What game did you have in mind?”
“A simple one. Heads or tails, Jumin?”
“Mm… hm. Heads or tails.” Jumin squinted. “There are two sides of the coin, which makes the probability of landing on either heads or tails one half for each side. However, heads are the popular choice because it is the heavier of the two, with it having a 51% chance of dominating. There may also be faults on the coin itself, considering coins are a currency people handle. People aren’t perfect, they consistently drop their things, including their coins. But based on the mathematical probability…”
“Jumin, dear lord, please pick one.”
She tossed the coin and slapped it against the back of her hand. “Tails.”
“The coin must be damaged,” he said nonchalantly.
She giggled. “You’re only saying that because you lost! Well, that’s that then!”
“Now, wait a minute, hold on. Best two out of three, dear.”
She raised her brows. “You are awfully persistent about this, aren’t you?”
“This time, I’ll toss it and you call it.” Jumin grabbed the coin from her and threw it up.
The coin landed in his palm and he slapped it against the back of his hand. “Heads.”
She grabbed the coin from him. “Best two out of three, remember? You haven’t won yet. I’ll toss it this time.”
“Fine.” Jumin watched her carefully. “Tails.”
Rather than slap the coin on the back of her hand, she threw it up and let it fall onto the bedsheets. “… Heads! Hah! I won! Do you see that?!”
Jumin tipped over and looked at the coin.
“Hah! Well, it looks like my pretty, classical colors will be on display on our wedding day!” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Good night, Jumin!”
Just as she pulled the bedsheets over her body, she heard her fiance’s firm insistence. “Jumin, we need to be up early tomorrow. You lost. No more games.”
“One more.” he opened his left palm and made a fist with his right hand. “Ga-wi, ba-wi, bo, eh-seo hana-bbagi-il.”
“Jumin, really?” She pushed the sheets back. “I need to be up in four hours, and you need to be up in three.”
Jumin grabbed her wrist. “While that is the case, our wedding is four weeks away, and we are still arguing about colors.” He resumed the hand position for the Korean-style of rock, paper, scissors, a determined look on his face. “I insist.”
“All right. Best two out of three again.”
“Ga-wi, ba-wi, bo, eh-seo hana-bbagi-il.”
“Ga-wi, ba-wi, bo, eh-seo hana-bbagi-il.”
“… One more time, I promise.”
“Ga-wi, ba-wi- bo, eh-seo hana-bbagi-il.”
“… I don’t like this game, Jumin.”
Jumin smirked smugly. “Now, as I remember you telling me earlier, ‘You’re only saying that because you lost’. I won. You must give up your position as the victor and push your colors aside.”
“No way! We won one game each, isn’t it fair we have a tie-breaker?”
“… We should have drafted up a contract.” Jumin grumbled.
“I know what we can do. Video games. ‘Combat for Mortals.’ Three rounds.” She jumped out of bed and rushed towards the Greystation. “This will be our tie-breaker.”
As soon as the Greystation hummed to life, Jumin closed his eyes and rested his head against the baseboard of the bed. “All right. Three rounds. But I insist we draft a contract before we engage in combat.”
“No need, this will be fast,” she handed him a controller.
“Oh? What brought you to that conclusion?” Jumin murmured inquisitively.
“Jumin, I mean, no offense, but I’m good at this game. I will destroy you.”
“Jumin, all you did was spam the same attacks on me. I want a rematch.”
“I only, as you say, ‘spammed’ the same attacks because you kept trying to back away from my character.”
“Yes, because you kept ‘spamming’ the same moves!”
“All right, if you want a rematch, then I would be happy to oblige.” Jumin took her hand and delicately kissed a trail from her wrist to her forearm. “I would do anything to make you happy.”
“Ah, Jumin…” her lips pecked his cheek and traveled to his ear. “… then agree to my colors.”
“Now, now…” Jumin pushed her hair back. “Let’s not be rash, dearest.”
“You think I don’t see what you’re doing, honey bunny? Your flattering words won’t work with me. Not this time.”
Jumin stared at her for a moment… then grinned playfully. “It was worth a shot. Come, let’s play another round.”
“I win.” Jumin tossed the controller onto the couch.
“You don’t win a fight if you keep spamming the same buttons.” MC huffed and threw the controller off to the side. “This isn’t working. Let’s try something else.”
Jumin hummed softly. “I know what we can try. Trivia.”
“Trivia? Wait for me then.” She untucked her legs and made her way to the kitchen. “Brain games require coffee.”
“Make me a cup too, if you please,” Jumin called out.
“Sure! As long as you agree to my colors!”
Jumin surged towards her and gathered her in his arms from behind. “You’re a sneaky little devil, aren’t you? I’ll make my cup, thank you.”
“It was worth a shot,” she smiled.
“You included math questions within the deck?”
Jumin shuffled the trivia cards. “Is that a problem?”
“Eh, a little. You know I’m not good at math, you’re automatically putting me at a disadvantage.”
“Is that so…?” Jumin droned, his hands still busy shuffling the cards. “See now, if we had drafted and signed a contract, I would have considered your mathematical disability.” He glanced up at her. “We don’t have to do this. You can give up.”
“No way,” she grimaced. “I will do my best.”
“That’s my girl,” Jumin rubbed her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Stubborn to the end.”
“Psh,” she huffed playfully. “Who goes first?”
Jumin adjusted his sleeves. “Well, since I won ‘Combat for Mortals,’ it’s only fair I go first.”
“You don’t win by spamming,” she said under her breath. “All right, fifteen seconds on the clock. Ready?”
“Olympia is the capital of which U.S. state?”
“Washington,” Jumin answered.
“Correct. What is Shawshank in the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption?’”
“The prison itself,” Jumin responded.
“Correct. What is Naan the Persian -”
“Correct. If letters were numbers a=1, z=26, how much would Wayne Rooney -”
“Time.” MC reached down and stopped her timer. “You got… all of them right. No surprise there!”
“Your turn,” Jumin reshuffled the cards. “Fifteen seconds. Are you ready?”
“Wait!” she reached out, sipped her coffee, and nodded. “Ready!”
“What is the second largest country by land mass?”
“Second… Canada!” She shouted.
“That’s right. In which ocean did the Titanic sink?”
“Titanic… oh! The Atlantic ocean!”
“The uh, the… North Atlantic ocean?”
“Correct. A student’s math scores are 98, 87, 82, 95, 93, 81, 100. What is the average?”
She froze. “Uh. 98… 95… one… 93?”
Jumin shook his head. “No, 91. What is the world’s smallest -”
Jumin stopped his timer as it went off. “Time is up, dear.”
“You threw a math question at me, that’s not fair!”
“It’s more than fair, dear, trivia games include math questions.”
“Let’s play another game.”
Jumin squinted his eyes. “You realize you’ve lost two games in a row now?”
“I didn’t lose the combat one, Jumin.”
“Spammers don’t decide who wins or who loses.”
Jumin huffed. “Well… what other games did you have in mind?”
“… I bought marshmallows the other day. Let’s play chubby bunny.”
“Chubby what?” Jumin watched as his fiancée made her way back to the kitchen.
“Chubby bunny! You stuff as many marshmallows in your mouth and say ‘chubby bunny’ after every marshmallow.”
“… Dear, that sounds dangerous -”
“I’ll start!” MC’s hand ripped the bag open, and she pushed a marshmallow in her mouth. “Chubby bunny!”
Jumin watched her, grabbed a marshmallow, and timidly pushed it into his mouth. “Ch… Chubby bunny.”
She clapped for him playfully and pushed another marshmallow into her mouth. Jumin snickered as he watched her; she had only gotten two marshmallows in, and it looked like she was having a hard time keeping them in.
“Chu… chub… mm… chubby bunny!”
Jumin swallowed his marshmallow and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. With a squeak, she jumped up, ran to the kitchen, and coughed the marshmallows into the trash bin. Jumin, not too far behind her, rubbed her back and stroked her hair.
“I told you it was dangerous.”
“Hah… you were right…” she panted. “But that… was only because you… haah…”
Jumin pulled her against him, turned her around, and held her chin in his hand. “Because I…?”
Flustered, she tried to look away from him, but he lightly pressed his fingers against her skin. “Look at me, darling.”
Her eyes slowly met with his. A soft, intimate beat of silence passed between them when Jumin’s eyes sparkled.
Jumin pushed her hair behind her ear and took another step closer, closing the gap between them. “Hazel… and gray. These can be our colors.”
“What…? Where did you…” As soon as she looked into his eyes, she knew. His thoughtful, polished metal gray eyes were peering back at her… just as her autumn-hazel eyes were peering at him.
“I think… that’s a fantastic idea,” she smiled.
“Mm…” Jumin beamed. “… do you really think so, dear?”
“I do. Then… that’s that, isn’t it? Those are our colors…!”
Jumin kissed the tip of her nose. “Those are our colors.”
An unsettled expression graced her features. Jumin’s eyebrows scrunched as he observed her. “What’s the matter?”
“I realized something, Jumin. We didn’t decide on a flavor for our cake.”
“Hm? We visited the pastry chef two weeks ago. We decided on the vanilla filling.”
“Vanilla?” She frowned. “I didn’t agree to vanilla. I wanted chocolate.”
They stared at each other. A sigh escaped her, and she gripped his hand. “I’ll play you for it. One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war.”
“Before that, I need to schedule today off. You should do the same, my love.”