Son Ye-jin leaned back into a pillow, her hand covering her face and her shoulders heaving with laughter. She'd spent the past half hour scrolling through Twitter on her laptop and, as she kept reading, what started off as giggles had now turned into a proper laughing fit. Tears were streaming down her face.
"I can't," she said, breathlessly, flapping a hand in front of her face. "I can't breathe."
Hyun Bin was watching her via FaceTime all the way from Jordan, a long-suffering expression on his face. "Are you okay?"
His question set off another wave of laughter on the other side of the call.
He sat heavily on his bed, leaning against the headboard, waiting patiently for his fiancée to calm down. Finally, chuckling, she wiped the tears from her eyes.
It had been the end of the film crew's mandatory quarantine, so Bin had ventured out of his hotel with his manager. What started off as an innocent fan interaction in the produce section at a supermarket in Amman went viral.
He had gone about his day until his assistant knocked on his door to show him that he was trending on Twitter.
He'd been spotted buying peaches. No big deal. It was, however, unfortunate what the peach emoji represented.
Fans had a field day.
Collages and photos of his rear sprang up on his timeline. Soon, others started posting photos of peaches in baskets and plates.
"Of all the things you could've been seen buying," said Ye-jin.
He groaned. "What's the big deal? It's a butt. It looks like everyone else's."
"It's a nice butt," she said, arching an eyebrow. "It's the best butt."
He laughed in the way he always did when anyone complimented him. That "sure, whatever" laugh. That "you're just humouring me" laugh.
"Now I'm really feeling self-conscious about my butt," he muttered.
In her twenty years in the Korean entertainment industry, Ye-jin had met a lot, a lot, of devastatingly good-looking men. Men who knew the effect they had on women. They were men she'd learned to avoid.
And then there was Hyun Bin. Very few of them were like Hyun Bin. Somehow, he was neither hardened by the rigours of their line of work nor spoiled by the lifestyle. Hyun Bin who was gentle in a way that made her feel fiercely protective. Hyun Bin whose laugh said that he was still genuinely baffled by people's fascination with his looks.
"Couldn't you have been spotted buying, I don't know, oranges or something?" she asked.
He thought for a moment. "Wouldn't they have connected it to the orange I gave you last March for White Day?"
"Oh, you're right."
"They're very good," he said.
She knew who "they" were – their fans.
She'd had her own fans and he'd had his. But now they overlapped – BinJin shippers, they called themselves. Her heart swelled with fondness for them.
"I know," she admitted. "Absolutely nothing gets past them. At least there wasn't a photo this time."
"Not yet," he corrected her.
"What's with us and groceries?" she asked.
"Food seems to get us into all sorts of trouble, doesn't it?" he asked.
"We probably should've learned to use a grocery delivery app," she said.
"Little too late for that now."
"So how are your peaches?"
Holding his iPhone, he walked over to his hotel room kitchen. He propped up his phone on an upside-down colander and opened the plastic bag.
"I tried to pick them the way you taught me," he said, intently examining the orange-red fruit. He bent down towards the phone to show her a perfect peach. "I think I did pretty well, don't you think?"
"Depends," she said, a serious look on her face. "It's not about how it looks. It has to be firm just the way I like it but soft enough for a squeeze."
He looked at the camera. His lip twitched, a hint of a smile playing across his face.
"Are we still talking about peaches?" he asked, amused.
"Of course," she said, breezily.
"You know, this whole peach thing on Twitter, it's all on you."
"Oh really?" she said, slightly incredulous. "And how do you figure this was my fault?"
"You were going on about craving peaches so... I wanted some, too," he finished lamely.
"Hmm," she nodded. "So, you thought you'd go to the supermarket and get some yourself?"
A pained look crossed his face.
"I needed to get out," he said, miserably.
Ye-jin felt a tug in her heart. God, she missed him. It had only been two weeks but already their Mark Hills apartment felt so empty.
She missed seeing him in shorts and a T-shirt, watching baseball, long legs propped up on their coffee table as he munched on vegetable chips (a Ye-jin-approved snack) and drinking beer (not a Ye-jin approved drink, but she let it slide).
Nonetheless, even in his absence, she was content. They had read the 'Bargaining' script together and she knew how badly he wanted the role. When he was offered the part last year, they simply worked with their team to coordinate their schedules. It was a new feeling for both of them, having someone else whose opinion mattered the most before considering a new role or endorsement.
A thought occurred to her and she rolled out of bed amidst rustling sheets.
"Where are you going?" he asked, watching the shaking screen as he heard her feet padding down their tiled floors.
"Kitchen. I need a drink."
She placed the iPhone on a phone stand on the counter.
He heard clattering, cabinets and the fridge door opening and closing. The blender came into view and he watched her throw in a handful of ice cubes.
"I'm making myself a drink," she said. "I suddenly had a craving."
"A smoothie?"
"Actually, I was in the mood for something else."
He heard the pop of a wine bottle.
"Oh. What are you making then?" he asked, peering into the screen, genuinely curious now.
With a twinkle in her eye, Ye-jin replied, "A peach Bellini."
