Id, Ego & Superego

Marrying Chaerin was the best choice you made. 

Here was the toughest, richest woman in Korea—pale skin, iron fist, eyes that could turn you to stone if you looked into them too long—and she chose you. She’s leaning comfortably against your shoulder as she nurses a glass of tequila. The big stone on her finger tells the world you’re hers as much as she is yours. You belong to each other, a match made in business classes back in your early twenties. When Chaerin walked into that classroom, specs sitting on her nose and brown hair done into a ponytail, you knew you were done for. 

No one could ever get this comfortable and close with the CL, businesswoman and former big time rapper of girl group 2NE1. Every controversy just makes her more untouchable. You’re the only one who could call her Chaerin, the only one who could joke around with her. When people learned you married her, they congratulated you with a bit of fear in their eyes. The woman was a beast. What did she see in you that matched her?

You’ve no idea either. But she’s beautiful, and you won’t go anywhere. 

This is where it gets difficult: your worst choice is going to this club, for Chaerin spots something across the bar that she really, really hates. And, since with a face like that, no one’s ever cowered in her presence, she expects the same.

Her cloak slips off her shoulders, revealing her milky skin and that dangerous neckline that scoops her breasts. You know better than to tell Chaerin what she should and shouldn’t wear on your seventh anniversary. You’d come out with less stitches from a car accident. It benefits you anyway—your eyes only go there and she chides you.

“Pervert,” she says. Her voice always runs smoothly, like a song recording filtered of dead air. Whether it’s devastating news or saying it’s dinnertime, Chaerin rarely deviates from her clear tone unless it’s to yell.

“Am I not allowed to look at you?” You place an arm around her. “Like you’re sizing up that poor girl over there?”

Well… you wouldn’t say poor. A girl like that, with salon-smooth hair and a closet of Chanel, surely isn’t any more lower class than Chaerin is. You can tell from the way she carries herself that she’s from old money. Father probably taught her to fold her hands like that, and her mother taught by example to keep her shoulders back. 

But yeah, sure, you say poor as in, well, pitiable—no one’s particularly okay after Chaerin gets through to them.

“No and no. I’m not sizing her up.” Yet she tilts her head to the side to keep observing the lone girl. “I’m trying to kill her.”

An aggressive hyperbole is not new from Chaerin. But you still have to ask: “Why?’’

Chaerin rubs at your knuckles, her thumb sliding over the gaps. “Jennie Kim. Old money, pretty face, horrible personality. Somehow old Yang decided she was the top moneymaker and threw me away.”

You thought you were tripping. So that was Jennie Kim. Anyone would recognize her. She’s from one of the biggest girl groups on the planet and billboards in every street. A Chanel princess. The camera’s sweetheart. Young, rich, and ridiculously attractive.

But to your wife, she’s someone who ought to be six feet under with the shovel still stuck in the dirt. 

The company did her own group dirty. There are a lot of issues—publicized, exaggerated, and smeared once the media decided they’ll believe what they want to believe—which you know Chaerin would rather not bring up. But you see each one flash through her eyes right now, narrowing in slits as she curses her former colleague. It doesn’t matter if the woman’s half a decade younger or a junior in the horrid workplace that is the K-pop industry. Jennie Kim meant shit to her.

You chuckle. Chaerin is unpredictable. Here you thought a high end club with suited individuals and million-dollar menus could keep her in check. How dumb of you. 

“So you’re planning to beat up a Blackpink member whom you met when she was fourteen,” you say. “Got it.”

But you can’t deny that the girl’s beautiful. Sharp eyes, even sharper collarbone, and a pretty little mouth glossed with blood red. She has the kind of face people wish they’d have in their next life—natural, soft Hera features that the best plastic surgeon can’t replicate. 

“Don’t make it sound so odd.” Chaerin  crosses one gorgeous leg over the other. “It isn’t my fault I got my way into the game early and she’s still playing wannabe model.”

“Right.”

“And she’s been a bitch forever.”

‘It’s all in the past now, sweetheart.”

“So?” Chaerin’s getting worked up now, thinking of all the strings Jennie was able to pull and the connections she stole. “The point still stands. I built a name of my own early on, and she wouldn’t be here without me.”

Chaerin’s eyes sparkle suddenly (how the hell does she do that on command) as she turns her head to you. You’re already afraid of what she plans to do. That woman will stop at nothing and controls herself for nobody.

“Aw, darling,” she says, “will you lie to the judge for me if the little princess goes missing?”

“I’d do anything for you, Chaerin, but please, it’s our anniversary. Save yourself the trouble.”

“I’ll do whatever I want. She didn’t save herself the trouble when she fucking lied to my face about—”

“Point taken,” you say, raising your hands in surrender. Save Chaerin’s filthy words from cracking the soft jazz playing. You’re hopelessly in love with Chaerin; of course you let her win every fight. “I just need you to settle down, honey. You’ve got better things to do with your time.”

She seems to like the way you put that. You’re right. She’s got better things to do than give any second of her time to Jennie. Chaerin could drink another glass, order another slice, or, better yet, do whatever she liked to you. She was good at that. Dangerously good.

You and Chaerin reminisce together for the next thirty minutes. Your anniversary had just passed, and this was the only major celebration that you could fit in your schedules. Tomorrow, she has a meeting with Dara, and yesterday, you met up with the Jung family to discuss their daughter’s contracts. Today is the perfect time to recall how you met. 

2000 and something. Business class. You’re on a scholarship and of course Chaerin’s got backing. Everyone swoons the minute she sits in her chair. She’s popular, she’s rich, and she’s so fucking cool it’s enviable. She colored her hair even when the dress code was against it. She wore the tiniest fucking clothes even when your professor chastised her for it. That wooden chair sort of becomes her throne. In a stupid attempt to get close to her, you ask her for help on the formula and things happen. Soon, she’s laughing as you recount stumbling over your words to ask her out. And Chaerin laughs loudly—her cackle bounces off the walls like a cultish mantra. You describe it as just that and it amplifies. 

All the while, Jennie Kim sits alone at the end of the bar. She’s drinking only a little, but you can tell she’s a heavyweight anyway. She went to the most elite university in New Zealand, was a global superstar—you expected her days were filled with enough liquor to practice. Parties in the Bronx, reunions with her members, a hookup with someone who’s got just as much at stake as she does. 

Chaerin confirms this, taking out her rarely used phone and bringing you to Jennie’s Instagram. User jennierubyjane dons shades as she dances in a neon party. She’s not afraid to let skin show either. A tube top shows off those ninety degree shoulders and the tiniest waist you’ve seen. In the next picture on the carousel, she’s in a bikini, in the lap of a woman—probably her best friend—and laughing. 

“So that’s what she does instead of fucking resigning,” says Chaerin, pissed. “Kissing girls and living off hangovers. Jesus, it’s like she never graduated high school.” 

“What, you’ve never kissed a girl before?” 

“When I get bored of you, I might,” she tells you. You laugh and Chaerin caresses your cheek to inform you it’s jest. “The girl’s a textbook bisexual. She gives it to whoever so much puts their hands on her waist.”

“How do you know?”

Chaerin purses her lips. You’ll see. She was always right. 

But, as Chaerin later tells you, she’s at least got some sense in that pretty little head. She’d only met her once during predebut—back when the old man still cared about our band. But afterwards, she’d watched Jennie on the big stage, even chatted with her. It was all just advice on how to handle fame, where to hide secret boyfriends, what food to eat that fit the ridiculous diets.

Then Jennie released a solo song and all that was out of the window.

Chaerin argues the song was supposed to be hers. She had a demo and everything. It was originally supposed to be rap-heavy, with a feature from a Western artist. But they had reworked it to suit Jennie and she went with it, even if Chaerin had been such a good senior to her, the little bitch. If she'd resigned with Yang, she could dominate Korea. Might even do it better than he ever will, Chaerin is willing to admit to herself. She’d managed to sneak into the file room when the security guard was too smitten to forbid her anything. She knew what she was talking about. All her information is straight from the source. 

You and Chaerin toast to the future and to Jennie Kim’s karma. It gets her slightly tipsy, and tipsy Chaerin is even more unpredictable. Right now, she’s getting on her feet with a clear destination.

“What exactly is your plan here?” you ask, heart pounding. The bill is paid already. You can go back to the suite from the elevator and break the place in. It’s your anniversary after all. 

Turns out Chaerin’s got the same idea. She winks at you (trust me) as she goes over to Jennie. You, the ever faithful man who promised to be with her in sobriety and without, follow suit. Start to think about what lies to tell to the judge. Measure just how much Jennie’s hospital bill was going to be and remind yourself to set aside money.

God, the girl’s even more gorgeous up close. A body toned from Pilates, she’s fucking tiny, from that flawless face to the waist under the mesh Chanel. A look of recognition passes over her when she sees Chaerin’s figure shadow over her like a New York building.

“Oh, sunbaenim!” Jennie’s clearly surprised. She hasn’t heard from Chaerin in years. It’s hard to when your wife’s blocked her on Instagram. She bows politely, offering you her hand first. It’s smooth as a kitten’s paw. “How are you?”

Her English is noticeably twisted with an accent cultivated from some high-end subdivision. Somewhere with Greek statues for an entrance and horses on its hills. Something like that. She has a pretty smile.

“No need for the formalities,” Chaerin says. She sits on the stool beside Jennie while you take your place behind your wife. “We’re here to have fun, not for business.”

“If you insist.” Jennie flips her hair to the side of her shoulder. “I hope you’re having a splendid anniversary.”