Chapter 19: Labor Pains
The silence after posting lasted approximately seven seconds.
Then Maria’s studio, a place usually sacred with creative quiet, became a war room under digital siege. The three phones on the velvet sofa erupted in a cacophony of overlapping alerts—a relentless, shuddering percussion of buzzes, chimes, and ringtones. The screens flashed nonstop, notifications stacking upon notifications until the devices skittered across the fabric like live things.
Maria stared at them, her earlier rage cooling into a hard, numb dread. Min-ho’s post was a scalpel, clean and precise. The internet’s response was a sledgehammer.
“Don’t,” Min-ho said, his voice tight. He tried to scoop the phones into a pile, to mute the noise.
“I have to,” she whispered, and picked up her personal one. Her thumb moved on its own, opening Twitter. The photo he’d posted was already at the top of her feed, surrounded by a wildfire of quotes and replies. The initial wave was a tsunami of supportive emojis and screaming caps-lock from his fans, the “BETions,” a chaotic mix of heartbreak and stunned congratulations. But beneath it, scrolling further, the algorithm served the raw, unfiltered undercurrent.
Her eyes snagged on a thread. Let’s be real. She’s not even close to his league. What idol dates a rockera with that much body? Gold-digger alert.
Another: She trapped him. Obviously. Gets knocked up, forces him to post that. Poor BET.
A direct reply to Min-ho’s post: You could do so much better. This is disappointing.
A meme, a photo of her from a performance last year, her arms raised, a look of fierce joy on her face. Someone had photoshopped a baby into her hands. The caption was crude, vile.
Her breath hitched. It wasn’t the first time she’d read hate. It was the specificity. The reduction of their story, their messy, real, terrifying joy, into these cheap, ugly narratives. That she was a scheme. A trap. A downgrade.
“Maria.” Min-ho knelt in front of her, blocking her view of the phones. He took her face in his hands again, forcing her eyes to his. “Don’t give them your eyes. They don’t get that.”
“They’re saying I trapped you,” she said, the words hollow. “That I’m… that this was a strategy.”
His expression darkened. “They are saying nothing. They are typing words into a void for their own empty satisfaction. They know nothing about you. About this.” His hand slid down, his palm resting gently over her stomach. The gesture was so simple, so proprietary and intimate, it made her throat ache.
“It still feels like being carved open,” she admitted.
The doorbell rang, a sharp, insistent sound that cut through the digital din. A second later, a key turned in the lock.
Estela barrelled into the studio, a gust of cool city air and fierce energy. Her blonde hair was piled in a messy knot, her blue eyes scanning the room like a hawk. She took in the scene: Maria pale and still on the sofa, Min-ho kneeling protectively before her, the phones buzzing their angry chorus on the velvet.
“Right,” Estela said, dropping her oversized bag on the floor with a thud. “Phase one: containment.” She marched over, gathered all three phones, and without ceremony, powered them off. The sudden quiet was staggering, a physical relief. “Phase two: whiskey. But you can’t have any, so you get fancy water.” She went to the small cabinet by the record player, pulled out a bottle and two glasses, filled one with water for Maria and splashed a generous amount of amber liquid into the other two.
She handed Min-ho his glass, then sat on the other side of Maria, pressing the water into her hand. “Drink.”
Maria took a sip. The water was room temperature, tasteless.
“Now,” Estela said, taking a long swallow of whiskey. “The post was perfect. A gut punch of authenticity. It’s trending number one worldwide. The narrative is already shifting. The serious fan accounts are analyzing the photo like it’s the Shroud of Turin—the intimacy, the lighting, how obviously you love her. It’s a masterstroke, Min-ho. My professional opinion.”
Min-ho didn’t look pleased. He stared into his glass. “And the other comments?”
Estela’s serious expression didn’t waver. “They exist. They are hateful, petty, and predictable. They are also a minority, though a loud one. The primary angle of attack is against Maria. They’re calling her…” She paused, choosing her words with clinical detachment. “A gold-digger. A slut. They’re questioning her appearance. Standard issue misogyny with a side of xenophobia.”
Maria flinched. Hearing it stated so calmly by her best friend made it more real, not less.
Min-ho’s knuckles were white around his glass. “I want to respond. To every single one.”
“And that would be the stupidest thing you could do,” Estela said flatly. “You don’t wrestle with pigs in the mud. You acknowledge the beautiful pasture you’re standing in and let them watch from the filth.” She turned to Maria. “You know this. You’ve had hate before.”
“Not like this,” Maria said. “Not about something that… isn’t about my music. This is about my body. My choice. Him.” She glanced at Min-ho. “It feels different when it’s aimed at something you love.”
Estela nodded, conceding the point. She pulled out her own work tablet, woke it up, and opened a curated dashboard. “Okay. Let’s look at the other side. The ship has a name, you know. ‘IvyBET.’ It’s been brewing in the corners for months, since you two were spotted at that charity gala in London last year.”
She turned the screen toward them. It showed a beautifully edited collage—photos of them from events, their body language analyzed, their outfits coordinated into a theory of secret communication. There were fragments of Maria’s lyrics placed beside translated excerpts of Min-ho’s few solo song credits, drawing parallels about longing and secrecy. There were supportive comments in a babel of languages: They’re both artists, they understand the pressure! She’s not some manufactured idol, she’s real, he needs that. Look how he looks at her in the background of that video from Milan!
“See?” Estela said, a hint of her dark humor returning. “For every disgusting worm down here,” she scrolled to a hate comment, “there’s a genuinely unhinged but loving detective up here building a cathedral for your love story. The fans who love this… they’re passionate. They feel vindicated. They’re your shield.”
Min-ho studied the fan edits, a complex mix of awe and discomfort on his face. “They see so much,” he murmured.
“They have nothing else to look at but you,” Estela said. “That’s the job. Now, here’s the next move. We use the momentum. Jae is on board—your company sees the positive engagement metrics, they’re terrified but following your lead. We draft a joint, formal statement. Short. Grateful for the support, requesting privacy for this personal journey during a happy but fragile time. We specifically do not address the pregnancy rumors. We confirm nothing and everything. It buys you the space to actually get married without it looking like a scandalous elopement.”
Maria leaned her head back against the sofa, closing her eyes. The exhaustion was bone-deep, a weight in her limbs. The emotional whiplash of the last hour—Pilar’s betrayal, the furious post, the violent deluge of opinions—left her feeling scooped out. “I’m so tired, Esty.”
“I know, corazón.” Estela’s voice softened. She put her tablet aside and squeezed Maria’s hand. “But you don’t get to be tired yet. You have to get up, and you have to seem unbreakable. For five minutes in front of a camera if we need to. Or just in your next Instagram story. You smile, you look happy, you look loved. You deprive the worms of the reaction they want. You make them feel small and stupid.”
Min-ho finally drank his whiskey, the liquid a slow burn down his throat. The helpless anger was still there, coiled tight, but Estela’s pragmatic ferocity was giving it a direction. “When do we do this statement?”
“Two hours. Gives us time to craft it, translate it, get legal to nitpick. Then we drop it and you both go dark again.” Estela stood, collecting the glasses. “I’ll be in the kitchen with my laptop. You two… just be here. Don’t turn the phones back on.”
She left, closing the studio door softly behind her.
The sanctuary was quiet again, but the peace was different now. It was the quiet after a storm, everything slightly damaged, the air charged with spent energy. The handwritten lyrics on the walls seemed less like inspiration and more like evidence of a past self.
Min-ho moved to sit beside Maria, drawing her into his side. She curled into him, her forehead against his neck. He pressed his lips to her hair.
“I hate them,” he said quietly, the words a raw admission. “I hate that they speak about you. That they think they have any right.”
“It’s the price,” she mumbled into his skin. “For the other part. The music. The stage. The love from people who do get it.”
“It’s too high.”
“Not today,” she sighed. “Today it feels like a bargain with the devil.” She was silent for a long moment. “That photo you took… I look so peaceful.”
“You were.”
“We’ll never have that again, will we? That kind of quiet. Where it was just us and this secret.”
He thought about it. “No. Probably not. But we’ll have other kinds of quiet. Loud quiet. With a baby crying. And we’ll have this.” He gestured around the studio, at the instruments, the legacy of her work. “And we’ll have each other, knowing we did it our way. Even when it was ugly.”
Maria pulled back to look at him. The golden light from the window caught the pink streaks in her dark red hair. She managed a small, weary smile. “You’re getting better at the speeches.”
“I have a good teacher.” He kissed her, slow and deep, a tactile reaffirmation in the heart of the mental chaos. When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers. “Estela is right. We have to seem unbreakable.”
Maria took a deep, steadying breath. She could still feel the phantom vibration of the phones in her hands, see the cruel words etched on the back of her eyelids. But beneath that, deeper, was the solid reality of him. The life inside her. Her work waiting on the desk.
“Okay,” she said. She untangled herself from him and stood, walking to her desk. She picked up the notebook of half-finished lyrics, the pencil. She looked at the cracked vinyl on the player, the needle still frozen on Gardel’s lament. She lifted the arm and set it back at the beginning. The first, mournful notes of the tango filled the room.
She didn’t
The first, mournful notes of the tango filled the room.
She didn’t sing. She just listened, her eyes closed, letting the old sorrow in the music wash over the new, sharp ones in her chest. Min-ho watched her from the sofa, the line of her shoulders, the way her hand still rested protectively low on her stomach. Estela’s typed keys clacked like distant gunfire from the kitchen.
His own phone, powered off, felt like a brick in his pocket. The urge to look was a physical itch. To defend. To scream into the void. But Maria was right; it was a bargain. This mess, for her. For them. It was still worth it, but the currency today felt filthy.
He stood up. “We should do it now.”
Maria opened her eyes. The tango played on. “The statement? Estela said two hours.”
“Not the statement.” He walked to her desk, picked up her personal phone, and held it out. “Go live. Right now. With me.”
She stared at the device. “You’re insane. Estela will have an aneurysm.”
“Estela’s plan is good. It’s smart.” He tapped the phone screen. “This is feeling. They just spent an hour carving you up based on a single picture. Let’s give them context. Let’s give them nothing and everything at the same time.”
A slow, understanding dawned in her eyes, cutting through the fatigue. It was the same look she got when a song idea clicked. A fierce, creative spark. “Unfiltered.”
“Unfiltered,” he confirmed. “We control the frame. We show them a slice of real that’s so boring and so messy they won’t know what to do with it. We take the weapon away.”
Maria took the phone. She didn’t open Twitter or Instagram. She opened her camera app and looked at their reflection in the black screen. Her hair was a mess, her face bare, his t-shirt rumpled. She smiled, a real, tired thing. “We look like hell.”
“Perfect,” he said.
He pulled a stool over next to her desk chair. She propped the phone against the neck of a vintage guitar, angling it so they were both in frame. The studio lights were off; only the late afternoon sun through the window illuminated them in warm, uneven gold. It looked like exactly what it was: a stolen moment in a creative cave.
“Ready?” she asked, her finger hovering.
He nodded. She tapped ‘Live’.
The viewer count exploded immediately, numbers climbing so fast they blurred. Comments flooded the bottom of the screen, a waterfall of hearts, question marks, and screaming.
“Hi,” Maria said, her voice a little rough. She gave a small, awkward wave. “So. Yeah.”
Min-ho leaned into the frame. “We saw the photo went everywhere. We’re… here.” He didn’t smile. He just looked at the camera, weary and direct. The comments sped by, a mix of “OMG” and “IS THIS REAL?” and “WHAT ABOUT PILAR?”
“Ignore that,” Maria murmured, mostly to herself. She shifted on her chair and something made a low, plastic thunk. She looked down. The container of kimchi Min-ho had made two days ago, after she’d mentioned craving it for the third time, sat by her foot where he’d left it after a failed snack attempt yesterday.
She picked it up. “Oh. Hang on.” She placed the clear container on the desk in front of them. The bright red, fermented cabbage was visible through the lid. “Look what he made me. I’ve been wanting this for a week.”
Min-ho picked it up, unscrewed the lid, and handed it to her. The pungent, spicy, sour smell immediately bloomed into the space between them, cutting through the studio’s scent of old wood and dust. “Made from scratch. My grandmother’s recipe.”
Maria brought the container closer to her face, inhaling deeply with a look of pure anticipation. The comments were wild now. “SHIP CONFIRMED” and “KIMCHI??” and “THIS IS A PR STUNT.”
“We’re not stunting,” Min-ho said, his eyes scanning the flowing text. He decided to talk to it, to the endless questions. “We met… three years ago? At a music festival after-party in Berlin. Everyone was there. It was loud.”
Maria nodded, using a fork she’d snagged from a desk drawer to poke at the kimchi. “We talked for maybe ten minutes. About… synth patches, I think. It was terrible.”
“It wasn’t terrible,” Min-ho corrected, a faint, real smile touching his lips. “I thought you were the most vivid person in the room. You had a streak of blue in your hair then.” He kept his gaze soft, directed at her, but his mind was constructing the censored version, the one that omitted the hours they’d spent later that night in a hotel bar, talking until sunrise. “We became friends. It was easy. We’d text sometimes. Send songs.”
“And the timing was always wrong,” Maria continued, picking up the thread. She speared a piece of cabbage, finally bringing it toward her mouth. “You were promoting. I was touring. You were in Seoul, I was in Buenos Aires or London or somewhere. Life.”
Min-ho watched the comments. A chunk of them were loving it. Another persistent stream sliced through: “BET YOU DESERVE BETTER.” “SHE’S NOT PRETTY ENOUGH.” “THIS IS SO FAKE FOR ALBUM PROMO.”
His jaw tightened imperceptibly. “It wasn’t fake,” he said, the comment seemingly aimed at Maria’s last statement, but his tone carried a harder edge. “It was just… impossible for a while. Then it wasn’t.”
Maria finally took the bite. She closed her eyes in expectation, the fork halfway to her mouth.
Then her eyes flew open.
A convulsive gag wracked her body. The fork clattered onto the desk. Her hand flew to her mouth. The complex, funky aroma of the fermentation, which had smelled like heaven a moment ago, now hit her pregnancy-altered senses like a physical blow—sour, overpowering, violently wrong.
“Oh, god—” she choked out, scrambling up from the chair so fast it toppled backward.
She bolted from the frame, a hand clamped over her mouth. Min-ho was moving before her chair hit the floor. He didn’t look at the phone, didn’t think about the tens of thousands watching.
“Maria!”
The phone, jostled, fell from its perch against the guitar. It clattered to the wooden desk, landing on its side. The camera now showed a tilted view of the studio’s ceiling, the dangling cord of a microphone, and the acoustically treated wall.
But the audio was perfectly clear.
The harsh, painful sounds of vomiting from down the hall. Muffled, but unmistakable. Then Min-ho’s voice, strained, close.
“I’m here, I’m here. It’s okay.”
A sob, ragged and wet. “It smells like death. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just breathe. Here.” The sound of water running from a tap. A cabinet opening. “Rinse. It’s alright.”
A weak retch, then a shaky breath. “I wanted it so much.”
“I know. We’ll try again next week. The craving will come back.” His voice was all tenderness, a soft, private rhythm utterly devoid of performance. The sound of him rubbing her back. Her coughing, then a tired whimper.
In the studio, the live feed ticked on, showing the still-life of the ceiling. The comment section, for a few seconds, had frozen. Then it exploded into a frenzy of a different kind.
“OMG IS SHE SICK?”
“That’s morning sickness. 10000%.”
“SHE’S PREGNANT.”
“OH MY GOD THE ULTRASOUND WAS REAL.”
“BET HOLDING HER HAIR BACK I CAN’T.”
“THIS ISN’T A STUNT NO ONE FAKES THAT.”
“PILAR LIED.”
The viewer count kept climbing.
The phone, still live, showed only the wooden ceiling for another twelve seconds. A hand, Estela’s, with chipped blue polish, finally swooped into frame. The screen went black as she ended the broadcast. The studio was silent, save for the distant sound of the bathroom tap running.
Estela stood frozen, the dead phone in her hand, her professional composure shattered. “You did a live. You did a live while vomiting. I am going to murder you both, but legally, after this crisis.” She blinked, processing. “That was… the best and worst thing you could have ever done.”
In the bathroom, Maria was slumped against the cool tiles, her forehead damp. Min-ho knelt beside her, holding a wet cloth to the back of her neck. The pungent ghost of kimchi lingered in the air.
“I’m a spectacle,” Maria whispered, her eyes closed.
“You’re a person who got sick,” he corrected, his voice low. “They heard that. They heard me. There’s no script for that.”
Estela appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She’d already pulled up analytics on her tablet. “The clip is everywhere. It’s being clipped at the moment she gags. The audio is crystal clear.” She scrolled, her expression shifting from panic to grim analysis. “The top comments aren’t about your looks anymore, Maria. They’re asking if you’re okay. They’re diagnosing the smell of kimchi as a pregnancy trigger. They’re calling Min-ho a ‘green flag’ for the way he said ‘I’m here.’”
She looked at them, a strange awe in her blue eyes. “You accidentally made it real. Uncontrovertibly, messily real. No one believes Pilar now. The narrative is now ‘secret pregnancy,’ not ‘secret affair.’ It’s a significantly better fire to put out.”
“Can we get up off the floor, please?” Maria asked weakly.
Min-ho helped her to her feet, supporting her weight. They moved back to the studio sofa, a weary procession. Estela followed, already typing furiously. “The statement is being adjusted. We’re acknowledging the ‘private personal health matter’ and condemning the ‘malicious theft and publication of private medical images.’ That’s Pilar. We’re legally carving her out.”
“What about the wedding?” Min-ho asked. He kept his arm around Maria, who had pulled her knees up to her chest.
“It just got easier,” Estela said without looking up. “Public sympathy is a tidal wave right now. You’re no longer the reckless idol. You’re the protective partner. We channel that. We say, ‘In light of the invasive stress, they have chosen to privately solemnize their commitment to focus on family and health.’ It’s flawless.”
Her phone rang. She glanced at it. “It’s Jae. They’ll be ecstatic.” She answered, walking toward the kitchen. “Sí, we saw it. Yes, we’re drafting... No, they’re off-limits for comment. The focus is health and privacy now.”
Her voice faded away. In the studio, the tango record had ended, leaving a static hiss. Min-ho reached over and lifted the needle.
“A green flag,” Maria mumbled into her knees. A faint, hoarse laugh escaped her. “What does that even mean?”
“It means they think I’m decent for holding your hair,” he said. He kissed her temple. “The bar is subterranean.”
They sat in the quiet for a long moment. The adrenaline was draining, leaving a hollowed-out fatigue. The image of the sideways phone on the desk, broadcasting their most vulnerable sounds to millions, replayed in Min-ho’s mind. It should have felt like a violation. Instead, a bizarre relief settled in his chest. The worst had happened, and they were still here.
“I don’t want to look at the statements,” Maria said.
“Don’t,” he agreed.
“I want to know what Pilar is doing right now.”
Min-ho’s mouth set in a hard line. “She’s deleting every trace of that ultrasound. And she’s panicking.”
Estela came back in, her energy more focused. “The draft is done. It goes out in twenty minutes. Jae’s team is coordinating the Korean press. You two are to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. No posts, no likes, no accidentally going live from the toilet.”
“We’ll try our best,” Maria said dryly.
“I mean it. I’m taking your devices.” Estela held out her hand. After a beat, Min-ho pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it over. Maria passed hers from the sofa cushion.
“Now,” Estela said, tucking the phones into her bag. “I’ve ordered food. Actual, bland, non-smelling food. It will be here in thirty. You will eat. You will watch a terrible movie. You will not think about hashtags.” She pointed a finger at them. “This is now my job. Your job is to be the calm in the center of the storm we just perfectly engineered.”
She left again, presumably to station herself at the kitchen table with her laptop fortress. The late sun had dipped below the buildings, painting the room in deep blue shadows. Min-ho stood and turned on a single, soft lamp.
“A terrible movie,” he said. “What qualifies?”
“Anything where things explode for no reason,” Maria said, unfurling herself. She reached for the knitted blanket on the back of the sofa. “No subtitles. My brain is mush.”
He found an action thriller, full of gratuitous car chases and stilted dialogue. They ate the plain rice and steamed chicken Estela had ordered directly from the containers, side-by-side on the sofa. Maria fell asleep before the final showdown, her head sliding onto his shoulder, her breathing deep and even.
Min-ho watched the screen without seeing it. His thoughts were clear, sharper than they’d been in days. The public chaos was a frontier he understood. It was the private betrayal that lingered, a cold knot beneath his ribs. Pilar had tried to weaponize the most intimate proof of their life.
The movie ended. Credits rolled. He carefully extracted himself, lowering Maria onto a pillow. He tucked the blanket around her and walked to the kitchen.
Estela was still there, three screens glowing in the dark. She looked up, her face illuminated in the cool light. “The statement is out. It’s playing exactly as we hoped. The headlines are shifting. ‘Ivy and BET Seek Privacy Amid Health Concerns.’ ‘Malicious Leak Condemned.’” She rotated a screen toward him. “This is Pilar’s Instagram.”
The profile was set to private. The number of followers had plummeted.
“Good,” Min-ho said, the word quiet and final.
“She’s not the problem anymore,” Estela stated, closing the laptop with a definitive click. “The problem is managing the wave of goodwill. And planning a wedding that now half the world emotionally feels they have a stake in.” She rubbed her eyes. “Go to sleep. Tomorrow is logistics.”
He nodded and turned back toward the dark studio. Maria was a still shape under the blanket. The city’s nocturnal glow edged the curtains. He lay down on the sofa beside her, careful not to wake her, and listened to the rhythm of her breath.
His hand found hers in the space between them. Their fingers interlaced, a silent pact in the dark. The storm was outside now. For the first time, he believed they had built a wall that would hold.