Sometimes life gave you lemons, not by putting them in your hand but by squeezing the juice directly on your eyes. Even then, you were still expected to make lemonade from your own acid tears.

That was exactly what I did in the course of the next few months.

I had no choice but to admit defeat. The situation was completely out of my hands and I needed help from other people to get out of it. That hurt almost as much as what he-who-would-never-again-be-named-in-my-presence did. I could've asked Uncle Gabriel for help getting a visa years ago, like Mom did, but no. I'd tried to do everything on my own—and up until stumbling upon the most spoiled, rotten boss, I had somewhat succeeded.

This time I had no choice but to accept Uncle Gabriel's help. He walked me through the whole process with his lawyers, all the way until we filed the petition. Even sent me money so I could support myself abroad.

"I'll pay you back tenfold, I promise," I assured him.

He chuckled. "I have no doubt."

Tearing away from Mom at the airport was the hardest thing I'd done. Deep down, I feared this might be the last time I ever saw her. That the application would fail and I would be cast adrift into the world without her.

She clung to me and we cried together. I couldn't fathom why I'd spent most of my life fighting against her when I loved her with my whole being.

"Te amo," she said, while I covered her in kisses.

"Yo también."

And still we had to separate, because I could no longer stay in the country I considered my home.

Beside me, Tae Yang was my other lifesaver.

He dyed his hair platinum blond and put on makeup to slightly alter his features. In addition, he wore a cloth mask and a cap, the same fashion he'd donned when I met him. Back then, no one had recognized him because he was fresh out of the army, in a haircut no one knew him by. Now, he needed extra help to blend in the crowd. And even though I also put on a wig and copied his accessories, we caught curious glances here and there as we navigated through the terminals.

We held hands everywhere, except for the security checkpoints. Even when our skin grew clammy, we held onto each other. My whole body vibrated the closer we got to departure, and it infected him.

"It's going to be okay," he assured me.

I bit my lips hard, not to cry out that he couldn't promise that.

"I'm nervous," I admitted, swallowing with difficulty. "About flying again, about leaving, about maybe not being able to come back-"

"Nope." He put one finger over my mask on my lips. "None of that. We'll make it, no matter what."

Optimism hurt. Shit, everything hurt. But I wanted to believe him. It was better than contemplating the other what ifs.

We boarded the plane on first class, which Tae Yang had purchased not for the leg room, but for the reduced chances of raising a ruckus. We just couldn't use the free tickets we got from the airline after the accident, because they were in economy class. I sat by the window, taking one last look at the piece of Orlando I could see from the small opening.

A lone tear trickled down my cheek. I hoped I could see Mom again, and Quinta, and Dawn, and Leyna, and Tae Yang's bandmates.

And Tae Yang, because he was only coming with me for a little bit before he had to come back to the US to work.

"As for the flying nerves," Tae Yang said, picking the earlier conversation back up. "I have just the remedy."

He turned to a nearby flight attendant and asked for beer.

I raised my eyebrows. "Mi sol, you do know it's only eight in the morning, right?"

He gave me a look. "How do you think I've survived flying all around the world after what we went through?"

We crossed ourselves and opened the beer cans. As the plane took off, my first thought was that Tae Yang and I were well on our way to Alcoholics Anonymous. Even with a full course breakfast consisting of one beer after the other, we clung to each other during takeoff as though we could actually be each other's buoys in case of the worst.

Slurring through my words, I said, "How are you going to get through a world tour?"

He cheeks were hot pink as he winced. "Probably with therapy, naui dal."

We dozed off through most of the flight to the west coast, and the only reason why we didn't miss the next flight was because we set up a bunch of alarms on our cellphones. Still, it was an experience to amble through a massive international airport while hungover, but we made it to our next flight in the nick of time.

South Korea, here we went.

It was the only destination we could think of, to avoid me having to go back to my home country.

I could stay in South Korea for three months while we filed the application in the US, and Tae Yang's parents had offered to host my stay. Or maybe he had forced them to. And Tae Yang had convinced the label to give him a week off so he could help me settle in.

My hero.

During that week, it was easy to pretend like this was temporary. A sort of honey moon. He took me to some of his favorite places in Seoul—all of them restaurants, of course, and none of which gave me an allergic reaction. I developed a new appreciation for his home country's cuisine, especially because it was so varied. Any food we wanted, whether a specific dish or international cuisine, we could find a million options. I half wondered if he was fattening me up on purpose.

When I told him about it once, sitting with him under the tarp of a street vendor, Tae Yang laughed and kissed my lips. "Busted. Though I think other guys will keep looking at you no matter how much weight I put on you."

Sure enough, a nearby table packed with guys kept sneaking glances at us. Or at me. Or maybe they recognized my boyfriend. I sat with my back facing them, blocking their view of Tae Yang.

"Or maybe," I said, stuffing my face with food and talking while I chewed in a way Mom would've screamed at me about. "You're just so pretty even guys are attracted to you."

He fluttered his eyelashes at me. "It's just makeup. I'm really ugly without it."

Anyone who hadn't seen him fully naked, of makeup and clothes, might have been fooled. Not me.

Twice, our cover was busted in the streets as people recognized him. Both times ended with the two of us running for our lives, a horde of people chasing after one of the country's prodigal sons. After that, his parents insisted that we stay home.

Tae Yang had made up with them, which fortunately meant he didn't have to translate any insults back at me. Instead, he instructed me to call his dad abunim and his mom omunim, which were formal, respectful ways to refer to in-laws.

"But they're not my in-laws," I whispered to Tae Yang one night, settled against him in his childhood bed.

"Yet," he said.

I stared into his dark eyes, seeking clues to know if that had been a joke.

Tae Yang kissed the tip of my nose. "Stop looking at me like I'm crazy."

"But you are," I said.

"Yeah." He nodded. "For you."

That made me groan. "You're cheesier than pizza."

"And you love me just as much," he said, grinning.

"I do." I sighed, draping my arm over him and closing my eyes.

When he finally had to return back to the US, reality crashed onto me like an anvil. While I wouldn't stay alone in a foreign country, his parents' use of English was only slightly less rudimentary than my non-existing Korean. The Chois gave me dictionaries and maps, they taught me some of the basic etiquette, and still for weeks I didn't venture outside. All I could do was mope, FaceTime Mom and my friends, and cry to my boyfriend.

The first month went by like that.

Tae Yang's parents were an old school couple, where his dad oversaw the restaurant chain Tae Yang had helped them open, and his mom stayed home. While abunim went to work everyday, I helped omunim with the housework. According to her son, that was the quickest way to her heart and sure enough, it made us become sort of buddies.

Every afternoon, we sat together to watch soaps while we cleaned or cut vegetables and other assorted foods in preparation for dinner. Pretty soon, I had favorite actors and actresses, even if I didn't understand a lick of what they were saying.

Tagging along with her to an international supermarket produced the jackpot of Harina PAN. I introduced Tae Yang's parents to homemade arepas, and while omunim was already friendly with me, this was what got me in abunim's good books.

"Ah yes," his son told me over the phone after that. "His main requisite for the blind dates they set me up with was that the girl had to be able to cook."

I chuckled. "All I have to do now is learn Korean and he might approve our marriage, huh?"

The joke flew right over Tae Yang's head because he said, "I'm sure I can find a good academy for you in Seoul."

He spent two days trying to convince me of that until I caved, if only because I had nothing better to do.

His mom carted me back and forth from the academy every time I had class, which was a sight for any bystanders. The adorable older lady about half the height of the dark-skinned foreigner caught people's attention no matter where we went. Some even went as far as snapping pictures.

It was Leyna who emailed me a news article from some US tabloid, with a headline reading THESUN's Girlfriend Spotted in Seoul.

After that, it was me who had to run from people in the streets. Every single person I encountered turned into a paparazzi trying to get a snap of THESUN's girlfriend. When omunim and I could no longer handle the onslaught, abunim started driving me back and forth to my lessons.

"I feel so bad, I already was a bother before this but now it's so much worse," I told my boyfriend on the phone.

"Actually," Tae Yang said. "I talked with Leti about this whole thing and this might be crazy, but how would you like to work as a model in Korea while your papers here get processed?"

"Wha?" I said, my tongue tying at the end of the word.

"There's a lot of buzz around you online and I actually think it might help solidify your beauty business."

"Uhh..."

"Think about it," he said.

So I did. Every day I refreshed the American immigration website with my case, and every day there were no changes. However, every day drew closer to the end of my legal stay as a tourist, and going back to my home country wasn't an option I wanted to contemplate if I could help it.

A couple of days later, while talking with Tae Yang, I brought the topic back up. "So, about this modeling idea. What would I need to do?"

Since we were on a video call, I was able to see his eyes light up like two little suns. "Lucky for you, your boyfriend is really smart and guessed you would want to try this. So I got the paperwork started for you."

A month later, with Tae Yang's help, I started working as the model for a Korean beauty brand.

It was like coming full circle to ten years ago, when I was fresh out of the Miss Venezuela and the Miss World, hoping to break into the entertainment industry by my own means. But while not having a sponsor made it impossible back then, I did have one now. A boyfriend who was willing to do whatever it took to help me. Not because I was a hot arm accessory, but because he loved me.

"That's right," he said after I poured my heart out to him and confessed these thoughts to him. "I'm not too shabby."

I laughed.

Because of him, I had hope that the future wasn't a cliff—and if it turned out to be as much, I knew he'd hold my hand and jump into it with me. And it was all thanks to a plane that almost went down.

SONG OF THE DAY: 2NE1 - I Am The Best

Cee and Tae Yang are the beeeest