A/N: I'm just so grateful for this show, and for my prince and his peanut-sized King Kong, and their super-powered twin babies.
Bong Soon tells him on Thursday, only a day after the launch of his latest game, that they're having someone over for dinner.
He's still recovering from Ha Jin's latest kick; it isn't fair that Bong Soon wants guests now. A man has to keep up appearances, and appearance. Speaking at the conference on Tuesday with a bruise on his jaw was troublesome enough.
"Who is it?" he asks, very grim, brows together, and she's doing that little shimmy, smile wide and eyes innocent, which means he's not going to like it.
"In…Guk…Doo…"
Min Hyuk's jaw is dropping anyway, so he lets it keep dropping for full, gaping effect. "Seriously? You want that—"
"Min Min," she coos, going for his collar, tugging him down so that her lips—freshly glossed—are dangerously close. "Please?"
He kisses her deep and slow, and then the twins start crying.
"Come get your daughters," Bong Soon says, breathing a little hard, and that makes him smile like he's won. Though he hasn't, really.
He never does, and he wouldn't have it any other way.
.
Of course, he's less pleased when Guk Doo actually arrives, bearing a bouquet of flowers—damn him—and as slick as ever in a leather jacket that is nowhere near as expensive as the leather jacket Min Hyuk bought two weeks ago. (Yet it rankles.)
It also rankles that Bong Soon perks up to about 110%, and hugs him. Min Hyuk balances Ha Jin and Mi Na on each hip and tries to look foreboding. They're making gurgling noises; they, like their mother, are adorable and deadly.
"Be careful with them," Min Hyuk says, very grudgingly, when Guk Doo asks to hold one. Min Hyuk hands him Ha Jin—she of the kicks. Get him good, daughter, he thinks.
Ha Jin does no such thing. She rocks back in his arms and blinks with dark, sleepy eyes at him.
"She's precious," Guk Doo breathes. His face is softer than Min Hyuk has ever seen it; it strikes him, suddenly, that not everyone gets to be a father. At least not yet. He shrugs away the feeling; he doesn't want any sort of sympathy for Guk Doo, who still holds the honor of "Jerk" in Min Hyuk's phone. Slowly, Guk Doo raises his eyes to Bong Soon, and says, "She looks like you."
They look like Min Hyuk, too, if anyone is asking. The terrifying mother-in-law thinks so; true, her opinion can not be trusted, but Kyung Shim mentioned it just the other day. They have the beginnings of his eyebrows.
"Oh, Guk Doo," Bong Soon says. "Come, let's eat. You must be hungry. How is it in Gangnam? Are you eating well? Are you sleeping well?"
"He did not come here to talk about his sleep," Min Hyuk interjects, knowing full well that he is being petty. Someone must keep Guk Doo in check; clearly, it is not going to be Bong Soon.
His wife is beautiful. He thinks this always, and he thinks it now, with a twist of anxiety in his stomach, because Min Hyuk may be the happiest man in the world but happy men still carry old scars. He knows well—very well—that she used to care for Guk Doo, and Guk Doo would be even more of a blockhead than he seems if he did not once care for Bong Soon.
Dinner is a tense affair, at least at one corner of the table. But Bong Soon is blithe, spoon-feeding her daughters, whose punches have no effect on her, and asking Guk Doo to tell her everything about his life.
"Have you met anyone?" she asks, with soft eyes.
Guk Doo shifts in his seat, avoiding her gaze for a moment. Min Hyuk sighs dramatically, and feels unheeded.
"I have," he says. "The new detective…"
"I know they say don't date people from work," Bong Soon says, beaming. "But sometimes..." She turns to Min Hyuk, and he feels his whole being drawn towards her. She is magnetic, is Bong Soon.
.
Guk Doo stays too late. Min Hyuk wants to push him out the door, all the more because Guk Doo said something dryly funny in conversation, and Min Hyuk laughed before he could catch himself.
"You were too harsh," Bong Soon says, pouting a little, when Guk Doo and his leather jacket and wistful glances have driven themselves away.
"Aish," he says. "You know I've never liked him."
"You used to flirt with him," she accuses him.
"Only because you were."
Mi Na starts to cry. It stirs something in Min Hyuk, something that's been nagging at him.
"They were calm for Guk Doo," he says. "And not for me. Why—"
Bong Soon looks tired, and he almost wishes he had said nothing. But then she reaches forward, and laces her fingers through his.
"Do you know, when I was a baby, the one I gave the most black eyes to—the most bruises—can you guess?"
"Bong Ki?"
"No, no." She shakes her head, the corners of her mouth switching in a smile. "My appa. I used to kick my poor father. As though he ever deserved it." She looks up at him, reaches up, runs her other hand along his cheek. "Daughters think their fathers are the strongest in the world, right from birth. They will learn not to hurt you, but you shouldn't take it to heart now."
His heart is warmed. He turns away, biting back a smile, and then says, "But they are too young to know—"
"We Do women…we are never too young to love our fathers." She looks grim. "Now, Mi Na is still crying. Are you going to make her wait?"
"You come with me." He tugs at her.
Bong Soon glances distractedly at the clock in the nursery as she calms Mi Na. "I should make a round of the neighborhood—"
Min Hyuk captures her in a hug. "If I had to suffer through dinner with Gangnam's finest, then you can take one night off."
Bong Soon smiles from under her lashes. "All…night?"
She really is going to kill him one day. The things she does to his heart, the things she does to every inch of him, ever since the first moment he saw her—that is where her real strength lies. "I'm going to carry you upstairs," he says. "Let me feel like a man."
Bong Soon shuts her eyes and smiles. When his arms close around her, she whispers, just for him to hear, "You're always my man."