Author's Note: This is a quick one-shot that just came to mind. It's the fourth installment of the Boys Before Flowers stories I've been doing. You can still give me ideas on what other things you wish to see.
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Growing up without the ability to hear was always a challenge. I had to learn how to walk and talk again because my equilibrium was messed up and because for the first few months I couldn't understand what I was saying. My parents were the worst. My papa blamed himself for the wreck that stole my hearing and my mom made excuses for him. The only person in my household I could rely on after getting out of the hospital was my brother Francesco.
But Francesco was a boy and he wanted to be. So I moved in with my grandmere and grandpere where I learned to channel the things I couldn't express into art. My grandpere explained that emotions were things everyone had but it took special people to understand how to use them. Grandpere could always tell what I was feeling even when I could not.
That came in handy when I started school. My mama was French and had grown up in France all her life, but my papa was Korean. When they met in college, they said it was love at first sight, but to this day I still believe my mama was out for papa's money. I looked different with dark curly hair, tan skin and slanted eyes, and the kids picked on me. I didn't know how to express what I was feeling because sign language can only show so much, and I didn't have hearing aids back then.
Grandpere would take me out back to his studio and we would make pottery together. He would sit me in front of him as he sat at the spinning wheel, and by using his hands, he showed me how to relate everything I was feeling into the clay. Sometimes it would turn into a nasty mess. Other times I was left with beautiful piece.
The years went by like this. Grandpere started accumulating all my pottery and selling it. He said it was going to my college tuition even though he owned his own company. I never asked because Grandpere was the man who saved me from a life of loneliness. We fished and made pottery and did all sorts of fun art projects.
I went through life like a zombie as some would say. Many thought I was an ice queen because even after I got my hearing aids I never showed what I was feeling. I wasn't an ice queen. I just didn't know how to react to people who said hostile things to me. I was used to of course because when papa and mama came to visit I was always the brunt of papa's ire. But grandpere was always there to pick me back up when I needed it.
It was hard on me to go to college. I had to leave grandpere even though he lost grandmere the same year. He urged me to go. He said no grandchild of his was going to waste a good education. He wanted me to study art but my heart was set on becoming a doctor after grandmere passed away from a heart attack. So with his blessing, I majored in premed then went on to medical school.
Things were good for a while. I was reunited with Francesco at school. That had been grandpere's only stipulation. I had to go to the same school as Francesco until he graduated. That was fine because where he went to school had a premed program. We even lived together in a loft that we found for really cheap. While I studied, Francesco worked at a bar and sold his art. He really took care of me.
During my first year of medical school, he brought a friend home. Georges was funny and endearing, but underneath that nice exterior was someone who was cold and calculating. Francesco never believed me when I told him that, and he was horrified when he came home to blood staining our floor.
I had been alone coming home from the lab when Georges attacked me from behind. He had been so much bigger than me it hadn't taken much to get me down. He used a knife he had tucked in his pocket to threaten me, and when I moved he cut me across the chest. When he was through with me, he left me in the alley to die a slow death or drag myself home.
In the end I had dragged myself home but hadn't had the strength to call for help. Francesco had found me in the floor and called for help. He had waited with me until they had arrived.
After that I was labeled garbage and everyone in my school had outcast me. I was left with one thing. I could only study, go to class, and go to lab. By the time it was time for our clinical, I was at the top of my class, a good ten points ahead of the next person.
The glass wall I built around my emotions only got thicker and thicker. I could see what lay behind it but I couldn't touch it. Even at the hospital I worked at everyone thought I couldn't hear what they said or ever paid attention so they talked with abandon. They didn't care that I heard everything.
But no matter how hard I tried, I could never understand what they meant. I could hear everything, but the passion and hatred behind their words I never felt. I could hear the scathing remarks, but the emotions behind them were lost on me since the wall that had been erected was so thick.
The day I visited Papa in Korea was the day my life changed forever. I heard about a job opening at a very prestigious hospital. I hadn't even finished my clinicals but they were in need of a cardiovascular surgeon so I applied on a whim. I was given the job under the basis that I would train at a university. I agreed and I started my job.
Grandpere and Francesco were against it. Even mama thought it was too out of my league. They all agreed it would be safer if Francesco moved in with me. I didn't disagree because I wanted the job. It was a fresh start away from everything that had plagued me for the last few years.
So Francesco and I packed our bags and went to Korea. If I had known that moving to another country was going to bring all my walls down, I would have stayed in France. I was content with my walls up. I knew what to expect with the French population, but the Korean population was completely different.
The same things happened in Korea that happened to me in France. Except this time I had an unsuspecting ally. Yoon Ji Hoo walked into my life as a knight in shining armor. That day had been particularly nasty as my nurses were running their mouths like normal. He had come in demanding to see the doctor in charge. One of them had asked him why he would want to see the Ice Queen who couldn't hear. He had said that it was no way to talk to a superior who had better credentials than she did, and he'd come over to talk to me without batting an eye.
That had started an unlikely friendship with him. I found out he lived next door. He would bombard me with food when he figured out my brother was out of town. He would walk me to work, always stopping by the coffee shop on our way but he never let me paid. He'd walk me home and we'd have dinner together. He integrated himself into my life and I didn't know how to combat him.
It almost became unbearable when two of his friends asked him to dinner and he asked me to go with him. I went because he hadn't let me say no. I met his friends and almost had a panic attack at how much they argued. I couldn't tell the difference between their normal banter and the heated ones I heard at work. So I just sat there and listened until the scraping of plates and tableware forced me to take my hearing aids out.
No one fully understands how blessed silence is until you enter it. When I take my hearing aids out, I can see people but not hear what they're saying. That night had been easier when I was able to see but not hear.
One thing led to another and I suddenly found myself friends with Geum Jan Di and Ji Hoo. I had never had friends before so I didn't know how to behave, but Ji Hoo told me that it didn't matter. He would always be there if I needed someone.
I didn't realize how much I had come to rely on him until I met the rest of his friends. That really had been the start of something new. I was beginning to find people I could rely on unconditionally and I was going to need that when Georges suddenly came back into my life.
I had been walking home from work when he attacked me. Smashing my face into the guardrail hadn't been the most painful thing. Feeling the familiar sting of a knife had opened new wounds and left fresh ones. But my knight in shining armor that night hadn't been Ji Hoo.
His name was Song Woo Bin. He was the son of a construction company and the first man I had ever laid eyes on that put the first spider vein in my glass wall. He witnessed the entire attack and attacked back. He took me home and bandaged me up until Ji Hoo got home to check everything out. He had been completely nervous and shaken up but had given me some painkillers and put me to bed.
That's when the nightmares had started again. I hadn't had them in nearly four years, but I knew that as soon as I saw Georges again they would come back. Nothing beats the debilitating effect a nightmare can have on the body. When I was with Francesco, he would always wake me up by shaking me. But he wasn't home so I was tossed into the age old dream with no way out. I couldn't breathe, couldn't see, and couldn't hear. I was completely trapped.
But somewhere in the middle of that awful thought, something warm and inviting started lifting me up through the murky depths. My sight returned first as light burned above me. I could breathe next as air filled my lungs with its sweet aroma. I still couldn't hear but I was used to that. When I opened my eyes, I found Woo Bin next to me. Not next to me. That's not right. He was curled around me like I was the most precious thing in the world. Right at that moment another nick was etched in that wall.
Once one domino falls, they all collapse in a matter of moments. I started learning how to express my emotions. Woo Bin rarely left me alone. He even moved in with me. He held my hand, he massaged my muscles every night after work, he washed my hair. He touched me in ways I had never known before and slowly I started getting accustomed to him.
But it wasn't Woo Bin who had the most profound effect on me. His friend So Yi Jeong was his right hand man when he needed him. The first time Woo Bin took me to Yi Jeong's studio I felt like I was home. Yi Jeong is a renowned potter, almost as great as mama. I only say that because it's my mother, but Yi Jeong was a lot nicer.
He began to understand my need for emotional release the moment I stepped foot into his studio. He recognized an artist and opened his domain to me. It was amazing how fast we became friends because before I knew it, he was able to tell what I was feeling better than I was.
My life was always a blur when I was with them. Before I knew it they were defending me against my parents. No one had ever done that except grandpere. Francesco had always had his hands tied because he couldn't upset them. To have someone to lean on had always been the thing I needed most in my life, and I'd never had it. Suddenly I had people around me.
But the most important person always came back as Woo Bin. Every time I looked at my strong glass wall, it always seemed so sturdy. I could always see my emotions swirling like nebulas behind it, but when I reached for them I was met with strong resistance. Having Woo Bin always with me, I was able to start grasping those emotions little by little, and the strongest one was love. It always came pouring out when I needed it the most. And that's why I didn't object to the first night of passion I had ever had in my life.
Unfortunately everything had to come to a screeching halt as I had to go back to France for Georges' court date. Ji Hoo had turned in all the evidence he had on my attack and Woo Bin told what he had seen days before Georges had been called. I left the same night Woo Bin and I were together for the first time because I couldn't stand saying goodbye. I was certain her would follow me so I left without telling anyone. Then I lost my phone on the plane. It had taken a month for it to be returned to me and by then everyone had given up talking to me.
The main thing was I hadn't forgotten everyone else. The only person I knew I could call was Yi Jeong. He was surprised to hear from me and was ready to do whatever I asked. So he had helped me plan my surprise.
Surprising people is not my best suit but he helped me pull it off. No one had known I was coming back and had reacted the way we wanted them to. The only bad/funny thing was Ga Eul, Yi Jeong's girlfriend, thought he was having an affair. Woo Bin's reaction was the best. Completely emotional and true to his nature, he refused to let me go as soon as he saw me.
They continued to help as I faced new challenges with them. My wall seemed perfect but every now and then I could see a chink. How after everything could I keep such a thick wall up? Because my new friends were afraid that if it fell down too soon that I would never be able to fully erect it.
They were right because not even during my pregnancy, when all women notice hormonal change, did I see any emotional change other than anger and jealousy, but that was due to Woo Bin's ex girlfriend thinking she could just come in and take over again. Fortunately when F4 decided on something, they didn't back down. They hadn't wanted Kyu Lee to come back, and I was glad because after a few weeks she didn't want Woo Bin. She wanted Ji Hoo, but the man was stubborn it took a car wreck for him to realize how he felt about her.
After my son was born, I started to withdraw some. If I wasn't with him or Woo Bin, I didn't really care what was going on. My family was the most important to me and not being around them was torture. I started not caring about anything anymore except for those people. Woo Bin started to notice and tried his best, but I wasn't able to let go.
That is until Woo Bin's older brother came home and attacked the family. We all banded together like we always did, but what had happened in the past brought a fresh wave of anger and fear crashing through me. I wasn't the one who was attacked and yet with everyday that passed, I was forced to live through the hell and horror being attacked brought on.
Everyone called me their rock. I guess I was one because no matter how hard I tried I couldn't feel anything they went through. I was able to ease their pain while taking it on as mine. If I had known that losing one of my friends for twenty-four hours would shock my system as badly as it did, I would have never made friends.
When Ga Eul disappeared for twenty-four hours, I saw the deep set emotions everyone had. Their fear, anger, longing, and anticipation weighed heavily on me. How could I not feel any of that when my friend was missing? How could I be so cold as to not care that she was gone? Those were the thoughts that ran through my own mind. I wasn't heartless but I was at a dangerous place.
Yi Jeong put the final chink in my wall that brought it crashing down. It wasn't something he said or something he did, but the stark terror on his face had me going after Woo Bin for being a coward. I understood why he was reserved about going after his brother but his friend's life was on the line. So I made the decision to do it my way.
I never told anyone what happened that day in the sitting room. I'm sure they all knew but they never said anything to me. We found Ga Eul and did what was responsible. We made sure she wasn't hurt, but there was a nagging at the back of my mind. So I left after talking to Detective Kim Tae Jyung and went to the one place I knew my emotions were free to roam.
Yi Jeong's studio was my haven. Emotions that he had were etched in the fabric of the room and it made it easier for me to breathe. But the wall was gone, colored glass shards flowing around everywhere and pricking me. I had barely made it out of the hospital and almost didn't make it to the studio before tears spilled over my face. I pulled all the paint Yi Jeong had in storage and opened them.
One by one I threw them at the board Yi Jeong and I had just painted not even two weeks before. The beautiful array of color was covered by black and white, color popping through at random intervals.
It hurt. I had never experienced anything so painful before. It felt like my head and heart, once perfectly aligned, were being ripped apart. I couldn't control them and for the first time I had no intention of doing so. In the past when emotion came flying out through a chink, I tamped it down immediately. But I couldn't do that anymore. The wall was gone and I was left raw.
Yi Jeong – my beautiful, well-mannered, kind best friend – was right by my side like he had been since we met. He knew what happened and knew the only way to help was to let me scream as he anchored me. It had to be Yi Jeong. No one else would understand the emotions that plague an artist.
We ended up spending the night at the studio because I didn't want to face everyone else. Woo Bin was okay with that so Yi Jeong had had some of his personal belonging brought over. We slept as if we hadn't slept in years.
Slowly I built the wall up again. Over the course of two weeks as they were preparing for court, I built the wall again. But this time I made sure there was a door that I could open whenever I needed to touch my emotions. It was odd to touch them but it was a great comfort to know they were within reaching distance. I gave Woo Bin and Yi Jeong full access to them, keeping Ji Hoo at bay for a bit until he was out of the honeymoon phase with Kyu Lee. I still don't quite understand that bit, but I guess I better figure it out since I kept my promise with Woo Bin and registered our marriage.
But now I don't live my life in a glass box. I can see what people feel even if I don't understand them, and it may take me a little longer than most to figure out what the feeling is, but to see the happiness of my family is all that matters.