Author's Note: So it's unanimous. You want to see Min Ho in this series. So I'm going to do it. Give me a plotline and I'll work on it.
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Woo Bin stood in the doorway of his room and watched his family sleep. Eri had returned home first and had spent most of the time sleeping. The medicine Dr. Kang put her on made her drowsy so she had to take it easy. She and Ahn Na were always curled up either on the couch or in bed when he got home. He didn't dare wake them up unless it was necessary so he tiptoed around the house.
Yi Jeong had gone to the shop to take over Eri's job for a couple of week. He managed everything that dealt with the gallery at the shop. He also trained the new part time workers who would work on weekend when Eri and Min Ho were off. While he was doing that, he made Min Ho take care of Eri and Ahn Na during the day.
Min Ho was a hoverer it seemed. Eri got mad at him at least three times a day because he wouldn't leave her alone. He got mad right back and was usually successful in getting her take the medicine prescribed. He also found it hard to get her to eat. That had been the normal and Yi Jeong had warned him about that, but it still didn't stop him from getting upset about it. It seemed they just argued for the sake of arguing after that.
Ahn Na loved Min Ho. She was a shy little girl and usually only preferred the comfort of her father, but lately as Min Ho was around more she had taken to him. Woo Bin was a little jealous to see her sitting with him when he came home early. But true to her nature she got right up and toddled over to him.
Three days after Eri returned from the hospital, Bin Ji was released. He too came home and slept most of the day due to his injuries and medicines. Luckily everything was healing nicely. Min Ho still had some issue about the one to fracture his skull, but the little boy still wanted to be close to him. Obviously he didn't hold any grudges.
The most stressful thing was the wedding was fast approaching. There was only four days left until everyone had to be at the church to watch Yi Jeong and Ga Eul get married. Sometimes Woo Bin wished they would just submit their marriage registration and save the ceremony for later. Ga Eul's family had already said they were coming and everything was ready. To postpone it would seem like something was wrong with the couple.
Things were going well. Everyone was healing as quickly as could be expected. They had decided to have family dinners in their house because moving around was painful for those who had just gotten out of the hospital and they couldn't eat too much. Heavy foods didn't sit well on their tender stomachs so they could make something at home that was light and airy for them. This week though they had foregone it because of the hectic preparations for the wedding.
Woo Bin finally walked in the room to change clothes. He was tired of his dress pants and tie now that he was at home. He wanted to be comfortable so he pulled on his favorite pair of sweats and no shirt. He went back into the living room to sit in the chair. He was just about to open his favorite book when Eri emerged. She walked past him to the kitchen but it only took a moment before she was back and curling in his lap like a cat. Book forgotten, he held her to him and sighed contentedly.
Gently he massaged her scalp, paying extra attention the areas around the stitches. They had to shave the parts around where the implants had been so she'd had two bald spots right over her ears. So their hair dresser had come over and literally chopped all her hair off. Now instead of the long wavy hair, it was short, a little shorter than Amber's from f(x). He didn't particularly like it but he didn't have much of a say. Until the stitches came out she had to keep it short.
She placed her head right over his head and stayed still. He wondered if she could hear it. That had been the main reason to get the implants in the first place, but now that they were gone he wondered how much hearing she had left or if she was totally deaf. It didn't matter to him in the least since he was now fluent in sign language but it was a curiosity.
She raised her hand and after several seconds tapped her fingers on his chest right above his nipple. Heat seared him but he ignored it as he realized she was keeping time to his heartbeat. She wasn't hearing it but feeling it. His heart always thundered when she was sitting right next to him whether they were five feet apart or glued together. Having her sitting on his lap caused it to beat wildly, but having her sit on him had it racing like a river.
His heart wasn't the only thing reacting but Ga Eul was in the next room and getting it on in the chair was strictly forbidden. Everyone shared this area so being intimate here would freak anyone out.
Obviously no one told her that because she turned her head and gently bit down on the nipple under her ear. Woo Bin hissed out a breath and gently pushed her away. Normally she would be slightly hurt, but the medicine closed off her emotions tighter than she did.
To make up for what could be perceived as rejection, he gently took her head under her ears and pulled her up so he could kiss her deeply. He wanted to convey how he felt, that he wanted her as she must as she wanted him but that it wasn't the time for it. She seemed to understand and rested her head back under his chin.
"I thought we said intimacy was forbidden in the living room?" Woo Bin looked up to see Yi Jeong standing behind him. His friend waved his hand and sat down on the couch. "Forget about it. I haven't seen you this happy in weeks so I'll let it slide."
"Thanks is not going to be mentioned," he snarked playfully.
"Does it look like I care?"
They both laughed at their normal attitude towards each other. They hadn't been able to joke like this in quite a while so it felt great to be back to their roots. Picking on each other was normal as it always was between best friends. Nothing was off limits, including this.
Yi Jeong looked at Eri, frowning slightly. "It seems so weird to see her hair like this. I'm used to the extremely long waves that she pulled back in a messy ponytail. This is going to take some getting used to."
Woo Bin ran his fingers through the short waves, extremely careful of the stitches. "It'll grow back. Right now we just have to make sure these don't get infected."
The other man nodded then sat down on the coffee table. He sighed then scratched at his head. "Remember when we told you that my father had insulted Eri? Well, that's not all that happened at the studio. I had these glass panels that I had no idea what I was going to do with them. Eri put them together in the shape of a box and when I got there, she was putting spider veins in them. She smeared paint on them of various colors. We thought she was going to stop there and let it dry but instead she smashed the glass box. It was right after Bin Ji went into the hospital."
Woo Bin rested his head against Eri's and watched his friend. "It was more traumatic for you than it was for her, wasn't it?" Yi Jeong looked up at him. "You felt helpless at that moment because there was nothing you could do. She wouldn't let you touch her unlike she had in the past. Yet she was in your space and there was no way to help. Maybe that glass box was everyone else's emotions and not hers."
"What do you mean?"
"She showed us what she was feeling the night she disappeared. So maybe she constructed that glass box to put everyone's emotions in just show she could destroy it. That was also the night she told me she was going to have the implants removed."
"Eri has always thought more about us than herself."
"That's why I think she channeled all that she was feeling into that glass box and pretended it was our emotions. Once she shattered it, it was gone for her. She didn't need to feel it anymore. That's why she came home."
Yi Jeong had never thought about it like that. They always said Eri was the strongest one of them. She was quiet, reserved and very observant. She saw things most people would miss and catalogued it for a later date when it became important. She was very intelligent and knew a little bit about everything. Her strongest point was she could pull at people's emotions.
But that strength was also the weakness. Because she pulled at people's emotions, it all overwhelmed her. She couldn't handle it and needed to find an outlet before it consumed her. Sometimes she went to the studio or she sat at the house and painted. If she was really upset, she made a pot or something really random. They'd had to buy new silverware and chopsticks because she had super glued them to a cork board. Everything she felt went into that piece of art.
Both men stopped talking when she shifted. Woo Bin's palm engulfed her entire neck as he held her close. He wasn't about to let her go. He had spent a total of eight days without her and that was too much for him. If he could be attached at the hip to her, he would be. He spent a week not being able to make love to his wife or hold her at all. He had to watch his son lay in a hospital bed and his daughter wonder what was going on.
"Stop thinking so hard," Eri muttered. She lifted her head and rubbed at her eyes. "You tighten your hands when you think too hard."
"Sorry," he replied before he pulled her up to kiss her. His mouth moved over hers and his body roared to life.
Yi Jeong grabbed his friend by the hair. "Okay, freaky, not in the living room." There was a knock at the door. The two men looked at the door with mirrored frowns. "Who the hell would be here at this hour?"
He didn't wait for a response as he went to open the door. He didn't have a chance to stop him as Hyun Sub shoved his way into the house. Yi Jeong tried to grab his arm to pull him back, but his father shoved past him. Eri stood up from Woo Bin's lap and stared at the man who dared interrupt their evening. She looked over his shoulder at Yi Jeong and the man begged with his eyes not to start a yelling match.
Hyun Sub looked the woman up and down. He noted her sleep filled eyes and laggy body stance. As his face continued up, he noticed she cut her hair, but he'd seen that when he'd gone to the hospital. She looked much better with long hair.
"No wonder you always want to head home early after meetings," he said. "You have two pretty ladies waiting on you."
Yi Jeong smacked himself in the head lightly. Eri's tired face turned to stone as she read the meaning behind his father's words. The man thought all women would be interested in him because he had money and the ability to get what he wanted. He was able to make or break artists. He thought if he put on his best smile and talked sweet that he would sway a woman to his side.
But he was going up against the wrong woman. Eri wasn't a Korean chaebol like they were. She was French aristocracy married into the Korean high society. She was down to earth and very comfortable in her environment. She was good to everyone even if they talked shit about her, but if you pissed her off, you were in trouble because she would unleash her tongue. And a tongue lashing from her would leave you bruised for days.
Woo Bin wrapped his hand around his wife's bicep and held her next to him. She wasn't physically violent but verbally was another thing. He figured keeping her anchored next to him would help a little.
"What are you suggesting?" she asked. She tested Woo Bin's strength but he was rock solid.
"You live in a house with two men. What do you think I'm suggesting? I think these boys have done well. They have women they're happy with, but are the women happy with them? There's this thing called swinging. You should try it."
"I think you're insinuating that Woo Bin isn't a good lover. Or is it that you think a woman should come at your beck and call simply because she is a woman and you're a man? Just because you still live in an area where it is mostly male dominated in the work environment doesn't mean you can be a chauvinistic jerk who uses women faster than he uses underwear."
"You don't know anything about it."
"I heard and saw the way Yi Jeong and Ga Eul have worked through his infidelity. There's always going to be that little thought in the back of her mind as she asks herself whether or not he's cheating. I don't believe in once a cheater, always a cheater because some cheaters reform and monogamous. I know. I married one. But there is a fine line between admiring your son for getting out of it and rubbing his nose in it that he can't have any woman he wants because he's married. It never occurred to you that he's happy being a one-woman kind of guy. You're too busy looking for your next conquest to actually see what your son is doing."
The more she talked, the angrier Hyun Sub became. She was hitting home everything Yi Jeong and his father had fought about. Yi Jeong hadn't said anything about it to her, but she still knew. It showed how close the two were.
Woo Bin stepped forward slightly as Hyun Sub sought to come towards her. "You're barking up the wrong tree if you think you're going to lay a hand on her. I'm not your son. I don't like you nor do I have to tolerate you in my house. I'll beat the snot out of you if you touch her."
"One last thing," Eri said, once again drawing the attention of every male. She glanced at the staircase. "As of now, you're uninvited from the wedding. Don't let me see you there."
Hyun Sub laughed. "What makes you think I'm going to listen to a deaf and mute woman who thinks she can boss my son?"
Yi Jeong wasn't aware his fist shot out until he saw his father hit the floor and his knuckles throb. If there was one thing he didn't tolerate it was people making fun of his best friend's disability. She couldn't help it.
"You'll listen to me. Don't bothering showing up," he said. He watched as his father picked himself up off the floor and left the house. He turned to his friends. "That felt good."
Woo Bin smiled. "It's about time you did that."
Yi Jeong smiled then looked at Eri. "What made you decide that?"
She turned her full attention to the staircase. Both men looked up to see Ga Eul standing there watching. She smiled sadly at them before turning to go back to her room. Yi Jeong said good night and went to make sure she was okay. Woo Bin hugged Eri then escorted her to their room.