“Welcome to the family.”

Youngbae twisted his lips wryly at the irony while the left side of his torso throbbed incessantly.  He could feel how tender the muscle was beneath his sweater and knew, without a doubt, that there would be a bruise by tomorrow morning.  He inclined his head politely towards Hanna’s mother as she left the living room in search of her husband.  As soon as she rounded the corner, he released a pent up sigh. 

And winced. 

Damn… It hurt to even breathe.

Having in-laws was turning out to be a lot more work than he’d bargained for.  From Amina’s witch of a mom to her mafia-mindset of an uncle, Youngbae didn’t know what he had gotten himself into.  Even Hanna had her extreme moments.  She was fickle, hating him one moment and then asking for a favor in the next.  But he knew that was partly his fault.  Hanna’s mood depended upon how she felt Amina was being treated and as of tonight, he could tell that he wasn’t forgiven yet. She revered him with barely concealed contempt and only tolerated him for Amina’s sake.  He needed to keep his guard up around Hanna; otherwise he could find himself at the end of another one of her biting remarks. 

He mentally scoffed.  They were crazy… all of them.  How his girl grew up to be such a sweet peach inside a family full of nuts, he’d never know. 

The week had been filled with emotional ups and downs – from hearing his baby’s heartbeat to breaking the news to his parents; from Amina’s meltdown to now this.  Needless to say, Amina definitely made his life more colorful.  He knew for certain, he’d never be bored as long as she was around.

He squeezed his arms around Amina reassuringly and mumbled into her ear.  “Hey…”

Amina had stopped crying for quite some time but still lingered in Youngbae’s embrace, taking in his familiar clean scent and the light mist of aftershave on his person.  She rubbed her forehead against his collarbone once more before finally raising her red rimmed eyes.  She looked miserably into his face.

“At least you stopped him from killing me …” he joked teasingly, rubbing his thumb underneath her left eye to dry the tear tracks that remained there.

Her large brown eyes, swimming with torment, continued to stare at him.  They flickered back and forth slightly, but never left his sight.  She was thinking hard, he could tell, and searching for something.  He immediately grew alarmed.

“Mwuh?”

She didn’t say anything.  The only tell-tale sign was a slight movement of her lips as she pressed them together.  Was it because of pain?  Or was it to hold back words she wanted to say to him?  Or maybe both?  He didn’t know.  And he didn’t get another chance to ask, because Amina suddenly shot out of his lap and stood up.

“Baby, where are you going?” Youngbae asked, doing his best to stand up without straining his side.  He grimaced as the muscled pulled and forced his body to relax.  He stood behind Amina and waited for her to turn around.

She didn’t.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” came her hollow reply.  She started moving ahead of him.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

She paused and barely looked over her shoulder at him.

“Ani – I’m just going to go wash my face.”  Without a backwards glance, she left the room, leaving him alone.

Her departure left him cold inside.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked a concerned Jiyong.  He watched as Hanna removed her forearms from beneath the cool running water before turning the kitchen faucet off.

“Hmm?” Hanna inquired, her sharp intelligent eyes taking him in.  She hated to admit it, but the infamous G-Dragon looked kind of cute when he was worried.  Especially when his soft red lips and straight eyebrows puckered up together in unison, like he was concentrating hard... maybe too hard. 

She followed the direction of his gaze and looked down at her arms.  There were only faint pink lines where Amina’s nails had scratched and the small gash where her skin had broken was no longer bleeding.  “Oh this?”  She looked up at him and jauntily smiled.  “This is nothing.  I’ve been in worse scraps than this in my life.”

She brushed passed him on her way to grab a paper towel and missed his incredulous wide-eyed expression.  After patting her arms dry, Hanna turned around, just in time to see Youngbae slowly amble in.  “Where’s Mimi?”

Youngbae paused as he reached the center kitchen island and pulled out the barstool underneath.  “She went to the bathroom to wash her face,” he absently replied, sitting down.  He couldn’t stop analyzing over the way Amina moved out of his embrace and her curt replies.  He anchored his elbows on the counter, his eyes downcast. 

“What’s up with you?” asked Jiyong, taking in his friend’s defeated posture.

“What do you mean ‘what’s up with him’?” Hanna eyed Jiyong like an idiot.  “He just got er punched from my appa.  You expect him to be okay?”  She lightly scoffed under her breath, not for Youngbae’s sake but more at herself.  She couldn’t believe she was actually standing up for the short guy.  Too many days in Youngbae’s presence and she’d find herself actually liking the devil once again. 

She mentally shuddered.

“Nah,” Jiyong dismissed her with an arrogant nod.  “It’s something else.”  His eyes roamed carefully over Youngbae’s face.  Their eyes connected and he read the signals loud and clear.  Just drop the .  With a reluctant sigh, Jiyong turned away and faced Hanna.  “So I guess tonight went well…”

Hanna looked between the two men, knowing she had just missed something important.  But Jiyong was gazing at her expectantly, so she decided to go with the flow.  “I guess so.  I mean, no one got sent to the hospital… so yeah, I think you could call tonight a success.”  She cocked her eyebrow at him and felt her heart flutter when he smiled.

Jiyong nodded to himself, his eyes twinkling with mischief.  “And to think, I almost didn’t come.”  He swung his head over to Youngbae.  “So, what do you think?  Should we double date again?”

“Mwuh?” Hanna exclaimed.  “In your dreams, Yongie!”

“You sure about that? I make all my dreams a reality,” Jiyong quipped in return, his eyes smoldering teasingly.

Hanna snorted and rolled her eyes, even as felt her face flame up with embarrassment.  Quickly, she repurposed the damp paper towel in her hand as a cleaning rag and began wiping down the countertops and its invisible smudges away.

Despite himself, Youngbae couldn’t help but chuckle at the exchange.  His grin grew wider when Hanna shot eye daggers his way.

She had just about enough from these two.  Putting her hands on her slim hips, Hanna haughtily eyed Youngbae up and down.  “So what are you going to do about Mimi?”

At the mention of Amina’s name, Youngbae sobered up.  His eyes dimmed a little, losing its earlier merriment sparkle, but he kept his face and voice neutral so he wouldn’t give up his worries away.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Hanna emphasized.  “What are you going to do with her?  You heard my appa.  In fact, Jiyong and I heard him and we weren’t in the room with you all!”  She gave him an impatient look.  “Even if Mimi continues to stay with you, she just can’t… do nothing!”  Hanna sounded appalled. 

“As an only child… and an only girl child, at that!”  Hanna dramatically paused.  “We were both raised to take over our family businesses one day.  If we weren’t pouring over the ledger books, we were sweeping the hallways.  If we weren’t answering the phones, we were running errands for the higher-ups.  So if I know my cousin well, she has to be going stir crazy sitting at home alone!”

Youngbae eyed the granite countertop in front of him dejectedly.  He self-consciously grabbed the back of his neck with one hand and rubbed.  His mind went back to the heartbreaking confessions Amina made last night and knew that Hanna’s words had some merit.  Amina mentioned that she felt she wasn’t going anywhere… that she didn’t have any purpose in life.  And staying at home doing nothing only further magnified her bleak situation.

He brushed his lips with the side of his fist and nodded dismally at Hanna.  “I think you’re right.  She… sort of said something similar to me last night when we got home.  I just…”  He looked helplessly between Jiyong and Hanna.  “I just don’t know what to do for her.”

“I thought she was preparing to go back to school?” Jiyong asked.

“She is.  But even if she takes the exam and passes, she won’t be able to start right away.  They only accept applicants during certain semesters,” Youngbae explained.  “I know she had plans to re-enter medical school next year, but with the baby…” he trailed off.

“Yeah.”  Hanna let out a resigned sigh, her eyes gazing off into the distance.  “When the baby comes, everything will change.  She may not even go back to school.”

Youngbae frowned.

“I mean, she says that now…“ Hanna continued.  “But I’ve had enough women work for me over the years to know their career goals can take a backseat when a baby enters the picture.  I’ve had some ladies go on maternity leave and never come back.”

Youngbae continued to brood silently.

 “Mwuh?” Jiyong asked, concern in his voice.

Youngbae shook his head quietly.  He let out a small huff of breath and bitterly twisted his lips as he looked up at the pair.  “I was just thinking… that if she doesn’t go back to school, I hope it’s on her own terms and not because of the baby.”  The last thing he wanted was for something else to add onto her depression.

“Oh, please,” Hanna drawled, her face scrunched up with disgust.  “Can we stop condemning ourselves?  As much as I like to victimize you, believe me,” she tilted her head arrogantly, “…if Mimi has her mind set on doing something, she’ll do it.”

She could see the look of skepticism and guilt lingering on Youngbae’s face.  “Seriously?” she scoffed, looking at Jiyong for confirmation.  “Is this how he handles all his problems?  Brooding?  Thinking?”

A small smile pulled at the corner of Jiyong’s lips.

“I like to talk about my problems… and yes, that involves thinking,” Youngbae shot back sarcastically.  He heart wasn’t in the right place at the moment to be polite.  He’d already taken a beating from one Eun tonight.  He didn’t need another.

Hanna scoffed.  “Well, there’s your problem,” she insolently replied.  “You need to think faster.  Because every damn second you waste feeling guilty, my cousin over there keeps slipping further away.”  She looked between the pair and realized her message wasn’t sinking in.  She tried again, eyeing Youngbae directly.

“Look,” Hanna ordered.  “If Mimi wanted to go back to school, so would have found a way by now.  It’s not like she doesn’t have connections or references from the hospital.”  Her eyes narrowed on him.  “And if she wanted to find a job, she would have found one by now.  Doing just about any damn thing.”  Hanna paused, her lips in frustration.  “But she doesn’t… because of whatever hell she’s going through right now.  It’s taking over her life.”

“How do you know?” Jiyong asked.

“How do I know what?”

Jiyong grinned, finding himself at the receiving end of Hanna’s stank eye stare.  He tried not to laugh.  “How do you know she would do all those things if she wasn’t going through her issues?”

“Because I know her.”  Hanna smirked.  “This is the same girl that tore off all the heads on my Barbie dolls when she was six, because I told her I was too busy to play with her.”

“What the…?” Jiyong eyed Youngbae incredulously.

Youngbae glanced up in surprise, dumbfounded.

“Neh,” Hanna sneered.  “That little ,” she bitterly twisted her lips, as her mind went back and reminisced.  “My appa just got me a new Barbie playhouse and she was visiting me that afternoon.  I told her she couldn’t play because she wasn’t old enough… but only because I didn’t want her to touch it.”  She looked towards Jiyong for sympathy.  “I mean, it was brand new – straight out of the box.  And you know how little kids break stuff,” she explained, as if she wasn’t a kid herself at the time, being only eight.

Jiyong clamped down his mouth, suppressing the laughter inside.

“So what happened?” Youngbae hesitantly asked, afraid of what he was about to hear.

Hanna swung her gaze towards him.  She shrugged her shoulder offhandedly.  “What else?  I went outside and played with her.”

Jiyong chuckled. 

“Look,” Hanna tried to keep stern, but her lips kept curving up against her will.  “It sounds awful, and yeah – I can laugh about it now.  But what I’m trying to say is that, if Mimi wants something done – she’ll find a way.”  Her eyes were light and gentler this time around as she glanced at Youngbae.  “Does that make sense?”

“Neh,” Youngbae nodded sullenly, remembering.

“Neh,” Hanna repeated, sensing the change in his demeanor.  “Just like how she went overseas for school.”  She continued in a somber tone.  “If her mind is set, she’ll do it.  We just need her to get back to that frame of mind.”

“So I just need to keep her busy while she’s processing whatever she’s dealing with.  And then she’ll take care of the rest,” Youngbae supplied.

“Neh,” Hanna sighed, finally relieved.  “At least until the baby arrives.  Then the baby will keep her busy.”

They continued to look at her. 

“Look,” Hanna continued, “If she’s too busy to dwell over her issues, it won’t become bigger than what it really is inside her mind.  It’ll be easier for her to face and let go.  And then she can start thinking again about what she wants to do in life.  And hopefully, that will pull her further out of the slump she’s going through right now.”

Youngbae nodded quietly to himself as he looked back down at the countertop, thinking hard.

“What did you have in mind?” Jiyong asked, shooting him a leery grin.

Youngbae glanced up and narrowed his eyes.  “Not what you’re thinking.”

Hanna rolled her eyes.  “I would have suggested that Mimi come work for me, but after last night…” She shook her head.  “That’s probably the last place she wants to be.”

Youngbae gazed at Hanna directly.  “Please don’t take her there anymore.”

Hanna scoffed.  As if she didn’t already know.  But she relented, in her own way.  “Neh, your royal majesty.”  She gave him a mocking short bow, her eyes shooting with irritation.

The sound of small shuffling could be heard approaching their way.  They all turned towards the nearest kitchen entrance way and watched silently as Amina made her way in.  Her face was slightly pale but her eyes were clear… and determined.  It was the intensity in her dark brown eyes that caught Youngbae’s attention.

“Unnie,” Amina requested, looking straight at Hanna.  “Can you take me home please?”

Youngbae slid off the barstool and approached her.  “Baby, we can drop you off at the apartment.”

She reluctantly looked up at his face.  “Ani,” Amina spoke softly.  “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”  She her heel and dismissed him, intending to walk back towards the living room to gather her things.

He grabbed her arm b