Friday

JiYong rolled over and expected to find a warm body to wrap himself around. There had been one beside him when he fell asleep. Worried that Jodi had gotten sick, he jumped up and checked the bathroom. She wasn't in there. Nor was she in the kitchen, or her office. From previous experience, he knew to check her studio next. Half way up the stairs, he could hear music and—

"YOU STUPID, SON OF A , INBRED, SYPHILIS RIDDEN PIRATE !”

—Then banging and fabric ripping. He sped up. As he ran into the room, he saw Jodi stabbing a canvas with the pointy end of a paintbrush. She screamed and kicked the easel over. In her underwear.

"Jo? You okay?"

Jodi turned with her hands on her hips. She took a calming breath and brushed her hair back. “Never better. Do you need something?”

Kwon JiYong was by no means a . He had seen his fair share of women in little to no clothing. As a wealthy man who liked pretty women in pretty things, he was known to buy the odd piece from Agent Provocateur, La Perla, Bordelle, and Carine Gilson. But none of them measured up to the sight of Jodi in white cotton by Hanes.

“I, uh, I was, um, checking on you. Where is your dress?” he asked in a rush. He averted his eyes . . . eventually.

Jodi pointed to the garment draped over a chair. She then walked over to one of the cabinets and pulled out a painters jumpsuit. After pulling it on, she went over to another cabinet and grabbed a fresh canvas. She righted the easel, and placed the blank canvas. With a deep breath, Jodi lifted a paintbrush with her right hand and tried again. Then switched the paintbrush to her left hand and sighed. She set the brush down and rubbed her right shoulder with her eyes closed.

JiYong wandered over to the mutilated canvas on the ground and examined it. It was a still life, but not. Instead of fruit, she had painted musical notes in a bowl. It was incomplete, but he liked it, minus the puncture wounds. "This is great, Jo."

"It's not right."

"How?"

"It just isn't," she hissed through clenched teeth. In her hand was a small bowl as she squeezed various colors into it. "I can see it in my mind, but I can't get it on canvas. And I need to do it now, or I'll lose it."

Walking up behind her, JiYong placed his hands on her shoulders and rubbed them gently. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Just leave me alone." Jodi stopped herself and looked up from the mix of paints. "That came out harsher than intended. What I mean is—"

"I understand. It's okay,” he assured her. He kissed her on the shoulder and backed away. “You need to get into the right head space with no distractions."

Jodi nodded absently, then set her bowl down. "Actually, can you put my phone on 'do not disturb’, and bring it up?”

“Sure.” JiYong ran downstairs and came back up. Jodi never turned around. She was drawing long, sweeping lines on the canvas with pencil. He stood watching her, observing her quietly from the doorway until—

“Please don't watch me. You can see it when it's finished,” she said as she put the pencil behind her ear. She turned the easel from left to right, trying to catch the best lighting in the room. JiYong heard her curse again before erasing furiously. “You're still here.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah. I'm gonna go back to sleep, but let me know if you need anything.”

She didn't respond.

* * * * *

So this is what it's like, JiYong thought with a frown hours later. He could now sympathize with the people who dared to try to talk to him while he worked. In the thirteen hours since he had woken up initially to find her gone, Jodi had come out of her studio once to make a sandwich. She didn't speak to him when she walked through. Occasionally from below, he could hear thumping, and banging. The one time he went up to check on her, she threw a tube of paint at him and told him to get out. He did not repeat that mistake. JiYong didn't have anything planned for the day, so he was content to hang around her place and wait for her to resurface.

Around 7p.m., he heard a buzz from the security monitor and jumped up to check. To his amazement, he saw SeungHyun's manager looking into the camera. Before he could press the call button to investigate the matter, he heard the buzzer and knew Jodi must have done it from upstairs. Scratching his head in confusion, he put his shoes on and ran downstairs to meet his hyung. SeungHyun was just getting out of the car when JiYong opened the front door for him.

“Hey, hyung,” JiYong said slowly. “What brings you by?”

SeungHyun smiled at him, showing his dimples. “Your wife called me.” Seeing the confusion on JiYong's face, he elaborated. “I commissioned a painting, she said it's finished, or, at least wants me to see what she's done.”

JiYong nodded in understanding and led him to the elevator. The two talked on the way up, and when they got off, he could hear classical music playing through the cracked door. When JiYong walked into her studio, he saw that the usually tidy room looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. There were canvases, and palates, and pencils, and rags, and brushes littered all over the room. Jodi was looking rather ragged and paint splashed herself. She walked out of the bathroom, drying her hands, and bowed deeply when she caught sight of them.

“Sorry about the mess, I thought you would take a little longer to get here,” she explained. Jodi fidgeted with the towel in her hand and attempted at smoothing her hair.

“It's fine. We had just finished filming for the day.” SeungHyun looked around then pointed to the big canvas that was leaned against a wall backwards. “Is that it?”

Jodi nodded with her eyes closed, then walked over to the painting and breathed deeply before turning it over. It was a tall painting, probably 4'x3'. When starting from the top, it looked like musical sheet music, and then the notes were jumping off of the page, that was really a cliff, into a body of water below that looked oddly like a CD.

With his arms crossed over his chest and a finger tapping on his lips, SeungHyun backed away and scrutinized the painting. JiYong could see his eyes moving over every inch of it intently. Then he moved forward and looked at it in even finer detail. After that, he started turning over the other paintings that were leaned against the other walls around the room. There were eight of them in various stages of completion. JiYong moved closer as well, thrilled to see what she had been working on for so long.

One was a scene from a grocery store, but instead of people shopping, music notes were pushing the carts and manning the registers. In another, it was a park scene, and again, instead of people, there were notes. All of the paintings were variations of this theme. A traffic jam, on a street in a residential area, at a restaurant, an elevator, a kitchen, a coffee shop—all with musical notes.

“Those aren't finished,” Jodi told them softly with her eyes downcast.

“Explain this to me,” SeungHyun commanded softly as he made his way back to the main painting. Jodi scratched her hairline and stepped up beside him.

“I know you said you wanted something surreal, and honestly, it's not my style. My paintings fit more into the 'modern' category. But as I was laying in bed, trying to get the room to stop spinning, and I kept seeing this,” she said, indicating the canvas. “Or versions of this. The point, I guess, is about you making music. The notes jumping into the CD, slash, sea. I don't know, I was drunk and this is what came to me.”

SeungHyun hummed, nodded and made another slow journey around the room. “What about the rest of these?”

“As I was working on yours, I suddenly became obsessed with the eighth note. That little flag became very fun to draw. So, as I was laying on the roof, listening to the water and drawing an obscene amount of eighth and sixteenth notes, a car rode by playing really loud music and it hit me.” Jodi paused and shrugged. “'Music is everywhere.'”

A slow smile spread across SeungHyun's face, and then a deep chuckle came out of his mouth. “I love it. I love it, Jodi.”

“Really!?” Jodi jumped up and down happily. She even did a small victory dance. Before she could stop herself, she hugged SeungHyun, and he hugged her back. “Yah, why didn't you just say you liked it?! I was so worried.”

“It was more fun this way,” SeungHyun told her with a mischievous grin. He sat down on her stool and they began discussing prices, framing options, and delivery dates. Once SeungHyun was satisfied he hugged Jodi one last time and motioned for JiYong to walk him out. “That is one talented lady you have there,” SeungHyun said to JiYong once the elevator doors were closed. JiYong puffed a little with pride upon hearing that.

Once SeungHyun was gone, JiYong went back to the third floor and found Jodi sprawled on the floor. He sat near her, then lifted her head rest to on his thigh. With his fingers in her hair, he massaged her scalp and looked at the paintings around them. “These are beautiful, Jo.”

“Thank you,” she replied with a small smile. “I like them.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

Jodi sat up slowly and JiYong moved to sit behind her so that she could rest her back on him. He rubbed her stiff shoulders and heard her moan. “I sent pictures of them to my agent. He's been bugging me for a while to do a show, but I didn't have a theme in mind. I need to do five or six more to have a collection, but now that I have the idea, I can finish pretty easily. If all of these sell, that'll take a load off my mind.”

“I'm happy for you.” JiYong kissed her quickly on the cheek and hugged her tighter. “I like the one you did for hyung. I might have to commission a piece for my apartment. I want a Jodi Oh original, too.”

“I can do that,” she replied. Then, pressed her hands to her stomach, like that would quiet the rumblings. “I'm a little hungry.”

“Not surprising. You've been up here for almost fourteen hours. Come on.” JiYong grabbed her hand and led her downstairs. He wasn't much of a cook, but he knew he could throw something together to satisfy her. In the apartment, he had her sit at the dining room table while he looked in the fridge for possible meal ideas. When he turned around to ask her what he had a taste for, her head was cradled in her arms and she was fast asleep.