Sister-in-Law

            Once Sungmin had called Saeun and she happily agreed to come over—he insisted she had no idea what she was getting herself into and thought they should all reconsider—Leeteuk sent Donghae, Hyukjae, and Henry off to the kitchen.  Ryeowook periodically checked in on them to make sure they were putting things away correctly, but they were not as deficient in the kitchen as they seemed to be and he eventually sat down on the couch beside Kyuhyun and nursed a hot mug of coffee. 

            Leeteuk, Heechul, Kangin, Shindong, Siwon, and Jonghoon were also sitting around the coffee table, sitting on the couches or in chairs drug in from the dining room. 

            “We can’t let them have a quiet wedding,” Jonghoon warned.  “It will be the equivalent of social suicide.  His fans will all disown him for it and the threats against her will only get worse.  I’ve been speaking with the publicists about this because, frankly, we kind of saw this one coming.  If we don’t turn it into a public event, it will ruin them.  Possibly Super Junior as well, but probably not.  More than likely, it will just hurt their careers the most.”

            Leeteuk held his hand up and nodded.  “We’ve talked about how this would affect the first member who married and we’re not surprised by any of it.”

            “We have?” Kyuhyun questioned.

            “Us older members,” Kangin explained.  “None of us thought one of the younger members would marry first.  We assumed it would be one of us: Teuk, Yesung, Shindong, or I.”

            “Not you, Heechul?” Kyuhyun teased.

            Heechul smirked.

            “When I said that we’d take care of it, I meant it.  If the only answer to the problem is a big wedding with a lot of media coverage, we’ll do it,” Leeteuk said.

            “The company is not going to fork out money for someone’s wedding,” Jonghoon informed him.

            “We don’t need their money,” Leeteuk informed him.  “We make money ourselves.  If he can’t afford it himself, we’ll simply help him out.  Sungmin is the brave one who’s going to pave the way for the rest of us to get married and publicly be with girlfriends down the line, so we need to show him our support in any way that we can to ensure that we don’t continue to face these problems later on.”

            “What?” Jonghoon asked, looking around at the members.

            “We kind of had a feeling about Sungmin and Saeun as well,” Kangin admitted, leaning forward and looking straight at their manager.  “Many of us have savings funds for our future weddings, but most of us aren’t dating anyone right now and we won’t likely be getting married in the foreseeable future.  We’d rather give that money to him for his wedding and spare him any of the issues with the fans that he’s going to face if he has a wedding in secret.”

            “Well, I don’t have a wedding fund, but I’d rather give him a bunch of money just so it gets done right, if that’s what the plan is,” Siwon threw out. 

            Leeteuk nodded.  “We all just give how much we can or how much we’re comfortable with.  No names attached once the sum total gets to Sungmin.  He’ll never know who gave how much.  You can give nothing if you can’t afford it.  You can give as much as you want.  We keep the amounts secret to our graves.”

            “Wook.  Do you have some paper?” Kangin asked.

            Ryeowook handed his coffee over to Kyuhyun, who started drinking it.  He returned with a notebook, a pen, and the other members from the kitchen.  Apparently he’d managed to share the whole conversation with them as he was gathering his supplies and they stood around, staring at the group as Leeteuk wrote his name down and then a sum of money that hushed Donghae and Hyukjae, who were busy elbowing each other to get a better look at the notebook. 

            Jonghoon looked at Leeteuk, shocked.

            Leeteuk grinned at him.  “I meant it.  I’m not getting married anytime soon, so he may as well have it.  He’s paving the way for the rest of us.”

            Leeteuk then passed it to Kangin, who wrote a smaller number.  “I didn’t think I’d be getting married anytime soon, so I haven’t bothered saving much.”

            “We aren’t in competition with each other,” Leeteuk reminded them.  “None of us have to give anything if we don’t want to or if we can’t.  Understood?  No questions asked.  We won’t judge you on it.  And Jonghoon, you aren’t allowed to give anything because you’re still paying for your own wedding.”

            Jonghoon looked relieved.  Clearly he didn’t handle the money now that he had a wife.  The book went to Heechul next and his amount was also rather generous, although not quite as large as Leeteuk’s.  Then he passed it on to Shindong.  Everyone stared at the number in silence.  Kyuhyun, questioning his eyesight since he didn’t have his glasses on, turned the notebook towards him.

            “Holy .”

            Shindong shrugged.  “That’s how much I had saved up for my own wedding and I don’t have the heart to spend the money on anything else.  This is the best idea I’ve had for it since my engagement broke off.  I feel better knowing that Sungmin will use it to get his own marriage off to a good start.”

            Ryeowook took the pen next, since the notebook was conveniently in front of them, and scribbled down another rather large number.  Kyuhyun narrowed his eyes.  “Where are you getting all that money?”

            “It’s from both of us, of course,” Ryeowook said.  “We can afford it.”

            “We?  Mostly me,” he pointed out, smirking at his significant other.

            Siwon grabbed the notebook next and wrote down another astronomical number.  Jonghoon’s eyes were nearly bugging out of his head and he downed a good portion of his wine in one go.  “I’m an actor,” he simply said.

            This prompted the other actor to make an equally generous donation to the Sungmin marriage fund, since Donghae not only acted and got as many product promotion gigs as Siwon, but he also benefitted from getting paid royalties on the songs he’d written as well.  Poor Hyukjae looked a little cheap, coming in after all the big money makers, but Leeteuk reminded him of some of the first donations on the list and he added a generous, but more reasonable amount. 

            When Henry was about to grab the notebook, Leeteuk snatched it away from him and shook his head.  “You have a girlfriend and we have some hope that down the line you might actually be next, but since we just gave all our spare money to Sungmin, you’ll have to cough up the funds for that one on your own.  So you can just save your money, Henry.”

            “I’m not about to get married!  Look how young I am!” he objected.

            Leeteuk only grinned and began adding up the numbers in his head.  “Well, this is better than I thought and once I talk to Zhou Mi and Jongwoon, we’ll have a better idea of how much we’re working with.  But this should be more than enough.  I imagine he has a bit saved up himself as well.”

            “My God…that’s enough for hundreds of guests,” Donghae said, looking over Leeteuk’s shoulder.

            Their leader nodded.  “I think it will at least have to be five hundred guests or more to get anyone’s attention, Hae.  But between the two of them, I have no doubt they know enough people to invite.” 

            “They’re going to have to hire a wedding planner to get an event like this organized in two months,” Jonghoon advised. 

            Leeteuk nodded, folding up the paper and putting it into his pocket.  “I couldn’t agree more.  In the meantime, do you know some photographers who would do a last minute photo shoot and someplace we can borrow wedding attire from?  They should get that done sooner than later, I think.”

            “I’ll make some phone calls in the morning,” Jonghoon said.

            “We may not need any financial help from you or the company, hyung, but it would be nice to know that we’ll have all the support we can get,” Leeteuk said, giving Jonghoon a grave look.

            “I’ll give it all I have.”

            Leeteuk nodded and Kangin smacked their manager so hard on the back, he nearly fell off the couch.  “This is great!  One of our members has actually succeeded for a change!”

            “Hello!” Kyuhyun said, waving his arms over his head.  “Ryeong and I don’t count for some reason?  We’ve only been together for seven years now!” 

            “I mean, of the normal members.  Yours is easy to keep quiet.  No one thinks it’s weird if you spend a lot of time with another member, especially a roommate,” Kangin pointed out.

            “We live on ‘separate floors,’” Kyuhyun reminded him.

            “You live in the same building and no one thinks it’s strange that you vacation together or share rooms together or go out to eat together or hang out together.  The minute I look at a girl too long, there’s full length articles about me dating her,” Kangin pointed out.  “So actually dating someone and trying to keep it secret is next to impossible.  Right Hyuk?”

            “Word!”

            “You three, get back to work,” Ryeowook said, standing up and pointing to the kitchen. 

            The trio headed back into the kitchen and Ryeowook followed to make sure that they were making actual progress. 

            “Look, I’m not trying to downplay the issues you and Ryeowook have had in your relationship, because I fully acknowledge that they exist, but what I’m trying to say is that at least you can be together and go on dates without the whole fandom judging you on it.  They don’t know.  It’s still private.  None of us straight members have that luxury and it’s been the ruin of most of our relationships.  Maybe now that Sungmin’s getting married, we can date more freely and not feel the same pressures as before.”

            “Maybe,” Shindong said with a sigh.

Meanwhile, in Zhou Mi’s car…

            Sungmin was in the middle of an overdue phone conversation because he sure as hell didn’t want his friend to find out through some media outlet that he was getting married instead of hearing it from him first, although even the other members had just only found out an hour before.  But news travels fast and it was probably going to be known to the public in the next day or two, he figured.

            “Congratulations, Minnie,” the deep voice said.

            “Thank you, Jongwoon.”

            “I remember her from seeing her at the performance with you.  She’s very pretty and she seemed very nice.  I think you’ll be very happy together,” he continued.

            “Oh, I know we will be.  She’s so adorable.  I love the way she smiles and she way she sings and the way she…”

            “We’re going to be at her place soon,” Zhou Mi laughed.

            “Are you with someone?” Jongwoon asked.

            “Zhou Mi and I are on our way to pick her up, but I wanted to call you while I had time before one of the other members beat me to it.  I wanted to tell you first,” Sungmin said.

            “Why is Zhou Mi going with you to pick Saeun up?” Jongwoon asked.

            “I made dinner for all the members.  They’re back at the apartment and they wanted Saeun to come over, so they made me go get her,” Sungmin confessed.

            “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jongwoon said.

            Zhou Mi started to laugh.  “Did he say that was a bad idea?”

            “Yes,” Sungmin groaned.  “I tried to talk them out of it.”

            “You should wait until she’s already married to you to introduce her to the rest of them.  Zhou Mi is fine.  Why don’t the three of you go out for coffee or something?  She’ll feel as if you’ve introduced her to at least one member, so you’re not excluding her, but she won’t be meeting anyone that’s going to frighten her off,” he suggested.  “Maybe in a month, you can take her out to lunch with Leeteuk.  One day, you and her could go visit Ryeowook at the studio where you used to work, maybe.  He’s pretty safe there.  Then I’ll come home for the wedding and we can meet up some time before then as well.  She’ll only meet the normal people.  Oh…and Siwon.  You can have dinner with him one night.  I almost forgot about him.  He’s not bad on his own.  Or you could all go to church together and have brunch afterwards.”

            “Oh, I may as well just get it over with,” Sungmin said, letting out a long breath.  “There’s no sense in deceiving her just to shock her after the wedding.  I mean, she has seen videos of us, she’s followed us on social media, and she’s heard stories.  How much worse can it get?”

            Zhou Mi glanced over at Sungmin.  “You shouldn’t dare the cosmos like that, Min.”

            “Anyway, I promised Leeteuk hyung that I’d call you on my way to pick up Saeun.  Then he wanted you to call him afterwards if you had the chance.”

            “Okay, I will,” Jongwoon promised.

            “And you’ll for sure be at the wedding?”

            “Assuming they allow me to leave, I will.  If not, we’ll have to celebrate once I get back.  Okay?”

            “Alright, hyung.”

            “Good.  Tell your bride congratulations for me.”

            “I will.”

            “I’ll talk to you again soon.  Call me whenever you want to talk,” he encouraged.  “Good night.”

            “Good night.”

            Sungmin hit the off button and sighed, lowering his hand into his lap.  “I wish we could all be together again, but that won’t be for a long time.  Shindong and I will eventually be leaving.  Then Siwon, Donghae, and Hyukjae.  When they come back, I imagine Kyu and Wookie will already be gone.  I hate the idea of not having them around.”

            “I won’t leave you,” Zhou Mi said, smiling brightly. 

            Sungmin pat Zhou Mi’s thigh.  “You and Henry.  We won’t have to let go of either of you, thankfully.  But I worry especially about Kyuhyun and Ryeowook.  Kyuhyun suffered so many injuries from the car accident, I don’t think he’ll have to do more than community service, but I still worry that they’ll push him too hard and he’ll get sick.”

            “He’s been so much better these last few years,” Zhou Mi insisted.

            “That’s because Ryeowook watches out for him.  But they won’t be together.  And they can’t be or else they might expose themselves, which would be terrible for their careers and could potentially put then in dangerous situations,” Sungmin said, as he pulled at the hem of his shirt.

            “I know they’re the youngest members, aside from Henry, but I’ll be damned if they aren’t two of the toughest ones, Minnie.  Truthfully, I’m going to miss them terribly, but I think they’ll be okay.  I understand you have a habit of worrying though, so I won’t say more against it.”

            “I do not have a habit of worrying,” Sungmin protested, smacking Zhou Mi in the arm.

            “You’re scared to bring your fiancée over to the dorms to meet us,” he pointed out.

            “Well, it’s not you I’m worried about.  It’s the rest of them,” Sungmin said.

            “Ah, here’s her building,” Zhou Mi said, pulling up to the front doors.  “Is that her waiting for us?”

            “She’s outside?” Sungmin questioned, clearly upset at the thought.  The moment the car came to a stop, he bounded out of it to meet her.  “Honey, what are you doing out here waiting for us?”

            “It’s nice outside,” she simply said.

            “Anyone could have come by and bothered you,” he said, kissing her cheek and grasping her hand.  “You shouldn’t just stand outside all by yourself.”

            “You worry too much.”

            Zhou Mi started to laugh at this and Sungmin looked over his shoulder at him and glared.  “Not funny!”

            Sungmin walked Saeun over to the car and set her into the front seat next to Zhou Mi.  Then he shut the door and headed to the back, but Zhou Mi began to pull away and laughed as Sungmin began to holler at Zhou Mi.  Zhou Mi stopped and then Sungmin quickly hopped into the car. 

            “This, by the way, is my SJM member, Zhou Mi, and this is my beautiful, talented, smart fiancée, Kim Saeun,” Sungmin said, introducing them.

            “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Zhou Mi said, extending his hand to her and shaking hers.

            “Me, too.  I’m so thrilled that I’m finally going to get to meet all the members.  I’ve only met a few of them briefly at performances, aside from Kyuhyun-ssi,” she explained.

            “You’ve met Kyuhyun?” Zhou Mi asked.

            “He used to perform The Three Musketeers,” Sungmin reminded him.  “And also, because of that, Kyuhyun comes to visit the set more often because he knows some of the crew.”

            “Should I be worried the three of you are going to break into singing while we’re all there?” Zhou Mi asked.

            “Do you think it would get the others to leave?” Sungmin questioned.

            “Why don’t you want me to meet your other members?” she asked, turning around to look back at him. 

            “WAIT!  Didn’t you fasten your seatbelt?” Sungmin asked.  “Zhou Mi, pull over!”

            “Didn’t I?” she questioned, looking down at her lap.

            Zhou Mi swerved to the side of the road and parked at the curb.  “My God, I’m glad you noticed, Minnie!  We better get you bucked up, in case there’s an accident.”

            Saeun smiled at them and then quickly buckled her seatbelt.  “We probably would have made it to the other side of town safely.  You seem like a good driver.”

            “But you never know,” stressed Sungmin.

            “No, you never know,” repeated Zhou Mi, heading back out onto the road. 

            “I mean, that time with the other members was so unexpected and Kyu almost died.  It’s only a miracle that he survived.  He should have been dead,” Sungmin informed her. 

            “I wasn’t even around then, but the members have all drilled in the importance of wearing seatbelts since I’ve met them,” Zhou Mi explained.  “That’s why Shindong and Hyukie had so few injuries in comparison to Kyu and Teukie.  They were wearing their seatbelts.”

            Saeun smiled and nodded.  “Right.”

            “By the way, I was just on the phone with Jongwoon.”

            “Who?” she asked, giving Sungmin a questioning look. 

            “Yesung.”

            “Oh, yes,” she said, nodding.

            “He wanted me to say congratulations to you.  He also suggested that we abandon this crazy plan and that the three of us should just go out for coffee together, someplace nice and relaxing,” he suggested.

            “Like Mouse Rabbit?” Zhou Mi teased.

            “Yeah, no one will find us there,” Sungmin groaned.  “Otherwise it’s a beautiful café.  I liked to go there with him late at night when they were still designing the place, just to see how it looked, but I rarely go there now because you’ll always find fans there.”

            “I go there sometimes,” Zhou Mi said, “when I miss him too much.”

            “I can tell you all are very close, which is why I’ve always wanted to see you together as a group,” Saeun informed them.  “Sungmin-ah talks about nothing but all of you.”

            “You don’t have to use formalities for me in front of these guys, trust me.  You’re going to be utterly shocked at the lack of formalities they use.  They are only going to use them for you, Leeteuk, and our manager.  That’s it,” Sungmin informed her. 

            “In fact, it will be even better if you call him by any cute or dirty nicknames you have for him around us.  It will earn you brownie points,” Zhou Mi informed her. 

            “Brownie points?” she questioned.

            Sungmin shook his head.  “That’s not a good idea.  They already have more than enough nicknames for me.  Trust me.”

            “This is going to be such a fun night.  I mean, I’m the behaved one,” Zhou Mi said, turning towards the dorms.

Back at the dorms…

            Leeteuk noticed that it seemed abnormally quiet in the kitchen and he headed there to check on the trio of troublemakers.  Sure enough, they were working hard and still managing to misbehave at the same time.  The moment that Henry spotted Leeteuk, he grinned wide, which wasn’t a good sign. 

            “What are you doing?”

            “Making punch for later,” he said, stirring a pitcher filled with red liquid. 

            “What did you put in it?” he questioned, taking it away from the maknae and sniffing it.  It smelled strongly of liquor. 

            Henry frowned.

            “What did you put in it?”

            “Fruit punch.”

            “And?”

            “Vodka,” he admitted, looking down at his feet.

            “You’re not drinking that until after Saeun leaves.”

            “Damn it,” he grumbled in English, grabbing the pitcher and putting it back in the fridge. 

            Leeteuk then brought his attention to Donghae and Hyukjae, who were doing the dishes like good boys, but shirtless.  “You two have to put your clothes back on.”

            “But I always get drenched when I do dishes,” Hyukjae said.  “So I’m just taking it off so it stays dry.”

            “Now!” Leeteuk demanded.  “Shirts on now!  She’s going to be here any moment and you two are only half dressed.  This is not how we’re going to greet Sungmin’s fiancée and embarrass people.  Understood?”

            “Hey, why can’t she just see a little more of the field before she settles down?” objected Hyukjae.  “And shouldn’t Sungmin also be sure that his future wife only has eyes for him?  What if she likes what she sees?” Hyukjae said, rubbing his hand up and down his chest and abdomen.

            “Hell, I like what I see,” Donghae said, whistling, as he looked over at Hyukjae.

            Leeteuk laughed at them, he couldn’t help it sometimes.  “Knock it off, you two.”

            “I think you’re asking too much of them that they miraculously behave themselves for one night because then the next time she sees us, she’s going to wonder what the hell happened to us all,” Kangin said, leaning against the doorframe.

            “All this planning for nothing,” Leeteuk sighed.  “She really will run away screaming and not marry him after all.”

            There was suddenly a knock at the door and nearly everyone rushed to it.  Ryeowook flung open the door and let in Zhou Mi.  “Where’s Sungmin and Saeun?  Aren’t they coming?  Is she having second thoughts and he has to talk her into coming up?”

            “Or vice versa,” said Zhou Mi, laughing.  “They’ll be up in a second.  Minnie is just trying to warn her about you all before they come up.”

            They were all too excited to meet her to leave again, aside from Kyuhyun who was playing a video game on is laptop on the couch—he had met her before, after all—and Heechul who was still trying to fix his hair from earlier in the bathroom and was upset that Gunhee wasn’t around to do it for him. 

            Finally, after another minute or two, the door finally opened again and Sungmin walked in hand and hand with his stunning fiancée.  He was smiling wide until he realized everyone was standing in the doorway waiting for them and he glared at them, displeased by their impatience, but quickly smiled again as he turned to face her.  “Guys, as you know, this is Kim Saeun.  Darling, you’ve briefly met my best friend before, Kim Ryeowook.”

            “Ah, you finally get to come over and see the house!  I’m so excited!  Congratulations,” Ryeowook said, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her cheek.

            She barely got the chance to respond to anyone’s greeting, as they were quickly pushed out of the way by the next person.  “And this is our maknae, from SJM, Henry Lau.”

            Henry hugged her quickly and moved out of the way before he was shoved by Hyukjae and Donghae. 

            “And this is Lee Hyukjae, more commonly known as Eunhyuk, and Lee Donghae.”

            “Sister!” Hyukjae called out, wrapping her in his arms while Donghae did the same from the other side and they both kissed her cheeks.

            “Get off of her, you idiots,” Sungmin said, smacking them both until they let her go. 

            Poor Saeun had turned bright red in the face at this point, so Siwon stepped up next and merely extended his hand to her and bowed his head, as Sungmin introduced him, which seemed to help calm her down a little.  Jonghoon followed and did much the same, merely shaking her hand.  But Shindong wouldn’t have that and when Sungmin introduced him, he wrapped her in his arms and twirled her around in a circle, making her shriek.  Then he set her down, kissed her cheek, and welcomed her to the family.

            “Hi, I’m Park Jeongsu, but everyone calls me Leeteuk.  I’m pleased to meet you,” he said, shaking her hand and leaning in to kiss her cheek. 

            “You’re the leader, correct, Leeteuk-ssi?”

            Leeteuk nodded.

            “Sungmin-ah is always saying such wonderful things about you,” she said. 

            “Thank you.”

            “And this is Kim Youngwoon, who we call Kangin,” Leeteuk said, introducing the member still left behind him. 

            Kangin hugged her and welcomed her to the family. 

            “Is that everyone?  Kyuhyun, you haven’t introduced yourself yet.”

            “Kyuhyun-ssi and I have worked together before,” she informed Leeteuk.

            “But she hasn’t met me,” Heechul informed them, flinging open the bathroom door and sauntering down the hallway until he finally reached them.  Sungmin rolled his eyes at his dramatic hyung and wondered how his poor fiancée was still holding it together after such a string of introductions.

            “Oh, yes,” Leeteuk said, grinning at the second oldest member beside him, “how could I forget?  Kim Heechul, meet Sungmin’s fiancée, Kim Saeun.”

            Saeun held out her hand to greet their most theatrical member, but he looked down at that delicate hand and smirked.  Oh, he was having none of that business.  Instead he grabbed her by the wrist, pulled her towards him, wrapped his arms around her, and dipped her.

            “Welcome to the family, love,” he said, then he kissed her straight on the lips.

            Kangin started laughing hysterically, and smacked Sungmin in the back, while poor Sungmin just stared at the scene.  Zhou Mi walked over, looked over at Heechul and Saeun, and then shrugged his shoulders.  “I don’t see what’s so disturbing about it.  He kisses everyone.”

            Leeteuk nodded.

            “I mean, who here hasn’t he kissed at least once?” Zhou Mi questioned.

            Sungmin looked down at his bride-to-be, a pained look on his face.  “Her lips are forever tainted!” he mourned.