Work-a-holic

            Now that Kyuhyun is so close to being discharged, he’s begun to spend his free time getting ready to be back in the public eye.  He’s made plans for what jobs he wants to pursue outside of Super Junior.  He’s been recording music.  And he’s currently looking through music for his next solo album, which won’t even come out until fall, but he’ll need to record the music for it and make the music videos no later than late summer.  He still doesn’t need to be working on selecting the music right this moment.  It’s a little excessive since he needs to work in the morning and he’s been staying up late too much lately.

            I walk into the kitchen.  “Time for bed.”

            “Five more minutes,” he says without looking up from the sheet music.

            I cross my arms over my chest, trying to look more intimidating, but it hardly helps when he isn’t looking at me.  “You said that an hour ago.”

            “I mean it this time.”

            “No, you don’t,” I say, laughing at him.  “And there are dark circles under your eyes already that prove that you lie.”

            He smiles as he flips over one of the pages.  “I’m getting tired anyway, since you took away my wine and replaced it with chamomile tea, which is making me drowsy…although I don’t know why you bothered.  Wine always makes me tired anyway.”

            “But you wake up in the middle of the night when you have wine.  The tea will just make you tired,” I tell him.  “You can work on this tomorrow.  You haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in days.  When you skip sleeping, you get sick.”

            “I feel fine,” he says, scanning over the page in front of him.

            “You always feel fine and then you suddenly wake up one day with a fever and sore throat after a week of not sleeping, working too much, and not eating well,” I remind him. 

            “That’s usually when I’m travelling too much and eating out.  You’ve been cooking for me lately.”

            He’s like a big toddler.  He fights sleep even more when he’s overtired. 

            “And then there’s the fact that your husband hasn’t had in nearly a week and he’d like to get laid sometime soon.”

            These words seem to have a different effect on him.  Kyuhyun leans back in his chair and finally looks over at me.  “You probably should have opened with that argument.”

            “Would you have been more willing to cooperate?” I question, reaching down for the hem of my shirt and pulling it up over my head.  I toss it over my shoulder and run my hands through my hair.

            Kyuhyun swallows hard.  “Possibly.”

            “Feel like coming to bed now?”

            “What if I still say no?” he stubbornly questions.  “Just because we’re married doesn’t mean I have to sleep with you whenever you feel like it.”

            My brows rise, mostly because he never really passes up opportunities for unless he’s sick.  Once again, his tiredness is just making him cranky.

            “Well, since I am married, as you pointed out, that does limit my partners.  So, if you’re not interested, I guess I’ll just have to take care of it myself,” I say, exiting the room and heading down the hall to the bedroom. 

            Of course, by the time I climb into bed, Kyuhyun is running into the room behind me.  As I said, he is not in the habit of turning down . 

Duet

            Yesung, Ryeowook, and I were taking a break from recording our newest Super Junior KRY song in the studio and had ordered out food.  We were sitting around at a table, eating, and taking a break from arguing about ideas for the music video.  Sadly, we all had different ideas.  I felt like I should get my way because I’d just returned from my enlistment.  Then Ryeowook reminded me that he’d just returned from his enlistment as well, technically, since Yesung and him hadn’t recorded any Super Junior KRY songs without me.  I might have gotten a little pouty about this in response and said things I shouldn’t have, because my husband was no longer speaking to me and was avoiding eye contact—and he called me a spoiled maknae, which was uncalled for—but I’ll let that slide because, if I throw a fit about it, he’ll just stop getting up early to cook me breakfast to prove his point. 

            Of course, Yesung still thought his ideas were better than either of ours and felt they should also be considered, so this was probably going to end as it usually did.  The director working on the music video was going to come up with his own damn ideas and we wouldn’t get any say in it whatsoever.  Again.    

            We were taking a rest from fighting for a little while.  After being in the sound studio all morning, we were starving from the long hours of singing and were too hungry to argue anymore.  And I think Yesung was starting to feel bad about the argument after a stretch.  He looked from me, to Ryeowook, and back again.  After a minute, he finally spoke his mind, but he didn’t say what I expected him to.

            “I think you two should record a duet.”

            I gave him a curious look.  “What makes you say that?”

            “I haven’t heard you two sing together in a while and when you were harmonizing earlier it reminded me just how good you two sound together.  I mean, the three of us have always sounded wonderful and I would never want to stop singing with you…but haven’t you wanted to sing at least one song together?”

            Ryeowook avoided looking at me, but his cheeks turned pink.  “The company has always discouraged us from doing that,” he simply responded, taking a drink of his water.

            They had opposed us singing alone together and had never allowed it, at least on an album.  That was no longer something they could dictate since we’d renegotiated our contracts, a few years back.  Of course, we’d been gone for nearly three years—together, at least—so it hadn’t come up in conversation again.  Since it was never a possibility in the past, perhaps Ryeowook thought I sided with the label, in thinking it was a bad idea.  But that just wasn’t true. 

            We sound incredible together and I’ve always wanted to sing something with him, aside from our rap song.  That’s a damn good song!  No one appreciates it the way they should!  We have sung together on stage a few times and always sounded good.  No one would think we’re crazy for wanting to sing a duet.  It would sound amazing.

            “Who cares what the company thinks?” Yesung questioned.  “The fans would love it!”

            “I think it would be a great idea, but we should wait until one of us are putting out an album again,” I said.  “It would be more fitting on a solo album then a KRY album.  If we did a duet on your next solo album, then we could use one of your songs.”

            “Which one?” Ryeowook asked, finally breaking down and speaking to me again.

            I shrugged my shoulders.  “You have dozens of them, but one of the songs about us would probably be best.”

            “Are you crazy?  We can’t sing one of my love songs together!”

            “Why not?  You sang a couple of them on your last album,” I questioned.

            “But not with you!”

            “Why is that different?”

            “Because we’d inevitably end up having to sing it live together and I’d never make it through the performance without tearing up or laughing or something,” he said.

            “You have sung romantic songs with me before without tearing up,” I reminded him.  “In fact, you’ve sung romantic songs with me onstage and maintained eye contact while doing so because you’re a professional singer and you don’t lose your focus.”

            “You and I nearly lost it when we were singing At Gwanghwamun together during my concert when we looked into each other’s eyes at the end,” he reminded me.

             I forgot about that one.  “That’s because you were acting funny through the whole song!”