Fridays are a joy to most people. For some it’s because they get paid, others because they get to stay up late and sleep in the next morning, others because it just gives them a small victory; a small congratulations that comes with the setting sun and the bustling of the city on weekend nights that reminds them that yes, you did it, you got through it, you can do this.

But you can’t do this. You can’t do this anymore.

It’s not so much the stress of handling someone else’s problems for them; it’s what every assistant does. It’s not that you hate your employer, because you work for one of the most prominent talent and literary agencies ever and you’re more than happy to have their name on your resume. It’s not that you have to sit for eight hours a day in front of a computer, and it’s not that you have limited social interactions, because you have contacts other people can only dream of.

What really s you up about this job is the sheer quotidianity of it. Every day is a routine with very limited changes, and you go to assistant mixers just so you don’t lose your damn mind.

They tend to serve good booze, too.

And it wouldn’t be such a huge pain if it was a normal kind of routine. But no, it’s all about dealing with dirty laundry, setting it out to dry even though you can still smell the soot, see it in certain places, and you have to leave it as is because you will not get dirty no matter what. One more year, one more year and you can go off and do what you really want to do, spend the rest of your life on film sets or in production offices. Hell, you’ll take a writing room at this point, bury yourself in it for two years before emerging with work the likes of which have never seen before in this entire ing industry.

One year.

It’s what you chant to yourself on your way to the break room of the office, because your boss just had you set up flower arrangements for his wife and his two lovers and you want to strangle him and every man like him because you had to deliver them in person on your way to get him his morning coffee, which you have to go all the way to Ilsan every weekday for.

“I can’t do this anymore,” you mutter to yourself. you’ve been chanting the same words for a few minutes now, and no one has shot you weird looks because it’s a normal thing, half of the assistants here are going through the same thing or worse (last week, someone in your department had to stage a kidnapping to scare off one of his boss’s lovers). You kind of love what you do, you love being able to connect people to the right companies, the right projects, the right crews but you hate everything else, especially your bloody boss’s personal life because he’s pretty decent as a professional—

Your phone rings, and you dread your own fate as the screen lights up and flashes a text message from the very man.

Need a date for tonight’s event, do you have anyone?

Two lovers and a wife and he’s still not satisfied, and you know it’s because no talent agent in the world knows boundaries, knows no greed and at the same time it is all they know, all they’ve known because you’re the pretty face in front of a vulture.

But not always, a voice in your head reminds you, but you ignore it because you’re too ing pissed off and you can’t see beyond how much you hate today, how much you hate right now and your feet are moving towards the agency rooftop because you need air. You don’t realise you’re hyperventilating until you get out of the elevator and you can feel the thickness in the air going in and out of your airways, you can smell petrichor in the air…

It’s raining.

It’s raining and you don’t care at all. You don’t care about your hair or your freshly pressed shirt, your favorite pencil skirt or even your red heeled pumps, because the only reason why you’re still in this industry, the real reason why you’re waiting out this year—

“A little bird told me you had one hell of a morning.”

—is standing right in front of you. Well, a few feet away. Still.

“It’s raining, Minho.”

“And yet.”

You want to argue but instead, you pout and it makes the baby faced, six-foot giant smile his goofiest smile. And you pout harder.

He doesn’t have to say it, you read the ‘come here’ in the corner of his mouth, curving into one of those marshmallow treacly smiles, and a patch of sun seeps through the grey clouds and shines on him and life is suddenly like a movie. Not a horror workplace flick but a really decent rom-com, the kind you really don’t mind.

And you run towards him and jump into his waiting arms, and he’s warm despite his cooling wet clothes and his laughter feels like everything warm and bright, everything that’s right and everything you want to see and hear and feel. You laugh when you hear the patter of the raindrops on the unmistakeable fabric of an umbrella, and you think Minho will say something about your getting sick. 

But he doesn’t. He just holds you, kisses the top of your head when you laughter subsides.

You’ve always loved spring rain, anyway.