It had been about a month and a half since Jisoo’s first interview for Embrace, and she was about a week and a half into her new position as an editorial assistant. At first, Jisoo thought she would be working mostly with Julie Kiyoko the managing editor, but Jisoo found herself mostly reporting to the associate managing editor, Sandara Park, whom everyone referred to simply as Dara.

She was a thin, wispy girl who was actually quite pretty and had a solid taste for fashion, but she struck Jisoo as a no-nonsense kind of person. She was younger than Julie and really only a little bit older than Jisoo. She was constantly stressed and tense and was constantly asking her staff for some piece of paper or another. Jisoo’s work station was on the far left side of a long table right outside Dara’s office. 

“Hey, Jaesu,” Dara said, strolling out of the office and stopping in front of Jisoo’s work station.

“Oh, actually, my name is Jis—”

“Whatever,” Dara said. She closed her eyes and began massaging her temples. “So, I know this is like your first day or whatever, but just to let you know, we’re kind of in the middle of crunch time.”

“Oh,” Jisoo said. “Can I help with anything?”

“I told Julie I wanted the lit major who got published in Thread, but I guess you’ll have to do,” Dara said and Jisoo shrank in her seat. “Anyway, I know you’re still in training, but I seriously need some help with some stuff.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Okay, well first off,” Dara said, putting her hands on her hips and starting to run through a list of tasks in a rapid-fire voice. “I need you to call the printer’s office and tell them we need 1,500 more copies of the winter issue, 2500 copies of the fall issue, and put in an order for 3500 more copies of the upcoming spring issue, and make sure he got my email for the pamphlet, and I want those before this weekend for the lit fair uptown.”

Jisoo grabbed a notepad and started scribbling all of this down. Dara didn’t pause between tasks.

“I also forwarded you an email from one of our writers, she’s having an issue accessing her online account, walk her through it,” Dara said. “We also have a new round of manuscripts coming today because four of our writers dropped. Go through them, read them, find four good ones, and send them my way. Don’t even think about sending me ty manuscripts.”

“Uh, okay,” Jisoo said, still scribbling in a hurry. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” Dara said. “There’s a redesign meeting next week, but I’ll be at the lit fair, ask Seungri if you can sit in on it and take notes for me. Also, I’ll need you to sit in on a meeting with me later today with Julie, we need to discuss ideas for the short feature. She wants your input for some reason.”

Jisoo perked up a little at that news. Had Julie asked for her specifically? Dara paused to catch her breath and clenched and unclenched her fists. She looked at her assistant and seemed to read her thoughts. She scoffed.

“Don’t get too hopeful,” Dara said. “Editorial assistants don’t write short features, so you’re better off just forgetting about that. Julie always just lets new girls sit in to make them feel included.”

Jisoo’s smile faded, and she packed down her ballooning sense of optimism as Dara said. Her supervisor cleared .

“Anyway, you’re clear on your tasks?”

Jisoo nodded.

“Good,” Dara said. “One more thing. Don’t forget about the publication party this weekend. It’ll be your first staff party, right?”

“That’s right,” Jisoo said subordinately. 

“Then you’d better make it and bring your boyfriend. Or girlfriend,” Dara said. “It’s kind of a company tradition, getting to know you and your story and your significant other. Everything is about love at Embrace.”

Dara said that last line with a slightly sarcastic tone and then chuckled to herself.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Dara said. “And if you find yourself on Amazon, buy me a stress ball.”

“Will do,” Jisoo called out cheerfully. Once Dara was back in her office, Jisoo looked down at the notepad with her tasks on it and she let out a long sigh. The sheer number of jobs she had to do was starting to give her anxiety, so she put the notepad face down on her desk for a minute and took a few deep breaths, trying to remember that this was the job she wanted. She cleared her desk off and was about to start on her first task—calling the printers—when she realized she didn’t know which printing company Dara meant, never mind their phone number.

Okay, save that one for later. Move on to the next one: an email from a writer having trouble with his or her account, and Jisoo had to help them figure it out.

But then she realized that she was so new that even she didn’t have an online Embrace portal account yet. She’d need some time to figure that out herself before she could guide someone else.

Okay, next one: read the manuscripts and choose four, but the mail hadn’t been brought in yet, so there were no manuscripts to read.

Ask Seungri for permission to sit in on the redesign meeting. But who is Seungri and where is his office?

. There wasn’t a single task she actually knew how to do. Jisoo started fidgeting in her seat. She looked over at Dara in her office, but she looked like she was busy talking to someone on the phone. No one else in the office looked particularly inclined to offer any help either. In the middle of this crisis, Jisoo realized she had another problem:

Jinyoung wasn’t answering any of her calls or texts, and she hadn’t so much as spoken to him in a week and a half. The Spring issue publication party was this weekend. She decided to put aside the tasks for now and grab her phone. She started texting another message to him, the 18th one she had sent him in ten days.

“Hello?!” she typed. “Publication party this weekend!!! We need to meet up before then!!! Where are you?” 

She sent the text and immediately tried calling him. The call went straight to his inbox. Jisoo hung up and started panicking.

Why wasn’t he answering her calls or texts? Why was he avoiding her? Why wasn’t he talking to her? Did she do something wrong? Was he mad at her? But why? Because he got beat up by Tinder boy at the gala? That wasn’t her fault, though! And anyway, he was the one who shoved that guy first. 

What if he really did decide he was going to sabotage her and chose today of all days to screw her over. Would he do that? He wouldn’t. Right?

The uncertainty was killing her. With only two more days until the weekend, Jisoo didn’t have much time to get in touch with Jinyoung to touch base before they pretended to be boyfriend and girlfriend at the company event. She had to do something fast. 

“I need Jackson’s phone number.” Jisoo barged into Jennie’s room straight after work and found her friend cycling in the corner of her bedroom. Jennie looked up from a tablet she had balanced on the handrails and gave Jisoo a puzzled expression.

“Why?” Jennie said, sitting up on the stationary bike. Jisoo clenched her fists and started rocking on her heels.

“I just need it,” Jisoo said. Jennie still had an unamused, unconvinced look on her face.

“You just… need my boyfriend’s phone number?” she said. Jisoo’s voice was frantic. She really just wanted to be in and out of the room without having to tell Jennie that it was because she needed to get a hold of Jinyoung, but this wasn’t working.

“Not to talk to him!” Jisoo said. “It’s just… Ugh! Jinyoung hasn’t been answering my calls, and I need to know where he is.”

The look of shock on Jennie’s face was worrying Jisoo. She pressed her lips together and waited for Jennie to say something. She got off the bike and wiped her neck with a towel.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Jennie said, sitting down on her bed. “Is… Jinyoung your… boyfriend?”

Jisoo was afraid she was going to ask that. She stammered out a non-reply:

“Mmm—Yea—No—I mean, kind of— it’s kind of complicated. Because—Yes, but not really?”

Jennie cocked one eyebrow. “So which is it?” she asked. Jisoo scrambled for some kind of reply that would explain everything without revealing too much, but in the end she just let out one long, exasperated sigh. Damn it all, she thought.

“Okay, fine!” Jisoo said, shutting her eyes. “I’m just going to tell you because you’re my best friend and you deserve to know and knowing you, you’re going to wrench this out of me soon anyway, so I might as well just say it.”

Jisoo told Jennie everything: the interview, the lunch meet-up, Jinyoung crashing into her when she confronted him on his campus, the carnival date, meeting Julie Kiyoko, even running into Tinder creep at the gala and getting Jinyoung handcuffed in a basement security office. Jennie listened wordlessly and with a blank look of focus. When Jisoo was done explaining everything, Jennie nodded slowly and then said:

“So he’s your…,” she said, her voice low. “…fake boyfriend?”

Jisoo nodded and then sighed. “Yeah. Essentially.”

Jennie looked taken aback. “And he’s okay with that?”

“We have an agreement,” Jisoo said. “And part of that agreement was coming with me to this event at Embrace, but he’s not keeping up his part of the bargain because he won’t answer my calls and, anyway, that’s why I need Jackson’s number. He’ll know where Jinyoung is.”

“I don’t get it,” Jennie said. “Why wouldn’t you just ask him out on a real date?”

“Because it’s not like that!” Jisoo said, turning defensive all of a sudden. “I don’t have feelings for him.”

Jennie cocked a brow: “Really?”

Jisoo rubbed her face in exasperation.

“Don’t do this to me, Jennie,” she said. “I’m already going through a major crisis. Did I tell you that my new boss gave me three things to do and I couldn’t do a single one of them? The look she gave me when I told her I wasn’t done was—“

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Jisoo looked at her with a confused look. “What?”

“This whole fake relationship thing,” Jennie said, her voice soft.

“Why?” Jisoo asked.

“Because what if you do end up falling for him, but for him, this is all just a business deal? You’ll be crushed,” Jennie said. The look of genuine concern on her best friend’s face touched Jisoo, but she was also slightly shocked that Jennie didn’t think