The Spring issue publication party was taking place at a venue further downtown, and it was less formal than the Scholars’ Gala, so Jisoo couldn’t just reuse her lilac dress. She borrowed a little black one from Jennie that was comfortable and stylish, but it had a low neckline. Every now and then, Jisoo had to grab the front of her dress and pull it up to cover more of her chest.

Beside her on the subway, Jinyoung was wearing the exact same navy suit and black shirt outfit he’d worn to the meeting with Julie Kiyoko. Only this time he had taken the jacket off and laid it on his lap since it was too warm in the underground car, and Jisoo finally had visual confirmation that there was muscle on his arms. 

He was bent over and staring at his phone screen, which was open to an app that was flashing microbiology vocabulary words at him. Jisoo felt just a little bad that she had to force him out in the middle of studying for exams. But this was her first company event for Embrace, and she needed him.

“Say it to me again,” Jisoo said as she moved her hair away from her neck, trying to get some air on it. It really was way too warm inside the subway. Jinyoung didn’t look up as her continued to flip through electronic flash cards.

“I got it,” he said.

“Then say it to me again,” she said, searching her purse for a hair tie. 

“Jisoo, seriously,” he said, still not looking up. “Stop worrying, I got it.”

“I just need to be sure,” Jisoo snapped. “We don’t want a repeat of the last time, remember?”

“It was fine last time, too,” Jinyoung said, finally looking up at her just as she was tying her hair into a ponytail. He didn’t notice earlier, but now that her hair was up, he realized just how much skin her dress showed. It really was warm in that carriage.

“Just say it again, Jinyoung,” Jisoo snapped. “From the top. We’re doing this, what’s our plan?”

Jinyoung shut his phone off and leaned back in his seat as he repeated what he read from their updated script.

“We met at school when we were twelve,” he said in bored tone. “I had a crush on you but you didn’t like me back, so we became friends. I never brought my feelings back up because there was too much to lose if things didn’t go well. We lost touch in college until about two, three months ago. We met at a party, I called you the next day and asked you out. And now I am your fake boyfriend.”

That was a condensed version of the extremely long and detailed account of their fake relationship that Jisoo had drafted. But if he was as diligent in studying it as he was in studying those flash cards, Jisoo trusted that he could come up with the details if needed. Still, she wanted to be sure. She quizzed him:

“Where was our first date?” she asked.

“At the river.”

“What did we do?”

Jinyoung sighed. “We rode bikes and played badminton and had a picnic,” he said, trying to remember what she wrote. “You were wearing a white and red dress, and there was a guitarist busking at the park.”

“Good. And my favorite color is?”

Jinyoung didn’t answer right away. He took the opportunity to look at Jisoo, and he had an amused look on his face.

“Do you know what my favorite color is?” he asked. Jisoo was caught off guard.

“Uh. No,” she said.

“And you don’t think they’re going to be asking you those questions about me, too?” Jinyoung said, crossing his arms in a way that made it impossible not to notice that he did indeed put some muscle on his arms. Jisoo thought about his question and realized, begrudgingly, that he was right. 

“What is your favorite color?” she asked. Jisoo crossed her arms, too, in such a way that did for her chest what crossing arms did for his biceps. Jinyoung forced himself to look at her face.

“White,” answered.

“Okay. And your favorite kind of music?” Jisoo said, committing each answer to memory in case Julie Kiyoko happened to ask her.

“R&B,” he said.

“Your favorite food?”

“The usual,” he said. “Burgers, pizza, steak, though really anything with meat in it. Chocolate is good, too. And pasta. Rice is good, too. Anything with meat or rice in it.”

Jisoo scoffed. “So you eat everything. Got it.”

“Anything else?” Jinyoung asked, laughing lightly. There was a question that Jisoo had wanted to ask for a while, actually.

“Did you invite me to the gala to make Nawon jealous?”

He looked at Jisoo’s face and saw that she was serious and wanted an actual answer. Jinyoung’s playful smile faded. Her question saddened him. Is that really what she thought?

“No,” he answered gently. He was about to leave it at that, but the way she raised her brows told him that she wasn’t satisfied. She wanted more. Jinyoung sighed.

“We dated over seven months,” Jinyoung began slowly, rubbing his wrist. “Nawon and I, we were the biology department’s favorite couple. When we broke up, everyone wanted to know why. Everyone was so worried about us, about me. I couldn’t take how concerned everyone was. I just wanted them to leave me alone.” 

He saw her nod. He took a deep breath.

“I thought that if I brought a date,” he said. “People would think that I had moved on.”

Jisoo understood doing things out of self-preservation better than most. She remembered Jinyoung being an intensely private person. She, too, was a very private person, at least when it came to certain things. Her writing especially. Writing was an intensely personal thing for Jisoo. It was a dream that she had nurtured and cared for her almost all on her own, and it was a dream that she didn’t trust in the hands of anyone but herself. 

She supposed Jinyoung was like that with his feelings. It was plain to see that he had cared for Nawon deeply and that her betrayal had hurt him, and even if he did hate Nawon now, she was still a part of his life and had been for seven months. Yet Jisoo never seemed to see him mourning.

“Have you moved on, though?” Jisoo asked.

Jinyoung stopped himself from answering too quickly and giving a reflexive, empty “yes.” If Jisoo had asked him this even just a week ago, he might have said he hadn’t yet. But finally being able to tell Nawon exactly how he felt and hearing her side of the story was exactly the kind of closure he needed to end that chapter of life and… move on. 

And he wasn’t oblivious: he knew that Jisoo was part of the reason for that. The corner of his mouth curled into a content smile.

“I’m starting to.”

The publication party was taking place on the covered rooftop of The LEDGE, a trendy urban-style apartment complex. Tents had been set up, and string lights were hanging from the beams above. There was an open bar on one side of the area, hightop table for mingling, and a dance floor with a DJ playing 80’s soul music. Julie Kiyoko found Jisoo almost as soon as she walked in.

“Jisoo! We’re so excited you could make it!” she said, pulling Jisoo in for a hug, holding a cosmopolitan in one hand. She pulled Jinyoung in for a hug, too.

“Let me introduce you to our creative director, Seungri!” Julie said, introducing her to a tall, sturdy, good-looking man in a crimson suit. So that’s Seungri. Jisoo tried to commit his face to memory so she could ask him later if she could sit in on that redesign meeting.

Jinyoung followed close behind Jisoo as Julie led her around the room, introducing the new editorial assistant and her boyfriend to the rest of the Embrace staff. Jinyoung lost track of people’s names and faces after the fourth staff writer, but he could see Jisoo trying to focus, trying to memorize every person’s name, title, and face. He only smiled and shook people’s hands now and then. 

“Oh! It’s Dara!” Jisoo said, and before Jinyoung could even tell who she was looking at, Jisoo had already taken off in the direction of the open bar, where a thin woman in a red dress was waiting for a cocktail. Despite her styled hair and tasteful makeup, she looked tired. Jinyoung dodged people in the crowd to follow after Jisoo.

“Dara! You’re here!” Jisoo said in a cheerful voice. The associate managing editor of Embrace cast a disinterested glance at her editorial assistant. Jisoo smiled.

“I’m glad you came,” Jisoo said.

“What do you mean? Of course, I came, I’m the associate managing editor,” Dara said. She looked Jisoo up and down and then at the young man who appeared at her side.

“I just wanted to let you know,” Jisoo said, fidgeting with her fingers. “I called the printers yesterday and… well, they said that they can do the extra copies for the fall and winter issues but… the spring ones won’t be available until Monday at the earliest.”

Dara shut her eyes and let out a slow breath, as if to fight back her irritation. 

“Call them back and tell them to forget the winter issues, then,” Dara said. “I leave for the lit fair tomorrow, there’s no point in getting them in on Monday.”

“Oh,” Jisoo said, her shoulders falling. “Okay, I will. Have a safe journey, then.”

“Who is this?” Dara said, gesturing to Jinyoung as the wait handed her a Manhattan. 

“This is my boyfriend, Jinyoung,” Jisoo said, grabbing Jinyoung by the elbow and bringing him front and center. Jinyoung smiled and held his hand out for a handshake,

“It’s good to meet you!” he said. Dara gave him a quick, curt handshake and Jinyoung could practically feel her withholding her friendship. 

“Enjoy yourselves,” Dara said flatly before walking away and leaving the couple asking themselves what just happened. Jinyoung turned to Jisoo and scoffed.

“She seems friendly,” he said. 

“Don’t bad-mouth her,” Jisoo said. “She’s my supervisor. If I want to stay here long, I need to make her happy. She’s just stressed, I think, with the redesign happening and we still haven’t figured out what to do about the short feature. And the summer issue is due out in four months.”

“I don’t know about this,” Jinyoung said as they found a wall to lean against that was near the dance floor. Jisoo furrowed her brows at him.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“I thought you wanted to write books,” he said. “This all seems a little too… corporate for you. Not really the kind of environment I’d imagine fosters creativity.”

Jisoo scoffed and then turned to watch the people dancing as the music slowed. 

In truth, Jisoo had been thinking the same thing after her first two weeks of working there. She had been looking forward to working with writers and being allowed to write a few short features now and then. But Dara said that editorial assistants don’t do short features, and she’d been stuck making phone calls and buying stress balls on Amazon for most of her first few days at Embrace. Life at Embrace was… different than she imagined. But she had worked too hard to land this job. She was determined to make it work.

Still. She wondered when she would get to write. She missed it. The rush she felt when she was workshopping a new idea or drafting a new story was unlike anything else in the world, and she missed it, craved it. It had been a while since she was last hard at work on a project she cared about. 

“Do you want to dance?” Jinyoung