***THIS IS MY SECOND UPDATE TODAY. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ CHAPTER 16, I SUGGEST YOU DO SO BEFORE STARTING THIS CHAPTER ^_^***

Chapter 17

There was good news, and there was bad news. The good news was, no one had been injured in the storm. That was a pretty good achievement in my opinion. Also on my list of things appropriately called "good news," there was the fact that my house had survived, AJ's car had managed to stay relatively unscathed, and everything that was truly broken had already begun undergoing repairs the minute the storm ceased.

The bad news was, Ted's house collapsed. That quaint little house, so perfectly adorable, had simply fallen down. Ted hadn't been in the house, but he had phoned AJ with a tear in his voice to tell him. From what I had overheard, I gathered that Ted had built the house alongside his late wife, and had kept it in such good repair in memory of her.

AJ and I racked our brains for a way of remedying the situation, until finally I opted to let Ted stay at my house until repairs were finished. I had a spare bedroom, and it was better since AJ was going to be there too. So, plans made to temporarily house Ted, AJ and I drove off in the direction of the motel he had decided to board in for the night.

"You think he'll agree?" I asked nervously, unable to foresee the old man's reaction to our suggestion.

"He hates motels," AJ said nonchalantly, "so he'll have to agree!"

"I hope he does. I don't like the thought of him staying somewhere strange all alone for so long."

"He'll agree. Don't worry." AJ laid his hand over mine in comfort, and I sighed, trying to calm my nerves. As we pulled into the parking lot, -- which, really, was just a glorified field with some cheap spray paint -- my phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Kev, honey, are you okay?" My mom yelled frantically through the phone.

"I'm fine, Mom!" I rolled my eyes. "You would have known yesterday if I'd been hurt, I promise."

"Oh, the storm was just so bad, and I was so worried! I'm glad you're okay though!"

"Did your studio survive?"

"Kevin, it's made almost entirely of concrete. Of course it survived!" I chuckled a bit at my mom's fake snarky tone.

"I have to go, Mom. Call you later!"

"Love you!"

I hung up and turned to AJ. "Your mom?" he snickered.

"Crazy as ever," I laughed.

"Shall we go?" AJ said courteously, offering me his arm.

"We shall," I said in a snooty voice, pretending to be putting on airs. We entered the hotel with our noses practically pointing vertically, acting as prestigious as possible. Ted quickly waved us down, divided his luggage with AJ, and hurried us from the motel without a word.

"How's it going, Ted?" I asked as soon as we reached the car.

"Thank you so much for rescuing me from that hell of a motel!" Ted cried.

"Was it really that bad?" AJ laughed.

"AJ, they had hay stuffed in the mattresses. Hay!"

"Well, you must be pretty thrilled to be out of there, then!" I giggled.

"Definitely!" Ted crossed his arms adamantly, as if defying the motel to swallow him back up with its hay-stuffed fangs. "So where are you taking me?" He asked when we were safely within the confines of the vehicle.

"That's what we wanted to talk to you about," I said slowly.

"Uh-oh, this doesn't sound too peachy," Ted sighed.

"Well, AJ has been staying with me lately, and I have a spare room, so we figured that you could just stay at my house!" I grinned widely, hoping with every fiber of my being that Ted would agree. He did not, however, appear happy with the decision. My smile faltered, the sadness of Ted's denial beginning to bear down on me.

Suddenly, he beamed brightly. "I'd love to! Thanks so much, darlin'!" Ted gave me a firm pat on the shoulder, and I found myself grinning again.

"What, no thanks for me?" AJ joked with mock offence.

"It was obviously his idea, idiot," Ted chuckled.

"Well, yeah, but don't I deserve credit for agreeing with him?"

"Not exactly."

I laughed at their banter the rest of the way to my house. We got Ted moved in quickly, or, at least, we got his luggage moved in quickly. Ted insisted on inspecting every last aspect of the exterior before perusing the interior as well. It took him two hours. Two whole hours of just staring at my house! But, at the very least, I was able to give the old man his own little piece of happiness for a little while.

The next morning, AJ and I awoke to the smell of something burning. Dressed in sloppy, mismatched pajamas, hair tousled beyond belief and the sleep still sitting in our eyes, we climbed from the bed and dashed to the kitchen, ready to fight fire with... well, ourselves.

To our chagrin, we found Ted spreading butter on two blackened pieces of toast, a tray of sizzling, overcooked bacon resting on top of the stove, oven still on. "Ted," I said softly, "you have to turn the oven off when you're done cooking."

He looked up from his charred bread in surprise. "I could have sworn I turned it off..." he ran over to the oven and quickly switched it off. "There, all better!" He grinned widely at us. "Want some breakfast? I can whip up some eggs real quick if you want!"

"N-no thanks," I spluttered, suddenly appalled by the very idea of consuming anything put together by Ted. "I'm more of a cereal and coffee kind of guy." I shuffled over to the pantry and pulled out a box of Pops, pouring them quickly into a bowl and drizzling milk over it.

"That's alright, dear. How about you, AJ? You always loved my homemade breakfast!" Ted smiled hopefully at his grandson, who merely nodded, unable to tell his poor grandfather that his food was not, in any shape of the word, edible.

Mere minutes later, AJ was sitting beside me, somehow stomaching crumbly burnt toast, extremely overcooked bacon, and a watery, under-cooked omelet. I didn't understand how he was doing it, but his food was soon gone. He wiped his mouth and stood, carefully setting his plate in the dishwasher on his way to the bathroom. Curious, I gulped down the remnants of my cereal and followed after him. I found him bent over the sink, vigorously scrubbing his teeth. Foamy toothpaste was streaming, rather unattractively, from the corners of his mouth. I broke out in fits of laughter. He looked up at me, a bit of foam dripping down his chin, toothbrush hanging slightly out of his mouth.

"What's so funny?" he mumbled.

"Now I understand," was all I said, continuing to guffaw at my boyfriend. He simply shook his head and continued brushing. When he was finally done and my laughter had ceased, we went through the everyday motions and got ready for work.

At first, it had struck me as odd, going back to the office so soon after such a natural disaster. But time waits for no man, and Mister Kim was no exception. With the delay from the storm, work had to be done twice as fast in order to have everything finished on time. So, we climbed into AJ's care all dolled up for work. Halfway into the car ride, I realized that AJ was going in the wrong way for the office. When I began to point this fact out, AJ began laughing.

"We didn't have coffee this morning," he said slowly. I immediately felt like a bit of an idiot for not realizing sooner that he was heading straight for the coffee shop.

We pulled up to the shop and I was pleased to see that it had wonderfully survived the storm. It looked even cleaner than it had before. We walked in, sat at our usual table, and ordered our lattes. "So how did you two get through the storm?" asked DongHo, raising his eyebrows in curiosity.

"We just kinda hung out and then the storm ended," AJ shrugged.

"I met this awesome guy named Quincy," I chimed in.

"Oh?" DongHo looked at AJ curiously. "And this idiot's not suspicious of him, I don't know, stealing his boyfriend or something?"

"Quincy is old enough to be my great grandfather. I don't think there's much reason for suspicion there," I chuckled.

"Now you're cheating on me with an old man?!" Hoon cried from his perch at the grand piano.

"Shut up, Hoon!" I cried back jokingly.

"Is it too much to ask my significant other to stay faithful to me every once in awhile?" he huffed.

"Well, why don't you go ask your significant other that? I'm currently drinking coffee with my boyfriend." Hoon rolled his eyes and pounded out a furious rhythm on the piano. I laughed at his antics and DongHo just rolled his eyes.

"I can't believe you let him do that all the time," he commented.

"Well, it's more fun that way," I shrugged. AJ and I finished our lattes quickly and bade my friends goodbye, heading to the car and back to work.

We walked up to the office building hand in hand, knowing that the secret was out. It was a strange experience, being on the receiving end of an even nastier glare from the nasally secretary posted at the front door. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked softly.

"Well, it's our only option," AJ shrugged. "Everyone knows already. I mean, you did spend nearly two days in my office with me during the storm."

"It's still weird," I shivered.

We made it to AJ's office successfully, only to be immediately flagged down by none other than Lee Kiseop.

"Hey, Kev, I need to talk to you about your character sketches!" He grinned widely.

"Uhm, okay, I guess at lunch we--"

"No, I need to talk to you about them now," he frowned. "I don't have any time the rest of the day."

I looked up at AJ, pleading with my eyes for him to hold off on the smart aleck comments until after I was done talking to Kiseop. He sighed and nodded his head slightly, so I smiled up at Kiseop. "I can talk to you about them, but it's got to be quick. I have to decide on a final venue this afternoon."

"It'll only take a couple minutes!" I smiled happily. I followed Kiseop into his office and left the door open slightly. "Have a seat," he offered, gesturing to the most comfortable looking chair in the entire room.

"So what about my character sketches?" I asked curiously.

"It's just... Well your sketches show a very detailed understanding of your characters, but for some reason, they are all completely different in the novel. I was wondering if you could explain this to me."

"That's easy!" I laughed. "Basically, I was writing my novel and following such strict outlines and plans that the words were getting stuck somewhere between my brain and my fingers, and in order to follow my original plan better, I let my characters do what they wanted. It worked out a lot better though because they became more three dimensional after I let them develop their own personalities."

"That's... interesting," Kiseop commented slowly.

"Is that all?" I questioned anxiously, understanding the urgency with which I was needed.

"Yeah, I'll probably talk to you tomorrow with other questions. Good luck with the venues!" he called as I exited the room.

"Thanks!" I called back, waving goodbye.

"So...?" AJ said expectantly when I reentered his office.

"So what? He just had a question about the consistency of character sketches," I shrugged nonchalantly.

"Are you sure that was all?" asked AJ suspiciously.

"I promise, that was all. I would have told you if there was anything else that happened," I chuckled.

"Oh, all right," AJ sighed. "How's the venue choice coming along?"

"I'm torn between two. Have you got any advice?"

"The one that appeals to a wider range of people is the one you should pick," he commented. "If there are more flowers in one than in the other, pick the one with less on the off chance that people with allergies will attend, and that kind of thing. I trust you," he smiled. I resisted grimacing at those words, those unnerving words. Trust was such a delicate thing. It felt like a huge responsibility to have someone that actually trusts you.

I nodded, pecked AJ on the cheek, and sauntered off to my broom closet. I thought I had lucked out, having made it to my broom closet without running into any of the office girls. Boy, was I wrong.

When I stepped into the room, I was immediately assaulted by a thick, sticky substance pouring down on my head. Then, I stepped on something ridiculously slippery and was sitting on the floor before I knew what had happened. There were feathers everywhere, and each one I came across stuck to the goo covering my body. When I reached my desk and sat down in frustration, I heard the sickening crunch of half a dozen eggshells, all resting on the seat of my chair and, after that particular incident, the seat of my pants.

I stood quickly, disgusted by the sabotage in my office, and marched quickly into the area where all the office girls sat pretending to be productive in their little gray cubicles. I stood in the center of them, where they could all see me, and placed my hands on my hips.

"So, who wants to explain?" I asked as calmly as possible. No one volunteered. "That's alright," I shrugged. "I think I understand enough to know why my office was destroyed." I shrugged my shoulders as if brushing off the incident. "I want to tell you girls something, and it's pretty important, so open your ears and listen closely, okay?" I paused, making sure all eyes were on me. "I'm sure you've all heard the story of the Great Slushee Incident, correct?" Several of them nodded. "Good. Well, that was why I was hired here. It was not because I was dating President Kim or supposedly flirting with a publisher. It was because I could not pay for Kim Jaeseop's ridiculous $300,000 suit.

"I hated JaeSeop at first. I absolutely despised him. He was a rich jerk who thought of no one but himself. But for some reason, he thought I liked him, and so was very open about the fact that he, in some strange way, had developed feelings for me. I turned him down. But then suddenly, I saw a nicer, more caring side of him, and so accepted and eventually reciprocated his feelings. We kept it secret to refrain from jeopardizing the company.

"There was nothing wrong with what we did, and the only argument you could possibly have against our relationship is the fact that I "got" him and you didn't. So next time you're all immature enough to destroy a person's office for the sake of spite, I really hope you get a taste of your own medicine back." I scoffed at some of the girls who were giving me defiant glares in the midst of the ones who sat with their heads down guiltily.

"Why should we care about your stupid office? You took JaeSeop from Eli!" a girl in the back cried.

"I didn't steal him," I laughed. "Eli is simply deluded. Next time you see him, ask him about their relationship. You'll know when he lies about it." I crossed my arms and marched off, sick of these girls and their ridiculous obsessions. I left silence in my wake, and was very proud of it. It was my turn to prove to those silly girls that revenge wasn’t the answer, and I knew exactly how to pull that off.



A/N: HOORAY I REACHED 25K!!! :DDD This chapter is about 2,675 words long, and is probably the worse half of what I wrote today... But I really could care less, because I reached my goal. SO THERE! xDD I'm still exactly 8,158 words behind today's count, but I'll probably catch up more tomorrow  when I am actually conscious. Y'know, being awake really helps your word count.