Chapter 6

The rest of the week was, surprisingly, very normal. I suffered silently through car rides with President Kim every afternoon, never daring to so much as glance up at him. I only talked to him in order to receive instructions each day. He had a string of meetings at every lunch, so I finished eating before the meetings would end in order to avoid him.

I never really saw Kiseop the rest of the week, either. Every day I crossed out on my calendar made me smile, because I was slowly but surely crawling toward our next meeting in the coffee shop. Constantly I replayed the scene in my head, that mere moment with such an inconsequential gesture; was it normal to feel like this after merely having your hair ruffled? But that little bit of light pulled me through, and before I knew it, I was sitting in the coffee shop once more, waiting for him.

“You think he’s finished it yet?” I asked nervously.

“Uhm, isn’t that what this meeting is for? Chill out, Kev,” DongHo chuckled.

“HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO CHILL OUT?” I cried, unable to comprehend the boy’s reasoning.

“SHHH!” Hoon hissed, placing a finger over his lips. “I can’t even hear myself think!” With a sigh, he turned back to the piano.

“Dude, just relax, it’ll be okay,” DongHo grinned.

“I sure hope so…”

“Look at it this way,” DongHo began, “worst-case-scenario, you--” Just then, the bell above the door chimed. I quickly turned my head to find Lee Kiseop standing there, my manuscript clutched lightly between long, graceful fingers, an unspoken greeting conveyed in a rather dashing grin.

“Long time no see,” he chuckled as he sat down across from me.

“Y-yeah,” I laughed breathily.

“Drink?” DongHo asked.

“London Fog.”

“Ah, consistency. Such an admirable quality, right, Kevin?” I felt DongHo lightly nudge my arm, registered the fact that he had spoken to me, attempted to get my attention, but my mind was full of fog. “Helloooo, Kevinnnnn,” he called, fingers splayed in front of my face. “Anyone alive in there?” he lightly rapped his knuckles against my forehead.

“Ow!” The light pain brought me back to reality.

“Way to just veg out on us,” the boy snorted.

“Sorry…” I rubbed my forehead gently. “You were saying?”

“Consistency, my friend. Consistency.” He nodded with an air of solemnity and ran off toward the counter.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I called, rather loudly, in his general direction.

“Kevin, my love, please,” Hoon cried, turning on the piano bench to face me, “shut up!”

“Sorry,” I said quietly, feeling myself sink down in my chair a bit.

“Sorry isn’t good enough.” He crossed his arms in an almost defiant manner. After a few moments, a thoughtful look overtook his face, and suddenly he turned back to me with a suspicious smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll punish you later tonight.” He wiggled his eyebrows and winked suggestively before turning back to the ivories.

“Sure he’s not your boyfriend?” Kiseop chuckled.

“Nah, he’s just a jerk,” I scoffed.

“Well, okay then, whatever you say.”

“I’m serious!”

“I believe you!” A slight silence ensued, until finally Kiseop began to speak. “I finished the manuscript. Has it gone through any sort of editing yet?”

“Well, I mean, I edited it personally, but…” Great. Problems already?

“Okay. I have a couple quirks in the plotline. Everything grammatically has been fixed, but I wanted to discuss some of the content with you.” He pulled the stack of paper from its folder and began to flip through carefully, pointing at a page somewhere near the center of the stack. “It’s here.”

I took the stack from his hand and began reading. “What’s wrong with it exactly?” I happened to enjoy the scene where Eleanor finally confesses to Drew, especially since I made that scene dramatic with Christine eavesdropping.

“Why does Drew accept Eleanor? And why does Christine give in so easily?” he demanded in a rather surprisingly straightforward manner.

“That’s easy,” I chuckled. “If you notice, through the whole thing, Drew is falling for her. And it’s not on purpose, it’s more of an accident. He liked Christine in the first place anyways, and even when he realized his feelings for Eleanor, he denied them since he hadn’t earned his knighthood at that point.” I shrugged. “So he had known and come to terms with it. He just had not been given a chance till this scene.”

Kiseop gave a slight nod. “Okay. But what about Christine? She shouldn’t just give up, right?”

“Maybe she seems a little shallow, to give him up like that,” I allowed. “But still, as the saying goes, if you love something, you have to let it go. If she had clung to Drew, it would only prove she didn’t really love him enough. She just realized that it was best if he was with Eleanor. She is a smart lady-in-waiting, after all.”

“I still don’t like it.” Kiseop shook his head and sighed. “If I were her, I wouldn’t just quit. That’s kind of pathetic.”

“Pathetic,” I cocked an eyebrow, “or brave?”

“How can quitting be brave?”

“That’s another easy question. Doesn’t it take more courage to let something go than it does to keep holding on to it forever?” Kiseop contemplated that for a moment, thoughtfully sipping his tea latte and muttering incoherently to himself.

“Okay,” he finally said, leaning forward a bit. “You have defended yourself well, so I won’t insist you change it.” I could feel a grin pasting itself across my face. “However…”

“However?” Grin? What grin? Gone.

“There are a couple characters that I found to be very dull and flat. If I give you a list, could you flesh them out a bit more?”

“Of course!” I brightened again. Did this mean he liked it? My story?

“And one more thing. Have you gotten anywhere close to finding the right title?”

With a sigh, I shook my head. “Nothing fits. Nothing. I can’t figure it out. It’s like I’m missing one piece out of an entire puzzle, and I am not even sure what that piece looks like.” I shrugged. “I’ll figure it out soon.”

“I trust you,” Kiseop winked. “Here. I pretty much covered it in red ink. Read through my edits tonight and see me at work tomorrow during lunch if you have any questions. Okay?” He grinned.

“Perfect!” I took the manuscript from his hand and smiled widely, eyes following him all the way out the door.

“That was disgusting.” I turned to look at DongHo with a confused face.

“What do you mean?”

“I have never seen you so sickeningly lovey-dovey with anyone like that before. And you’re not even dating!” He shook his head. “It just makes me want to vomit.” The piano music paused as Hoon looked up.

“To be honest, I thought it was funny. How jealous he was.”

“Who?” I asked curiously. Someone had been jealous? It certainly wasn’t me, and it hadn’t been Kiseop. So who could it have been?

“I mean, he’s good at hiding it. But I thought it was hilarious.” Hoon shrugged and returned to playing.

“Who was jealous?” I asked DongHo.

“Erm… No one…” he said. “Hoon’s just being… Weird.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” I intended to question him further, but at that very moment an onslaught of customers flooded in, distracting DongHo. Rather than pursue that line of curiosity any further, I began diligently reading over Kiseop’s inked-in edits, looking somewhat similar to a schoolboy trying to look smart in front of his crush. In all honesty, tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.

A/N: Annyeong~~!!! To those of you who have waited for awhile for this chapter, TA DA~! I hope it's okay. It's not the longest chapter ever, and definitely not the most eventful. But we finally learn a little about Kevin's novel! Andwegettoseemoreofmytwomostfavoritestsupportingcharacterswhat.

@Sheepishly: ONLY ONE MORE WEEK OF BAND CAMP!!! :D Even coffee, sadly, cannot help me now... xP

@justkissme: CONGRATS on your lucky day! (oh lucky days~~ bokurano lucky days~~ kimito natsuo POREBER LUCKEH IN MAH HERT! :D (SS501, I love that song!)) I always have issues picking. 90% of the time I just kind of settle for the best of both worlds with JaeVinSeop. ;P

@KevLene91: ROOT FOR WHOEVER YOU WANT. I AM OKAY WITH IT. AN AJ IS A BIT OF A JERK. BUT I PROMISE HE'LL GET BETTER.... I HOPE. We'll see if he starts behaving... xD

@twiggyrocks2815: I'm glad you enjoy my humor! :D And I like your username. Mainly because freshman year of high school there was this dude my friends and I nicknamed Twiggy cause his legs were so skinny and they kind of stalked him and stuff and I just chuckled a little at their blatant fangirliness. :P

@ForeverMidnight: I'M GLAD. I love U-Kiss fics, but I swear so many of them I don't even know what goes through people's minds. Seriously. What even. Yeah, the title confused everyone. I feel like I should clear that up in the foreword. But I'm kinda just a little too lazy...

@PigeonPoop: WOOT!!! :D

Enjoy this chapter, my lovelies! Even though maybe it's not the most fun and it's short and whatnot. I'll update again as soon as I can. But if it doesn't happen this weekend, then it won't happen till at least next Saturday. Yay band camp. URGH AND I START AN ONLINE COLLEGE CLASS ON THE FIFTEENTH. I almost forgot. So yeah.... Bleh. I. Hate. School. A lot. HOPE YOU LIKE THE CHAPTER <3