The lock clicked as Youngjae twisted the key, opening the door to Hei-Ryung's apartment. He had sent her a text earlier informing the jumpy homeowner that he planned on paying her a visit, so his intrusion shouldn't come as a surprise, but all the same Youngjae poked his head cautiously around the door before he entered. Across the living area, Hei-Ryung was working quietly on her computer and apparently hadn't noticed him yet.

     "Ms. Cha?" Youngjae spoke up, announcing his presence before stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind him. Lifting one hand, Hei-Ryung lazily waved to Youngjae before flipping through a few pages of the notebook she had open on her desk. Surprised that she wasn't jumping up to greet him, as she usually did, Youngjae quietly took off his shoes and sat on the couch, trying not to disturb Hei-Ryung any further.

     The atmosphere in Hei-Ryung's apartment was entirely different from the previous times Youngjae had visited. For the first time, it felt more like he was sitting in the home of a professional author instead of just an eclectic writer. Glancing around the room, Youngjae took note of the various changes that had occured since his last visit. For one, Hei-Ryung didn't have her television running the latest drama- in fact, the television was unplugged. The shelves that she usually kept relatively tidy were a disaster, with most of the books abandoned on the floor; apparently, Hei-Ryung was particularly careless when researching. Her desk was covered in snack wrappers, notebooks, eraser shavings, and pencils, though a small area about the size of Hei-Ryung's heads was cleared. Frowning, Youngjae hoped that Hei-Ryung was sleeping properly in her bed and not simply passing out at her desk every night.

     "So, how can I help you today?" Snapping out of his thoughts, Youngjae noticed that Hei-Ryung had turned in her seat and was beaming at him. That was certainly a new reaction to him invading her apartment. "Unfortunately, I can't accompany you on another walk. I've finally been resurrected from the dead and am able to get some good writing onto paper," she continued apologetically, wrapping her arms around the backrest of her desk chair and resting her chin on its top.

     She really did look sorry for not being able to go out with him, so Youngjae hurried to reassure her: "Don't worry about it, that's not why I'm here today." Raising her eyebrows, Hei-Ryung straightened up and silently urged him to continue. "You see, I had a meeting with my-" Youngjae stopped himself, remembering that he hadn't actually discussed his relationship to Ji Suk with Hei-Ryung yet- "with Mr. Kang, and we decided that..." sighing, Youngjae allowed his voice to die as he ran a hand through his hair. He had put off telling Hei-Ryung about the interview for several days, and had finally forced himself to come now that the scheduled date was the day after tomorrow. Eventually, he was going to have to tell Hei-Ryung about the interview, and what would- supposedly- happen if she didn't comply.

     "It's not right," Youngjae thought, swallowing hard. He didn't want to threaten Hei-Ryung, but he also knew that, especially with such short notice, it might be the only way to get her to go to the interview.

     "You decided what?" Hei-Ryung prompted, slowly becoming more concerned for Youngjae as he allowed the pause to drag on.

     "That I should help you with your writing. You haven't been eating properly, have you?" Eventually he would have to tell her, but eventually could come later. He would tell her today, but not right now. He needed to figure out how to word the news in a way that would break it gently, first.

     Turning a shade of red, Hei-Ryung shook her head sheepishly. "I've been busy with my writing, and stopping to make a meal seemed like such a waste of time," she admitted, shrinking until just her eyes were visible over the top of her chair. "I have been showering, though!" She exclaimed, quickly trying to make up for a misunderstanding that, honestly, was all in her head. Hei-Ryung's personal hygeine was the last thing on Youngjae's mind at the moment.

     "I'll make you lunch, then," Youngjae decided for the both of them, already beginning to roll up his sleeves.

     "Y-you don't have to do that. Really..." Hei-Ryung's heart wasn't in her protests, though, as she watched Youngjae make his way into the kitchen and begin looking through her cupboards for ingredients. Biting down on her bottom lip, she ignored the gnawing sensation in her stomach and tried to keep it from causing any embarassing rumbling. At the very least, she should pretend as though she was eating enough to satisfy herself. "Thank you, Youngjae," she mumbled, ducking her head so that he wouldn't be able to see her blushing.

     "You're very welcome. Now, you focus on your work, and I'll focus on mine," Youngjae chuckled, lining up the ingredients he had managed to find and staring at them critically. Hei-Ryung obviously was not much of a chef, but she did have the basics for at least a simple meal. "What do you think of omurice?" he suggested, raising his voice enough to be heard over the steady clatter of Hei-Ryung typing on her keyboard.

     "Like in Rooftop Prince?"

     Youngjae sighed. Of course her only brush with the dish would have been because of a drama. "Yeah, like in Rooftop Prince," he agreed, vaguely remembering overhearing that omurice was a running theme in the television show. Personally, he had never watched more than an episode or two of it on an occasion, and so had no idea if he and Hei-Ryung were actually thinking of the same dish. "Does it sound good?"

     "Hm!" Hei-Ryung agreed, briefly poking her head around the corner of the doorway to smile and nod.

     "Alright, then, omurice it is," Youngjae mumbled, watching from the corner of his eye as Hei-Ryung returned to her computer and went back to typing. Just how rough was the editing and publishing process if it took a year for a book to be published but- at the rate Hei-Ryung was going- just a few days to write the thing? No wonder Ms. Lee was such a tough woman, if she had to drag out the process through twelve months instead of the one or two it might take if the process were easier. Shaking his head in disbelief, Youngjae pulled a mixing bowl out of one of the many cupboard that lined Hei-Ryung's kitchen and cracked  a couple of eggs into it.

     As he slowly began adding ingredients- Youngjae was deliberately taking his time in the hopes of holding off the inevitable- he watched Hei-Ryung busily writing. Mostly she sat in one place and stared at the screen for a moment or two before typing for several minutes, but occasionally she would take a break to stretch and look through her notes. Once or twice, she stood and did a lap or two around the living room, pausing briefly to pull a few books off her shelf or rummage through the ones already piled onto the floor. These distractions never lasted for long, though, and Hei-Ryung was soon back in her seat and back to writing. To Youngjae, it was a slow and tedious process and looked absolutely, dreadfully boring, but the look on Hei-Ryung's face told him that it was something entirely else for her.

     She was genuinely enjoying herself. Even as she read over the same page of notes for the tenth time, she never seemed to grow bored and instead just kept getting more and more interested in what she was writing. Occasionally, Youngjae would catch her rereading what she had had written and then muttering various compliments to herself. "No one else is around to encourage her, after all," Youngjae thought, looking around at the empty apartment Hei-Ryung spent most of her time in. There was noise, of course- sizzling chicken, typing, and muffled sounds from outside- but for the most part the apartment was dead silent, and showed little signs of life in it.

     Sighing, Youngjae leaned against the counter. How could anyone be happy sitting in here day-in and day-out, all alone and with no one to talk to? "I like being around people, and I like listening to them talk," is what she had said when he came to visit the first time. So how did she manage to sit here and just silently write, without seeing another human for days at a time? It seemed impossible for any person to be okay with that.

     A few minutes later, Youngjae was frying the egg and quietly singing to a song that had recently gotten stuck in his head. "You know you love me, I know you care. Just shout whenever and I'll be there. You are my love, you are my heart, and we will never, ever, ever be apart..."

     "You have a really nice voice," Hei-Ryung complimented him, suddenly materializing in the doorway with a smile on her face. Surprised to see that she had broken away from her computer, Youngjae nearly murdered his poor frying eggs with the spatula. "Careful!" Hei-Ryung exclaimed, clasping her hands together nervously as she watched Youngjae. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," she quickly apologized, already beginning to slink back to her writing.

     "It's alright," Youngjae assured her, making sure that the eggs were cooking nicely before leaving the kitchen to follow Hei-Ryung. "So, how is your writing coming along?" He asked, leaning against the doorway to watch Hei-Ryung begin cleaning up the mess she had created on her desk. Apparently, the mad craze of writing was reaching its conclusion.

     "Amazing! I've already finished twenty pages!" Hei-Ryung boasted, grinning up at Youngjae as she pointed to the page count on her screen.

     "Twenty? But... you've been working on it for so long," he didn't mean to be a downer, but the results and the effort just didn't seem to match up.

     Smiling, Hei-Ryung nodded her head and saved the word document. "Yes, but you can't just slap something onto a paper and call it good. Most of what I was doing was just editing what I'd already written over the past few days," she told him, closing the document. "I don't like giving Seulki my first drafts, after all. Most of the things that need to be corrected on them I can do myself, so I don't bother making her read over them. Usually, I wait until the second or even third draft before I have Seulki start doing the serious editing," she explained, stretching her arms out over her head.

     So it wasn't the editors that were dragging out the writing process, it was the writers themselves. Nearly a week of work, and she wasn't even finished with the first twenty pages of what would most likely be a three or four hundred page book. "Thank goodness my father's dream wasn't to become a writer," Youngjae thought, helping Hei-Ryung brush her snack wrappers into the garbage.

     "Do you want any help with lunch?" Hei-Ryung offered, nodding towards the kitchen after they had finished cleaning up her desk.

     "You're all done working for the day?"

     "Yeah, I think this is a good place to take a break. I do want to keep writing, but if I burn myself out now then I won't want to come back to it later. The trick is to keep yourself interested in the writing for as long as possible," she explained, leading the way into the kitchen. "Are the eggs done?" She pointed to the glistening, cooked yellow circles in the pans Youngjae had been using.

     "Yup, now we just need to cover the rice and we can eat." Reaching over, Youngjae removed the pans from the heat. Behind him, Hei-Ryung turned off the stove. Using a spatula to guide the egg out of the pan, Youngjae covered both piles of rice he had prepared earlier and then picked up the plates. "Where do you usually eat?" He asked Hei-Ryung, looking around for a dining table.

     "My desk," she admitted, rubbing at the back of her neck sheepishly. "We can use the coffee table, though. I'll get some forks!" Nodding, Youngjae made his way into the living room and carefully placed the two plates opposite each other. Although technically omurice was a breakfast dish, it somehow felt suitable to the afternoon as well. At least, that was what Youngjae was going to tell himself.

     Once they were settled down- Youngjae sitting on the couch at the behest of Hei-Ryung, and she kneeling on the floor opposite him- and began eating, Youngjae realized that he didn't have any more excuses. Chewing slowly, he tried to think of how to inform Hei-Ryung that she had an interview in two days without causing her to run and lock herself in the bathroom. "Promise me you won't be upset with what I'm about to say next," he finally decided on, hoping that Hei-Ryung would stick to her word.

     Suspiciously, Hei-Ryung set her fork down and looked up at Youngjae. "Why?"

     "Just promise me, okay?"

      "Alright... I'll do my best," she finally agreed after a moment's hesitation.

     "You have an interview on the twenty-second," as he hurried and spat out the news, Youngjae prepared for the worst of Hei-Ryung's behavior. She didn't explode as he had expected, though, and instead sat there calmly and stared owlishly at Youngjae. "Mr. Kang scheduled an interview with a local magazine for you on the twenty-second."

     "I'm not going," and, for Hei-Ryung, that was the end of the discussion. Returning to her food, she began eating with new gusto while deliberately ignoring the feeling of Youngjae staring at the top of her head. "I'm not going," she repeated, glancing up at him.

     "You have to go," Youngjae insisted, already beginning to feel a little sick because of how he was going to manipulate Hei-Ryung. "If you don't, then Ms. Lee is going to lose some of her pay check- permanently." Hei-Ryung didn't look up from her plate, but she did stop eating and was listening intently to Youngjae. "The board is growing frustrated with her constantly standing up for you, and told Mr. Kang that if you don't do well at this interview he should take out a fourth of Ms. Lee's pay," grimacing as he watched Hei-Ryung's expression shift from stubborn to devestated, Youngjae tried not to go along with his urge to tell Hei-Ryung that all of it was a lie and that she didn't actually have to do anything she was uncomfortable with.

     He couldn't, though. Maybe the board wouldn't take away some of Ms. Lee's paycheck if Hei-Ryung didn't attend the interview, but there would still be negative consequences for Youngjae. The exact nature of the problem might not be what he was telling Hei-Ryung, but it was true that there was a problem; if Youngjae had thought that simply telling Hei-Ryung about the real reason for the interview would be enough, he would have done that. Helping him impress the board hadn't been enough to keep Hei-Ryung at the book signing, though, so he didn't have any higher hopes for its restrictiveness at the interview.

     "They can do that?" Hei-Ryung asked quietly, finally finding her voice. She didn't sound entirely convinced that Youngjae was telling the truth.

     "Yes, the board holds a lot of power over Mr. Kang, and he has the power to alter any employee's salary. They aren't making an empty threat," he probably should have just stuck with a simple "yes", because now Youngjae was beginning to ramble. Hei-Ryung wasn't paying enough attention to pick up on anything amiss, though.

     Biting down on her bottom lip to fight back the tears that threatened to make an appearance, Hei-Ryung stared blankly at the half-eaten meal on her plate. She had completely lost her appetite. "A fourth of Seulki's pay... that would be devestating to her! They can't do that!" She thought, feeling ill just thinking about the kinds of sacrifices Seulki would have to make if she lost that much money, and all the sacrifices her editor had already made on Hei-Ryung's behalf. She had done so much for Hei-Ryung over the past two years, and yet it seemed that Hei-Ryung was only managing to get the assistant editor into increasingly difficult situations. Soon, Seulki might even lose her job because of Hei-Ryung.

     "I'll go." Her voice was crushed as she quietly agreed to attend the interview. "I'll go, and I promise I won't mess up. I promise I'm going to make it through the interview no matter what, so please make sure Mr. Kang doesn't hurt Seulki!"

     "I'll talk to him about it tomorrow," Youngjae assured Hei-Ryung, unable to look her in the eye. Sighing with relief, Hei-Ryung relaxed just a little and took a small mouthful of food. She had obviously lost her appetite, though.

     "When is it?"

     "March twenty-second, at noon. Ms. Lee can drive you to the location," Youngjae rattled off, pulling out the slip of paper Ms. Nan had given him and hading it to Hei-Ryung. "All the information is on there." Reaching across the table, Hei-Ryung accepted the card and looked down at the date. Slowly, her eyebrows began knitting together in thought. "Everything alright? We can try and change the date if it's inconvenient for you..."

     "The concert!" Hei-Ryung exclaimed, jumping to her feet and running over to her bookshelves.

     "Concert? What concert?" Youngjae asked, also standing up and following her. Hovering over Hei-Ryung's shoulder, he watched as she scanned the titles. "Which book are you looking for?"

     "Redeeming Love," Hei-Ryung answered absentmindedly, crouching down to look through the lower shelves. "I haven't looked at it since I bought it, so... there it is!" She exclaimed happily, pulling out the old, dusty volume from among dozens of others. Straightening up, she flipped the book open and revealed two slips of paper- tickets, from the look of it- tucked neatly into the front cover.

     "You have tickets for a concert?" Youngjae asked, accepting the one that Hei-Ryung tentatively offered him.

     "One of the performers gave them to me when we met the other day. He gave me two, just in case I wanted to invite you, but I understand that you're busy and might not be able to make it; especially since I hadn't told you about it until today. It's alright if you can't come," as she spoke, Hei-Ryung's voice periodically grew smaller and smaller until she was barely whispering.

     "The twenty-third... I shouldn't be busy," Youngjae informed her, instantly brightening Hei-Ryung's face. "Who's performing?"

      Her face darkened once more. "I... I don't remember his name. I was so busy worrying about how I was going to find you, and then I got so involved with my writing that... well, I can't remember," Hei-Ryung apologized, staring intently at the ticket as though it would magically reveal the man's name.

     "It's alright, surprises never hurt anyone," Youngjae assured her, tucking the ticket into his pocket for safe keeping. "I'll come by your apartment so we can ride the bus over together, alright?" He offered, leaning back to rest against the couch.

     "Alright," Hei-Ryung agreed, carefully replacing Redeeming Love on the shelf.

Author's Note

So AWKWARD! Ugh, I do not like this chapter! I never really got into writing it, though. Geez, second chapter of round two with this story and I'm already messing it up. *sigh* Chapter 16 will hopefully be better, but I don't know. I hadn't expected this one to be so bad, either...