Hei-Ryung stared blankly at her computer screen, counting the number of times the line at the end of her sentence blinked. So far she was at two-hundred and eighty-three... four... five... six... sighing, she gave up on hoping that this task would provide the spark of inspiration she needed. As she pulled out of the empty space in her mind that was supposed to be where her creative genius took place, Hei-Ryung became aware of her surroundings. Namely that the radio station she had been listening to- at a reasonable volume so that she did not disturb the neighbors- had gone from playing soft ballads to reporting the news. Uninterested in the world's current events, Hei-Ryung stood up to go and switch it to another station.

     "Recently a string of muggings has been victimizing young women in Seoul's Yongsan-gu district. The culprit has been identified by police as a tall, fit, middle-aged man. A reward has been placed for any information leading to the arrest of this man. Women are advised to avoid being alone at night, and to-" static interrupted the reporter's warning as Hei-Ryung began searching for a new station. Snippets of various radio programs and songs turned into a confusion of noise as the dial moved up and down the various stations.

     It’s not what it seemed to be then. The smile I have now just as fake as me...

     Hei-Ryung was surprised to hear Kris Leone's voice on the radio, as she had thought that, despite having a famous father, the girl wasn't all that well known. It wasn't a bad surprise, though. Smiling, she stretched out her arms over her head and sat back down. Despite the pleasant change in background music there was still no change in her stream- or lack of- creativity, though, so Hei-Ryung gave up, saved what she had managed to accomplish, and closed out of the word document.

     It wasn't as though the deadline was breathing down her neck, anyway. She still had plenty of time before she was expected to even present the first few chapters to Seulki for perusal, let alone the entire story. Pushing things because of nonexistent pressure would only make things more complicated in the future.

     With her slacking off completely justified now, Hei-Ryung double clicked the web browser icon- the only one on her desktop- and went to her e-mail- the only item in her address bar's drop down menu. Hei-Ryung's online life didn't flourish any more than her life in the real one did. Not that this bothered her much. Hei-Ryung was perfectly happy ignoring the world so long as the world was okay with ignoring her. The two lived by this mutual agreement, and both were perfectly happy because of it. Hei-Ryung could stick to her writing and not have to worry about problems like consequences and uncertainty, and the world didn't have to put up with her insanity.

     Book Signing Event: February 26th

     Book Signing Event: February 26th

  Book Signing Event: February 26th

  Book Signing Event: February 26th

  Book Signing Event: February 26th

  Book Signing Event: February 26th

  Book Signing Event: February 26th

  Book Signing Event: February 26th

     Hei-Ryung gawked at the wall of unread e-mail that had appeared in her inbox since she last checked. She couldn't even really tell if she was scrolling down, because every single e-mail had the exact same subject and the exact same sender: Lee Seulki. Groaning, Hei-Ryung clicked on one of the e-mails at random and skimmed through the first few lines.

     Kang Kae Yeon will be answering your questions and signing books at Kyobo Book Centre in Yongsan-gu, Seoul on February 26th at 2pm. Details can be found at Kyobo Book Centre's official web page.

     Just your typical book signing announcement, except for the fact that it was Hei-Ryung's name in the text. Right below the official announcement was a bright red message especially for Hei-Ryung, lovingly typed by her wonderful editor.

     Mr. Kang- the man who holds your life in his hands- has gone through a lot of trouble to get Kyobo Book Centre to allow a book signing on such short notice. This is an extremely important event that you need to attend, and you will show up- under penalty of death- regardless of whether you have: contracted a mysterious disease, died, been kidnapped, "forgotten", locked yourself in a bathroom...

     The blaring red text hurt Hei-Ryung's eyes, and she eventually gave up on reading Seulki's death threat through to completion. If eating out in public with Mr. Kang had been terrible, then this book-signing event was impossible. Facing stranger after stranger, shaking hands, making small talk, and having to look and sound professional while doing it seemed absolutely miserable. Groaning, Hei-Ryung closed out of her e-mail- she would delete Seulki's reminders later- and, out of curiosity, searched Google for Kyobo Book Centre's web site.

     Kyobo Book Centre's official website that talks about Kang Kae Yeon's upcoming book signing event

     As was stated earlier, beyond word processing and e-mail, Hei-Ryung did not have much experience with computers. Still, despite her overly complicated search term, the store's web site was the first link to appear in the results. Clicking on it turned the text purple for a brief second, and then Hei-Ryung was brought to the clean and crisp website of Kyobo Book Centre. It was easy to find the announcement about her- just thinking of this event as "her's" made Hei-Ryung's stomach a little sick- book signing, and from there she was whisked away to a section dedicated entirely to her, her books, and the event.

     The announcement was basically the same as it had been in the e-mail, except the store had been given more liberty with colorful and creative fonts. There were also a few extra details added, but they weren't all that significant. As far as Hei-Ryung could tell, there were only two main reasons this place even existed: The giant list of her books and their prices- all slashed out to show they were on sale for this particular event- that dominated most of the page's remaining space, and the considerably smaller chat box that had been crammed into a corner for fans of her books- she had fans?- to talk about the upcoming event with each other.

     She had a lot of fans, apparently. Or at least there were a lot of people who wanted to chat, because some of the snippets of text she managed to catch were completely unrelated to the book signing, which, contrary to the expected, thrilled Hei-Ryung. She would be ecstatic if nobody cared about her book signing and absolutely zero people showed up. Of course this would be kind of disappointing for Seulki and Mr. Kang, who she would feel immensely bad for, but not badly enough to prevent her from wishing that this would turn out to be the case.

     Behind her, the radio switched songs and Busker Busker's Cherry Blossom Ending started playing.

     I hold hands with you, whom I didn't know. As we walk together with this unknown trembling...

      "Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, n, n, n, non, n-" Everything became a blur of panic in Seulki's mind as she ferociously mashed down on the left mouse button, attempting digital CPR in the hopes that it could bring her computer back from the dead. At the top of her screen the message of death appeared, and Seulki began seriously reconsidering her decision to, only slightly maliciously, spam Hei-Ryung's inbox in the hopes that at least one of the e-mails would convince the girl to show up to the book signing event.

     Inbox - [email protected] - Gmail - Mozilla Firefox - (Not Responding)

     Groaning, Seulki slowly let her head sink until her forehead was resting on top of her keyboard. In response, her computer began sending out a chorus of pings and error noises, and the sticky keys announcement popped up. "Shut up," Seulki grumbled, her lips barely moving as her will to live dissipated into the air. It wasn't the first three tabs she was upset about- her e-mail to Hei-Ryung, Kyobo Book Centre's website, and a web comic she probably shouldn't have been reading during work hours- but the fourth one. She had known that there was a good reason for her sticking to the traditional "pen and paper" method of editing manuscripts, but as this particular author lived miles away and had convinced her that postage was too expensive, Seulki had allowed them to, just this once, e-mail her their manuscript. That in itself wouldn't have been such a terrible mistake, but then she had gone along with a second stupid idea: editing everything directly in the e-mail.

     Slowly breathing in, Seulki sat up and blankly watched as Mozilla shut down and took with it everything she had been working on for the past four hours. If she wasn't a proud- and self-proclaimed- lady, the Nalgae Publishing Company's building would be experiencing a minor earthquake because of how loudly Seulki was swearing. She was a lady, though, and ladies did not swear like dirty sailors. They calmly assessed the situation and created an effective plan to deal with the issue at hand. She was sure that the IT department- AKA two or three of the janitors who happened to be pretty handy with computers- would be able to do something to retrieve her work.

     She hoped.

     She prayed.

     Because if they couldn't heads were going to roll.

     The phone in the janitor's office- a place that Seulki had often noted, with slight annoyance, was bigger than hers- had broken so long ago that nobody could remember exactly when it had happened, and despite being in the janitor's office, had yet to be fixed. Which meant that, instead of picking up the phone, dialing a number, and requesting some assistance, all from the comfort of her desk chair, Seulki would have to walk down three floors to personally address the issue. Which technically speaking meant she had to walk down the hall, hop on the elevator, and then practically just poke her head out the elevator doors, but it was still a lot more effort then Seulki wanted to put forth at this moment.

     "Ms. Lee?" a tentative voice asked from the door of the Commissioning Editor's office as Seulki left her office. Turning to see who was addressing her, Seulki quickly noticed Ms. Baek poking her head out and looking at her with pleading puppy dog eyes. Raising one eyebrow in surprise at the woman's nervousness- Seulki, as the Assistant Editor, wasn't even a part of the totem pole and so was the least intimidating person, professionally speaking- Seulki strode over to Ms. Baek.

     "Yes?" she asked, respectfully clasping her hands in front of her and putting on her best smile despite how frayed her nerves were at the moment.

     "Could you please ask Mr. Kim to turn down his music?" Ms. Baek requested, once again acting like she was speaking to a higher up. Not that Seulki minded being treated politely, as it certainly was a fresh change of pace. Of course she didn't know why Ms. Baek couldn't ask Himchan herself, which is exactly what Seulki told the timid woman. "I'm a little busy right now, so... not that I'm saying you aren't busy! I'm sure that you have important business to take care of as well! It's just that... well..." Ms. Baek looked like she wanted to slap herself, so rather than giving her even more of a hard time, Seulki gently assured the woman that she would talk to Himchan right then and there.

     Although she hadn't noticed before, now that her attention was called to the problem Seulki could easily see how Himchan's music was a problem. It pounded haltingly through the Hall of Editor's as one particular part of the song was repeated over and over again. "He must really like that part," Seulki mused, frowning thoughtfully as she tried to figure out what song was playing. She had never heard it before, but knew that she was on top of all the popular songs right now, and that Himchan wasn't the type to listen to much of anything else. Maybe he was going to surprise her today.

     This amiable mood quickly disappeared by the time Seulki reached Himchan's office door, though. After this one line of music had been repeated nearly a hundred times, Seulki's nerves were once again grated to basically nothing. in a deep breath, she open Himchan's office door and made herself appear as imposing as was possible. "Himchan would you please shut off that blasted-" the door bounced off the wall and slowly began swinging back towards Seulki, who was standing stiff as a board in the doorway.

     "Ms. Lee!" Youngjae cried out in surprise, hurriedly clicking out of whatever program he had running on Himchan's computer- the apparent source of the music- and jumping to his feet.

     Embarrassed, Seulki tried to quickly think of a way to apologize to Youngjae. "Where's Him- Mr. Kim?" She settled for, deciding it would be best to just forget her embarrassment rather than deal with it. After a few seconds of scrambling to get his mind back together, Youngjae thought over Seulki's question.

     "I think he said he was... Ah, right! Mr. Kim told me he was going out for a quick coffee break with... I don't know her name, but she's the Copy Editor..." Youngjae's voice trailed off as he watched Seulki's face go from embarrassed pink to an absolutely furious fire engine red. He didn't know what exactly he had said wrong, but he could pretty accurately predict how many pieces the police would find his body in.

     "And how does that explain why you're in here?!" Seulki demanded, her face burning up in righteous fury. "Himchan shouldn't be leaving random strangers in charge of his office, and you need to make sure this doesn't happen in the future, understand? And make sure you keep down the music! Some people are trying to work here!" She punctuated her sentence with the slam of the door behind her, then began storming down the hallway. As she passed the various offices, the curious inhabitants poked their heads out to see what all the fuss was about, and several were blistered by the fiery heat coming off of Seulki.

     She was angry with Himchan because he was slacking off work and going out for coffee. Who he was going out with... who was accompanying him was of no concern to Seulki. She was not angry that he was taking the Copy Editor out for coffee, she was mad that he was going out for coffee! Satisfied by this, Seulki stepped into the elevator- which, fortunately, had arrived promptly after she pushed the button- and allowed her anger to settle down into a "peaceful" boiling.

     Meanwhile, Youngjae had slowly sunk back into Himchan's chair and was trying to recover from Seulki's terrifying mood swing. He had no idea what had set her off, but he would make sure to not do it again in the future. Even if it meant never again opening his mouth in front of Seulki, it would at least be better than having to endure that frightful journey through Hell a second time.

     After a few minutes, and when he was sure Seulki wouldn't be coming back, Youngjae allowed himself to properly mourn for his lost work. He had been hoping that Himchan's short coffee break would give him time to make some progress, but instead he had ended up losing practically everything. Sighing, Youngjae cursed the unreliability of computers as he hurriedly scribbled the only line he could remember onto one of the few unmarked post-it notes that covered Himchan's desk.

      Like a fool, I lost myself to her unforgettable first impression.

     Hopefully the rest of it would come back to him later.

Author's Note:

So not much happens plot wise in this chapter. This is more of a set-up for the next chapter, which makes it important but also... not important. Do you get what I mean? haha

Anyway, sorry for being slow with updating. I got sick and just didn't feel well enough to do anything but sleep and wish that medicine could magically cure me. Feeling better now, though, and since it's Spring Break I'm hoping to get at least one, maybe even two, more updates done this week! ^-^