(3 years later)

Phones are the saviours of the 21st century, and also the worst invention of mankind.

For the past four days, the stupid block of metal has been going off non-stop. The default iPhone marimba tune for calls, a high-pitched ding for texts and a swoosh for incoming emails. A couple of times Kyungsoo has made the mistake of peeking at the lock screen which holds a million notifications and caught glimpses of the senders. They’re mostly from Baekhyun, followed of a couple of emails from directors – probably b with passive aggression, and some from his author friends.

He feels bad for not telling Baekhyun before he posted the announcement. It’s probably the first time he’s made a decision on his own without consulting his editor and he’s not sure if it’s the right choice or if it’s wrong. What he does know, however, is that he feels ten times lighter than he has ever felt in the past few years.

Kyungsoo hadn’t planned for it to be this way. For the situation to be akin to someone breaking up over text.

It had been weighing on him for over a year now. The decision to quit writing. He first felt it in his swollen fingers and bloodshot eyes, an overwhelming fatigue that would never leave him. Kyungsoo could sleep for hours, and he would still wake up not wanting to face the world and the documents that awaited diligently on his computer.

Last week, when the whirlwind of press tours and book signings had finally finished and Kyungsoo found himself sitting back in his chair in front of his desk, everything caught up to him. His hands moved before he could think and the letter was out and posted on his blog before he could delete it and pretend that the damage hadn’t already been done. It blew up across every news outlet, and the rest is history.

Kyungsoo hasn’t been out of his apartment in five days, living off instant ramen and whatever packaged junk food he can dig out of his pantries. He mildly notes that some of the cans had been printed with expiry dates that stretched back too far to be excusable. Although he can basically feel the oil and fat building up beneath his skin, he is too nervous to step outside his house. Baekhyun has been knocking incessantly on his door as a result of his ignored text messages and calls. Kyungsoo wouldn’t be surprised to find him camping outside the door, waiting to ambush the author the moment he walks out.

And then it starts again. Erratic raps on the door echo through his apartment.

“Go away Baek,” he shouts from where he is laying on his bed.

“I’m not your editor!” is the reply that comes bouncing back.

Kyungsoo freezes. He pinches himself three times to make sure that he’s actually awake.

He could never forget that voice no matter how hard he tried, it followed him wherever he went. It played out in his head whenever he was stuck on a scene in one of his books, it slipped into his dreams (or should he call them nightmares), it appeared in interviews roasting Kyungsoo. Now, it’s coming from outside his apartment.

“Jongin?”

Still caught in shock, his feet move by themselves, and he is unlocking the door before he can even register what is happening. Surely enough, Jongin stumbles in wearing grey sweatpants, a matching hoodie and round glasses perched on his nose.

“Why did you quit?” Jongin grabs Kyungsoo by both shoulders. “And before the release of the final book in the trilogy too?”

Silence that fills the room and there are a million questions racing through Kyungsoo’s mind, and there are a million that he could ask, but the one he chooses out of all of them is, “You read my books?”

Jongin shakes his head. “Don’t be too flattered. I wouldn’t exactly say I read your books because I would never lower myself to the standard of reading tactless Young Adult novels that target the insecurities of the young female population. But I, mayhaps, have been bored in between signings and meetings and all the usual burdens of being such a renowned author like myself–”

“So your point is?” Kyungsoo yawns. It’s nine in the morning and too early to be trying to contemplate Jongin’s words. They flow through one ear and straight out the other.

“The point is…I hate the thought of an unfinished story.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo nods understandingly. “But no.”

“Look here,” Jongin huffs. “You have Kim Jongin, winner of a Yi Sang award, author of numerous bestselling books that I can list for you right here, right now, standing in your dingy apartment; asking you to write a book and you are refusing?”

“I’m not really sure you listing off all your achievements and offending my apartment – which can I just say, is very nice – is going to get you that book you want?” Kyungsoo isn’t sure Jongin has any common sense, but then again, what else did he expect from Jongin?

“I swear.” Jongin’s finger is pointed dangerously close to Kyungsoo’s eye. “If you don’t write it, I will.”

The thought of Jongin hunched over a laptop squeezing out sappy words intended to melt young girls’ hearts amuses Kyungsoo thoroughly and he almost indulges in the offer. But as much as he tries to convince himself otherwise, the characters that he has spent notebooks creating profiles for and plots he has lost countless hours of sleep trying to outline are things he holds very closely to his heart, and he can’t let them be tainted by the pretentious fingers of Jongin.

Someone else bursts into his apartment with a triumphant shout.

“,” Kyungsoo mutters at the sight of the bubblegum pink hair. “I forgot to lock the door.”

A brown paper bag dangling precariously from his fingers, Baekhyun turns to grin at Kyungsoo but stops at the sight of Jongin.

“Kim Jongin?” he quirks a brow up.

“He’s a fan, apparently,” Kyungsoo explains.

Jongin is quick to defend himself, “I will not be belittled to the title of a fan. Let us just say I have found amusement in Kyungsoo’s books once or twice.”

“Trust me, I’m pretty sure he loves my books.” Kyungsoo leans in to whisper into Baekhyun’s ear.

Baekhyun glances back and forth between the two authors. It’s clear that he has much more to say about the situation than what he voices, but he just shrugs and remarks, “Well, I think Sehun is looking for you.”

“I gathered; my phone has been vibrating all morning.” Jongin nods before he turns to Kyungsoo again. “Please reconsider your decision.” Then he leaves in a hurry. It’s a strange sight, Jongin out of his usual trench coat and haughty demeanour, although he still kept that snark that was undoubtedly his.

Baekhyun saunters over to the dining table and sets the bag down.

“I brought over food because I bet a hundred bucks that you’ve only been eating instant ramen and god knows what other gross food that is clogging up your arteries.” He stamps open the bin and grimaces at the sight of various coloured ramen and chip packets. He sniffs, “I don’t understand how your skin still looks nice.”

It’s an understatement to say that Kyungsoo’s heart cracks a little when he watches Baekhyun pull two containers of garden salad out of the paper bag. He tries to calculate the distance to the door and wonders if he could make it out the door in time and escape being subjected to the horrifyingly healthy food currently being laid out on the table.

“I know that look, don’t even think about running away,” Baekhyun says sternly. “As your editor, and dear friend, I am obligated to keep your heart happy.”

“My heart would be happier if I just ate comfort food all day,” mutters Kyungsoo as he drags a chair out slowly and slumps onto it, elbows resting against the timber top table.

“I hate to have to put this pressure on you because I know you have probably already been stressing yourself out enough these past few days, but, why didn’t you tell me?” Baekhyun asks. “It shocked us all, you know. People ran up to me and demanded to know what was going on, and all I could do is cop their because I didn’t know anything.”

“I’m sorry.” Kyungsoo’s voice is quiet when he apologises.

Baekhyun pats Kyungsoo’s back and shoots a smile at him, “Don’t be so solemn. I’ve had my fair share of angsty authors, it doesn’t really matter.”

While he encourages Kyungsoo to eat, glaring at him until he slowly shoves every piece of romaine lettuce and slice of cucumber into his mouth, Baekhyun fills Kyungsoo in on everything that has been happening in the office while he has been away. Several new authors and novels were acquired, a few salespeople fired.

Kyungsoo doesn’t remember the last time he’d had a conversation like this. Words flowing casually about topics that aren’t always wired on his next project or the deadline that had already passed the day before.

Baekhyun is enamoured on telling a story of how a new really attractive editor had been hired. His hands are flying in the hair and his eyes are crinkling up that Kyungsoo thinks the topic of the third book has been dropped when Baekhyun says, “You should really write the final book, even if it’s the last one you ever do.”

He sighs when he sees Kyungsoo freeze and lower his cutlery. Kyungsoo doesn’t even need to speak before Baekhyun raises his arms in resignation. He says, “It was worth a try!”

“You know me Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says. “I wouldn’t have posted the letter if I wasn’t absolutely fixed on my decision.”

“I know,” moans Baekhyun. “But I just thought that maybe Kim Jongin showing up might have made you waver a little. Aren’t you flattered that he reads your books?”

“No!”

“Well, I am,” shrugs Baekhyun.

In his mind, Kyungsoo labels him a traitor.

☂ ☂ ☂

Life as a free man, Kyungsoo finds, is surprisingly boring.

All of a sudden, his sleeping patterns are normal. Every night, he watches runs of television shows that he has recorded from years back and never had the time to see. Then, without a fail, at ten o’clock, he will shuffle into his bathroom and brush his teeth and wash his face. There are no phone calls or shrill voices waking him up in the morning because he has a deadline to meet and drafts to attend to that were due five days ago.

A week and a half after the fiasco in his apartment where Jongin admitted to being a fan, Kyungsoo decides that he has had enough of the take-away and couch potato life and leaves the navy blue walls of his apartment and trudges down the street. It feels like he’s only just now discovering his neighbourhood despite moving into his apartment over fours years ago. Between being cooped up in his home juggling manuscripts and attending tightly scheduled book tours, Kyungsoo realises that he has never really seen beyond the front door of his apartment complex.

When he turns the corner, he sniffs a familiar smell.

It reminds him of late nights and early mornings and deadlines. Normally, Kyungsoo scrunches his nose away at the smell of coffee because he hates the instant coffee he owns at home and the way it burns his throat. He used to depend on it like a drug because, well, work was work and deadlines were deadlines.

However, this coffee smell drifting from the café halfway down the block is pleasantly different to the instant ones he drinks at home. It pulls him through two glass doors and into a quaint atmosphere. The café is littered with several armchairs of different colours. Along the side, there is a pale champagne-coloured couch that stretches all across the brick wall, arranged with assortments of patchwork cushions. Exposed light bulbs hang down from the ceiling all around the café, giving it a dim lighting and the warm feeling of home.

Kyungsoo is at the counter having just finished paying for his order when someone swings an arm around his shoulder.

“Look, who it is,” Kyungsoo looks up to see Jongin’s giddy face grinning at him. “My favourite trashy author.”

“Are you stalking me?” tumbles out of Kyungsoo’s mouth before he is able to stop himself from sounding like a cliché character from one of his books.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I would never stalk you,” Jongin says as he detaches his arm from Kyungsoo’s shoulder. He scrunches his nose in distaste.

“But you would read my books,” Kyungsoo deadpans.

Jongin stamps on Kyungsoo’s foot. Kyungsoo sticks his tongue out at Jongin who is, once again, dressed in a trench coat. What a surprise.

“I always come back to this café to write,” explains Jongin. His hands are shoved into the pockets of his coat and he rocks back and forth, looking straight ahead and avoiding Kyungsoo’s accusing gaze.

He looks like he wants to say more but the barista is calling out, “One latte with two sugars.”

Kyungsoo is halfway through reaching for the takeaway coffee cup when another hand grabs it instead. Jongin, coffee in hand, blinks at him.

“This is my order?” Jongin his head to the side. For once, the highbrow author sounds genuinely confused, rather than snarky.

“No, it’s mine,” Kyungsoo protests.

The two of them turn to the barista and stare at him expectantly. Bewildered from the intensity, the barista tilts his head down to squint at the name written on the order and enunciates, “Jongin.”

“I told you so,” Jongin taunts, looking incredibly smug. There is a dangerous glint in his eyes that Kyungsoo knows all too well.

“This one’s yours,” the barista hands a coffee cup to Kyungsoo and confirms, “Latte, two sugars,” as if he hasn’t just witnessed the two customers in front of him fighting for the previous identical order.

“Um, thanks,” Kyungsoo accepts it gratefully and keeps his eyes down, ready to hightail out of the café when Jongin holds him back by the elbow.

“You owe me for trying to steal my coffee,” he says, taking a sip just to rub it in Kyungsoo’s face that it was indeed his own latte. “Now sit down and have coffee with me.”

Jongin drags Kyungsoo to a table in the corner and plops down on the couch while Kyungsoo sits on the chair opposite him. Jongin is pulling his laptop out of his shoulder bag when he adds proudly, “This table is reserved for me.”

If you explained the current situation in the café to Kyungsoo three years ago – hell even just two weeks ago – he would have laughed in your face for a whole five minutes. And then proceed to direct you to the nearest psychiatrist because you definitely had mental issues if you thought that Kyungsoo could even breathe steadily and calmly next to Kim Jongin. Sitting opposite him and watching the man knit his eyebrows in concentration as his fingers tap away on the keyboard, Kyungsoo realises he has violated all the things on his “If you ever see that Kim Jongin” to-do-list.

Having coffee and watching Jongin type out another surely awful highbrow novel is definitely not on it.

“What’s the point of me being here if you are just going to work?” Kyungsoo makes sure his voice his loaded with disgust when he mentions ‘work.’

Jongin replies without looking up from his laptop, “Are you sad that I’m neglecting you?”

“Get over yourself,” scoffs Kyungsoo.

He takes another sip and surveys the café. People stream in and out, leaving with cups of coffees in their hands. Some stay and settle in the armchairs and share plates of waffles and ice-cream with crinkled eyes as they laugh over their conversation. Others, like Jongin, are on their laptop with creased eyebrows, their food on the table untouched and forgotten. Kyungsoo thinks that it’s not a bad place to write.

Jongin seems to read Kyungsoo’s thoughts.

“You should try writing here,” he suggests.

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes at Jongin’s not so subtle ploy of satisfying his needs of a final book and reminds him, “I quit the author life, remember?”

“I just recall you shattered the hearts of half the teenage girl population when you decided to be an and not finish your series,” Jongin fires back at him.

It’s banter. Kyungsoo knows it is. But it doesn’t stop him from being eaten away by guilt and regret. He thinks that after churning out successful books one after another to make people happy, making a selfish decision would be easy. It would be right.

Once again, Jongin takes note of Kyungsoo’s lack of a snarky comeback and frowns a little, “You alright? If I crossed the line, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, so the almighty Kim Jongin apologises?”

“Hey,” Jongin retaliates, “Of course I apologise, who do you think I am?”

“...”

“ you.”

Three hours later, after Kyungsoo has read all the available newspapers offered at the front of the café, Jongin finally peels his eyes away from his laptop screen and stretches his arms and fingers out.

“So,” he starts. “I know we’re not exactly on the best terms–”

“Affirmative.”

Jongin glares at him before continuing, “But do you mind me asking why you chose to stop writing?” It was visible that the last part of the question physically pained him to say.

Kyungsoo doesn’t like Jongin. When he sees the man’s face, of prominent cheekbones and a shadowed jaw line, his blood boils. He has spent hours on end, venting to Baekhyun and whoever else would listen about why Jongin doesn’t deserve all the praise people are showering him with. He isn’t quite sure what makes him feel so comfortable in that moment then and there that it prompts him to open his mouth and talk about things he has only ever briefly hinted at Baekhyun.

“It was a selfish decision. Writing used to be fun, a hobby or a passion you might call it, and it was ridiculously exciting when people like to read my books. Or when I made the bestsellers lists. But then, people started expecting things, I started expecting things from myself. When my book wasn’t as magical as the previous one, my inbox would overflow with hate mail, horrible headlines would slam themselves over news articles.

“Writing wasn’t fun anymore, no longer a hobby or a passion. But a job. And I began to hate it, hate the way that the words on the page would rob me of sleep at night and give me anxiety, wondering if people were going to read them and love them, or if I would wake up to another influx of letters telling me everything that I’ve done wrong. Whether I would place number one or whether I would grace the spot below it. Sleeping patterns didn’t exist, neither did a healthy diet. I dreaded writing, because the act of it became a mental battle with myself. Somewhere between my first book that I set out to promote myself and the ones that were being advertised two years before the cover was even released, I was no longer proud of anything that I wrote.

“I actually drafted book three hundreds of times but I never liked it so in the end so I decided to drop it.”

Jongin says nothing, just looks at Kyungsoo for a very long time. Then he goes back to working.

Kyungsoo isn’t sure what kind of reaction he was expecting out of Jongin, if he was expecting anything at all, but apart of him is a little deflated that the highbrow author had said nothing, expressed nothing and simply gone back to writing out whatever piece of junk the world will fall blindly in love with next.

“Take a break sometimes.” Jongin’s voice is quiet when it pulls Kyungsoo out of his thoughts. “I’m never getting books out on time. I ignore the deadlines, sometimes I’ll spontaneously buy a ticket to Belize or another exotic country and relax for a while. It drives Sehun crazy, but hey, I line his pockets with money.”

He should probably say thank you or something akin to that, but Kyungsoo automatically blurts defensively, “That’s because you don’t write book series.”

Jongin shrugs, “Authors release sequels and prequels sporadically all the time. No one is forcing you to be a considerate author. Other than the director and all those other poised old men in clean pressed drab-coloured suits, but they’re irrelevant.”

Kyungsoo thinks about Jongin’s reasoning, and although he agrees, he still shakes his head. He offers, “I can tell you plot points and how it ends.” Although he’d changed scenes around and cut out others, significant plot points stayed the same and the ending had been set in stone since the start of the trilogy.

“No.” Jongin looks thoroughly offended by Kyungsoo’s proposal. “I want a book. With lots of pages and big type Garamond inked on them.”

“This is the best you’re going to get.”

Jongin ignores him and stands up. When he has finished packing up his laptop and notebooks, he says, “I’m not saying that it has to be next week, next month, or even next year when you release the final book. I just want one someday. So don’t quit being an author, alright?”

Jongin ruffles Kyungsoo’s hair and walks out.

☂ ☂ ☂

Kyungsoo tells himself that the reason why he is sitting on a wooden park bench with his notebook in hand two days later is definitely not because of Jongin.

He tells himself that he wanted to change in scenery. And air. Because fresh air is very important.

For his entire career, he has never written outside. His bestsellers all came to be in the humble four walls of his home, a hotel somewhere in Tokyo or in the back of a taxi cab. They were never free of a deadline, and none of the ideas had ever been thought up of as he was leaning back against wood and watching a couple of high school boys kick a soccer ball around.

His notebook is blank save for the date. Kyungsoo has been sitting down for an hour and he’s had no ideas whatsoever. Even when two old ladies, one mother with a pram, and a boy waiting for his date have come and gone, borrowing the other side of the bench. He usually likes watching people, noting their features and their movements and reflecting them in his characters. More often than not, he will pluck out strangers on the street that pique his curiosity and borrow their eye colour, or the way they walk like they’re leaving something important behind. Maybe it was the way his mind was always tuned to look at people like they were inspiration; now he’s shut off that part of his brain, he sees them as what they are, just random passersby.

A soccer ball knocks him out of his thoughts. Literally. It slams right into Kyungsoo’s chest and he curses loudly, losing his grip on his notebook. The ball bounces onto the ground and rolls away.

“I’m so sorry.” One of the high school boys have come to retrieve the ball and apologises profusely. He also bends down to pick up Kyungsoo’s notebook lying on the ground and hands it to him.

“It’s fine,” Kyungsoo smiles weakly, ribs still pulsing painfully, and nods in gratitude when he takes the notebook.

He expects the boy to run back to his friends and kick that godforsaken object across the field again, but he sticks around instead. “Writer?”

“What?” Kyungsoo blinks. “Oh, yeah. How did you know?”

The boy smiles, “You just have that sort of aura, you know?” He laughs at his own incoherency. “I can just tell.”

Kyungsoo eyes the boy up and down and observes his hair coloured somewhere between coral and dusty rose. His mind subconsciously stores this characteristic for future reference, even if he has firmly told himself over and over that he doesn’t need reference materials anymore. “I don’t really write anymore,” says Kyungsoo.

“Oh,” the boy frowns. “Why did you stop? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Kyungsoo repeats the same monologue he gave to Jongin at the cafè.

The boy nods thoughtfully and says, “I get where you’re coming from, if that’s not being too presumptuous.” He juggles the soccer ball back and forth between his hands. “I don’t think people understand how hard it is to be a writer. They subconsciously put all this pressure on authors to crank out well-written novels under short timeframes, and when they come out they’re not satisfied and keep demanding more. Books are basically authors’ babies and people don’t really see that.”

“Are you a writer yourself?” asks Kyungsoo.

“No, I’m not, just an avid reader.” The boy shakes his head. “I really admire authors and the way they have an entire world and adventure in their head, the way they can translate that into words on a page and create a portal for people like me to take a break from their mundane lives.” His friends are jumping up and sending him all kinds of gestures, asking him what he is doing and why he isn’t returning. “Ah sorry, I think my friends want me back.”

“That’s alright,” Kyungsoo replies. “Sorry for keeping you.”

Before he leaves, the boy grins toothily at Kyungsoo, “I hope you don’t give up being an author. There aren’t many people in the world who can do the same kind of amazing things as you.”

“I didn’t catch your name,” says Kyungsoo, and it comes out before he realises the implications of his words. He hopes that the boy doesn’t take it as flirting.

“It’s Kim Minseok.”

He runs off before Kyungsoo can tell him his own.

☂ ☂ ☂

The next day, Kyungsoo takes a quick stroll to pay a visit to his local library.

He had decided that the peace and quiet of the library would spur some progression in his planning. When he finds a desk area tucked away in the corner behind rows of tall bookshelves, he checks to make sure there are no giggly teenagers in the vicinity, nods to himself, and sets his notebook down.

His confinement to the library he originally decided was going to be extremely productive has resulted in only five plot points being scribbled onto the blank page. It’s an improvement to the park, he thinks, but not so much when it’s everything that he had fixed into the storyline since before he had written the first book of trilogy.

In all honesty, he has never been to this library before. It sounds like a grave violation considering his occupation as a writer, but he doesn’t even remember the last time he was in a library. Any books he wanted to read were either gifted to him or bought by Baekhyun. Occasionally he would do a book signing in a grand public library, but most signings were usually held at book stores. Nostalgia cripples him and he suddenly remembers the times when he would spend hours hiding in the corners of libraries, back resting against the vast shelves of books, head buried deep in a fantasy novel. He remembers why he started to love writing.

Kyungsoo gathers his belongings and decides to wander around the library, a notion that feels foreign to him now. He stops in his tracks when he manages to find the Young Adult section.

He has always seen it in writing, in news headlines and bestseller charts; but seeing it in flesh and blood, with rows and rows of his works spread out in front of him, it’s a whole other experience. They have multiple copies of all his books, lined up perfectly. He notices the first book he ever wrote being displayed at the front of the section and suppresses a smile.

His fingers are running over the smooth hardcover spines of his novels when two girls walk past hugging a pile of his books to their chest.

“I’m so glad the second book was finally returned,” one of them gushes. “I’ve decided that it’s my favourite book of all time.”

“I loved that one! Especially that operation where they flew to Prague?” her friend raves. “I’m so sad that he’s decided not to write the final book.”

“It’s driving me crazy. I want to know how it ends.”

“He ended it on a cliffhanger as well!”

“His books were my favourite.”

Well after the two girls have walked away to have their books borrowed, Kyungsoo is still facing the shelf. He clutches his notebook just a little tighter.

☂ ☂ ☂

He isn’t exactly sure what brings him back to the café.

Standing in front of the glass doors with gold cursive writing printed across them, nose twitching at the smell of fresh ground coffee, he manages to convince himself that it’s only because of the coffee. And not because he wants to see a certain someone dressed in a dark-coloured trench coat with a mop of black hair that dips into his eyes and sometimes flaunts a pair of round glasses.

Kyungsoo tries his best to keep his eyes from flitting over to where he knows Jongin will most likely be sitting, leaning against patched orange, pink and aqua textile cushions, hunched over his laptop or notebook.

The café seems to have the same workers running the place everyday, because he distinctly remembers the honeyed blond hair of the cashier. He doesn’t even have to look at the barista to know it’s the one from last time because he hears a muffled chuckle when the barista sees his order.

“This time the coffee is yours, just in case you weren’t sure,” the barista adds when he hands the latte over to Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo nods with an awkward laugh.

Coffee in hand and awkward interactions with the café workers over, he knows what he has to do next, as much as he’d like to avoid it.

As expected, Jongin is sitting in the exact same spot as he was four days ago.

Kyungsoo drags his feet to Jongin’s table, hands his head down and asks quietly, “Can I sit here?”

Jongin glances up from his screen, catches sight of the notebook gripped tightly in Kyungsoo’s hand and nods with slight smile. He does nothing more, and they fall into a lapse of silence.

Unlike his previous attempts of writing at different places, he is completely unaware of the silence. Ideas flow easily for the first time and the usually white page that sits in front of him mockingly for several hours is finally being filled up by lines of black ink. It’s at times like this, when he remembers what the life of an author meant to him.

It’s probably the thirteenth time he’s drafted out a different plotline for the one book, but it’s the first time he has been genuinely satisfied, and the first time he feels that he can actually write it.

His elation must’ve been painted all over his face because Jongin comments, “Well someone is happy with their plot outline.”

Normally, Kyungsoo would sneer at him, though normal Kyungsoo has been gone for a very long time because why else would he sit with Jongin in a café – not just once but twice? Nothing can dampen his mood at the moment though because he is too proud of himself for drafting out three pages of worthy ideas so he just smiles back at Jongin.

“Yeah, want a spoiler?”

“The audacity of you to tempt me like that.” Jongin feigns outrage.

Writing and spending too many hours with his eyes fixed to his notebook in dim lighting does strange things to Kyungsoo’s vision. When he turns to look outside the glass windows that line the front of the café from the ceiling to the floor, he swears he sees someone walk past with that dusty rose coloured hair he had seen just a couple of days ago.

His warped vision is probably what propels him to say quietly, “You know, life has a funny way of making things happen exactly when they’re supposed to.”

“What do you mean?” asks Jongin.

“I met this kid at the park, and he basically told me about how much he respects writers, and how he hates that people don’t understand them. I guess he just told me everything that I thought no one understood,” Kyungsoo shrugs.

Jongin smiles and shakes his head. He looks at Kyungsoo in the eye and holds the gaze for several long minutes, like he’s contemplating whether or not to say his next words.

“Life has funny way of making sure the right people walk into your lives at the right time,” hums Jongin. He is stretching his fingers and arms out, cracking his stiff neck and rubbing the back of it.

“What do you mean?” Kyungsoo mimics Jongin.

But unlike Kyungsoo, Jongin doesn’t explain himself.

☂ ☂ ☂

Before Kyungsoo even realises, the month of May passes by and the sweltering heat of June has already crept its way into the Seoul breeze.

He has spent almost every day of the past three weeks in the café with his notebook, his laptop and a cup of coffee. Most days, he sticks with his lattes, but occasionally if he’s feeling a little adventurous (this rarely happens), he might order a cappuccino or an espresso. Once, Baekhyun had spent the night before attempting to convince him to embrace spontaneity and live life on the edge, and Kyungsoo had requested the cashier to surprise him with a drink. He sat down with a cherry cheesecake frappucino, and let’s say he made a mental note never to take Byun Baekhyun’s advice again.

Kyungsoo, being someone who prefers to stick to routine, wakes up at nine o’clock every morning, has breakfast at quarter past nine and is out of the house and sitting down at the regular table at the café by half past nine. Jongin, on the other hand, is less rigid and shows up at all sorts of odd times. Sometimes, he’ll already be there on his third cup of coffee by the time Kyungsoo joins him wordlessly, and other times, he will show up at ten o’clock, twelve o’clock and sometimes even half past three in the afternoon.

They never spend an entire day alone though.

By the time they’ve frequented the place for a month, Kyungsoo’s draft has accumulated a word count of over 15,000 for his first three chapters.

He refuses to believe that it’s the presence of Jongin which allows him to flourish. He tells himself that it’s definitely the ambience of the café, the bitter taste of the coffee lingering on his tongue and the encouragement from Minseok at the park.

Reality comes to mock him when Jongin releases his new novel.

“What even is this mumble jumble, how did it top the list again?” Kyungsoo slams the book down before he realises that it’s a book and that it’s precious and carefully plucks it back into his chest, caressing the cover softly and apologising for his behaviour.

Jongin shrugs, “I would offer to explain, but you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

Kyungsoo points to the cover of the novel and the printed block lettering titling Bled Gold and raises his eyebrows. “Seriously though? You named it after a colour again?”

“In my defence, I, and the rest of intelligent population view only colours as being fitting to describe the complexity of the human condition,” Jongin challenges, raising his hand up at Kyungsoo.

There Jongin goes again with his words. “Do you mean pretentious and arrogant people with no taste in literature,” coughs Kyungsoo. Jongin rolls his eyes at him and shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders in resignation.

“Don’t hate us cause you ain’t us,” retorts Jongin.

It’s a remarkably juvenile line from Jongin. Kyungsoo doesn’t miss the chance to taunt, “And here you’re telling me you don’t read Young Adult books.”

“For the last time,” Jongin’s tone is weary and exasperated. “I don’t read Young Adult books. I would never force myself to go through that misery.”

“Okay.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I believe you,” Kyungsoo nods. He really doesn’t.

There’s a topic that they always skirt around and fail to mention. Kyungsoo isn’t sure what it is that keeps him from asking the question, but everytime he thinks about it, there is a strange pressure on his heart. He convinces himself that it’s only because he hates breaking routine and the topic will surely be breaking the conventional routine he has habitually fallen into. Jongin is the one who brings it up.

“I’m departing on a press tour and various book signings starting from next week,” says Jongin.

“Why are you telling me?” Kyungsoo asks. The voice in his mind tells him in a high-pitched voice that Jongin probably knows Kyungsoo better than he knows himself.

Jongin ignores the question and continues, “I’ll be gone for a solid month and periodically for the next.”

“Oh,” is all Kyungsoo manages.

The side of Jongin’s lips quirk up. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“I would never,” protests Kyungsoo.

“I know.”

☂ ☂ ☂

Kyungsoo no longer rolls out of bed every morning to take a trip down his street, with his laptop and notebook in hand, to push open the glass doors of the café and vacate his usual table. He has taken to exploring his surroundings beyond the dim-litted café and makes it past the corner of the block. In the absence of Jongin, his fingers no longer itch to write during the day and he finds himself wandering in the streets of Myeongdong and breathing in the nightlife and bustling crowds of Hongdae.

Though he never stays to immerse himself in the street life, always returning to the navy walls of his apartment and his swivel chair, turning on his laptop.

It’s another one of those nights where Kyungsoo is suffering through writer’s block.

To be more specific, it’s another one of those nights where Kyungsoo has glued himself on his swivel chair, notebook splayed out in front of him and fingers resting on his keyboard. There are a plate of chocolate chip cookies sitting next to him – courtesy of Baekhyun who has founded a new passion of baking in lieu of his currently non-existent editing job – and a mug of cold milk. The food remains untouched as Kyungsoo racks his brain, reaches into all the hidden corners, for a small starting point to form his ideas into tangible words.

As he watches the clock tick second by second, and the hands move closer towards the next day, he wonders how he ever managed to break through all the time he’s experienced writer’s block in the past. He chalks it down to be the never-ending phone calls of Baekhyun’s frantic voice crackling through and bursting his eardrums. Kyungsoo realises that although he may have convinced himself he hated the bed times at four o’clock in the morning and the scalding burn of coffee at the back of his throat, deep down, he loved the stress. He works well with stress, rides on the tails of stress and turns it into success.

Just as the minute hand is about to move to eight and Kyungsoo considers shutting his laptop lid and calling it a night under his penguin covers, his phone buzzes on the desk.

He picks it up to read the new text message and he has to read it three times before he even registers who the sender is and it takes another four reads for the message to sink in.

Hurry up and finish your goddamn book, it’s boring topping all the bestsellers lists without a rival.

He doesn’t reply, but he does, however, throw his phone down and proceed to type away at the keyboard. His eyes note, with a half a mind, at the white screen being filled up with words, that he has managed to force out much more than he initially thought he would manage to tonight. But the ideas and the drive in his fingers don’t stop there.

For the first time since Jongin was whisked away on promotions for his novel which doesn’t even need any sort of publicity, he writes without interruptions. Kyungsoo doesn’t stop every two words to scour the thesaurus for a perfect word or the best way to write a sentence, doesn’t second guess himself every three lines. He just writes. It’s refreshing.

The clock strikes three o’clock in the morning the moment Kyungsoo tacks on his final full-stop and deems chapter four done. Out of a courtesy, he deliberates whether he should call up Baekhyun at the untimely hour but decides it because the editor had the nerve to be flattered over the fact that Kim Jongin reads the books Kyungsoo writes.

Baekhyun tries to hide the venom in his voice with a very thick layer of fatigue when he groans, “I swear, Kyungsoo, if this isn’t a life or death situation, it will be a death situation the next time I see you.”

“Baek, if I send this to you, can you tell me if I’m going in the right direction?” asks Kyungsoo quietly. He can imagine the way Baekhyun’s lips are pulling into a wide smile on the other side of the phone right now.

“You know I’d do that anytime,” he replies. He stays on the line the entire time it takes for him to read through the draft of the first four chapters and Kyungsoo sits on his hands to keep himself from biting on them. Kyungsoo is just about ask him if he’s done yet when Baekhyun says, “It’s better than you’ve ever done before, I can’t believe you doubted yourself.”

Kyungsoo laughs nervously, “Thanks.”

“Can I ask you a question though?” He thinks Baekhyun is going to ask him about certain scenes and plot points, and he starts reaching for a pen and flipping his notebook to take notes when the question catches him off guard.

“What changed your mind?”