Minkyung looked at herself in the mirror, fixing her skirt and making sure everything else was perfect. She would only wear her old sweaters if she could, but her job required a more refined appearance. Black skirt, black shoes with small and comfortable heels, a white blouse over a simple undershirt, an elegant dark gray jacket would complete the look. Kim placed her belongs in the small bag, double checking every item. A final look to her phone’s screen showed she was early, as usual, so she wouldn’t have to rush. Minky really hated being late, especially now that she was still the ‘new kid’ in her department and all the seniors were keeping an eye on her, hoping she would make a mistake, so they could have some fun laughing at her for being scolded by the old witch that was her boss.

Kim kissed her sleepy girlfriend’s cheek, carefully to not wake her up. Kyungwon was not that much of a morning person and after such a long week of work she deserved a bit more of sleep before Sungyeon started to call her about the next deadline. Once in a while the younger woman would insist in waking up early to walk her to the work, what was incredibly sweet of her part, but usually ended up in both of them having to run to catch the subway in time and it didn’t turn out very romantic. Minky left a note on the nightstand, a quick reminder to Kyungwon to eat properly (ramen wasn’t considered a proper meal) and to not forget to go grocery shopping later.

She left their house, heading to the subway station. They lived in a small, friendly neighborhood. The renting wasn’t so expensive and thanks to this they were able to get a comfortable house, even if it was a bit far away of her job, it was close enough from the subway station what made going to work a lot easier. Minkyung met some of old ladies that were her neighbors and exchanged some greetings, before continuing her path.

It was still too early, so she took her time, admiring the streets without the usual crowds. She smiled as she looked at the cherry blossoms, raising one hand to touch them briefly. To see such delicate beauty in the middle of the gray streets was a very welcoming surprise, maybe a signal that her day at work wouldn’t be so bad -- Hopefully.

Minkyung was the first to arrive at the office, sitting by her desk and preparing everything for the day. She was in the company for five years now, she had gone through various departments and even though her job was related to the things she loved, it wasn’t an easy one. The publishing company had take her in as an intern first, at that time she didn’t thought she would stick around for that long, but that was how things turned out.

Her boss, the old devil, was always too busy. Too busy even to do her own work apparently, what meant Minkyung had to do many things that weren’t exactly what she signed up for. Kim was suppose to give assistance, not to do the whole work, but it wasn’t like she could just say no. Her seniors would also asked her to run errands for them like she was still an intern, and she had to clench her teeth and tend to them otherwise her work life would be even worse.

The new position was an important step on her career, even though it made her reevaluate her life choices way too often. The job was paying well and she had the prospects of going up in the company soon. However, it didn’t give her much free time, making her always too busy or too tired to focus on her own writing.

Long ago she had planned on working on her own novels, full of ideas and plans. Instead, now she would read a bunch of other people’s manuscripts every day, judge it and write reviews that could determine whether or not it would be published. Read it all and compare her abilities to the other authors had also made her feel less confident and discouraged to write. She couldn’t imagine someone like her boss reading one of her manuscripts -- That old which would probably use it as a saucer to rest her coffee mug or something.

Seeing the cherry blossoms wasn’t that great of a signal, she concluded after a whole morning of making copies, writing reviews and having to deal with her boss scolding her for not separating the manuscripts by the author’s ‘relevancy’ instead of using alphabetical order -- even though the older woman had told to do so last week, but apparently Minkyung was supposed to predict her mood swings as well.

She sat down for lunch, eating the tasteless cafeteria food she had bought, while checking her phone for messages. There was Kyungwon’s typical very late ‘good morning’ text, her mom asking about when she would drop by, and an overly excited invitation from her little sister to her next concert with the orchestra. There were also some work related emails, Minky ignored them for a little while, replying to her family instead. Her schedule was tight, but she could make some time in the weekend to go over her parents’ house and she was sure Kyungwon would love to go see Yewon’s concert as well.

Even with all the work, she always did her best to stay in constant contact with her family the best she could. Her parents were your typical ‘soulmate’ couple, living a calm and happy life together. Minkyung loved to be around them.

Yewon was just like their mother, the younger girl was very lively and friendly, she used to be a quiet child but not so much these days. Minky took after their dad, a bit more in the quiet side with a quick witted sense of humor. All the Kim’s were very affectionate with their loved ones, making growing up in that house a very pleasant experience that Minkyung was grateful for. She had many worries in the past, but she knew she could run back home whenever she needed comfort or advice.

Kyungwon was a bit similar to her family, she had a playful and dorky personality, but she was also one of the most reliable and supportive people she had ever met. No wonder her parents had loved her right away, and now they were all like a big family, even if not officially yet.

The young woman finished eating before checking the last email her boss had sent, expecting for even more unwanted work coming her way. And she wasn’t surprised when it was exactly it. Only that this time it wasn’t so bad.

Minkyung would have to go out to make some “market research” in the bookstores, verifying if their books were selling well, the public they were reaching and talking to the owners to make sure no problems happened in the last deliveries and such. It was definitely not part of her official tasks, the company already had a pretty efficient system to make sure everything was going well, but her boss was way too paranoid to believe the data, yet she was still too lazy to go out and check it herself.

Minky just shrugged, thinking that spend the day out of the office was still much better than stay inside running errands for her indolent seniors.

With a list of the places she was supposed to visit, she left the office to take the bus to the first store.

It wasn’t a difficult work. Minkyung had always being good at talking to people, it was part of her naturally charismatic personality, and it was basically all she had to do that day. She would look around the place, talk to the owners, hear any criticism or compliments and occasionally give tips on how to organize the books for best results. She made a list of the books that were selling better in the region and compared it with the ones that weren’t doing so well, this way they would know better the public it was really reaching and avoid receiving too many returns in the future.

Of course there were some not so welcoming owners, but she was way too used dealing with rude people to let it affect her. Instead she would go to the next place, focusing on gathering more data.

The last two places were around her neighborhood, she arranged things like this to make it easier heading back home once she finished all the surveys -- No way she would go back to that hell of an office just to hand in the results, she would email it to her boss instead.

Minkyung had a deep frown on her face when she reached her next stop. The building was peculiar, for a lack of a better word. It had an old style to it, similar to her grandparents’ traditional korean house in the countryside, but it wasn’t as well conserved. It didn’t look inviting at all, the doors were closed and it looked like no one had been there for a pretty long time. There was a big, old sign made out of wood where it read “Im’s Manuscripts” in faded painting, and it was pretty much the only thing that let her know she wasn’t in the wrong place.

The girl hesitated for a bit. She wasn’t someone easy to scare, but there was something really odd about that place. Yet, her boss screaming at her for being useless and not getting such an ease task done, would be much worse than the possibility of facing some old ghosts. Kim straightened her posture, reaching for the door and opening it.

She blinked a couple of times, trying to get used to the bad illumination in the place. All the light came from a single chandelier that probably had not being clean in the last five years, making it harder for the light to pass through the dirty glass.

“Hello! Anyone there?” She called out, hoping for some ancient lady to appear out of nowhere.

Nobody did.

“Okay, tough crowd.” She muttered to herself, slowly walking between the huge piles of books that were randomly placed on the floor. The ceiling was much taller than it looked from the outside, huge bookshelves, filled with books she never heard off, almost reaching the top of it. She wondered how anyone would even be able to reach any of those books when there wasn’t a single ladder in the place -- at least she hadn’t seen one so far.

Not surprisingly, there were no customers, and it probably had been like this for a long time judging by the thick layer of dust most books had on top of it. She wondered if they didn’t have any workers either, considering how messy it was. Was that place even running a business still?

“Hello! Anyone? I’m from P&L Books, I believe we sent you an email about this visit…” She tried once more. Starting to feel a bit uncomfortable with the deadly silence in the place.

It was a bit hard to move around. There was not only the piles of old books on the floor, but there were also some old vases and statues that gave the bookstore an extra creepy vibe. She really didn’t want to knock out something by mistake just to figure out one of those creepy things was actually super valuable.

“Please, anyone? Hello!” Minky was becoming more agitated and a bit impatient. That place was so disturbing that she actually regretted for a moment to have even entered, but then she remembered that creepy places were still better than being screamed at.

She walked a little more, inspecting the bookshelves searching for any books that her company published, only to find none. Actually, she didn’t find anything even remotely known. All the books, thousands of them maybe, seem ancient.

Minkyung reached out and grabbed one of the books from the shelf, there wasn’t an author name in the cover, only a title in a language she couldn’t read. She tried to get another book, but all of them seem the same.

Kim sighed, giving up on finding something useful or someone.

Maybe they had gone for a walk or whatever, with no customers there wasn’t much to do anyway. She would just take some pictures to prove she had indeed visited the place and that’s all.

She was on her way out of the place when she stumble onto yet another big pile of books, this one a little different than the others. The books also looked old, but these were written in her language and the titles attracted her attention right away.

The one on the top of the pile was close enough for her to read it’s title. “Half souls and trades of destiny: How to sort them out.” She read aloud, taking the book into her hands and opening it. Surprisingly enough, there was nothing inside. Just a bunch of blank pages, hundreds of them.

She muttered a curse, starting to think she was in some kind of prank. What kind of bookstore was that? First there were no customers, no employees, just dust and old books. And now they even had books with absolutely nothing written on them?

The young woman looked around, expecting to spot a hidden camera or someone laughing at her, but just like before there was nothing in there. If it was a joke, people had spent a ridiculous amount of time creating such place.

Minkyung checked her phone, confirming again that she was in the right place.

“Just one more time.” Talking to herself was becoming a habit, but she couldn’t help it. The place reminded of a horror movie scenario and the blank books were perfect for one. Kyungwon and Yewon would hate that place -- thinking about her beloved scary cats made her smile for a moment, a bit less nervous.

Minky took another book out of the pile, dusting it off so she could read the cover. “The love mark blessing.” The book wasn’t as heavy as the other one, but holding it gave her a weird feeling, as if it was calling for her. She shook her head, opening the book. There was no summary, the first page filled with an intricate written. Minky tried to read it, noticing it was written in a very complex and formal language, it might be even older than she thought.

The text was about soulmates, the bonding between two people and how the mark was only one of the signals that signalized it. However, when she flipped the page, there was nothing more. Just like the other book, it had dozens of blank pages.

It had to be a prank, there was no way that place was legit.

Still, she snapped a picture of the soulmate book -- she wasn’t sure why, but it had grabbed her attention and it made her frustrated that there was nothing there besides that one page. She put the book back into the pile, feeling a bit annoyed.

Stay and wait more would be a waste of time, therefore she just wrote a simple note with her name and the office’s phone number, informing that she would come over in a better time. She fixed the stick note onto the counter, doubting anyone would even see it. But still, work was work.

The chinese girl sitting on the counter watched as Minkyung walked out of the place, shaking her head in disapproval. “You said you would give her the book!” She complained, turning around to face the woman who didn’t even bother to raise her look from the book she had been reading.

“She will come back when it’s time.” Nayoung said in her usual calm tone -- She wasn’t that calm and collected in fact, she was just feeling sleepy all the time. But what else would you expect from someone who was a few thousand of years old? She had watched as the young woman walked around her bookstore, satisfied that things had worked out just as expected. Nayoung had been watching Kim Minkyung for a couple of months now, ever since she had noticed the little abnormality in her register book.

“And when will it be? You know things will get worse with time.” Kyulkyung said, giving her an annoyed look. The elders really had very peculiar ways of punishing Im for her little mistakes, giving her that meddlesome assistant was one of them.

“Soon. She is already on the right path.” Nayoung closed the book, reaching out to take the sticky note out of counter. She wouldn’t need it, that kid would be back on her own anyway.

“You just want more time to sleep.” Kyulkyung muttered under her breath. Her new ‘job’ as a goddess assistant was not as exciting as it sounded. Most of the time she would just watch over the books while Nayoung sleep, making sure no one that shouldn’t wouldn’t touched it. She also was responsible for taking care of the goddess register book, a small notepad filled with more information than Kyulkyung could ever read. Ever since she had learned about one of Nayoung’s tasks she just couldn’t leave her alone. How could she sleep all day while there was so much to do? It was utterly frustrating for someone as active as the young Chinese.

“I heard it.” Nayoung looked like she was about to take one of her twenty hours long naps, but her hearing was as sharp as ever. It wasn’t her fault she always felt tired. Blame it on having to take care of a whole continent’s love life. “And no, you can’t go watch it.”

Kyulkyung was taken by surprise, even though she shouldn’t considering with whom she was living now. The girl sighed. “And what if it doesn’t go well?”

“Then it’s is Destiny’s doing and we have one less job to do.”

A/N: I know it is a bit boring, but I needed to divide this chapter in two parts because it was getting too big. I'll post the next part in a couple of hours and we will finally see how Minky and Yaebin met! For now, what you guys think about Nayoung and Kyul?