Chapter 1

A Journey Together

 

“CUT! Take five!”

 

The crew started to move about and reset the props for another take of the scene. Makeup assistants crowded around actress Park HanJin to fix her hair and makeup for the retake. The director, on the other hand, was reprimanding actor Kim Kibum. “Try to relax around her! You are supposed to be a best friend to her, yet you are so tensed. Come on, Kibum. Prove to me that you have what it takes to be a major character.”

 

Kibum bowed to the director with an apology before resuming the original positions. HanJin scoffed at Kibum with frustration as they prepared to do a 7th retake. It was 6 too many. Kibum tried his hardest to relax as his character Chan Soohyun, and get close to his on screen best friend Kim Minji. Soohyun was supposed to be Minji’s younger best friend and neighbor who has had a crush on her since elementary school. Yet, Kibum had no idea how to bring that closeness through. The company had stressed so much about distance between different gendered colleagues. He closed his eyes and thought back to the times in the dorm. All that brotherhood that happened there… You can do this Kim Kibum.

 

“AND ACTION!”

 

“Noona!” Soohyun sang as he pounced near Minji from behind and hung an arm over her shoulder. “Mwohani? (What ‘cha doin’?)”

 

“Oh! You’re here! Yah, Chan Soohyun! How many times do I have to tell you to call me Minji? We’re just one year apart!” Minji said with a stern face. “Aren’t we best friends?”

 

“We are! It’s just, if the sunbaes catch me calling you Minji again, they might beat me up. You are like a pin-up girl to the sunbaes in this college, you know,” Soohyun said with such flattery.

 

Minji rolled her eyes at Soohyun and said, “Whatever. Come on, let’s go. I’m meeting DongWook to buy things for your father’s party.”

 

Soohyun’s smile left for a second. “So you were going to meet hyung? I’ll come along then. I’m sure you will need all the help you can get. Especially since hyung is planning this.”

 

Minji pushed Soohyun’s head with her knuckles. “Don’t talk bad about your brother. Let’s go.” The two walked towards the bus stop to board the bus to the departmental store. On the way to the bus stop, Soohyun kept teasing Minji. “Grow up, will you?!” Minji yelled without any tolerance left.

 

“CUT! All right, that was great! Good job, Kibum! Let’s move on to the next scene.” Kibum was relieved. As usual, a memory at the dorm could snap him into the personas. As the crew started to pack up the props and equipment, Kibum headed with the makeup & wardrobe personal and the actors to the vans. Everyone was moving to the next location where Soohyun and Minji meet up with DongWook. In his van, Kibum’s manager discussed the matter of his new personal assistant. “She’s taking over my presence as your assistant, as of tomorrow.”

 

Kibum sighed. He knew that the company had been appointing new assistants to him. More specifically, they were sending him the lower paying employees to him. Yet, he couldn’t say anything about it. He had chosen to walk the path of an actor, instead of continuing his singing career. But having rookie assistants was not a huge problem to him. All they had to do was to check his schedule, bring him food, and work out any problems. He had plenty of time in his hands, considering that he had only had minor roles in dramas. Yet, he worried about the new assistant. Can she handle it? With him being in the main cast, schedules would become more hectic. Can she deal with all the interview schedules and filming schedules? Can she handle all that stress without giving his image any problems?

 

“I’m sorry I have to leave you, Kibum. You were a joy to work with. You never gave problems and we never had any. Besides, I’m still managing you, just that I would not be with you most of the time. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be a problem to you.” Kibum smiled at his manager, “Thanks hyung, for everything. Shall we have dinner together after this scene? It’s my farewell gift from me to you, for having taken care of me for the past year and being upgraded to managing MORE schedules.”

 


The two men decided to head to the awesome barbeque eatery near Kibum’s place. It wasn’t a high-class restaurant with fine dining, but the food always satisfied them greatly. “To your new job!” a couple toasted with joy at a nearby table. “Well, that toast applies to you too, hyung,” Kibum said to his manager. Kibum and his manager were just simply enjoying the food with a few rounds of soju. Schedule had ended late, since the director decided to film all the relevant scenes at the department store with the time that they had. They talked late into the night as they enjoyed the grilled pork skin and beef.

 

As they were laughing about a matter, Kibum fell forward from the weight that had suddenly fallen onto him. Next thing he knew, he was vomited on. “Oh my gosh I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” a lady’s voice cried out.

 

“Yah! You just dirtied his clothes!” Manager hyung was right. A drunken man’s generous offering now destroyed Kibum’s coat and pants. “I’m so sorry! I apologize for my friend’s behavior!” The lady said as she pulled out a tissue packet from her bag to wipe off the vomit. Obviously, the stain would not be coming off so easily. “I’ll pay for the dry cleaning! Here!” she said as she took out 50,000W to compensate him. “Yah why are you paying? You didn’t do anything wrong! Besides, you start work only tomorrow. You don’t have money for this. Here, I’ll pay,” the drunken friend said before pulling out his wallet.

 

However, things took a toll for the worse. The friend couldn’t control himself and another round of vomit came spewing near Kibum’s shoes. Kibum couldn’t take it anymore. He exploded. “Forget it! Just go!” The sober lady stared at him, exclaiming his name before giving a grimace. “I’m so sorry. I will pay you back, I promise. Please forgive my friend,” she said with a respectful bow and carried her drunken friend out to hail for a cab. “Is she serious? She didn’t even give you any money. What ‘pay you back’?” manager hyung said with anger. Kibum let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s ok. We need to forgive, no? I’ll just have to trouble my new assistant about the clothes then.” His manager just looked at him and said, “Kim Kibum, you are too nice. Come on, let’s get you home and out of this mess.”

 


She sat in the meeting room, waiting for him to arrive. She had lost all that excitement that she had from the past two weeks.

 

------

“Why should we pick you, Miss Han?” the representative said as he lay back on his chair.

 

“I don’t just offer the services of a scheduler and a messenger. As a student minoring in design, I can take care of the makeup and wardrobe malfunctions well. You wouldn’t have to worry about the star’s health, considering that I’m quite health-conscious about the food I consume and the workload the star will handle. I am as they say, a Jack of all trades,” she replied with confidence on her face. “You can be rest assured that **** University has trained me to be a very capable personal assistant who can handle any messy situation. During my studies, I’ve chosen to live a hectic life so as to observe the dos, don’ts and tips of maintaining a busy yet healthy lifestyle. This way, I will know how to handle their schedules and health at the same time. Taking care of a star’s life is what I’ve studied hard to prepare for.”

 

“Well you don’t have to worry about wardrobe. We have people for that.” The representative sat up and looked at her. “Say, you have accidentally scheduled two interviews at the same time: one with Entertainment Weekly and one with Elle magazine. How would you handle this and why?”

 

She paused for a moment before replying, “With the company that scheduled the interview first, I would try to bring forward the interview timing. If not, the latter company would have to be rescheduled to a later timeslot. A company with great and genuine interest in my client would have scheduled the interview as quickly as possible, to ensure that the interview could be arranged. However, sir, you would not have to worry about such a problem. This will not happen on my watch.”

 

The representative leaned on the table with his elbows, having a thoughtful look. He removed his hands from his face and said, “Confident. You appear to be young and full of potential as an assistant.” He flipped through the file. “I can see that you have confidence in the welfare of our stars, and you have prepared yourself well for such a rigorous schedule.” He put down the file and looked her in the eye. “I look forward to hiring you as a personal assistant. But as a rookie assistant fresh out of university, you will not handle our debuting group nor assist the managers of the famous groups. Managing schedules might come to you at a later time. You will just work as a personal assistant to an actor. Unless, you came only to work with top stars.”

 

She shook her head and replied, “No, sir. A star’s, and any star’s, welfare is what I came here for. Even rookie actors have hectic schedules that need organizing.”

 

The representative nodded his head slowly. He rose from his seat and went up to her. She rose from her seat as well and shook the hand that he offered. “Very well, then. Welcome to SM Entertainment. We will need you to start work in two weeks. And, you will not be working with any rookie actor. All rookies are pure potential. You’ll be working with Kim Kibum. I hope you can live up to your words.”

 

She bowed with a wide smile on her face. “You can count on me, sir! Thank you, sir!”

------

 

She frowned at that memory. How was she going to handle him now? “Aish jinjja!” she ran her hand through her hair, before she heard the turn of the doorknob. She rose from her seat and prepared to meet the star.

 

“Kibum-ah, this is your new assistant Miss Han Hyojin,” the representative introduced to Kibum. She hung her head low and bowed 90 degrees to both the manager and the actor. “Annyeonghaseyo. Han Hyojin-imnida. Please treat me well.” Cautiously, she lifted up her head to look at them.

 

“OH! YOU!”

 


Oh my gosh oh my gosh. First chapter is up! How is it? Boring?

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Chapter 10 will be up in the day!

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JaeJayBaby_3 #1
Yay! Looking forward to the next chappie. ^_____^