By the time I gathered my things together and started towards the office, I had disproven my worries of that female I encountered in the coffee shop a short time ago being the newest addition to our staff. When I thought about it, I felt like an idiot. It’s not like she was the only person in a hurry who had just come to this neighborhood from a trip to Japan. There could be thousands of those in Korea right now. I seemed to have deleted all the facts against my favor from my memory as I merrily skipped into the network building and into the elevator. My pocket vibrated and I huffed, knowing it was from Lina.

‘You took too long~ I took the newbie out to your first possible location. I’ll be waiting with her until you get here, so hurry the hell up.”

Lina sure was a charmer. I groaned and dragged myself out of the building, and on the street to hail a taxi. The script I wrote last week, which we were shooting for this week, called for a nighttime river date, so the first location we were inspecting was alongside the Han River. The headache seemed to decrease once I rested my head against the cool glass window of the taxi, observing the traffic and trying to look at young couples for inspiration on this whole “love” genre.

I write about teeny bopper interests quite often, but love, actuallove is something I am completely dimwitted at. I have never, not once, experienced anything other than short, annoying flings and one night stands. Maybe a little bit of bromance with those two idiots, but nothing to brag about at all. I’m starting to lose my faith in it, frankly. Hell, if it existed, I would be one damn good novelist by now.

I was snapped out of my trance by the sudden jolt of the cab, and the taxi driver ushering me out of the car. I gave him the necessary amount, which was crazy high, by the way, and walked towards the tall, thin stick that was Lina. Standing in front of her was a shorter, thicker girl (trust me, Lina was borderline skeletal. Calling this other girl thicker was a huge compliment.). The unfamiliar girl was snapping photographs away at record speed, not bothering to look at the sound of footsteps.

“Is she the new worker or a tourist?” I said jokingly as I walked towards a very bored Lina.

The new girl let her camera hang off of her neck as she began to turn around expectedly. What followed was shock on both of our parts. If I had stopped being so optimistic earlier, I would’ve expected to see that rowdy, annoying girl from the coffee shop. However, I had to be so happy go lucky and “there’s plenty of people in the world!” on myself, and now I was disappointed.

“Him?!” She exclaimed in disbelief, her jaw practically hitting the floor.

“Yes, princess, it’s me. Cranky because you didn’t get your coffee?” I said as I crossed my arms, letting the sarcasm ooze from my voice. Her eyes turned into tiny slits and she looked murderous. Perfect. She ruined my calm coffee break, I’ll ruin her calm river photoshoot.

“No, I’m cranky because the view has been tainted by some hideous midget.” It was my turn to drop my jaw and narrow my eyes. The short thing was a low blow. Lina was just gushing with amusement.

“You two know each other? Lovely!” she said, clapping her hands together in excitement. “Well, I guess this is my cue to leave. Well, you only have 2 other locations to visit today, but tell you what. Here’s a reasonable hunk of money, take her out and show her Seoul night life! She hasn’t been here in a while.” She threw a large wad of cash at me and practically skipped to her car.

There was awkward silence in the air for the next ten minutes, while she continued snapping pictures. Of what, I don’t know. She had covered every inch of the perimeter and yet she was still snapping away. I cleared my throat once I got impatient.

“We kind of need to see the other locations before the light leaves us.” I said, deliberately making my voice sound urgent.

“I’m pretty sure I’m the location scout. We’re done when I say we’re done. If you want, you can go do your own scouting.” She snapped at me with her nose held high. I shrugged.

“Suit yourself. It’s my script, so I’ll know when a location looks right anyway. Have fun” I saluted to her before putting my hands in my pocket and walking in the direction of the next location. I counted to 3 in my head before I heard her yell after me.

“You’re seriously just going to leave me here?!” I was already a good chunk away from where she was standing, so I smirked as she did a half run to catch up to me.

“Well, I was only doing as you insisted.” I replied in a sing-songy voice. It seemed like annoying the crap out of this girl was going to be great fun.

“So, where’s your car?” She said, clutching her stomach and catching her breath.

“No car. I walk everywhere.” I didn’t bother waiting for her and started walking again.

“What? How is that even possible?” she said, raising her voice at me for what seemed like the 20^th time since the short span of knowing her.

“Just shut up and walk.” I growled, still not over that short comment. I sped up every time she tried to walk next to me. I hid my smirk every tiny groan and sigh she let out. This was turning out to be all too fun.

The next two locations turned out to be the same. She took a picture of every inch of the room unnecessarily, while I just noted down if I liked it or not. There was no need to hire her if I could just do this myself. Double the pay would do well too.

“So, are we done here?” I groaned and rubbed my eyes. We were a block away from my apartment and the network building, and I just wanted to go home and rest. Get away from this squealing abomination.

“Just about!” She squawked back at me while snapping a last picture of the window outside the clothes shop.

“Great.” I said, genuinely enthused for the first time that day. I crossed the street immediately, but to my disdain, I heard her shouting after me again.

“Wait!” she wailed. I groaned loudly and stopped.

“Yes?” I snapped back.

“You’re supposed to show me a good time! You even got money!” She threw a tantrum, just like an annoying child.

“Like that’ll happen.” I chuckled and was about to start again.

“I’ll tell Lina! You know how much she already loves me. If you value your job, you’ll do what you were told.” I looked back at her and she was crossing her arms with a stupid smug smile written across her face. If I didn’t have unreliable, unemployed roommates who didn’t pay their share of the rent, I would not care. Noting the defeat in my expression, she skipped over to me.

“Where do you want to go then?” I said through my gritted teeth.

“Clubbing!” She exclaimed put her arm around me.

Is it possible to hate so much you contemplate throwing yourself at traffic over throwing them instead? 

~

Very short chapter~

Not the best either, but the first few chapters are always the hardest to write for me. Anyway, I hope you at least enjoyed some part of it.

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