Jungsoo considered taking everything he’d written that day and ditching it.  That’s what sensible people did with garbage.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d hit a wall like in his work.  It was like carving words into granite – slow, laborious, and the finished product was never perfectly clear and sharp.   You got sweaty, your muscles and eyes ached, and you barely made a dent.  He’d given the script ten hours that day, and perhaps half of that with his full concentration.  It was out of character.  It was frustrating.

It was Sora.

What the hell was he going to do about it? Jungsoo ran his hands over his face with a weariness that came from lack of production rather than lack of energy.  There had never been a woman he couldn’t block out of his mind for long periods of time – even Yuri at the height of their disastrous marriage.  But this woman… With a sound of annoyance, Jungsoo pushed away from his desk.  This woman was breaking all the rules.  His rules – the ones he’d formed for personal survival.

The worst of it was he just wanted to be with her.  Just to see her smile, hear her laugh, listen to her talk about something that didn’t have to make sense.

And the hardest of it was the desire.  It shifted and rippled continually under the surface of his thoughts.  He had the blessing-curse of a writer’s imagination.  No effort was needed for him to feel the way her skin would heat under his hands, the way would give and take.  And it took no effort to project mentally how she could foul up his life.

Because they would be working together, he could only avoid her so much.  Making love with her was inevitable – so inevitable he knew he’d have to weigh the consequences.  But for now, with everything quiet around him and thoughts of Sora crowding his mind, Jungsoo couldn’t think beyond having her.  Prices always had to be paid… Who would know that better than he?

Jungsoo admitted that was already paying.  His writing was suffering because he couldn’t control his concentration.  His pace, usually smooth, was erratic and choppy.  What he was producing lacked the polish so integral to his style.

Too often, he caught himself staring into space – something writers do habitually.  But it wasn’t his characters who worked in his mind.  Too often, he found himself awake before dawn after a restless night.  But it wasn’t his plot that kept him from sleep.

It was Sora.

He thought of her too much, too exclusively for comfort.  And he was a man who hoarded his comfort.  His work was always, had always been, of paramount importance to him.  He intended it to continue to be.  Yet he was allowing someone to interfere, intrude.

Allowing?  Jungsoo shook his head.  He was a man of words, of shades of meanings, and knew that wasn’t the proper one.  He hadn’t allowed Sora into his mind – she had invaded it.

The doorbell rang twice before he roused himself to answer it.  If his work had been flowing at all, he would have ignored it completely.  Interruptions, he thought ruefully as he left his desk behind, sometimes had their advantages.

“Hi.” Sora smiled at him and kept her hands in her pockets.  It was the only way she could keep them from lacing together.  “I know I should’ve called, but I was walking and took the chance that you wouldn’t be frantically writing some monumental scene.” You’re babbling, she warned herself and clenched both hands.

“I haven’t written a monumental scene in hours.”  He studied her a moment, perceptive enough to know that beneath the smile and animated voice there was trouble.  “Come in.”

“I must have caught you at a good time,” Sora commented as she went in.  “Otherwise you would have growled at me.  Were you working?”

“No, I’d stopped.”  She looked ready to burst, he mused.  The casualness, the glib remarks didn’t mask the outpouring of emotion.  It showed in her eyes, in her movements.  A quick glance showed him that her hands were fists in her pockets.  Tension?   One didn’t associate the word with her.  he wanted to touch her, to soothe, and had to remind himself that he didn’t need anyone else’s problems.  “Want a drink?”

“No – yes,” she amended.  Perhaps it would calm her more than the two-hour walk had done.  “Whatever’s handy.  It’s a beautiful day.”  Sora paced to the window and found herself reminded too much of standing in Siwan’s office.  She turned her back on the view.  “Warm.  Flowers are everywhere.  Have you been out?”

“No.”  He handed her a dry vermouth without offering her a chair.  In this mood he knew she’d never sit still.

“Oh, you shouldn’t miss it.  Perfect days are rare.”  She drank, then waited for her muscles to loosen.  “I was going to walk through the Han River, then found myself here.”

He waited a moment as she stared down into her glass. “Why?”

Slowly, Sora lifted her eyes to his.  “I needed to be with someone – it turned out to be you. Do you mind?”

He should have.  God knows he wanted to.  “No.”  Without thinking, Jungsoo took a step closer – physically, emotionally.  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Yes.”  The word came out on a sigh.  “But I can’t.”  Turning away, she set down her glass.  “Jungsoo ssi, it isn’t often I can’t handle things or find myself so scared that running away looks like the best out.  When it happens, I need someone.”

He was touching her hair before he could stop himself, was turning her to face him before he had weighed the pros and cons.  And he was holding her before either of them could be surprised by the simplicity of it.

Sora clung as relief flowed over her.  He was strong – strong enough to accept her strength and understand the moments of weakness.  She needed that very basic human support, without question, without demands.  His chest was hard and firm against her.  Over her back his hands ran gently.  He said nothing.  For the first time in hours, Sora felt her balance return.  Kindness gave her hope’ she was a woman who had always been able to survive on that alone.

What’s troubling her, Jungsoo wondered.  He could feel the panic in the way her hands gripped him.  Even when he felt her begin to relax he remembered that first frantic grip.  Her work, he thought.  Or something more personal?  Either way, it had nothing to do with him.  And yet… While she was soft and vulnerable in his arms he felt it had everything to do with him.

He should step back.  His lips brushed through her hair as he breathed in her fragrance.  It was never safe to lower the wall.  His lips skimmed along her temple.

“I want to help you.”  The words ran through his mind and spilled out before he was aware of them.

Sora’s arm tightened around him.  That phrase meant more, infinitely more, than I love you.  Without knowing it, he’d just given her everything she needed. “You have.”  She tilted her head back so that she could see his face. “You are.”

Lifting a hand, she ran her fingers over the long firm bones in his face, over the taut skin roughened by a day’s growth of beard. Softly, slowly, she closed the distance and brushed his lips with hers.  Her lids lowered, but through her lashes she watched his eyes as he watched hers.  The intensity in his never altered.

It was he who shifted the angle, without increasing the pressure. Easily he toyed with , nipping into the softness of her bottom lip, tracing the shape with just the tip of his tongue until the flutter in her stomach spread to her chest.  He needed to draw in the sensation of her as a woman, as an individual.  He wanted to know her physically; he needed to understand the subtleties of her mind. 

He ran his hands up her arms for the sheer pleasure of it.  “How nice a day is it?”

Sora smiled.  Her fingers were still on his face, her lips only inches from his.  “It’s spectacular.”

“Let’s go out.”  Jungsoo paused only long enough to take her hand before he headed for the door.

“Thank you.”  Sora touched her head briefly to his shoulder in one more simple show of affection he wasn’t accustomed to.  It warmed him – and cautioned him.

“What for?”

“For not asking questions.”  Sora stepped into the elevator, leaned backed against the wall and sighed.

“You wanted to walk along Han River.”

“Yeah. I’ll buy you an ice cream.” Sora told him when they were outside the condominium.

Jungsoo turned his head as they walked.  “What flavour?”

“Mint choco.”

She was right, Jungsoo decided.  It was a spectacular day.  The grass was green, the flowers vivid and pungent.  He could smell the water.  Enthusiastic joggers pumped by in colourful sweatbands and running shorts, streaks of sweat down their backs.

Spring would soon give way to early summer.  The trees were full, the leaves a hardy shade rather than the tender hue they’d been only weeks before.

As Sora bit into an ice cream confection coated with chocolate and nuts, she thought of Young Jae.  But this time, the apprehension was gone. She’d only needed to lean on someone for a moment, draw on someone else’s emotional strength, to have her faith return.  Her head was clear again, her nerves gone.

The air tasted of spring – sweet, light.  An image of a watermelon ran through her mind.  Yes, that was what she thought of as the breeze fluttered over her cheeks.

He’d forgotten what it was like to do something for no reason.  And by forgetting it, Jungsoo had forgotten the purity of pleasure.  He felt it now, without the intellectual justifications he so often restricted himself with.  Because he understood that freedom brought vulnerability, he’d doled it out to himself miserly.  Only those rare occasions when he was completely alone, away from his responsibilities and his work, had he allowed his heart and mind to drift.  Now, it happened so spontaneously he hardly realized it.   Bypassing the dangers of relaxation, he enjoyed the saunter.

“You have a tremendous talent,” Jungsoo told Sora as they walked, but didn’t notice the surprise lift of her brow at the ease of the compliment.  “It’s difficult for me to understand why you aren’t doing major films or theatre.  A series, even a weekly series is dragging, backbreaking work.  Being a major character in a show that airs five days a week has to exhausting, impossible and frustrating.

“Exactly why I do it.” She answered simply.

“You’ve been playing the same character for two years.”

“Not the same thing.” She inserted her hands on her pockets.  “Soaps are full of surprises.  You never know what kind of angle they are going to throw at you to pump up ratings or lead in a fresh story line. Right now Yejin’s facing a crumbling marriage and a personal betrayal, the possibility of an abortion and a rekindling of an old affair.  Not dull stuff.  And though it’s top secret, I’ll tell you she’s going to work with the police on a profile of the town’s Bend Ripper.”

“The what?” Jungsoo faced her, his forehead creasing.

“As in Son of Jack the Ripper,” she said mildly.  “Her former lover Baek Seungjo’s the number one suspect.”

“Doesn’t it ever bother you that so much melodrama goes on in a small town with four or five connecting families?”

She stopped to look at him.

“Sometimes, you should suspend your disbelief.” Sora crumbled the napkin that used to hold her ice cream cone then tossed it into a trash can. “It’s all that’s necessary to get along in this world.  Believe it might happen, it could happen.  Plausibility’s all that’s necessary.  As a writer, you should know that.”

“Perhaps I should.  I’ve always leaned more toward reality.”

“If it works for you.”  The lift of her shoulders seemed to indicate that all was accepted.  “But sometimes it’s easier to believe in coincidence, or magic or simple luck.  Straight reality without any detours is a very hard road.”

“I’ve had a few detours,” he murmured.  It occurred to him that Kang Sora had already led him off the paved road he’d adhered to for years.  Jungsoo began to wonder just where her twisting direction would lead them.  Lost in thought, he didn’t notice that they were in front of his building until he stopped.  His work was waiting, his privacy, his solitude.  He wanted none of it.

“Come up with me.”

The request was simple, the meaning clear.  And her need was huge.  Shaking her head, Sora touched the hair that had fallen over his forehead.  “No, it’s best that I don’t.”

He took her hand before she could drop it back to her side.  “Why? I want you – you want me.”

If it were only so simple, she thought as the desire to love him grew and grew.  But she knew, instinctively, that it wouldn’t be simple, not for either of them once begun.  For him there was too much distrust, for her too many vulnerabilities.

“Yes, I want you.”  Sora saw the change in his eyes and knew it would be much more difficult to walk away that to go with him.  “And if I came upstairs, we’d make love.  Neither of us is ready for that, not with each other, Jungsoo-ssi.”

“If it’s a game you’re playing to make me want you more, it’s hardly necessary.”

She drew her hand from his and stood on her own.  “I like to play games,” she said quietly.  “And I’m very good at most of them.  Not this kind.”

“I’ve no patience for the wine and candlelight routine, Sora.”

He saw the humor light in her eyes and could have cursed her.  “How lucky that I don’t have a need for them.”  Putting her hands on his shoulders, she leaned forward and kissed him.  “Think of me,” she requested and turned quickly to walk away.

As he stared after her, Jungsoo knew he’d think of little else.

* * * * *

Here we go. Another chapter. ^_^