Jungsoo had been on and around sets most of his professional life.  From the outset of his career, he’d never been content to be isolated with his pen and paper, and ideas.  He’d insisted from his very first screenplay on being involved with the production end.  He understood the practicality and the creativity of the right camera angle, the proper lighting.  It appealed to the realistic part of him.  Still, he had the ability to see the set and the people while blocking out the crowding equipment.  To watch as an outsider, to see as a viewer.

He wasn’t sure what had motivated him to visit the set of “Our Lives, Our Loves.”  He knew that the script he was currently working on had hit a snag, and that he wanted to see Sora again.  Perhaps it was the scent of the spring flowers that continued to drift to him as he tried to work. 

So he had come to see her, telling himself he simply wanted to watch her work before he committed himself to choosing her for the part of Hyori.  It was logical, practical.  It was something he’d tried very hard to resist.

Sora sat at the kitchen table with her bare feet propped in a chair while Kim Hyun Joong, who played Dr. Baek Seungjo, Yejin’s college sweetheart, mulled over a hand of solitaire.  On another part of the soundstage, her television parents were discussing their offspring.  After they’d finised, she and Hyun Joong would tape their scene.

“Black five on the red seven,” she mumbled, earning herself a glare from Hyun Joong.

“Solitaire,” he reminded her.  “As in alone.”

“It’s an antisocial game.”

“You think headphones are antisocial.”

“They are.” 

Smiling sweetly, she moved the six herself.

“Don’t get snotty, oppa,” she said mildly.  “You’re supposed to adore me.”

“Should’ve had my head examined after you threw me over for Jinwook.”

“It’s your own fault for not explaining what you were doing alone in that hotel room with Soyoung.”

Hyung Joong turned over another card. “You should’ve trusted me.  A man has his pride.”

Tapping his shoulder, she rose and strolled away for a last-minute check up with make-up.

Some subtle dark smudges were added under her eyes to give the appearance of a sleepless night.

By the time the cameras rolled, Dr. Kim Yejin was in her office, going through her patient files.  She seemed very calm, very much in control.  Her expression was totally serene.  Abruptly, she slammed the drawer back in the cabinet and whirled around to pace.  When the tape was edited, it would flash back to her discovery of her husband and sister.  She grabbed a china cup from her desk and hurled it against the wall.  The knock at her office door had her balling her fists and making a visible struggle for control.  Deliberately, she walked around her desk and sat down.

“Come in.”

The camera focused on Kim Hyun Joong as Dr. Baek Seungjo, rough-and-ready looks, rough-and-ready temper – Kim Yejin’s first and only lover before her marriage.  Sora knew what the director would expect in a reaction shot later, but now, with the tape running on Hyun Joong’s entrance, she screwed up her face and stuck out her tongue.  Hyun Joong gave her one of his character’s patented lengthy looks designed to make the female heart flutter.

“Yejin ah, have you got a minute?”

When the lens was focused on her again, her face was properly composed with just a hint of strain beneath the serenity.  “Of course, Seungjo ssi.”  For a subtle sign of nerves, she gripped her hands together on the desktop.

“I’ve got a case of wife beating,” he began in the clipped, almost surly tone of his character.  Both Yejin and several thousand female viewers had found his diamond-in-the-rough style irresistible.  “I need your help.”

When the camera was briefly at Hyun Joong’s back, he crossed his eyes at Sora and bared his teeth.  As he went back to her patient file, she made certain she walked over his foot.  Neither of them lost the rhythm of the scene.

“You look tired.”  As Baek Seungjo, Kim Hyun Joong started to touch her shoulder, then stopped himself.  Frustration radiated from his eyes.  “Is everything al right?”

Yejin turned and gave him a soulful eye-locking look.  trembled open, then closed again.  “Everything’sfine.  I have a heavy workload right now.  And I have a patient due in a few minutes.”

“I’ll get out of her then.”  He started for the door and paused.  With his hand on the knob, he stared at her.  “Yejin ah..”

Yejin kept her back to him.  “I’ll see your patient tomorrow, Seungjo ssi.”  There was the faintest of tremors in her voice.

He waited five humming seconds.  “Yeah, fine.”

When she heard the door close, Yejin pressed her hands to her face.

“Cut.”

“I’m going to get you for that.” Hyun Joong said as he pushed the prop door open again.  “I think you broke one of my toes.”

Sora beamed him a teasing smile.

“All right, children,” the director said mildly.  “Let’s get the reaction shots.”

Agreeably, Sora moved behind Yejin’s desk again.  It was then she saw Jungsoo.  Surprise and pleasure showed on her face, though his expression wasn’t welcoming.  He was frowning at her, his arms crossed over a casual black sweater.  He didn’t return her smile, nor did she expect him to.  Park Jungsoo wasn’t a man who smiled often or easily.  It only made her more determined to nudge him into it.

She’d thought about him – surprisingly often.   At the moment, she had enough on her mind, both personally and professionally, yet she’d found herself wondering about Park Jungsoo and what went on inside that aloof exterior.  She’d seen flashes of something warm, something approachable.  For Sora, it was enough to make her dig more.

And there’d been that pull – the pull she remembered with perfect clarity.  She wanted to feel it again, to enjoy it, to understand it.

She finished the taping and had an hour before she and Eunsoo would play out their confrontation scene.  Sora stepped over some cable and walked to Jungsoo.

“Hi, want some coffee?”

“All right.”

“I keep a percolator in my dressing room.  I can’t take the stuff at the commissary.”  She led the way, not bothering to ask why he was there.  Her door was open, as she usually left it.  Walking in, she went directly to the coffee maker.  “You have to make do with powdered milk.”

“Black’s fine.”

Her dressing room was between the state of order and chaos.  Clothes were neatly hanged on racks but magazines and pamphlets were scattered around. Her dressing table was loaded with empty water bottles, a leather bag, and Post It notes.  It smelled of fresh flowers and make-up.  Jungsoo counted four and one-half pairs of shoes on the floor.

In the midst of it, Sora stood in a raw-silk suit the color of apricots with her hair glowing in a sophisticated knot.  She smelled like a woman should at sunset – soft with a hint of anticipation.  As the coffee began to drip, she turned back to him.

“I’m glad to see you again.”

The simplicity of the statement made Jungsoo almost believe it.  Cautiously, he kept half the room between them as he watched her.  “The taping was interesting.  You’re very good, Sora ssi. Your character.”  He eyed the suit, approving the subdued style.  “I’d say she’s a very controlled professional woman who’s currently going through some personal crisis.  There were a lot of ual sparks bouncing around between her and the young doctor.”

With a smile, Sora picked up two cups, mismatched.

“Do you always play around on set when you’re not on camera?”

She stirred powdered milk into her coffee, added generous spoon of sugar, then handed Jungsoo his. “Oppa and I have a running contest on who can make who blow their lines.  Actually, it makes us sharper and lowers the tension level. Please sit down.”

“How many pages of dialogue do you have to learn a week?”

“Varies,” she said and sipped.  “We run about eighty-five pages of script a day now that we’ve gone to an hour.  Some days I might have twenty or thirty where my character’s involved.  But for the most part, I tape about three days a week – we don’t do a lot of takes.”  Opening the drawer on her dressing table, she took two packs of chocolate chip cookies.  “I’m told it’s the closest thing to live TV you can get.”

Watching her, he drank.  “You really enjoy it, huh.”

“Yes, I’ve been very comfortable with Yejin’s character.  Which is why I want to do other things as well.”

He glanced around the room.  Something in his aloof, cool expression made her smile.  “Would you like to have dinner?”  She asked on impulse.

For an instant surprise flickered over his face – the first time she’d seen it.  “It’s a bit early for dinner,” he said mildly.

“I like the way you do that,” she said with a nod.  “Conversations with you are never boring.  If you’re free tonight, I could pick you up at seven.”

She was asking him for a date, he thought, very simply, very smoothly, in a manner more friendly than flirtatious.  As he had often since the first time he’d met her, Jungsoo wondered what made her tick.  “All right, seven.”  Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out a note pad and scrawled on it.  “Here’s the address.”

Taking it, Sora scanned the words with a small sound of approval.  “Mmmm, you’ve got a great view of Han River.”  She looked up and grinned in the way that always made him think she’d just enjoyed a little private joke.  “I’m a er for views.”

“I’ve gathered that already.”

Jungsoo walked over to set down his mug and stood close enough so that his legs brushed hers.  She didn’t back away but watched him with clear, curious eyes.  There was something deadly in that face, she thought.  Something any woman would recognize and a wary one would retreat from.  Fascinated, she counted the beat of her own rapid pulse.

“I’ll let you get back to work.”

With the slightest move on his part, the contact was broken.  Sora stayed exactly where she was.  “I’m glad you stopped by,” she said, though she was no longer sure it was precisely the truth.

With a nod, he was gone.  Sora sat on the edge of her cluttered dressing table and wondered if for the first time in her life she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

* * * * *

Thank you for the comments guys. I really appreciate it ♥  And yeah, Park Jungsoo here drinks coffee. Black coffee. Kkkk~ As you see, I keep inserting familiar names/characters ^_^

More comments? Anyone? What do you think of Sora? How about Jungsoo?