Chapter 16

Chapter 16: The Age Difference

Everyone from the script team was staring at the ASD team members. They were standing guard, and no one tried to barge in after that. Though everyone saw what Thae did and how Nivritti reacted. All were feeling bad for Nivritti.

“Get out of my way,” Chung-Ho shouted.

Everyone looked at him and he pushed and pulled and came before Thae and the rest of the team. They were standing in front of the door and were not letting anyone peek in. No one could hear what Kyung-Soo and Nivritti were talking about.

No one was even sure that there would be a talk. They all saw her crying and were confident that she would keep crying. Poor girl, since the day she arrived, people kept giving her reasons to cry. This was supposed to be her day, but Thae spoiled it, again.

“What is happening?” shouted Chung-Ho.

“Choi-ssi, calm down,” assured Jeong-Eun.

“What did you do?” he ignored Jeong-Eun and directed his question to Thae.

.....

He had no idea how to answer. He was in shock at what he did. He traumatised an innocent girl. He was wrong. He was so wrong. “I just... I just...” Thae eyes started tearing up. He hugged Yong tighter to find some comfort.

Chung-Ho looked at the dog and understood everything. “She told you she was afraid of dogs but nooo, you had to test it. Have you lost your mind? What has gotten in you, Kang Thae?” he shouted at the tops of his lungs. Rarely anyone used their full name. Mostly, people used their stage name to address them, but Chung-Ho was not in the mood today.

He was angry at Thae. He berated her yesterday even when she was innocent and today, he tormented her again, even after she told him about her condition. She was afraid of dogs. She could not look at them or touch them. But Thae shoved a dog in her face.

Seeing him angry, Korain took the reins of the situation in his hands. His voice was enough to calm anyone down. “Choi-ssi, Kyung-Soo is taking care of her. Calm down!” he said softly.

But Chung-Ho was not having any of that. “He could have stopped Thae. He let him test his theory.”

“This was the only way Thae could have learned a lesson. Kyung-Soo is very good at taking care of people, we can vouch for him. He is the best leader in the industry, after all,” comforted Korain. Everyone else nodded in his favour.

Slightly, Chung-Ho calmed down, “I said I would protect her from now.” He hung his head low in shame. He failed again in protecting her.

“I promise to you, we will protect her from now on too. If anyone says anything to her, they will have to face us first, even Kat, happy?” reassured Korain.

“Not in the least,” replied Chung-Ho. “If she doesn’t come in 5 minutes, I am going in.”

“Give him at least 10 minutes,” pleaded Young-Chul.

“She is scared, he needs time,” said Korain.

“Fine, 10 minutes, Korain,” he folded his arms over his chest and kept staring at them. “And you, get out of my sight,” he reprimanded Thae. Thae lowered his head and walked out of the room alone. No one accompanied him. “Rest of you, go back to work. This is not a drama for you to enjoy,” he chided his team.

Everyone ran to their cubicle and sat down. Though they had their computers on, none of them was working. Everyone was interested in what would happen next.

Jae-Hwa was feeling sad for Nivritti. She got rebuked by Thae yesterday and he again hurt her. He didn’t shout at her today but did something far worse. He brought her fear face to face with her. She wanted to run to her and console her. But now she would have to wait.

Meanwhile, inside the conference room, Kyung-Soo closed his eyes to control his anger and grabbed Nivritti closer to himself. He placed one hand over her head and kept caressing her hair.

“You are okay. Everything is fine. Nothing will hurt you. I won’t let anything happen to you; I promise,” he comforted her. He kept rubbing her back to calm her down with his other hand.

She kept her face buried in his chest and mourned, “why didn’t you stop him? You could have stopped him.”

With all the sweetness he could muster in his voice, he said, “I am sorry, Navratti, he needed to see that. He needed to feel guilty about how he treated you. Please forgive me.”

She kept sobbing and he kept consoling her. Slowly the sobbing subsided, and consoling stopped. Yet both were not ready to break the embrace. His warmth was comforting her, and her touch was calming him down, his anger was gone.

Kyung-Soo was smiling like an idiot. The angel he wanted to talk to was again in his arms. Now he even knew her name. He had no fear that any of his team members could barge in, he was too content hugging her.

They kept hugging each other for a few minutes when Nivritti suddenly realised that she was hugging Kyung-Soo, again. She lifted her head from his chest and pushed him away with a jerk. That irked Kyung-Soo.

She walked away from him and started clenching and unclenching her fists with frustration. “Why does this keep happening to me? Just a few hours back I said this can never happen and yet this keeps happening. Why do I always end up hugging you?”

“You are asking me? I did nothing this time, you came and hugged me tightly,” stated Kyung-Soo. Nivritti knew he was right.

She shook her head in disbelief and shouted, “I know, you don’t have to remind me.” She took a deep breath and continued, “Okay, for the last time, this can never happen again. Say with me, this will never happen again.”

Kyung-Soo was sad. “Why do you keep saying nothing will happen between us? What the hell is your problem? Are you so gorgeous that I look ugly to you?” he asked.

“What do looks have to do with anything? Who in the hell called you ugly? Are they blind? And if you believed them then you really are a dumb child,” he barked at him for calling himself ugly.

“Again, with your child nonsense. Why do you keep calling us children... and... and young people?” shouted Kyung-Soo because he had enough.

“Because you all are children,” she gritted her teeth.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” questioned Kyung-Soo.

“Alright, let me show you.”

She moved to the laptop that was in the room. She carried it to the conference table, placed it softly, fired it up and opened the K&Q website. She bent and searched for her name and her details popped up. She scrolled down to her personal details.

Kyung-Soo kept staring at her. The moment she bent down her derriere faced him. Her skirt moved a little up and her calves became prominent. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“This girl and her unconscious moves, they will kill me one day,” mumbled Kyung-Soo under his breath.

Without looking at him and while scrolling she commanded him, “come and take a look at this.”

Immediately a gasp escaped her mouth. Because as soon she stopped speaking, she felt Kyung-Soo standing over her with his hands softly placed over the table thus locking her from both sides. She could feel his warm chest on her back, his warm breath over her neck. Every single hair on her body stood up. With a shiver, goosebumps ran all over her body.

Kyung-Soo smiled at her reaction. He teased, “Whoa!! I can see goosebumps on your hands. Did it happen because I came close to you?”

Nivritti closed her eyes, calmed herself down, got rid of her goosebumps and demanded, “could you please stand on my side?”

“I am very comfortable here, thank you very much. Also, the laptop screen is clearly visible from here,” he mocked her.

“I think you don’t know but all laptops come with this feature that you can literally carry them close to your eyes if the need arises,” she said sarcastically.

He took a step back and smirked at her. After he gave her some space her brain started working again.

“Wait! Did you call me Navratti?”

“Yeah, that’s your name,” replied Kyung-Soo.

“No, my name is Nivritti,” explained Nivritti.

“Navratti,” he butchered her name again.

“No, Niv... leave it, just call me Ritti,” she shortened her name for his ease.

“Okay, Ritti, What were you trying to show me?” inquired Kyung-Soo. He could not stop smiling. He was again alone with her. He now knew that his touch made her feel something.

“Look at my birth year,” ordered Nivritti.

She moved aside and Kyung-Soo lowered himself to take a closer look at the laptop. For a minute he could not find her birthday. And then he saw it. It was as if someone was pranking him. He could not believe his eyes. “What? What?? What???” he kept shouting. “You are 34 years old.” He stood up and shouted at her.

“Yes, now you get why I call you child?” she asked.

But instead of answering her, he kept looking at her with a shocked expression on his face. He just kept staring at her. And after a minute with the same expression, it was getting uncomfortable for Nivritti.

She gulped, “Okay, I can see you are in shock. I just have no idea why you are shocked. Why are you shocked? Say something.” She grabbed his shoulder and shook him to bring him back from his shock.

He just blinked his eyes and again started shouting, “You are 34!! 34!! I am 29 and I look like this, you are 34 and you look like this?” He kept gesturing at both himself and Nivritti.

“Um... what is that supposed to mean?”

Kyung-Soo grabbed a lock of his hair and started pulling it with frustration. “I mean stop ageing backwards. Are you kidding me? Never tell anyone you are 34, they will think you are making fun of them. Don’t you own a mirror? You hardly look a day older than 28 and you are trying to tell me you are 5 years older than me. Are you KIDDING me?” He had no idea how to keep his emotions bottled up. He was shocked, surprised, frustrated, confused, all at once.

She tried to calm him down. “Why are you getting so worked up?”

But he was too worked up to be calm right now. “Won’t you? When someone says they are 34 but look like they are in their twenties, what would you say?” Suddenly a bulb lit over his head. “Wait! You keep saying that nothing can happen between us, because... you... are... older? You think age matters to me?”

She took a deep breath and said, “it matters to me.”

“What?” shouted Kyung-Soo.

“Yeah, I am an Ageist. What are you going to do? Sue me?” She instantly pressed the power button of the laptop. Without waiting for it to shut down, she walked out of the room, leaving Kyung-Soo perplexed, again.

He looked at the door and said, “she is completely crazy.”