Chapter 25

25 The Copyroom – Nivritti was confused as to why Kyung-Soo was acting strange. But he kept shouting at her in frustration. Even two members of the script team saw him scolding her. It was becoming a routine, that she would get scolded by every team member of ASD.

She kept asking him about what happened and then he asked her to recall everything she did. It hit her like lightning. Goosebumps ran all over her body thinking about what she did.

Kyung-Soo was talking to her when she again licked her lips sending shivers all over Kyung-Soo’s body. He could not take it anymore and moved away from her. His heart could not take any more of her sweet, sexy unconscious moves.

Now it was Nivritti’s turn to grunt in frustration. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! How many stupid things do I do unconsciously? Ah... it’s so annoying.” She threw her hands in the air in frustration.

“Oh no!” she cried out loud. Suddenly she felt as if she was hit by a bus. She looked at Kyung-Soo and gasped, “Shit! Shit! Shit!!! JH saw me doing the same thing with the copier, Oh my God! That’s why he was flustered. I am such an idiot.” She knocked hard on her forehead with her palm.

Kyung-Soo could not control his smile and beamed at her, “yeah, after interacting with you yesterday, he got a crush on you.”

“What?” shouted Nivritti and closed her eyes.

Kyung-Soo again walked up to her and looked at her face. He wrapped his hand around her waist and held her tight to his chest making her open her eyes with shock. He sweetly looked into her eyes and said, “everything that you do makes people go crazy, so stop enticing members of my group.” He blinked once and kept staring at her with a sweet smile on his face.

His smile, his voice, his sweetness made her wall come down. She wanted to stay away from him but now when she was closer to him, she wanted nothing else. All the noise inside the printer room subsided. The printers changed into flowers, the room changed into a hilltop with fresh air and a sweet flowery smell. Sweet cherry blossoms were falling from the sky.

.....

They both were drowning in each other’s eyes. The floating feeling was making them more romantic. Both were at ease in each other’s embrace. There was no place they would rather be. Kyung-Soo’s hand was slowly moving toward her face, and he caressed her cheeks with the back of his hand.

His eyes lowered to her lips. The light pink lipstick was inviting him to kiss. He lowered his head and leaned in to kiss her again.

No matter how many times she scolded herself, no matter how many times she decided to stay away from him, no matter how many times her brain told her not to respond to him, she knew that if he kissed her again, she would kiss him back. Her rule of not kissing someone younger than her would go out of the window.

She licked her lips again making Kyung-Soo gulp with pleasure. He kept moving closer to her lips. She closed her eyes and waited for the kiss to come. She brain was telling her to run away but her heart was not in favour. Even her legs were against her brain.

He was centimetres apart from her lips. He could taste the sweet kiss. Her heart was ready to jump out of her chest as soon as he would kiss her. But before their lips could touch, the printer beeped loudly, and the last page of the proposal came out of the printer. The printer was done with printing. The documents were ready.

As soon as she heard the beep, her brain gained full control over her body. She pushed Kyung-Soo slightly and stepped back. He too released her and looked at her. She was breathing heavily and looking at the floor.

He exhaled and moved away from her. He went to the printer and collected the documents. He took a folder from a bunch kept in the corner of the room and inserted the documents in it. Nivritti was standing frozen in the middle of the room.

He didn’t touch her or even tried to talk to her. He knew that she was in a fight with her brain. The way she stood close to him ready to kiss him and pushed him at the last second was the signal that she was fighting over whether to kiss him or not. He decided to give her time to figure things out by herself.

He opened the door and was about to leave when Nivritti chimed, “did you call me a child?”

Kyung-Soo said nothing, just smiled at her and walked away.

She tried to relax after he left. A chill ran down her spine. Every single hair of her body stood up. She stood inside the room for a few minutes and composed herself.

“You have to control yourself, do you hear me? Stay away from him. Don’t let history repeat itself. You know how heartbreak feels, don’t you?” she scolded herself.

She came out of the room and walked sheepishly to her seat. She knew everyone would have heard about Kyung-Soo scolding her. She was right, the grapevine was buzzing with the news. Everyone knew how Kyung-Soo was shouting at her in the copy room except Chung-Ho. She looked around, he was not in his seat.

Jae-Hwa came running to her seat as soon as she saw her.

“What happened? Why was he shouting at you?” he asked urgently.

“What? He was not shouting at me. He was just worried,” lied Nivritti.

“Worried?” Jae-Hwa was confused.

“Yeah, SK... I mean Mr Shin...”

“You can call him anything you want, they became your friends, didn’t they?” interjected Jae-Hwa after Nivritti corrected herself.

“You are right,” nodded Nivritti. “So, SK needed the proposal urgently, but the printer jammed. So, NK was shouting that if I knew that printer was faulty why did I give command on that? Nothing else. He was just under pressure,” Nivritti kept up with her lie.

“Are you sure?” Jae-Hwa squinted her eyes and pressured Nivritti.

“Yes, I am Jae-Hwa,” assured Nivritti.

After hearing her full name, Jae-Hwa pouted, “you gave them nicknames just after you met them. I know you before they knew you, where is my nickname?”

“Ha-ha,” laughed Nivritti. “Oh you jealous cat, fine, I will call you Jae, done?”

“Hmm,” growled Jae-Hwa and stared at her again.

“He didn’t scold me, I swear. Please tell everyone that. It would be nice if it comes from you and if Mr Choi hears it he will scold NK without any reason,” pleaded Nivritti.

“If you say so, I will spread it everywhere,” assured Jae-Hwa.

“Thank you very much,” smiled Nivritti.

“But you have to treat me,” blackmailed Jae-Hwa.

“Yes, ma’am. As you wish,’ saluted Nivritti, teasingly.

“Good!” said Jae-Hwa and started moving toward her seat.

But Nivritti interrupted, “Hey! Where is Mr Choi?”

“Oh, he went to the meeting with Coin, IT and Marketing,” informed Jae-Hwa.

“Ohh.” Nivritti smiled and went back to her work of proofreading. Jae-Hwa too returned to her seat.

They all were busy working when Chung-Ho barged in singing loudly. He went up to Nivritti and asked for her hand. She looked sceptically at him but he was not having no for an answer. He pulled her hand and made her stand. He twirled her once and then started dancing with her.

Everyone was laughing and smiling at both of them. They knew he was happy as her idea was in motion to become something big.

“Why are you so happy?” inquired Nivritti.

“Why are you not happy?” he stopped dancing and looked at her confusingly.

“Because I don’t know why you are so happy,” said Nivritti.

He let her go and looked at everyone. Beaming with happiness, he addressed everyone, “Okay, everyone, we are officially ready to prepare for the Rencontre. The IT team is setting up the script sites and the marketing and the production team are ready to jump in and shoot the advertisements for the Rencontre script competition.” Everyone clapped at his announcement. Nivritti was grinning from ear to ear.

Chung-Ho reached into his pocket and took out an envelope. “And Nivritti, this is your idea bonus.”

“What?” she was shocked. All gasp in surprise.

“Oh, Hu-ssi was there in the meeting and we all decided that we must award you for such a brilliant idea. This is not much but we wanted to appreciate you,” he shoved the envelope in her face.

She looked at the envelope and stammered, “I... I don’t know what to say.”

“Treat us,” a girl shouted from a corner.

Nivritti smiled. “Done. I don’t drink alcohol so tomorrow morning’s coffee or tea, your choice, is on me,” she announced.

“Yeah, hurray, good work,” all shouted in unison.

She was happy to see everyone happy.

For the next few days, the marketing and production team were busy with the advertisement on all media platforms. Announcements were done on TV, on the radio, on every social media app, in every newspaper, every magazine, etc. ASD team kept their practice and daily video on hiatus and were busy shooting several advertisements for the same. The hardest job was for the IT team. They had to set up a website with six different links that would not crash at any cost.

They knew the number of fans ASD had and they knew the traffic they would get on the website. It had to be simple yet elegant. They took all the ideas Korain had along with what Nivritti gave them in her proposal and started working along those lines.

The first few of their ideas were rejected by Bong. This idea was new, he wanted something reflecting that. Finally, their idea was approved, and they started working on improving it further. The site was not only divided by the region but was also divided into seven more subcategories that would take them to the pages for their favourite member.

First, one would open the website and would select their continent. After pressing their continent, they would have to select the picture of the member they wanted to write the script for and they would be taken to a page where they would submit their credentials and pay for the competition. At last, they would be directed to the script maker and they would submit their scripts. They could write as many scripts as they wanted but every script would cost them $20.

After waiting for a week and a half, Monday arrived. The script team was eagerly waiting for the website to go online. They knew the moment the website would go online, they would be drowned in scripts, so the Rencontre team was armed and ready.