A Thousand Purple Stars (JinJi)

Off Script

Jinyoung rose early on Wednesday morning and almost forgot why until he checked his phone and saw twelve text messages and two emails from Jisoo. She'd sent them to him at three in the morning last night, and all of them were reminders for him to wake up early and wear something nice to the meeting.

Right. He was going with her to meet Julie Kiyoko, Embrace's managing editor.

After that night at the carnival, Jisoo had sent him an online social media profile that she had made specifically to fool Ms. Kiyoko into thinking they'd been dating for a while. She had also forced him to pose for pictures at the carnival to have something more recent to show her. She had also texted asking him for a selca she could use as a fake background for her phone. He took one with the front-facing camera on his phone and sent it to her, but then she complained about the lighting, so he decided to ignore her until morning just to annoy her.

After a trip to the bathroom for all his morning rituals, he dressed himself in the least offending outfit he could come up with, which ended up being a navy blue suit he had worn just once, when he presented one of his research papers at a symposium last year. He switched the white button-down out for a black shirt to tone down the formality and decided it would do. The Oxfords Nawon had bought him were his only pair of formal shoes, so he settled for those. But he reminded himself to buy a new pair once Jisoo paid him.

When he opened the emails she'd sent to him, one was a very long, detailed written account of their fake relationship. A script of sorts for him to stick to when Julie inevitably asked him things like how they met (through school), her favorite color (purple), and who wore the pants in their relationship (her, but he was definitely going to negotiate that later.) There were also some fictional embellishments describing non-existent dates they'd gone on. She had also completely glossed over the part where they hate each other. Altogether, though, he was actually a little impressed at how much planning had gone into this. And her writing was as good as ever.

Jisoo told him to meet her one subway stop away from the Jeon & Sky Publishing offices so that they could be seen walking to the building together. He spotted her standing by the turnstiles. She was wearing a pale pink office dress, and her hair was curled. She was busily typing something on her phone. When he was close enough, she looked him up and down.

Navy blue really was the sexiest of the suit colors, but she'd be damned before she admitted to herself that Jinyoung actually looked good. Jisoo tried to justify her thoughts by conceding that all men looked good in a suit.

"What took you so long?" Jisoo asked before she could allow herself to think about that anymore. This was no time to lose her head. Jinyoung looked annoyed at her.

"At least I'm here, aren't I?" he said, trying not to get distracted by how soft her curls look. "By the way, I'm going to start giving you daily reminders that you haven't even paid me yet."

"I haven't even been hired, yet," Jisoo said. "And don't say that around here, someone from the office might hear you. Let's go."

Jisoo and Jinyoung rode the elevator up to the third floor and the same girl from last time led them over to a waiting area. The receptionist was a good deal friendlier than Jisoo remembered her, even going so far as to offer her and Jinyoung water and placing a small bowl of rice crackers on the table in front of them. A sugary smile in Jinyoung's direction, however, solved that mystery.

Jinyoung reached out and took a handful of the rice crackers. Jisoo had been hurrying him all morning, so he skipped breakfast. He put one into his mouth and took a look around the office. So, this was where Jisoo wanted to work. He'd seen her reading the magazine before, during lunchtime in high school, although he personally wasn't too familiar with it.