A Thousand Purple Stars (JinJi)

Balance

Jisoo wasn't paying attention in Business and New Media, which wasn't at all unusual since she never paid much attention in that class. Except this time, instead of dreaming short blurbs for short stories or ideas for possible future novels or staring at her hot TA, she was thinking about Jinyoung.

Everything is fine, she kept telling herself. She hated feeling so hurt and betrayed even though technically, she thought, Jinyoung did nothing wrong. She was the one who came to him with the business proposition in the first place. There was no sense in feeling so hurt just because he did what he agreed to do. She was just being ridiculous and crazy and over-dramatic again. Her over-active imagination was making her see things that weren't there, again. Making her think there was something more in the way he looked at her than there really was. Time to face reality, she thought.

She tucked her lucky flower bookmark into the crease of page 147 of Malice and then set the book aside as she tried to focus. She'd already read it, anyway. Twice, in fact, in the last three days after Jinyoung had given it to her. It made her wonder why she never read more crime books. This one had her hooked. But hanging onto his book wasn't going to make backtracking out of her feelings for him any easier, so she supposed it would be better to set it aside altogether.

Jaebum wasn't wearing a suit today. He chose to show up to class in a white shirt beneath a faded denim jacket that made his shoulders look especially wide. Funny, Jisoo thought: she might have swooned over that if she were her normal self today.

When class ended, Jisoo packed her things and was on her way out the door when Jaebum called out her name. She stopped and turned to him. He handed her back a packet of paper that she recognized as the second draft of her paper.

"Better," he said, smirking as he handed it to her. "You made a lot of good revisions, you'll see my notes when you look through it."

"Thanks," Jisoo said, taking it from him. Jaebum leaned against the professor's desk.

"How's your new job?" he asked. "Where is it, again?"

Jisoo had forgotten that she never told him. She had sort of made a point of avoiding him ever since her slip-up at the Gumiho.

"It's at this literary journal," Jisoo said. "You probably don't know which one it is. Anyway, it's going great, thank you."

Jaebum nodded. "You know, at the Gumiho that time," he said. "I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty about leaving Vector Marketing."

Jisoo raised her eyebrows. "Oh," she said. "That's nice, but it's okay, I didn't even take it that way. No harm done."

He smirked. "They really miss you over there, you know," he said. Jisoo laughed a little.

"That's nice of you to say," she said. "But I highly doubt it."

Jaebum laughed, too. "Well, I do, at least," he said. Jisoo blushed reflexively, the way she always did when a cute boy paid her a compliment. He did look nice in that denim jacket, and she never once doubted her good judgment when it came to liking him. She smiled shyly.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

Jaebum nodded. "Anyway," he said. "I hope your new job is treating you well. A few more drafts and I'm sure your paper will be ready to submit. I meant what I said last time, too: your writing is really good. You could be a writer."

Jisoo scoffed. Funny he should mention that. He turned around and started to pack his things up into his own bag, and Jisoo took this as her cue to take her leave. But she didn't turn around or make any move to exit the room. She stood there, thinking. She stood there so long that when Jaebum turned back around, he laughed a little seeing that she was still standing there.