wc: 2478

There is a strong social significance towards hatred of certain things.

People are predisposed in the world to live, love and grow, and just while some grow up to be extremely optimistic and forgiving, others are just pessimists — with negative dispositions that induce a tendency to hate.

So if Lisa was asked to present the list of all things she hated (or continues to hate) in her life, perhaps red would be the newest addition to the chart.

Not just any hue of red though, rather the angry, flushed shade of bright crimson red, the one that symbolised power, wealth and luxury — but in Lisa's life, the colour only exemplified her failing self esteem, her dreams of writing a best-seller dissipating in the near future.

And oh, so to add, red also happened to be the same choice of ink that a certain Kim Taehyung used to supposedly 'review' the typescript draft of her debut novel she emailed to him every month.

After sustaining herself on gallons of coffee to format the text neatly typed in the reliable Times New Roman word document, she gets called in to present herself before her boss, the senior editor to comment and discuss about the future improvements in the plot the very next day.

And of fucking course, Taehyung being the ostentatious asshole as he is, lives up to the title much for Lisa's liking; he prints the entire document out, scrutinising through each and every word in every other line and when he sees something that doesn't appeal him enough, he leaves audacious circles and dashes to criticise each and every letter.

The ink from the cartridge bleeds through the white pages, as though he had just killed the emotions Lisa had crafted ever so delicately in the phrases he just cancelled out with the gruesome amount of callousness in his heart.

Silently praying to the deities heavens above to confer her some patience to deal with the said person before her wrath murders him in cold blood, Lisa scurried her way into the headquarters of the establishment where she worked. Trudging past the rows of cubicles where the rest of the employees were busy in their work as she strode away towards the editor-in-chief's office.

With a subtle knock on the mahogany door she trailed in, her gaze directly landing on the man — the perfect impersonation of the Devil Wears Prada with the correction of Gucci for the label. A posh blazer hanging behind his office chair where he was currently seated with legs crossed, too focused on whatever rectifications he was slashing away in red ink.

"Ah, Lisa, you finally decided to show up? Haven't seen you in so long," Taehyung drawled sarcastically, mocking for her absence in the workplace the last week.

She turned towards him, shooting him a glare as he regarded her with a disinterested look. "I see you've missed my presence, haven't you, sir?" Lisa seethed, narrowing her stare at the man who sat across from her.

"Can't say much really since it caused quite a ruckus in my everyday schedules because you weren't there to rattle off the items of my daily agenda, although I'm glad you agreed to the stipulations and handed in the draft last night. In fact, it is what I'm correcting right now."

'Correcting' it seems. Lisa cursed him internally as her face heats up in embarrassment — it was unbelievable, how he tried to give her an iota of compliment as he appreciated her importance as his personal assistant and then downplay it with whatever flaw he could fabricate to get under her skin. And definitely, this wasn't the first time he'd done this.

Taehyung raised a brow as he finished reading the document, shaping his lips into a suspicious pout as he stretched his arm out and returned the draft back into her hands. The office paper clip seemed like it was fighting for its dear life to hold together the carelessly arranged loose sheets of paper that Taehyung fixated in a hurry.

Before Lisa could even glance at the document and ask for a feedback he repeated the same words like all the previous rendezvous, "needs work."

"I'm sorry?" She scoffed, bringing back her attention at him as he took a sip of his breakfast tea. Compared to the usual stereotypes Taehyung hated coffee for the bitter taste, which was a big joke since his heart was black and drowned in bitterness.

Looking moreso frustrated than he was, Lisa could feel her blood boil and a quick instinct to fire upon him the large intimidating pile of rejected drafts rotting away somewhere in the archive in the basement, but opted to maintain her temper instead, fortunately.

"You don't get it? I-It, It's just...bad. Like I don't even have words to describe what a garbage of an ending you just wrote."

"You call my ending a garbage?! It is the conclusion where all strands of the plot are drawn as one. The protagonist sacrifices herself towards the end, despite her knowing their love is star-crossed she was willing to do anything for him, come hell or high water."

Kim Taehyung thinks it is easy to deal with heartbreaks, its natural to lose someone but not act a tad bit selfish for the sake of emotions. He doesn't accept the poetic license, the emotional baggage that comes around with losing someone or simply how difficult it is to cement a catharsis of all the heart-wrenching sentiments felt by the characters.

Taehyung doesn't have the slightest idea of how vexed Lisa had been feeling over the past two weeks when she sobbed and cried over the keyboard all those nights and even went through a phase of writers' block to make through the deadline. Taehyung had already pestered her enough to submit her final draft by last night or else she wouldn't get a publishing deadline and would have to do away with the production copies being reduced by a third. Despite all these barriers and pulling out aggressive all nighters, she was immensely satisfied with the climax, it was a masterpiece in her eyes.

"But there's no practicality in the way you contrived it. It seems too impractical and overtly idealistic. Where's the aftermath, how should you be able to convince readers that sacrificing oneself for love is the only probable solution at times of looming danger? Remember you aren't writing a fanfiction bit here, but a goddamn novel that is about to be published and read by millions."

Lisa could feel the sense of equilibrium crack, and she walked forward to put his hands on his desk. "I'm sorry but that ain't my problem that you've been a cold-hearted devil incarnate with no vulnerability towards love or whatsoever since you've never been in love to understand that."

"Woah, woah," Taehyung let out a half-hearted smile, clearly provoked from the low blow of an insult from his assistant. "You're gonna throw me under the bus just because your ending doesn't delight me enough? So what am I now, a controlling asshole who has to babysit your teenage tantrums? You are a professional Lisa, you should be able to take in some criticism at some point of your life."

Lisa could feel the world around her spin for a moment, her skull throbbing like the batter head of a drum, its timbre about to rip apart with the constant hammering of Taehyung's annoying predicament. And if talking her down for her drafts wasn't gratifying enough, he just had to call her a fucking brat?

"If you seem to have so much problem with my plot, why even select it then? You could've easily rejected it like you've turned down thousands of candidates already?"

Taehyung could only gruff in annoyance as he pinched the bridge of his nose in anguish as Lisa awaited an answer. "It's because I see what it takes in you, you got potential."

Potential. Lisa hated that excuse of a word ever since she got signed for her first ever book deal after wagging behind Taehyung as his tail for three years. The word itself, along with its definition might be the most unpleasant to hear from any dictionary that existed in the world. When does someone use potential? To call out to someone who is a hollow, useless fellow who would perhaps never amount to anything in their lives the most, disgustingly polite way ever — as though the word itself was invented out of pity.

The smug look on his face as he deadpanned the words was obvious that he had much more things to comment on the ending, but only digressed the conflict by calling her talent a mere potential to shut her up. It was certain that he had a penchant for agonising her as this wicked, nagging shrew who behaved like a kid most of the time instead of listening to his patronising words of achievement that seem to add more to his superiority complex.

Taehyung pulled on his shirt cuff to reveal his wristwatch, examining the time before he turned to Lisa, who was looking through the file folders as she picked up after her belongings. "It's already past 10:30. You do remember we have to snag lunch with Ms Kwon Boa this noon for the interview, yeah? Report to my office within an hour after you've contacted with her publicist. And I hope this is the last time you're pulling off uninformed leaves."

"Sure." She lowly sneered back at the snarky comment, before muttering under her breath "you would always be a bloodsucking pain in the arse, Kim Taehyung," that the mullet-haired happened to catch, right in time.

"Well I'm glad that your first impression about me hasn't changed the least bit. I'd like you to maintain this, for I don't like you too." He replied just as hotly, in a tone that reminded Lisa of the many times she was tethered by this man. Three years have gone by, and the only thing that kept those strings together is the constant ache in getting her first novel published.

Unable to tolerate making a clown of herself to humour him anymore, Lisa scampered away in frustration as Taehyung's lips tack on a smirk, whilst he leaned his back against the chair, watching her silhouette leave before she was finally gone.

— ➷ —

Miles and miles away from the tangible world of the mortal beings starts a parallel realm of the angels and the holy spirits, the heavenly abode where everything operates in accordance to God's will.

Heaven is closely similar to what is described from all the holy testaments and religious books professed by saints and scholars, but is always in motion. Against the strong notion that the perception of time fades as one crosses the gates to the afterlife into the harp-playing, cloud lounging deistic court, heaven tends to be a very busy place.

A mellow dulcet of a woman's voice is heard, and on a closer approach, the vision of her resting by her window in the grand pavilion is spotted vivid and clear.

"Trouble in paradise?" Asks a young man as she sighs in response, overlooking the scenic view of the humans' grey world.

Jang Man Wol is the noble cupid or the goddess of love — running a rather curious establishment named 'Cupid del Luna'; an agency that caters to people looking for love. To say her work is tedious would probably be an understatement. "There isn't much good news to hear, is it?"

The man fumbles with words before he defeatedly nods in acceptance as her eyes land on him. There stood her assistant Goo Chan Sung, who announced the day's assignments one by one after he was prompted to speak. For this week, they had to rekindle about twenty-thousands heartbroken souls, match about four hundred thousand couples and adjust the population accordingly as per the report sent in by the house of death.

From the list, there was one unsorted couple that irked her to this day as she wondered what was the problem in setting them up as about twelve of her most trusted angels failed in the process. As Chan Sung finished reading out from his planner, he informed another defeat.

"Advocate Shin Ryu Jin reported that pair number 327 from Seoul could not make it today. This is the thirteenth defeat in the span of a year. She also suggested that there might be some miscalculation in estimating they were destined soulmates, so we might have to—"

"No." The woman cut him off midway through his sentence. With a stern voice, she continued. "I trust my instinct, my calculations are always accurate. Send for someone of a higher rank and get this over with." Contrary to her innocent-looking beautiful face, Man Wol was feared for being extremely moody, arrogant and aloof that nobody, literally nobody apart from Chan Sung could handle her bad temperament. And needless to say, even Chan Sung was drained, that he would do anything to avoid interaction if its not necessary — which was easier said than done because in the due course of being her manager, he had harboured some romantic feelings.

"So what do we do? Can't you use your powers or something?"

"You do know I can't, love ain't no game. I can't force two people into loving each other, but I can only provide a premise to do so. It's them who has to undertake the effort into understanding each other and develop trust, for they are soulmates....."

Goo Chan Sung sighs as Man Wol continues to preach the same pretentious speech that had the capacity to make his ears bleed. Surprisingly, he doesn't get to hear it. Instead, he is welcomed by a blood-curdling shriek and his fair lady cozies herself in his embrace.

"I've figured it! I'm such a genius, Chan Sung!" She enthused in an elated tone that seemed oddly pacifying.

"Mind to share with me, what you have planned to do?" The man whispered, letting go of the beauty in his arms as she plastered a grin on her lips.

"I know exactly what to do....and you would help me with that, Chan Sung." She eyed him, and in the blink of an eye he understood what was meant to be done.

"N-no...."

- to be continued -

— ➷ —

: a/n :

i can't believe i ghosted this book for nearly a year lmao— sorry to keep y'all waiting :((

also, any hotel del luna fans in the house? i just love iu so so much, that i had to include this in the plot lol. this wasn't originally what i planned but anyway here's me trying to experiment stuffs hehe ~

hit me up with any forms of feedback, tysm♡
—authornim.