“Yes? Car?”
Jonggu’s voice was slightly broken.
Jaegun sat in front of the computer and searched up cars.
“With the money you are giving up front, I want to buy a car that’s below 30 thousand dollars. I never bought a car before so I wanted your help.”
“Haha, that’s what you meant. Haha”
“Is that not possible?”
“No. Of course it is. What car do you want, writer?”
“Hm, I don’t know about the car brand. Just something compact car. A fuel efficient car and something that doesn’t cost too much to maintain.”
Jaegun said while looking through the pictures of cars.
He thought of maybe getting a small car but he chose the compact car because of giving family and friends a ride.
He didn’t need a car that was uselessly big and expensive. It just needed to have the minimum capacities of a car.
“A compact, I think a Hyundai is pretty good. There’s a 14 thousand to 24 thousand car in the new models. What do you think?”
“Pick one and give me one. You can make the options as you wish.”
“Yes, writer. Hm Hyundai…”
Jonggu muttered as he was memoing.
“I’ll do the options, what about the color?”
“I’ll do black.”
“Black… I get it.”
“It’s not important so I can wait. I’ll write really well if you help me with this car.”
“Hahaha, yes, writer. I get it. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
Jaegun sighed with relief after the call and looked at Rika.
Rika wasn’t moving from the top of the cat tower. She wanted to be away from Jaegun’s touch.
“I got a car. Now let’s go out sometime. Go to a park and meet my friends and stuff.”
There was no meow that came usually.
He opened the drawer on the desk. It had Se Gunwoo’s mug in it. After he knew it was an important item, he was hiding it in his desk than the sink.
“Phew, this is magic.”
After a cup of coffee with that mug, all the stress went magically away.
Jaegun waved to Rika and left home happily.
“Hold him?”
StarBooks representative office.
Tewon was dumbfounded.
Representative Park Jeguk was nodding on the other side.
“Yeah, hold him. Make him an exclusive writer. With today’s sequel talks, just get him to sign.”
Tewon couldn’t answer and lowered his glance. His glasses were slipping and were hanging dangerously on his nose.
He came into report his sequel talk schedule.
But Jeguk was now just ordering him to get an exclusive contract with him.
“I don’t like holding either mostly. It’s hard to control writers sometimes. But we need Ha Jaegun. One of Jaegun’s projects is doing the work of 3 other projects, no 5 other projects. We need the money so that the company can grow?”
Tewon couldn’t respond to that.
First, he couldn’t feel that Jaegun would take that contract
It was a problem even if Jaegun took the contract because of his friendship with Tewon.
If he became a StarBooks exclusive writer, then he couldn’t contract with other companies. It wasn’t a project contract but a writer contract.
Tewon knew Jaegun was a truly writing loving writer.
He wasn’t a writer that would be only fulfilled in the genre novel section. With his award in the Digital Literary Contest, his power with emotions were already confirmed.
He was a writer with potential that could grow.
It was a hard thing to do for Tewon to ask Jaegun to be an exclusive writer. It was a person to person problem more than a company profit problem.
It wasn’t one day that he knew Jaegun; it was a long time. He didn’t want to interfere with Jaegun’s writing life.
“Why do you have no answer?”
Jeguk asked.
Tewon came out of his thoughts and looked at Jeguk.
“I have some thoughts.”
“What thoughts?”
“Writer Ha is not going to take that contract.”
Jeguk clucked his tongue.
“Isn’t it your job to take a contract anyway that you can? Your style of work has been weird lately. Why have you changed so much?”
Isn’t it representative that changed instead of me, almost came out of his mouth but he pushed it down.
It was getting clearer. Now, the aging representative’s brain had the thought of writer=money. A few years before, it wasn’t like this.
“Say it right, ah?”
Jeguk patted Tewon’s shoulder and said softly.
“If I don’t have you, who can I trust to run this big company? I’ve worked with you for how many years? It’s almost 10 years, 10 years. Go clean this up and have a vacation with your family for about a week. I’ll give you the vacation money.”
Jeguk’s offer didn’t cling with Tewon at all.
Well there was nothing else to do in this spot other than nodding his head.
“I’ll try.”
“Yes, just call no matter what time.”
Tewon went back to his office after he left.
He could see Somii’s back. She was focused on her work, typing hard in her computer.
A bitter smile came over Tewon.
In Tewon’s eyes, Somii was really enjoying her work as a editor. It felt like she was overlapping his past self when he came in.
‘It’s been a long time.’
Tewon muttered to himself and stopped his steps.
If there is a high, there is a low, looking at Somii, he could feel the path that he had to go.
“Somii.”
“Ah, yes, editor.
Somii was startled and looked up from her screen. Tewon asked as he looked on her screen.
“Do you have a lot of work today?”
“No, I finished everything done today. This is something that I wanted to finish early.”
“Then, get ready to leave. Let’s go out together.”
“Ah go out? Ah, with Writer Ha?”
Tewon smiled instead of answering.
Somii immediately saved and turned off her keyboard. She was smiling as she was taking her stuff.
‘I haven’t seen him since the writer’s meeting?’
She couldn’t help but get excited at meeting Jaegun. He was a person that just gave strength, with a comfortable smile and polite speech. His ferocious eyes when he was working came up.
“I’m ready, editor.”
“Yes, then let’s go.”
The two people went down to the parking lot.
Somii asked as he was getting in.
“Is it Guro today as well?’
“Yes, Writer Ha likes that place and it’s comfortable.”
The car went out of the parking lot.
Tewon had no words while he was driving for a while.
Somii was looking outside, not asking first.
As the car stopped at a light, Tewon said first, lowering the volume of the radio.
“I’ll say it before we get there.”
“Yes, editor. Say it.”
“The representative wants to get an exclusive contract with Writer Ha.”
“An exclusive contract?”
Somii widened her eyes.
“If then, Writer Ha can’t write anything else?”
“Yeah, he doesn’t want to miss any of Writer’s Ha’s writing.”
Somii could see his bitter smile. She couldn’t think of anything that a new editor could say.
“I’m going to resign soon.”
“Re…sign? The company?”
That was completely surprising.
With Somii who was flabbergasted, Tewon said stolidly.
“I was there a long time. With the atmosphere and that, it’s time to find a different path. It’s better than getting pushed out.”
“But editor…! I know this may be rude to say this, but you’re really good at working. You have the representative’s trust…”
“It’s because I can’t respond to that trust of his.”
Tewon cute Somii’s words. As the light turned green, he pressed the acceleration and continued.
“Just you know it. I thought I should tell it to you so I said it.”
“Yes…”
Somii said weakly with his head down.
Tewon raised the radio volume again. A K-pop song whose lyrics couldn’t be understood was turning up loudly.
“It’s a series, so I would like the contract to be like before. With 10%, from 3000 books up 1 %, and the 6 for the electronic books.”
“Thank you, Writer Ha, here take a drink.”
Jaegun got Tewon’s offering.
There was a lot of sashimi and seafood on the table.
“Here, a toast.”
“Toast.”
Teon and Somii, and Jaegun put their cups together.
After he drank, Jaegun picked up a piece of sashimi happily
“It’s been awhile since I ate one of these. It looks good.”
“Go eat a lot. You like sashimi.”
“Ah, there’s only the editor for me. Somii, you have some too.”
“Ah, yes, Writer.”
Starled, Somii who was blankly staring picked up her chopsticks
Jaegun thought to himself.
‘What happened.’
Jaegun’s observation skills as a writer came up to him right now.
There was a heavy air between Tewon and Somii. It was different from their previous meetings. Jaegun felt before.
But Jaegun didn’t ask at first.
If it was important, Tewon would have said it before.
He was an amazing editor that did everything for his writer. So Jaegun felt it, but he wasn’t nervous.
“I guess I can’t expect anything too good? Because it has the previous two characters.”
With Jaegun’s word, Tewon said carefully.
“I think so. It won’t be too bad, but I don’t think it would be too amazing either.”
Tewon wasn’t a person who said something that was false. Jaegun liked Tewon for that reason.
Jaegun let out a question as he was pouring a drink to Tewon.
“I was thinking of a title but nothing is coming out. Maybe I should it name it the Realm Rankings because they fight in the other realms? Or maybe the Double Rankings? It feel weird with Rankings and double. It’s all weird? Do you have anything that you have in mind?”
“…Writer Ha.”
“Yes?”
Jaegun stopped and looked at Tewon. Tewon had a different look than before.
“Yes editor.”
Tewon was conflicted.
He was still a StarBooks editor. He needed to do everything he needed to do and think of the other things. Thinking that to himself Tewon asked
“Would you sign a contract to be an exclusive writer for StarBooks?”.