off limits ✧ zb1 applyfic

✧ one hundred and four

Signing the contract was only the first step of Jiyeon's journey and, truth be told, it was the easiest part, despite her anxiety and fussing about it. What came next was much, much harder. The first problem was, she was on a deadline. A strict one at that, and Jiyeon had never written an entire manuscript in a limited time. Usually, she let inspiration strike her whenever it wanted, and did not set daily word counts to hit, because it never mattered then.

Well, that obviously wouldn't work for this. That was why she had enlisted the help of Jiwoong, in order to get herself a foolproof writing schedule. Somewhere along the way, he'd become her unpaid personal assistant, and Jiyeon couldn’t help but feel bad about being so demanding of his time. But again, he never seemed to mind. Whenever she expressed her hesitation, he would tell her that any time spent with her was well-spent, even if it entailed helping her craft a schedule.

Unlike her mother, Jiyeon did not have an office. She sat at the dining table of her house, her laptop opened in front of her, the empty time table staring right back at her. Jiwoong had opted not to take a seat, instead circling around the table like he was trying to get a workout in as well. He almost felt like a teacher roaming the classroom waiting for students to ask for his help, and the image made Jiyeon smile. Yujin was there, too, although he was sitting on the couch in the living room, a book shielding his face. Early in the morning, he'd loudly complained about his assigned reading, and when he'd suggested just skipping on it and reading a synopsis online, their mother had given him a firm scolding — it looked like it had worked.

The quiet atmosphere should have made it easier for Jiyeon to think, but her mind couldn’t help but wander. When her computer screen turned darker, threatening to fall asleep, she jolted upright and soundly slapped herself on the cheeks.

"Okay!" she exclaimed, as if to encourage herself. "If I want to have the first draft done in time, I'll have to write... Two thousand words a day."

Jiwoong stopped walking. "Is that a lot?"

"It's doable. Around two hours a day, depending on the kind of scene."

Unfortunately, it sometimes seemed like Jiyeon's brain was simply not wired to write. She was quite a slow typist, and often found her creative well completely depleted if she tried to write for extended periods of time without taking breaks. She was a much better daydreamer than she was a writer, at the very least.

"If I do it like that, I'll have a week for editing," she commented, as her fingers tapped against the trackpad of her laptop. "That doesn’t really feel like it's enough."

"Editing? Are they not going to edit for you? Isn't that their job?"

She turned to him, nodding. "Oh, yeah, they have their own editor. I just want to send them a more polished version than my messy first draft..."

The look Jiwoong gave her when she finished her sentence looked more like that of a nagging mother. Jiyeon chuckled nervously. She knew perfectly well that first drafts weren't meant to be good, let alone perfect, but the last thing she wanted was to make a bad impression on the publishers, and make them regret picking her. In just a week, she wouldn’t be able to make any substantial edits, but it might have been enough to at least catch the big, glaring mistakes she knew she would make.

"You're incorrigible, you know?" he teased, stepping behind her. "You don't need to be such a perfectionist."

"I know... But I'm stressed out! This is kind of the opportunity of a lifetime..."

A chuckle on his lips, Jiwoong placed both of his hands on her shoulders, pressing his fingertips into her skin. She felt herself relax under the gentle massage, but her schedule wasn’t nearly done, and every minute not spent writing felt like a gigantic waste of time.