Start Again

Chapter Eight

Joon Soo

The keys made a tapping noise with every letter I pressed, forming words on my blank document. I had been sitting in my room for the last twenty minutes waiting for some words to come to my mind. Every time I tried to focus, a sudden thought causing me to check my phone would pull me from them, causing me to lose my place. Finally, I had the first sentence to my article.

It was Monday. I had already been at SNU today and spoke to the team about how their pieces were coming along. I had also spent a large part of my day editing articles the section editors had sent through. They were doing well, but they still needed work as editors.

The sun was starting to disappear from the sky, causing my room to grow dim. I didn't want to get up to turn off the light. I wanted to finish my lead line. I was writing the article about yesterday's tour.

Suddenly, my phone screen lit up, brightening the room more than it would if I had turned the light on. The brightness caused me to abandon my sentence and eagerly pick up my phone.

A sigh escaped my mouth once I saw what it was. I had another email from a student about style guides. Opening a web browser, I accessed my email and sent through a copy of the style guide. I handed every student a copy of the style guides in the first week, and somehow nearly every one of them managed to misplace it. Some of them even misplaced the emailed file.

Closing the web browser, I reopened my document and read over my sentence, trying to find my place. As I read the words, I grimaced, backspacing every letter slowly in the hopes that the gradual deletion of letters would trigger a new lead. But it didn't.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at my blank page. I tried cocking my head to the right. I tried the left. I tried standing up. I tried pacing. I tried leaning in. Nothing was coming. Articles were never hard for me to write. I knew that there was something else occupying my attention. If only she'd send me a damn text already then I wouldn't have to worry. Did she break her phone? Did I do something wrong to make her not want to text me? Were westerners always so slow at texting someone? And then worse thoughts came into my mind. Did she change her mind and go home? Had she lied about enjoying the day? What if she had an accident? Or worse... what if she had gotten so upset she ended up like Min Ho...

A white car, bent around a tree flashed into my mind. I approached the driver's side, but instead of seeing Min Ho laying on the steering wheel, I saw locks of red hair strewn about, and some matted together by thick amounts of blood...

I shook my head. Stop thinking these thoughts, I told myself. Concentrate. Write this article and concentrate.

But what if she isn't okay? How would I find out? my mind argued back.

I picked up my phone and awoke the screen, checking for any messages or missed calls in the hopes that in all my thoughts I had missed the notification. But there weren't any.

Why didn't you get her number, you idiot? I asked myself. Then you wouldn't have this problem.

Setting my phone down, I sat up properly in my chair and looked at the screen. No time for thinking these things. I have to concentrate.

*

The design team were talking to me about layout and theme plans in relation to some of the article topics I had told them about. However, the longer the conversation went, the more eager I became for it to stop. As I sat at my desk, listening to the students discuss themes, my eyes kept darting down at my screen. I still hadn't received a message from her.