To Kiss An Idol

128 The Plagiarism

Jae-Geun kept staring at her without speaking a single word. Nivritti, who was smiling, stopped smiling and looked at him, confused. It seemed that he was looking at her, but his mind was elsewhere.

“Jae-Geun!” Nivritti snapped before his face as it was long since he kept staring at her face.

“Sorry!” her snap brought him back to earth. “Was thinking of a case,” he lied.

“Your work must be tough,” she smiled.

“Stop smiling, you will give me a heart attack,” he contemplated. “A little bit, but it is more rewarding,” he replied. “I should leave. Don’t forget your appointment.”

“Thank you and sorry again,” Nivritti bowed down to him.

“It’s okay,” he smiled.

He moved towards the door ready to leave when his eyes fell on the containers of food. He remembered those containers that Nivritti stored the food in. She even heated the food when he came to her house to get Jae-Hwa.

“Have you still not finished Uhmma’s food?” he halted in his path and asked.

.....

“Uh… ah… you guys brought so much food for me,” she complained.

“It’s been days. You cannot eat it now. Throw it away,” he scolded her. “Why are you eating the food after so many days? You should have dumped it days ago.”

“It is good to eat. It was in the fridge. It’s still eatable,” she protested.

“Nivritti! Are you the doctor?” he inquired.

“No.”

“Who is the doctor?”

“You are,” replied Nivritti, embarrassed.

“You must always eat fresh food. Don’t feel obligated to finish my mother’s food due to some false sense of loyalty. She is not going to come and check if you finished everything. I am sorry that she went overboard. You must not think about hurting her feelings, think about hurting your stomach,” he explained, sweetly.

“Okay! I will not eat that,” answered Nivritti, mortified.

“Um… sorry that I stopped you from eating those. Now you will have to cook,” said Jae-Geun.

“Don’t worry, I will order for tonight,” replied Nivritti.

“Okay, good. And from now on never eat food that is days old, got it?”

“Yes, Doctor,” teased Nivritti. Jae-Geun scoffed loudly and smiled at her.

“Eat well and sleep well. Will see you tomorrow,” greeted Jae-Geun and opened the door.

“Good night,” said Nivritti and waved him goodbye.

Jae-Geun closed the door behind him and ran one flight of stairs. After he was sure that Nivritti would not hear him or see him, he leaned with his back over the wall and grabbed his chest.

“Huh,” he exhaled loudly and sighed with relief. “She will kill me one day with her cuteness. Ohh, so cute!!” his mind flashed back to her cute dress. “I just wanted to pinch her cute, red cheeks. Her rosy red nose and her pink lips, ah… they make my heart stop. What would happen when I would kiss her lips? Woah! Shut up! What are you thinking about, Jaegeuna? Have you lost your mind? Since when did you want to kiss a girl? Concentrate on your work, stop thinking about absurd things.” He struck his head with force and walked all the way to his car, shaking his head in disbelief.

As soon as Jae-Geun left her apartment, she ran to the door and bolted it shut. She leaned on the door with her back and hid her face with her palms. “Ahh… why? Why?? Why??? Why do these things happen to me? Why can’t I act normal? Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” with every ‘stupid’ she kept banging her fist on her forehead.

“You had to wear this today!!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. She wanted to run into her bedroom and hide under her sheets but she had work to do. She pouted and while slouching walked to her couch. With a jerk, she flung her hoodie back in her head and brought it close to her eyes.

She felt if she would hide her face, she would hide her humiliation, her embarrassment. She was thinking like an ostrich, stupid girl.

Moving the hoodie, a bit to the side, she looked at her kitchen and stared at the containers of food. She had to throw them away. She then glanced at her phone and opened a food-ordering app. She searched for the food that she wanted to eat. She needed something comforting, something delicious. She looked for an Indian restaurant and ordered a butter chicken and butter naan.

She then picked up her laptop and waited for her food to arrive. Sifting through scripts, she too felt disappointed as the writings of people started to look alike. It seemed as if they read the type and genre of the stories first submitted and wrote along the same lines. It appeared as if she was reading fanfiction of fanfiction.

Slowly, the scripts started to appear as plagiarised. The situation would be the same, the sentence structure would be the same, even the opening lines would be the same. They would just change the name of ASD member as per their Bias. That angered her.

It was an insult to the real writer and also to the people who would read the scripts. What were they thinking before plagiarising? Did they think that they would not get caught and their scripts would get selected? She made another folder and shifted all the plagiarised scripts.

She took out a yellow sticky note and wrote “talk about plagiarised scripts with CH. Ask him to ban the writers from participating further.” She cursed herself for not thinking about this matter beforehand. She could have added a term about plagiarism in the rules.

Well, if not then, she would have to do something about it now. And that would be the first point she would talk to Chung-Ho, tomorrow. For now, she again started sifting through scripts and read them one by one.

After a while, her phone rang. She was sure that it would the delivery person. She looked at her phone, it was Jae-Hwa.