My Webtoon Hero Is the CEO Next Door novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Clause One

In his office the CEO returns her rights, signs away every decision about her, and reads the callus on her finger with his thumb; he tells her to bring a pencil to the balcony.

The CEO's office was the glass corner room on the seventh floor, and it had one desk and nothing on the walls.

Yeo-reum sat in the visitor's chair with ink on her cheek and her pulse in her ears.

Ryu Jin-woo stood at the window with his back to her.

A tall woman with short hair and a tablet stood beside the door.

"This is my secretary, Na Hye-jin," he said, without turning.

Then Jin-woo turned from the window and looked at the visitor's chair.

"Not there," he said. "Here."

He pulled out the chair on the right side of his desk and pointed at it.

She moved, because it was easier than arguing.

Now he sat on her left, and he studied her face.

"You are Oh Yeo-reum," he said. "Reum Studio. Four crates of ink a month, in the hallway outside 401. Your name is on the label."

"That's how you knew."

"Yes."

"You've lived next to me for two years and you never said hello."

"I said good evening on the ninth of March," he said. "You were wearing headphones."

Yeo-reum opened her mouth, then closed it.

She vaguely remembered a tall shape on the landing and a very short noise.

She had assumed it was a cough.

"Fine," she said. "That was one hello."

"It was a good evening."

Something in the corner of his mouth moved, and was gone.

Hye-jin put a thin folder in front of him and he opened it.

"Gong Tae-sik had you sign a side letter in your first year," he said. "It says Dalbit holds the licence to Blue Hour for the life of the platform, and transfers with any sale."

"I signed it so I could pay rent."

"I know. I read it this morning. I did not know it was in the sale."

He took one sheet from the folder, held it up, and tore it in half.

Then he tore the halves in half and put the pieces on the desk between them.

"Blue Hour is yours," he said. "All of it. The characters, the pages, the next chapter and the one after. The platform keeps a normal publishing licence, which you can end with thirty days' notice."

"Why?"

"Because Gong sold you with the furniture, and I do not buy people."

"Now the second paper," he said.

He slid a single page across the desk.

It was typed, and signed at the bottom with a black pen in a left-handed slant.

"As of this morning I have no say in anything about you or your series. Pay, schedule, edits, renewal. All of it goes to Hye-jin and our lawyers. If I ever ask for a favor about your work, you may tell me no, and nothing happens to you."

"You signed that already."

"Before you walked in. I read page fourteen last night."

She looked up at him.

"You read my drafts last night."

"Gong sent them to my office at nine. I read them on my sofa until two in the morning."

"And you didn't know it was me."

"The pen name is Reum. I did not know Reum was the woman who throws her laundry over the balcony."

Heat rushed up her neck.

"That was one time."

"It was a red sock. It landed on my side."

She laughed before she could stop it, a short, helpless laugh, and the secretary by the door looked at the ceiling.

Jin-woo watched her laugh with a very still face.

"Ms. Oh," he said. "This part is not in any contract."

"Which part?"

"Whatever this is."

She said nothing.

He turned his right hand over on the desk, palm up.

"Show me your hand."

She held out her left hand, the one that held the pencil.

He took it in both of his, and she felt the warmth of them in her wrists.

He turned it over, and she watched him look at the shiny ridge on her middle finger where the pencil had worn it for fifteen years.

Then he ran his thumb slowly across it, from the knuckle to the tip.

The scar on his own thumb was a thin white line, and it passed over her skin.

Yeo-reum forgot, for several seconds, where she was.

"Dowon's hand is wrong," he said quietly.

"What?"

"On page twenty-two. He holds a cup with his fingers curled the wrong way. A left-handed man holds it like this."

He showed her, with her own hand folded under his, and her whole arm went hot.

"You say his name a lot," he said.

"Dowon?"

"At night. On the balcony."

She stared at him.

"I talk to my drawings," she said. "He's not a person."

"No," Jin-woo said. "I know that now."

Something eased in his shoulders.

He let go of her hand, slowly, and Hye-jin quietly cleared her throat.

"CEO Ryu, Director Gong is outside," the secretary said. "He asks for ten minutes."

Jin-woo did not turn his head.

Hye-jin reached over and touched his left elbow once, and he looked up at her.

"Tell him I am busy," he said.

When the secretary had gone, he stood and held the door for Yeo-reum himself.

In the doorway he stopped her.

"Ten tonight."

"What's at ten?"

"The balcony. Bring a pencil." His eyes dropped to her mouth for one second. "Your Dowon needs hands."

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