"Since your debut, you've been widely touted as one of the most fashionable and stylish stars that has ever walked the red carpet. What's your secret?"
"This might sound funny to everyone, but I would never have imagined that the one thing that would change my entire life would be... a single hairstyle."
"It's an open secret that your personal hairstylist is one of Korea's best! We've heard of many top stars who have tried to secure his services but have been turned down. As far as we are aware, Hyunwon only accepts ad-hoc cases and has never signed a long-term contract with anyone except you. How did you manage to get him on board?"
"I think I'll have to keep that my little secret. If everyone knew how I did it, then Hyunwon would be far too busy with other clients to have time for me, don't you think?"
"Acting coy as usual," Hyejin scoffed. In the background, the saccharine sweet voice of one of the country's up and rising starlets, Kara Jung, continued broadcasting through the radio airwaves. Everyone wanted to know the secret behind her meteoric rise to fame, and her answer had always been the same—it was all in the hair.
"Don't insult Kara!" the young man seated in front of her snapped, his thick brows furrowed in displeasure.
Hyejin waved her razor about in the air and warned, "Oh so you're on first name terms with her now? You're scolding me, the person who has been cutting your hair for the past ten years, all because I made one remark about your darling Kara?"
The young man gulped. "You're exaggerating. I only moved into this neighbourhood six years ago," he mumbled under his breath, though he kept his mouth obediently zipped after that. He knew better than to piss off the person who would define his self-image for the next month or so.
Once she was satisfied that he wasn't about to say anything further, she lowered her hand and continued trimming his hair. For the next couple of minutes, the only sounds in the room were the low hum from the razor and the voices emitting from the radio. Thankfully the interview ended when it did, else Hyejin would have resorted to switching the channel. The quality of radio programmes seemed to be diminishing rapidly these days, with airtime being filled with the incessant dull chatter of the DJs and their guests instead of playing good music like they used to. Even the music these days were trailer trash, belting out repetitive hooks about sex, drugs and more sex.
Minutes later, she switched off the razor and set it down on her trolley. "Alright all done, you know how much it is," she said, removing the black polyester cape from off his shoulders with a flourish.
The man tilted his head left and right, admiring his own reflection in the mirror. When he was satisfied, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of bills, slapping them down onto Hyejin's outstretched hand. "I hate to say this, but you're the best there is in this neighbourhood," he declared grudgingly. "Catch you later."
The rusty brass doorbell jingled as he opened the door and left the barber shop.
Whistling a tune from the boyband era of the 1990s, Hyejin picked up the broom and began sweeping the floor clean of all the strands of hair that lay in clumps around the barber's chair. A quick check of the clock told her that it was almost lunch time, which meant...
"How is my precious honeybumpkin today? I've brought your favourite pickled radish cubes and kimbap!" An elderly man with a huge pot belly came waddling into the shop, waving a lunchbox excitedly in the air. "Business slow today?"
"How many times do I need to tell you not to come down to the shop! The doctor says you need plenty of rest and you shouldn't be putting pressure on those knees of yours," Hyejin sighed. Even though she wished she would be wrong, she knew that the doorbell would jingle at precisely noon every day without fail.
"Who's the parent and who's the child here?" Her father smiled widely, gesturing for her to come over. Opening the lunchbox, he carefully laid out the different plates of food that he had brought along. Uncapping a thermos flask, he poured out the steaming hot seaweed soup into an empty bowl. "Eat up, it's hard work being a barber. You need all the energy you can get."
While she sat herself down on a chair and picked up her chopsticks to begin eating, her father busied himself with arranging the furniture in the shop in exactly the same way he had done for the past thirty years.
The Gongja barber shop had been a fixture in the town ever since her grandfather first moved here with her grandmother all the way back in the forties when World War Two was still raging on elsewhere. The shop was named after her grandmother, a token of her grandfather's love for her. Back then, Gongja was the only barber shop in town and enjoyed booming business for tens of years, even up till the time her father took over the shop. In the past couple of years, several modern salons had popped up around town and business had slowly dwindled, but Gongja still enjoyed a slow but steady stream of customers, most of whom were army boys who needed somewhere to get a cheap haircut on a regular basis.
"I saw Jimin leave the shop just now. That kid is growing up to be a strapping young lad!" her father said.
Hyejin snorted. "Strapping young lad? He's still tied on to his mother's apron strings." Jimin, the man that had just left the shop with his new crop of hair, had just turned twenty-one the week before and was enlisting into the military in a couple of days. He was also the only son of their next-door-neighbour, Mrs Kang, a matronly woman who never spared any effort in fussing over her precious boy. Hyejin seriously wondered how both Mrs Kang and Jimin were going to survive when the latter enlisted into the army—it would no doubt be a good topic for dinner conversations.
"Before your brother enlisted into the army, he was a mama's boy too. Going through the army makes boys grow up and become real men. I'm sure Jimin will learn."
At the mention of her older brother, Hyejin rolled her eyes. "If both of you hadn't spoilt Hyukjin rotten, he wouldn't be the way he is now," she muttered.
Her older brother Hyukjin had been the only child for close to ten years before she arrived. As the first child and only son, her parents gave him absolutely everything he wanted, never needing him to do so much as lift his little finger about the house. Things changed slightly after she was born, but the damage had already been done.
"Hyukjin called earlier this morning," her father said cheerily. "He says his ship will be coming back to port in a week's time, isn't that great news? We can finally have a family reunion."
"Is that so?" she replied nonchalantly. "Has he earned enough to pay off his debt to me yet?"
"What's all this talk about debt? We're all one family. Don't be so petty and calculative. How many times do I need to tell you that family should look out for one another?"
Stuffing the last two pieces of kimbap into her mouth, Hyejin washed it all down with the remnants of seaweed soup and stood up. "We're running low on shampoo and conditioner," she said. "I'm going to make a trip down to Mr Baek's store to buy some more. Be back in twenty minutes."
Hyejin pushed open the door of the shop and walked hurriedly down the pavement. "Family should look out for one another... Who looks out for me then?" Her fingers brushed against her eyes, wiping away the tears that had begun to glisten in them.
If there was one thing she hated most it would be talking about her brother, because no matter what her brother did, he could never do any wrong in her parents' eyes. Whenever he made a mistake (and there was no shortage of those), they would find a way to justify his actions until the mistake was reduced to nothing. When he was caught cheating in his exam, it was because the teacher had set a paper that was unreasonably hard; when he snuck out of his army camp to play jackpot in the newly opened bar in town, it was because his army officers were too tough on him and he needed a way to destress; when he stole all eight of her piggy banks and used her college money to repay the loansharks after a failed gambling run, it was because he was led astray by bad friends.
It was always somebody else's fault—never his.
It didn't matter that she didn't get to go to college in the end because the family had spent all their savings helping Hyukjin pay off his debts in exchange for keeping his limbs intact. All she got in return was "don't be so petty and calculative" and a dead-end job cutting hair for army boys just because Hyukjin didn't want to stay in the family business.
After his last run-in with the loansharks, Hyukjin had packed his bags and announced that he was turning over a new leaf and taking up a job on board a cargo ship. The last they saw of him was a year ago, and it had been the most peaceful year of Hyejin's entire life.
Now, her greatest nemesis was returning home and there was no way she was going to smile and welcome him with open arms.
#
"If you're going to get your hair bleached by some third-grade hairdresser one more time, then don't ever come back here, is that clear?"
"I didn't want to, but you refused to do it for me! You know how it is now, everyone has crayon-coloured hair, I can't be the only one who's still stuck with boring black or brown..."
"Your scalp condition isn't suitable for bleaching, I've already told you that before. If you want to be bald before you hit thirty, then be my guest."
Tossing his scissors back onto the trolley, Hyunwon dusted his hands clean and gestured for his assistant to come clean up the remaining mess. His job here was done for today. Whatever happened to this pathetic kid's hair was no longer any of his business. It was ridiculous how everyone just wanted to jump on the bandwagon and keep up with the trends—it was herd mentality, and Kang Hyunwon didn't make his mark as a hairstylist by following the crowd.
Behind him, his client was busy studying his own reflection in the mirror, slightly worried by what he had just been told. His head of bubblegum pink hair was now cropped a couple of centimetres shorter than it had been, with steep slopes on both sides that helped to accentuate the angles of his face. He looked great, but right now he was more worried about the prospect of going bald.
"Will I really go bald? I don't want to be bald!" the eighteen-year-old wailed.
Hyunwon ignored him and strolled out of the room, heading back towards his office. Along the way, he needed to cut through the main salon area, where there were neat rows of mirrors and chairs lined up against a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Looking out of the windows, one could peer seventy floors down to the street below. This was the Cutting Edge, Seoul's premier salon for the rich and the famous, and it only made sense for a place that created gods and goddesses to be situated above the clouds.
Pushing open the black door with its silver sign that had the words "Creative Director" carved into it, Hyunwon walked in to find that the salon's half-French and half-Korean manager, Remington du Pont, was already seated inside waiting for him to return.
"How's Jisook today?" the manager asked, referring to Mr Bubblegum-pink-head.
"Foolish, as usual," Hyunwon replied drily, sitting himself down in his swivel chair. "Assign him to someone else from now on, I'm not going to do his hair for him anymore. If he thinks he knows hair better than I do, then I don't see why I need to be wasting my time. I told him he would be bald by thirty, but I was just being kind. I'd put it at around twenty-six if he keeps being an idiot."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Remington's ash grey eyes glinting knowingly. "No matter, I can re-assign him. I actually came here because I needed to check if you're available to take an appointment this Saturday evening. It's Ares Hwang, his manager called earlier. He's attending an awards ceremony that evening."
Hyunwon reached for his calendar, eyes zooming in on the date that Remington had just brought up. This Saturday would be the 12th of June, and there was a huge red star drawn on his calendar to mark out that particular date.
"Sorry, not free," he replied. "Turn him down."
"This is Ares," Remington repeated himself. "We're not talking about some B-grade teenybopper here. He is one of the most popular singer-actors that this country has seen in decades. I can't just 'turn him down'."
"Doesn't change anything," Hyunwon replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'm not free, it's as simple as that. Just turn him down."
"Can't you just change your schedule, just for that day? Pretty please?" Remington pressed his palms together and pleaded. He did not want to witness the wrath of Ares' manager, a waif of a woman who had a temper like Medusa. In fact, her nickname in the industry was Medusa.
Hyunwon shook his head, leaning over to pat Remington on the shoulder. "Remy, I'm really sorry, I would love to help you but I really can't. There's something important I need to do this Saturday."
"What's more important than the life of your friend?"
Reaching into his drawer, Hyunwon pulled out a small, blue velvet box, opening it in front of Remington. "This is what's more important than the hair of some celebrity," he declared proudly, a tiny smile toying across his lips. Within the box lay a huge solitaire, flanked by a band of smaller diamonds. Under the light, the ring sparkled and glistened like a million dollars.
Remington sucked in his breath and held it there. "So it's really happening," he said after he had a couple of seconds to come to terms with what he was being told. "Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, she is who she is, and you know how the media views such things."
"I've known Seorin since we were ten, I think our relationship with each other is more important than how the rest of the world views us. The rest of the world won't remember us when we're sixty, but we'll still be walking hand in hand with each other then."
"You romantic son of a bitch," Remington sighed. "How is it that you can be such a bastard to everyone else, but to her you're suddenly this completely different person? Are you secretly schizophrenic?"
"Remy, if I were a bastard to you, would you still be sitting here?" Hyunwon raised his eyebrow.
"I'm sitting here because I'm being paid very good money to be here. Unfortunately that may not be enough to save my ass when I get screwed over by Medusa because you decided it was a good idea to turn down Ares' request." Standing up, Remington conscientiously adjusted his silk pocket square before stuffing his hands into the pockets of his pinstriped trousers. "Wish me luck."
Just before he waltzed out of the door, he added, "And good luck to you too."
#