The moment she stepped out of the lift, Hyejin immediately caught sight of the huge, metallic gold letters that spelt out the name of the salon, in front of which stood a receptionist dressed neatly in her black blouse and skirt. Looking past that, one could see a long row of elegant, black leather chairs, each of them facing an oval mirror with a gilded frame.
The receptionist smiled at Ares and bobbed her head politely, shooting a curious glance towards the girl beside him.
"Miss Lee is already inside waiting for you," the receptionist said.
Ares nodded in acknowledgement, leading Hyejin into the salon (though he was pretty much dragging her in because she was too awestruck to move on her own accord).
Hyejin had spent her entire life dreaming of a place like this, yet she had never expected it to actually exist. Even though several new hipster salons had popped up within her small, sleepy town, none of them were even half as lavish as the one she was in right now. As she followed Ares down the aisle, she ran her fingers along the chairs, basking in the revelation of what top quality leather felt like. Most of the chairs were empty, save for one or two that had customers sitting in them, casually flipping through magazines and sipping on cappuccinos while waiting for their perms to be done.
"They serve cappuccino to their customers?" Hyejin whispered to Ares. The aroma was unmistakeable.
Ares laughed and replied, "They serve more than just cappuccino. You can take a look at their drinks menu later. They serve just about anything from fruit juice to whiskey."
"Is this a salon or a restaurant?" Hyejin exclaimed when she saw someone bring out a tray of scones for the customers.
Smiling in amusement at her exaggerated reactions, Ares continued walking all the way down the aisle until they reached the glass windows where Gina was standing. Beside her were two men, both dressed from head to toe in the black that was characteristic of the Cutting Edge staff outfit.
"You've created quite the uproar, Ares," Gina said disapprovingly, tapping her long fingernail against the glass. "I thought I told you not to come in together with her? Why didn't you do as you were told?"
Ares shrugged. "What's the matter? It's not like those reporters weren't going to find out about this sooner or later. Isn't that why you proposed to bring Hyejin into the Cutting Edge anyway? They'll get bored and leave after a while. Sorry Ryu, I'm going to have to stay in here and hide for now so maybe you could give me some hair treatment while I'm here."
"You haven't got very much hair to treat, Ares," the man named Ryu turned around and said, a broad smile stretching across his thin lips.
This was Ryu Matsuo, CEO of the Cutting Edge, a man who ran the business like clockwork and never cut a bad deal. He was a chubby and stout fellow with a beer belly that threatened to make him topple over while he walked, his thick moustache possibly containing more strands of hair than there were on his head. It was almost ironic, for the owner of a hair salon to be balding the way that Ryu was.
"This must be Hyejin, my newest employee!" Ryu said, giving the Hyejin the once-over with his eyes. There was a glint in those eyes that Hyejin immediately disliked. He reminded her of a vulture circling his prey, and she felt unsafe in such a presence. "Gina, you owe me one for allowing this to pass. I don't want anything like this to happen ever again, is that clear?"
"Ryu, we all know that this is the best way out. The media are going gaga over Ares's new haircut, so what do you have to lose by claiming it for your own? You have far more to gain by doing this than if you had gone ahead with the lawsuit—that would only have given you all the negative publicity that you wouldn't need," Gina replied drily.
Ryu threw his head back and chortled. "That's why I like you, Gina. You know how to drive a mean deal. If it weren't for you, I would definitely not have agreed to this. My salon has no shortage of talented stylists. I don't need the extra baggage and you know that," he said, placing one hand around Gina's waist suggestively. "I only agreed because you asked."
Gina scowled, flinging his hand away unceremoniously. "Ryu, how many times do I need to tell you that I'm off limits."
"Hyunwon's not going to be happy about this when he returns," the other man who had been standing with Gina and Ryu finally opened his mouth. He had been standing silently with folded arms, peering down at the horde of reporters who were still camping down at the entrance.
Hyejin thought he was a fairly good-looking man, tall and slim with a stunning pair of ash grey eyes that sparkled under the sunlight, courtesy of his mixed parentage. When he spoke, his Korean was tinged with a touch of a French accent, which made him all the more interesting. Standing beside Ryu, the first image that popped into Hyejin's mind was that of Lumiere and Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast.
"Since when was Hyunwon ever happy about anything?" Ryu replied dismissively. "I haven't settled score with him for suddenly disappearing from work without warning. Have you managed to contact him? Where did the bastard go?"
Remington looked down and began fiddling with his bow tie. "Not sure, didn't say. He'll come back when he wants to."
"Is Hyunwon giving you trouble again?" Gina asked, arching her eyebrow curiously.
"Since when has he stopped giving me trouble? I swear that boy was put on this earth to be my nemesis," Ryu wailed dramatically, clutching at his heart. "He will give me a heart attack one day!"
"Don't exaggerate, we all know that without Hyunwon, this salon wouldn't be half as successful as it is now. You wouldn't let go of him even if the sky fell."
"Gina, you know me so well. Are you sure you don't want to take me up on that offer to go to Bali for a weekend getaway? Yuki would never have to know." Yuki happened to be Ryu's wife, a former supermodel who gave up on the catwalk after she decided to marry him. She was also ten years his junior.
Gina didn't even bother to reply. Instead, she turned to Hyejin and said, "I'm glad you came. I was beginning to think that you weren't going to show up. Given that your brother has taken half a year's worth of advance salary from us, I suppose the minimum period of your contract will need to be six months. Of course, if Ryu decides that it's not even worth keeping you here for one month and is willing to give up the money spent, then I have no objections to that."
Hyejin scowled, glaring at Gina defiantly. She was still enraged at how this woman had gone behind her back to strike such an insidious deal with her brother, all because they needed to protect Ares's public image. All these people here (Ares included, no matter how nice he was to her), had no qualms about disrupting someone else's life to make their own lives a little bit easier and that selfishness disgusted her.
"Remy, sort out the new girl. I don't even know what she can do here—wash and shampoo maybe?" Ryu shrugged, striding off towards his office without giving so much as a second glance to his new employee.
Sighing, Remington shook his head. He turned to Hyejin and said coldly, "Come on, I'll show you to the employees' locker room."
"Good luck," Ares mouthed the words as he waved to Hyejin.
Good luck? As Hyejin followed behind Remington, zig-zagging across the different aisles, the sheer number of strange contraptions and equipment that lay around boggled her mind. To her, cutting hair was simply about being able to wield a good pair of scissors. Over here, it was already obvious that hair was a great deal more than that.
I'll need all the luck I can get...
#
The first thing that hit Remington when he opened the door to the apartment was the overpowering stench of alcohol. Covering his nose with his silk handkerchief, he stood there for a couple of minutes to let his eyes accustom themselves to the darkness of the place. Once he could see where he was going, he walked right in and reached for the curtains, drawing them open.
"Ah shit, shut the curtains," a hoarse voice called out from somewhere within the apartment.
The afternoon sun streamed in through the windows, all at once transforming the room from night into day.
Turning around, Remington scanned the place for the source of the grumbling, his gaze finally landing upon the man who was seated on the floor in one corner of the living room, back slumped against the wall as he tried to shield his eyes from the sunlight. Judging from the stubble that was lining his chin, the fellow hadn't shaved (and possibly showered) in days. The room was littered with beer cans and vodka bottles, mostly empty.
"How long are you planning to stay like this?" Remington frowned, walking over towards Hyunwon. "Ryu has been looking all over for you. Even though we all know that he won't fire you just yet, surely you can't keep hiding in here and not going to work! Do you know what's happened ever since you stopped showing up?"
"Doesn't matter," Hyunwon mumbled, struggling to get to his feet. "Go away, Remy..."
He slowly dragged himself to the bathroom, eyes still stinging from the glare of the sun's rays. Looking at his own reflection in the mirror, he saw a pair of bloodshot eyes staring back at him, along with a face that he barely recognised. He didn't even know what day it was; time seemed to have stopped ever since the day Seorin left. There were fleeting moments when he would be sober (like now) and all that was said between them on that day would come flooding back into his mind and he felt as though his heart was breaking into a thousand pieces.
Today, he felt absolutely nothing.
I suppose this is what it feels like when your heart is dead, he thought to himself. That feeling of emptiness, and nothing more. He didn't even think it was possible for him to shed a single tear right now; he had used up all of that by the first day.
Turning on the tap, he splashed some water onto his face, trying to rid himself of the throbbing headache that he had.
"Get a grip." Remy followed him into the bathroom, continuing his lecture. "Do you think anything is going to change just because you're being like this? Kara isn't going to come back. If she gave a damn, she wouldn't have left for L.A. in the first place. Women like that aren't worth the pain, so just come to your senses already."
"I know," Hyunwon replied.
He had known from the moment he spoke to her over the phone. She said she would call him once she reached America, and he felt like a fool for even harbouring the slightest bit of hope that she would. It was not the first time that Seorin said she would call but she didn't. She always took it for granted that even if she didn't make the effort, that he would still be right here waiting for her when she returned. This time round, he was determined not to be.
"Sorry for worrying you," he said, picking up his razor and shaving foam. "How's things at the salon? How long have I been out?"
Remington stared at his friend incredulously. "How is it that you don't even know how long it's been?" he exclaimed. "Slightly over a week. Did you even eat all this while?" Hyunwon looked like he had lost a couple of kilos. Remington was more surprised that the fellow hadn't collapsed from stomach problems, after having drunk so much alcohol on an empty stomach.
"I did for the first couple of days, then I ran out of instant meals."
Shaking his head, Remington left the bathroom and grabbed an empty garbage bag from the kitchen to help Hyunwon tidy up his mess. From the living room, he continued shouting, "Remember when you refused to accept Ares Hwang's request because you were busy with your proposal? Well that's completely spiralled out of control now, and you being away from the salon hasn't done anything to help matters. Ryu took the opportunity to hire his own niece, she's called Yeseul. She seems like a nice girl, a little quiet, but she really has no talent whatsoever."
Hyunwon washed his face and put on a fresh set of clothes, tossing his beer-stained shirt into the laundry basket. Wiping his face dry with a towel, he came out of the bathroom and stood by the window watching the cars go by down below.
"I have no idea what Ryu was thinking by getting Yeseul to handle Ares Hwang's case for the awards ceremony, but it was a hot mess. I almost passed out when I saw his hair—it looked like a sheep was growing out his head!" Remington shuddered at the memory of Ares's previous hairstyle. "There wasn't time to get someone else to take over, so Ryu insisted that his hair was gorgeous and sent him out onto the red carpet with that. The media had a field day. It was so widely criticised that Ares Hwang almost died from embarrassment, so much so that he ran off on his own after the ceremony and got all his hair snipped off at some tiny barber shop in the middle of goodness knows where."
"Ares has a contract with us, he can't just get his hair cut anywhere." Hyunwon frowned.
"Medusa almost killed him for that, but immediately after she set out to help clean up the entire mess. You know how she is, I swear that woman is not human. Anyway, we were partly at fault this time, thanks to Ryu and his niece, so Ryu came to an agreement with her."
Remington fished out a copy of today's entertainment page in the newspapers and handed it over to Hyunwon. There was a full-page article on Ares's new hairstyle and the stylist who was responsible for it. Hyunwon quickly scanned through the piece, the frown across his forehead slowly deepening.
"Who's this girl?" he asked. The newspapers seemed to think extremely highly of the stylist, touting her the next big thing to create waves in the entertainment industry. What annoyed him was the closing line that the reporter had included, which compared the girl to him, and even claimed that she would one day take over his mantle as the most sought after hairstylist in the Korean entertainment industry.
"Song Hyejin. She was the one who cut Ares's hair for him at the small barber shop I was talking about. Anyway, this is only one report, there are tons more out there. Ares's haircut is taking the world by storm. Technically Ares breached his contract, but because of the mess created by Ryu's niece, it was equally possible for him to sue us for ruining his public image. In the end Ryu agreed to hire the barber girl temporarily so that we could formally announce to the reporters that Ares's new haircut was a product of the Cutting Edge. That way, everybody wins."
"Everybody wins?" Hyunwon scoffed. "Are you telling me that this Song Hyejin girl is now working at our salon?" He jabbed at the photo of the girl in the papers, whose face was half-obscured by Ares.
Remington nodded his head. "I showed her around the salon myself." Raising his hands in the air in surrender, he said, "I swear that I was strongly opposed to this. I told them that you wouldn't be happy about it when you returned, but they didn't listen. We could have just lied to the reporters and have Ares claim that he got his hair cut at the Cutting Edge without having to bring the girl in, but Medusa was afraid that the girl would spill the beans and create another PR nightmare. Also, Ares was still pissed off with Yeseul and the Cutting Edge, so he refused to say anything of that sort."
Hyunwon read the article one more time, before crumpling it up and throwing it straight into the rubbish bin. "I leave for a few days and all this shit happens?" he growled.
As creative director, he was extremely picky about the people that worked under his wing and it wasn't uncommon for him to interview twenty candidates and only accept one. In the span of a week, they had gone behind his back to bring in not just one but two newbies, both of which had not been approved by him? Not only that, all the media outlets were claiming that this one girl who came from a no-name barber shop was even better than he was? Using his phone, he did a quick scan of all the news articles that had popped out on the entertainment websites, and every single one said the same damn thing.
Remington could see the vein above Hyunwon's right temple twitching vehemently, and he knew that now was the time to just keep his mouth shut.
"If they think they can do whatever the hell they want just because I'm not around, then they're sorely mistaken."
The Cutting Edge was his territory, and no one messed with his territory behind his back.
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