"Welcome to our sh-" The employee abruptly stopped when she found out who she was talking to. THE Eirene Queen, the queen of villains in the fresh. She thought her heart also stopped the moment she stopped talking.
How dare she talk to LE queen so recklessly and without permission?! She was definitely going to get fired. She needed to know that in front of Eirene Queen, everyone was just a group of lower creatures.
The manager came out to check the situation from behind the shop when he heard the doorbell ring, meaning that a customer came in, but no talking was made.
Before he opened the door leading to the customer floor, he already felt a chill on his back and when he did open it and became part of it, he froze just like everyone else.
He had heard about a party tonight at one of the Queen's hotels, and many celebrities were rushing to buy clothes. Today only, he met five celebrities.
Why didn't he think of the possibility of the actress coming? In his defence, Eirene Queen was the least expected person to go to parties out of all the celebrities. And so, it couldn't be his fault that his mind and body lost connection with his brain when he saw her standing, all beauty.
Under the cold glare of the queen, room temperature dropped as if there was winter in the shop.
The only one who wasn't affected by the glare removed the tension, and that person was obviously Jaxon. "Hello. I made a reservation earlier, Jaxon Easmon."
The manager shivered lightly before eyeing the employee to go through the reservation notes. Indeed, the man's name was written.
After seeing his employee nod, the manager brought out an awkward smile, still under the glare. "I apologise for not noticing earlier. We have your order." He then shakingly turned to the source of his fear and asked with the greatest smile he could offer. "Would like to try it out now?"
"Yes."
The voice sounded deep as an ocean and scarier than the dark.
The manager let out a nervous dry laugh before he ushered the two in front of the fitting rooms. "We'll bring it shortly." With that, he ran away from the spot along with other workers, leaving the actress and her manager alone. 'F*cking hell, that was scary!!'
Knowing that the staff ran away to the back room, Eirene voiced out, "Do I really look that intimidating?"
Jaxon crossed his long legs in a suit pant, "Hmm, yes."
The actress turned to him with a frown.
"What did you want me to say? A lie? To tell you the truth, when I first met you, I thought you were going to suck out my soul." She frowned deeper, making her more horrifying than a demon.
She then faced blankly at the brown door in front of her. "What did you expect? You were a clown-looking stranger. What was in me to offer you my smile. You know it's not cheap."
Jaxon chuckled. "I do know that your smile is not cheap, neither your presense."
The queen raised the corner of her lips slightly, feeling appeased. Little did she know, she looked exactly like the roles she played in the past, the main character's enemy, the villain.
"Why didn't you tell me that you were getting me a dress if you had made the reservation earlier?" The woman asked after a while of quietness.
The man looked at her side profile accusingly, "Really?"
Eirene turned up the smirk more and let out a chuckle from the opening between her lips, with her white teeth shining in the light.
"You would have gone straight back to the hotel if I told you earlier and you ask me that? Are you kidding me?"
The actress always went straight to her comfort zone as soon as her day's work was done, sometimes not informing him.
Firstly, because there was no reason for her to stay. Secondly, she liked to be alone. And lastly, she hated people trying to use her name to gain popularity. Like convincing her to go to parties as their companion, trying to dig information out of her or, using her to get connections to other famous people.
Of course, all who approached for those intentions were unsuccessful.
After a while of casual chatting, all the staff reappeared in front of the two and presented the spotless, navy blue long cowl neck dress neatly arranged in a white box.
The manager removed the dress from the bow and let it slide in the air. The surface of the dress was like water, giggling as the manager's hand shook.
Eirene stood up from the waiting sofa and tenderly caressed the dress before the man handed her the dress in her arms and let her change.
Apart from Jaxon and Eirene, it felt like no one was breathing. They were simply scared of the queen's rage.
Before today, many of them doubted the actress's domineering presence and used to laugh at people on the internet freezing just like infected computers. But now that they were in the same situation that those people were in, they realised that they weren't joking or overreacting. What they thought was funny was no longer funny but a life-shortening experience.
So they waited silently.
Jaxon whistled a song, but none of them seemed to have heard. He was terrible at whistling and was normally given annoyed faces or closed ears, but today was different. Everyone was tensed as if they pointed that out they were going straight to the world of the afterlife.
When the only closed door of the fitting room began to open, every single one stopped breathing and waited for Eirene to come out.
The people who worked in the shop, especially the manager, were very anxious and scared of how the dress was going to turn out. The dress itself was of very fine quality along with the material, but it wasn't meant for parties where everyone dressed up as much as they could. It was too simple and nothing flashy to catch attention.
They were afraid of advising the actress to not wear the dress, but their opinion was shoved down in their throat when they were exhibited with an ethereal art.
Eirene didn't have a change in expression, but surely the change in clothes made her look like a real queen.
The way her long, jet-black hair cascaded down her back until her hourglass hips were already eye-catching enough, but the way the boring dress was no longer boring when worn by her was something they didn't expect to witness.
The dress was, of course, meant for her as they were given measurements, but it was beyond that. None had ever seen a person killing it without any additional accessories or bright colours. And even though much of her skin was covered, she looked alluring and sexy. They felt as if they were under a spell by the queen.
They thought that whoever invented this dress was certainly thinking of someone like Eirene Queen.
Now that they knew how a person could fit so much, they didn't know if they could see any other person wearing the same dress without comparing them to the actress.
As everyone was engulfed by her appearance, the woman's mystic voice sounded in the shop, "Do you have a matching cape or a cloak?"
The manager had to blink a couple of times to register what the unearthly beauty was saying. "...Yes... Yes!" He then rushed back to the back With his fear replaced with excitement and brought several capes and cloaks.
Along with the staff, they tried it on the actress, but when none of them looked right, the manager nodded.
Jaxon watched them with a frown and asked, "So are you going to pick one from here?"
The manager turned to him with a high-spirited face and replied, "No. We are making the perfect cape right now." With that, they speedily did the measurements, cut the rolled fabric, sewed the edges and added some decorations at the connection point all in fifteen minutes.
They then attached the newly made navy blue cape on the shoulders of the actress carefully and stepped back to admire the view.
"You look like a runaway bride from a blue wedding." Jaxon suppressed his laughter, seeing the end result.
One of the staff, the one that placed the cape on the actress's shoulder, tilted her head to the side, "No, she's much more like a Greek goddess... Perhaps Persephone?" The others nodded their heads in agreement.
Jaxon raised a brow with a smirk, knowing how the story of the goddess Persephone went.
Eirene turned back to the mirror in the room and chuckled at the irony in the mirror.
The Greek goddess, Persephone, was the innocent daughter of harvest goddess Demeter, who was one day kidnapped by the god of the underworld, Hades, who had fallen in love with her. The two later got married, and she became the queen of the underworld.
Eirene was no goddess as they depicted her. She wasn't a Persephone but a Hades, the bad guy who trapped the innocent girl in his hands so that she could never go back to the light and stay with him in the dark for his own satisfaction. If she continued to go after the boy, she knew she'd be a Hades one day.
The manager of the shop scratched his chin while squinting his eyes, "We need a little more gold somewhere..." He then inspected every possible location on the dress and finally settled his eyes on the actress's head. "There."
"There what?" The actress asked from the mirror, but the manager was already busy searching for what he had in mind.
Several seconds later, he came back with a wooden box from behind the shop and kindly asked the woman to lower her head down so that he could place it.
When the actress straightened her back from bending down, the golden leaf crown sat flawlessly on top of the head.
One employee's eyes met through the reflection, and she saw the queen's little smile. She quickly covered her mouth and said, "I think I'm gay," Receiving nods from her colleagues and a confused gaze from Jaxon.
----
"You can do it."
The woman took a deep breath with closed pair of eyes and opened them, filled with determination. "I can do it."
On the outside side of the tinted window, the cameras were already flashing before they even knew who the celebrity was.
"Ready? Let's go." The man got out of the car first in a tuxedo. He could feel the excitement of the paparazzos' die within a second. But when he helped another person get out, the surroundings became brighter than the day.
For the first time, Eirene Queen showed up for a party to which she was invited.