The car stopped in front of the YL Hotel but Se Ah was reluctant to come out, the memories of coming there with Lim Sang Hyuk were still fresh and made her feel both uneasy and somewhat ashamed. Was it all to it, though? She looked in a side mirror and frowned at the sight of her disheveled state - her make-up was ruined, her eyes were still red, and her blouse was messed up from clutching a crumpled brown paper bag in front of her chest. She could not remember the last time she felt so insecure about her own appearance. Losing confidence felt even more devastating than losing her home.
"Miss Yoon, are you alright? Shall we go now?"
Min Hyun noticed her stare emptily at her ruined clothes and felt a slight pang inside his chest. He was enjoying it, today was the day Miss Yoon showed him her raw side, the face of a woman lost in misery, the woman who needed someone to rely on, the woman who might finally need him.
Not willing to wait any longer, he stepped out of the car, opened the trunk, took a suit jacked off the hanger, then opened another door, snatched the paper bag from Se Ah's tight grasp, and put his jacket on her shoulders.
Taken by surprise by his unexpected gesture, she looked up at his smiling face with her big eyes as if asking him why he did that. The guy helped her come out of the car, nodded to a security guard that was approaching the two of them, silently telling him to get back, and pushed the woman slightly on the back.
"Let's go in together, Miss Yoon, your friend must be worried."
The musky smell of Min Hyun's jacket reminded her of the scent of his bare skin, it felt like the fabric itself was soaked in it, and, despite everything, it made her finally feel at ease. She walked inside with confident steps, Min Hyun following her by her side, and stopped when a familiar person waved and started running towards her.
"Se Ah! Oh, you brought Lee Min Hyun with you, too?"
Da Hye looked over her friend's shoulder while hugging her affectionately and offered Min Hyun a light friendly wave.
"Yeah, he helped me get here."
Embarrassed to admit that he, in fact, helped her get there twice, she gently escaped Da Hye's embrace, took off Min Hyun's jacket, and exchanged it for her paper bag but did not succeed in even touching it as Da Hye snatched it right in front of her hands, and looked inside it like a curious child trying to examine the contents of the shopping bags brought home by their parents.
"What is this?"
"It's all I own now."
Da Hye widened her eyes and almost yelled,
"THIS?! What the fuck, how bad was the fire?"
"Everything burnt down, all of it."
Da Hye placed her elegant hand on top of Se Ah's shoulder in a friendly attempt to console her and sighed.
"Alright, don't worry too much. You will stay here for now, and we will handle this together, okay?"
She giggled rather childishly, then looked at Min Hyun, threw his jacket toward him, almost hitting his face, and offered him a light bow.
"Thanks for helping, little puppy, I'll take it from here. Go get some rest now, alright? See ya!"
The woman turned Se Ah around by the shoulders and lead her toward the elevators while showering her with numerous questions and listing all the fun things that were waiting for her in the hotel room. Despite being engulfed in her friend's lively chatter, Miss Yoon could not help but look back at the guy that was still standing in the lobby with the musky-scented jacket hanging over his arm.
'That was the first time he acted so mature in front of me. It was almost like he was... a completely different person.'
***
Da Hye pressed the plastic room key onto the door handle and hurriedly dragged her friend inside the room which was the epitome of the word "luxury" - black marble floors, expensive off-wite wallpaper covering the tall walls, enormous windows that went all the way down to the floor and opened a breathtaking view over the busy city, stylish, expensive-looking furniture, works of art in costly frames, and to top it all off - a large crystal chandelier hanging right in the middle of the blindingly-white ceiling, throwing rainbowy sparkles all over the room when its icicles were touched by the sunlight.
"So, how do you like your living room?"
Having noticed Se Ah's astonished face, Da Hye clasped her hands in front of her chest and started walking around like a museum guide, describing each and every item that was there in the room, and when the living room tour was finally over, she moved over to the next room which she introduced as her bedroom.
"The bed is super comfortable, I can barely get up every morning. The lights react to the clapping sounds, the TV has all the major channels and subscriptions, and the AC can be adjusted with the remote control."
She showed Se Ah a small white box that was supposed to be a remote, then threw it on the bed, and walked up to the window, draped with half-transparent white curtains.
"I know everything in this suite seems great but take a look at this!"
She drew the curtains open and looked back at Se Ah. She was right, nothing she'd seen in the suite so far was as amazing as this - there was a large terrace that was stretching all the way to the living room and was furnished almost as lavishly as the room itself and even had a tall living wall covered in flowers.
"Leaves you speechless, right? My room is one of the two rooms in the whole hotel that have this beauty, sometimes I spend my whole day here. Even though it's already September, it feels like a vacation!"
Da Hye grinned like a happy child that managed to successfully show off her treasure to which Se Ah responded with a rather sad smile. Was it because she had just gone through a rather difficult day? Or was it looking at such a luxurious way of living that made her feel such an exhausting sense of melancholy? She took the paper bag that Da Hye put in front of the bedroom door earlier and took out a torn piece of pink fabric with a tacky red rose on it, she then clenched it inside her fist, and whispered miserably, making sure that her friend would not hear her,
"This is exactly the same as how I started again ten years ago... A vacation, huh?"