얼음꽃 (Frost Flower)

Chapter Twenty-One

-Five Months Later-

Yoona propped her elbows onto the table, a dreamy look upon her face. Her eyes were locked on the one person addressing all the heads in the room.

Oh, how perfect she looked… delivering all the plans and reviews so smoothly and confidently. Although Yoona was not exactly sure what the word meant, she thought the woman definitely had swag.

The strings of words coming out of the woman’s mouth were streaming in one ear and out through the other, barely making any sense to her at all. But she didn’t really give a damn. After all, it was the final meeting of the year and her brain was already on holiday mode and no longer processing anything that had to do with work.

Her shameless ogling was interrupted by a vibration in her pocket, followed by a blaring ringtone.

 “Geurae wolf naega wolf awoo…”

Everybody turned to stare immediately, including the woman who was previously speaking. Pulling out her cellphone at once, Yoona switched it off and cursed herself for being such an idiot. How could she have forgotten to power off her device during such a crucial meeting?

Stressful silence filled the room after she slid her cell back into her pocket. Something like that had never happened before.

Tiffany’s eyes darted back and forth between Yoona and the intimidating woman, wondering what was going to happen.

Yunho, still the same bonehead, was chuckling under his breath fiendishly, anticipating some sort of drama.

“Im Yoona.”

Scratching the back of her neck, the girl nodded quickly, “I apologize, Miss Jung. I understand if you see the need to lecture me in front of all these people so go ahead.”

The woman crossed her arms and pulled a slight pout, “I’ve been telling you to do something about that ridiculous ringtone for months. What happened to the Keroro theme song I sent you some weeks ago?”

Brows rose.

Eyes widened.

Jaws dropped.

Nobody had anticipated that response at all. Miss Jung simply did not seem like the sort of person who would be tolerating such nonsense and talking about some adorable frog cartoon character.

Yoona, on the other hand, appeared to have seen that coming, and she snickered, “I’m certainly not lame enough for that.”

“Lame? Yah, you promised.”

“Yes, lame,” The girl repeated herself, “And you must’ve heard wrong. I would never agree to something like that.”

Kris, who was chairing the meeting, was rather intrigued by the childish banter. But there were too many important people present, and he cleared his throat briefly to stop the couple. Jessica understood at once and stopped herself from going further.

Taking a small breath, she asserted curtly, “It seems we need to have a talk after this, Miss Im,” She shot the girl an icy glare and received a playful smirk in return. “Anyway, as I was saying before that completely ridiculous disruption, no company has the ability to operate individually in the market…”

Yoona sank further into her chair and resumed her staring.

---

The meeting soon came to an end and everybody dispersed rather excitedly for the cocktail reception.

“Well… it’s been quite a year, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it has…” Jessica smiled, lifting a cup of tea to her lips, “How are things with Seohyun? All good?”