The Cutting Edge

022

When Hyunwon walked into his office the next morning there was a cup of caramel macchiato and a vegetable pancake already sitting on his table. In fact, steam was still issuing from the coffee cup when he lifted the lid up. He walked to the door and scanned the surroundings, but there was no sign of her anywhere.

"The sun must have risen from the wrong side this morning," he mumbled, shutting the door and walking back to his desk.

Every morning he would come to office and demand for his morning coffee and breakfast, only then would Hyejin reluctantly drag her feet out onto the streets to buy it (but not after pulling a dozen grumpy faces). Her standard retort to him would be, "Do I look like a slave to you?", and he would just be well smug about it because his answer would always be, "Yes." After all, she was getting the sweet end of the bargain by having the opportunity to learn from the master, so the least she could do was to be at his beck and call.

It was odd not needing to go through that routine this morning. Picking up his coffee, he took a whiff of the sickly sweet smell of caramel. At that moment, a strange thought crossed his mind.

"Is she avoiding me?" he wondered out loud.

Ever since the day they went for the W magazine photoshoot, Hyejin had been behaving slightly erratically. Whenever she saw him she still gave the same sardonic replies from time to time, but mostly she seemed to want to end their conversations as quickly as she could and then vanish into thin air. He was beginning to think that there were secret hiding places in the salon that he wasn't aware of. He was almost certain that something was going on, he just couldn't quite place his finger on it.

It didn't matter, that girl just didn't make sense anyway.

At that moment, Remington burst in through the door, waving a cream-coloured envelope in the air.

"Good morning, good morning! It's that time of the year again, time for the start of the year-end award frenzy!" he declared, setting the envelope down in front of Hyunwon. When he saw the half-eaten vegetable pancake on the table, he scrounged up his nose and frowned. "Since when did you eat things like that? Are you sure that's hygienic?"

Hyunwon waved his hand dismissively, picking up the envelope and taking out the card within. It was a black card embossed with a classy gold print, inviting him to the MBC year-end entertainment award ceremony. Frankly, he didn't care two hoots about all these events because all it meant was more work for the salon. Whenever these ceremonies came round, the phone lines would ring off the hook with managers trying desperately to secure his services for their artistes. The broadcasting companies would send a couple of invitations to the salon, usually for Ryu and himself, but he never attended more than one a year and the only reason why he even bothered attending one was because Ryu insisted it was good publicity and dragged him along.

"Tell Ryu I'll just go for the one," he said to Remington. "When he decides which one it should be then let me know. As usual, I'll only take three appointments per event and I'll leave it to you to decide who I take on."

"Got it, I've got it all under control. The requests have already started coming in fast and furious, I'll try my best to be somewhat selective. By the way, Gina called this morning and she said that Ares—"

"I'm not taking Ares Hwang."

"I haven't even finished my sentence!" Remy exclaimed. He pulled up a chair and sat down across from Hyunwon, looking awfully serious for this time of morning. "Like I was saying, Gina called. She didn't sound very happy about this, but she's requested that Ares be styled for the MBC awards by..." he paused momentarily for dramatic effect, "... Hyejin."