Room 23

Chapter 2 - Spontaneous

The next day you tell yourself at lunchtime you'll just go meet Jisoo in Starbucks as usual and just find a way to tune out the tone of her nagging voice. You don't need a shrink. You're fine. It's totally normal to lose sleep now and then, and be worried about a wedding; I mean you're supposed to get nervous right? You throw on your jacket over your cream shirt and pencil skirt. You look fine. Anybody walking down the street would be envious of you. You have a loving family, a great fiancé; a relatively OK paying job and you're hot as hell. Seriously, this is the life; you just need to stop being such an ungrateful, moody bitch.

For some reason though, you find yourself walking across the street, in the opposite direction from Starbucks and to the building adjacent from your own. You're muttering thoughts out loud to yourself, having absolutely no idea why you're even doing this.

You enter the building, it's white everywhere and eerily empty. Your shoes click clock against the marble floor as you make your way to the only other person in this large room, a female Japanese woman sitting behind a desk.

"Uh," you hesitate, and for some reason you feel nervous. "I'm not sure where to go, I'm supposed to meet a Lalisa here?"

"Oh, those services are on the seventh floor, take the lift behind me" she says with disinterest not even bothering to look away from her computer screen.

You look around as you nod and walk toward the elevator. This place is weird. It's empty and what did that woman mean by "those services"? Seriously, just looking at this place, it's so blank and monotonous it could literally be a building for anything; there's no posters on the wall or signs or directions anywhere. It could be a hospital, a bank or a movie set for all you know.

You take the elevator to the seventh floor and the doors part with a soft binging noise. It's a little less scary up here. You walk down a narrow hallway and you see that the place is just as empty up here, but at least there's a nice cream carpet and pictures of plants on the wall. You walk forward and you notice the receptionist up here is a man. He's dressed in a rather camp style, a brown blazer with a plastic looking rhino face attached to it and you are oh so close to instantly insulting him. You really want to say something but you still your tongue when he see's you.

"Good afternoon, my name's Jimin, how may I help you today?" he smiles politely, his voice soft and effeminate.

You're kind of glad you didn't insult him now because his smile and presence almost instantly calms your nerves.

"Yeah uh hi...I have an appointment with a Lalisa Manoban ?"

"Oh," he says looking surprised for a second. "Very good, just go down the corridor, she's in room 23" he says motioning with his hand.

You nod again and make your way there, for some reason stopping half way down the hall. You have a strong urge to just turn around and forget all about this. You find yourself turning your head and Jimin's watching you from his desk, he gives you a small smile and a little wave. It's encouraging and you wonder if he knows you're nervous. You do your best to smile back and press on.

Room 21....room 22....

Room 23. It's a white door with a golden number plate and handle and is not even remotely significant, yet you find yourself just staring at it. The way Jisoo was going on about this woman like she was freakin' Jesus Christ and could turn water into wine and fix all your problems. Whatever. You wonder if you should knock but Jimin said she was in here so she's probably expecting you, right?

You grab the handle and open the door. Normally you'd scan the room, you'd take notice of the nice desk and great window view, the coffee table in the middle of the room, the long leather mocha colored sofa that has an adjacent leather chair opposite and the whole set up is very much cliché. But your brain only processes so much of this, because the woman sitting on the lone leather chair, across from the long one, has all of your attention.