The Scent Of You

Chapter 3

"With bated breath we wait for the scent of perfection,
accompanied by the freshness of love."
-Saim .A. Cheeda

"Lies." The man standing exudes hostility as he rubs at his stubble in frustration. "What kind of investigator are you? How can you just walk into my office and tell me that my child dead?" His voice rises in volume with every accusatory word, and Seungwan tries her best to hold back her own temper as her client obstinately refuses to her explanation.

"Sir, with all due respect-"

"Respect, my arse!" Flecks of spittle fly from his mouth and land on her cheek. Seungwan fights the growing urge to put a fist in his face, and instead takes out a small handkerchief to clean her face. "You're giving up so easily just like that? She must be alive! Her mother told me that she was alive!"

Ignoring the shaky finger directed her way, the blue-haired woman retrieves from the inner folds of her suit two sheets of printed paper. Laying it out on the table for her client to see, she points at each individual sheet. "This is her wanted poster when she went missing. This is the obituary that was printed in the newspaper a year after she vanished."

Seungwan doesn't show him the horrific pictures that came with the second email Amber sent her. She doesn't want to look again at the pictures of a child with flesh so thoroughly burnt and barbecued even their face seemed to have melted away. The authorities couldn't even pin an identity to the body, and had to work on assumptions. Their guesses lead to the announcement of Park Mina's death at a young age. All this she explains to her client, whose face turns utterly crestfallen as he drops into his chair, shocked.

"Why are you so convinced that your child is still alive, sir?" Seungwan asks in the politest voice she can muster.

"Because I told her mother so! I told her mother I would find her, alive, no matter what. So... she... she can't be dead!" His voice cracks, fury draining rapidly as he collapses into his chair. Seungwan sits quietly in her seat, allowing her client's grief to fill the room.

The depressing atmosphere is interrupted by a message from the office phone. "CEO Park, Miss Sooyoung wishes to see you." A pause, followed by: "Or make that two, sir, she seems to be in a rush, according to her Personal Assistant."

The CEO rises from his seat, quickly forming a reply to his secretary before tidying up and putting away the papers that Seungwan had brought. "Thank you for your help, Wendy," he says as he ushers her out of his office, "but you must continue to look for my daughter. I will not believe she's dead unless facts have been proven, and I will certainly not believe some random assumptions made by those damned police."

With that, the door closes on her, and Seungwan is left standing in an empty waiting room, wondering how she will ever find a dead person alive.

*

Joy groans, swivelling her chair clockwise and anti-clockwise, over and over, her legs crossed on her office chair. "And why do I have to do this again?" She glares daggers at her caramel-haired assistant who is typing out last-minute additions to their schedule for the next week. Grouchy and bored, she stares at her companion's slender fingers as they work their magic on an old and beat-up laptop.

"Because you've been put in charge of this project, Joy," the woman replies, brushing curled bangs away from her eyes. Without looking up she can already feel Joy directing a pout at her. The assistant laughs when she finally hears a wail from opposite her. "Sorry, but I really can't do anything about it this time."

"But Seulgi..." Joy whines, flopping her upper body onto her desk. "I don't want to go..."

Her assistant grins as she closes her laptop, her administrative work done for now. "Sorry, boss, but you don't really have a choice. Even your, um, discussion with the big boss didn't go well." Seulgi snickers at the memory of Joy bursting through office doors and throwing a ridiculously huge tantrum in the presence of the CEO upon hearing that she had been assigned to monitor the company's latest photoshoot.