wet. cold.

 

sunghyo groans as another droplet dots her face. she squirms, trying to cover herself in her warm, cosy, inviting duvet. it's a gift from her 12th boyfriend in college—jaebum? jaehyung? probably jaebum. it's imported from china, silk with the best quality and a suitable price. sunghyo can't sleep without it really, but too bad she also cannot remember his name. jaebum is her best guess. or is it jaemin? 

 

unfortunately, the duvet is not there, and so sunghyo groans again. her inner clock tells her the sun barely rises, and really, nothing irks her more than waking up before seven in the morning. her 10th boyfriend, chanyeol she thinks, always let her sleep in his bed until midday. and really, sunghyo considers him as one of her best boyfriends so far. he also brought her breakfast in bed, which just adds up the point. 

 

sunghyo shifts, curling her body so that she'll be warmer on top of her warm, cosy, inviting bed—wait, this is certainly not her bed. 

 

her bed is layered with the best silk material ever imported and this, what's beneath her is certainly not silk. or even a bed. it's as hard and cold as a concrete, and sunghyo freezes a little at that. did she get so drunk last night she fell asleep in the roads? but she was with kim taehyung, and the lad wouldn't leave before he made sure sunghyo slept on her warm, cosy, inviting bed. or maybe he did, for now when sunghyo finally reaches prime consciousness she is sure she's sprawled against a concrete. wait. so that's why there has been droplets?

 

sunghyo tries to open her eyes, feeling a soft fabric lurking her eyes in the process. she swats the sleeping mask away and tries to adjust to the lights. it is still dark, explains the coldness and really, there's nothing much to see except for—

 

wait. what is that sitting on her feet covered with silk socks, small and black and furry and looking back at her with eyes that are half filled with fright and half filled with—is that a judging look on a rat's eyes?

 

so there are three things that come into sunghyo's senses. and not one is good. first, she realizes the thing sitting on her feet is a rat, a fat one on it. second, she realizes she's sitting in the middle of an alleyway, goddamn alleyway that reeks of rotten bananas and used tissues. third, the rat, the goddamn rat, is looking at her with an expression that could be roughly translated as, "what are you human doing here in the middle of trash piles dressed in a sleeveless night gown?". well for the question, she cannot really answer that. but she of course has no better reaction. so she screams.

 

she screams at the top of her lungs, kicks the tweeting rat, grabs her teddy bear she didn't realize before beside her thigh, and runs. she runs from the reeking alleyway, still screaming, into the open road only clad in her sleeveless lilac night gown. well, better than nothing. a taxi passed by just as she's about to cross the road—luckily the road is deserted although seoul usually is awake already at this hour—and she waves furiously for it. fortunately it sees her signal and relents a few meters away from where she's standing. she quickly runs into the goddamn transport.

 

"seongsu-dong," sunghyo says briskly. what was that?

 

she—kim sunghyo, one of the richest business woman if not the richest in seoul, twenty-five years old, a prodigy in business world and the member of south korea's most elite marketing group—woke up in the alleyway of god-knows-where only in her night gown and with the accompanion of her ever-so-faithful teddy, freezing with a rat sitting on her silk-covered feet. what in the world was that?

 

she tries to recall what happened last night. well, she was with taehyung, one of the seolla marketing group members. they're celebrating the inauguration of his business branch in japan, drinking and eating, loosening up from the work... sunghyo is sure somewhere along the talks taehyung had tried to kiss her, and maybe he succeeded, but sunghyo doesn't really remember, and if she does she's sure it's just going to taste like cigarette and alcohol. pepepermint maybe, taehyung always eats gums of that flavor. there's nothing out of the ordinary, really, only familiar faces and inappropriate talks about the new series coming up on hub on thursday by the staffs taehyung had invited. sunghyo had been in the talk, when she excused herself to the toilet..

 

ah, that's it! in the toilet! she met a woman in the toilet, about her age and just almost as pretty as her (she's always the superlative of everything, duh), olive skin and dark hair, eyes dark blue and she was talking about money, she recalls. about money and about success, about carriers and about luxuries of the business prodigies. sunghyo doesn't remember the details, but they talked sbout material things and the girl's voice was so soothing and enchanting and in between the talk sunghyo had fallen into slumber. and then everything went blank.

 

she fell asleep in the middle of a conversation with a stranger.

 

well, it's not like she has a face to preserve. it's not like she has an image to keep or magazine interviews to answer. not like she is known by the public and that her image can be destroyed just by a simple statement of, "kim sunghyo, gem of the kim company drunk so hard she fell asleep in the toilet and was abducted by a woman with enchanting voice. oh, and the woman left her with a night gown and a teddy". okay, maybe that is too long to be a headline and she couldn't be so sure if the woman really kidnapped her, rid her of money, and dumped her in a goddamn alleyway. but she cannot fetch any memories after the toilet incident and the main suspect could only be given to the olive-skinned woman.

 

she cannot even imagine why she was left in the said attire and why was she dumped in—wait. wait wait wait. this isn't seoul. this isn't seoul. goddamn it, where the heck is she?

 

she was too engrossed in thought she lost track of her own location, and when she finally came around she could feel a light and hesitant tap on her bare shoulder. she almost screams ual harassment.

 

"i'm sorry," the taxi driver glares, as if he has been talking for minutes but no one's listening. sounds about true, and sunghyo applauds him from keeping his composure. "but we are so far from the said destination. about 325 kilometers apart. i suggest you take a train or another transport of your preference to reach seoul safely—"

 

"where the heck am i?" that might come off very indignant, but really, sunghyo is pissed. first, she is dumped literally between trashes and second, trashes look all the same in every part of the world and sunghyo couldn't differenciate ones in seoul and ones in this location she has no idea where is. as if that's not bad enough, the taxi driver talks to her like she's some kind of a lunatic (which is partly true. come on, who the heck sleeps on alleyways with a skimpy gown?) and she despises that. doesn't he know he's talking to one of the richest businesswoman in seoul-

 

"uh, in busan? look. you may be drunk or maybe drugged and i'm really sorry but, i don't wanna get involved okay? you can just, i dunno, call your friends and tell them to fetch you? you don't seem like you bring a single penny anyway, and i'm just a peniless guy who wants money so,"

 

the guy beckons sunghyo to leave the taxi, signalling by pointing to the door on her right with a, surprisingly, genuinely sorry expression. but this guy is peniless, as he said himself, and sunghyo has learned the hard way that that kind of dudes don't go around with a genuine feeling. they do anything for money, really. she doesn't intend to be rude. just learning from experiences. but there's no pain in trying right? see if this man really is in the dark about her identity.

 

"well," sunghyo said, looking at the dude half expectant and half pitying. "i can pay you loads if you bring me to seoul. not with this taxi of course, but you know. taking care of my train tickets and approriate clothes and—"

 

"whoa whoa wait there," the dude raises both his eyebrows. half surprised and half amused, and sunghyo raises a brow at that. he rubs his temple, sighing in a weary way. sunghyo frowns. doesn't he want money?

 

"i don't go around wasting my time, thank you. and really? taking care of your train tickets? i bet you're just as broke as i am. even if you turn out to be a famous businesswoman in seoul, i doubt you'll pay me with the price i think i deserve. so thank you very much, but no."

 

well that kind of pisses sunghyo more. this guy—chestnut hair, sharp eyes, sculpted face—looks like the type of guy you'll meet at the entrance of sm entertainment building. or yg. or jyp. he looks almost idol-material, if not for the ragged driver attire and dirt on his face. but looking at him pisses sunghyo more, because it reminds her of taecyeon, her ex-boyfriend that dumps her in front of lotte shopping mall (oh wait, that's lotte across the street). 

 

so she rolls her eyes, pitying this peniless guy and his peniless life before grasping both seats edges and leaning into the guy's personal space, startling the guy a bit before he regains his composure.

 

"i'm not joking around. i found myself waking up in an alleyway in my night gown, and i'm sure i've been kidnapped the night before by a woman of olive skin and enchanting voice and i am goddamn kim sunghyo. i'm paying you. no kidding. you mention the price, i pay. got it?"

 

and that, that stirs a more dramatic response out of him. sunghyo smirks.

 

"wait wait, that kim sunghyo?" he sputtered, eyes glittering like he's found el dorado and now it's time to steal all those golds. but sunghyo and her luxurious life, filled my golds and money, really does resemble the el dorado. so she nods, shrugging as the dude throws her an unbelieving stare.

 

"i mention the price, you pay?"

 

"you mention the price, i pay."

 

"goddamn," the dude leans back, smile as bright as the sun in midsummer, and sunghyo leans back also, satisfied with the deal of money. really, what can't she do with all this money?

 

nothing, really.