Bold = character's thoughts

Italicized = emphasis or phone conversations

An unfamiliar room and excruciating headache are the first things to greet Yerin as she opens her eyes. As she blurrily blinks her eyes in a futile attempt to reduce the pain she feels at the back of her head and around her eyes, she feels a slight shift next to her. She looks upon the soft curves of the woman in bed next to her, struggling to recall the events of last night and who this stranger was. It was nothing new to Yerin though, in fact, it was quite a common occurence when she went out drinking. Though, she's never gone drinking and clubbing the day before work due to how busy her schedule was and how badly waking up hungover would mess up that schedule. Shrugging upon realizing that she couldn't recall much of last night, Yerin checked her phone, wincing at the brightness. There were several missed calls from Secretary Park and Sojung. Ah, I was with Sojung last night. I better call and apologize to her later before she kills me for ditching her. Noticing the time, Yerin stood to grab her clothing that had been haphazardly thrown across the room, wobbling as she reached for each item and began putting them back on. She was already late to work and it would only get worse if she stayed in bed, as much as she wanted to.

Quickly calling one of her personal drivers, Yerin walked out of the room. While she tended to prefer driving her own car, she had hired personal drivers for moments like these. She would need to head home to grab fresh clothing and then head to work. WIth the upcoming change in seasons, demand for new products would be high and she could not afford to miss a day. Ugh my head hurts. I want to sleep... but it feels like I'm forgetting something.

"Oh good, you're finally here Ms. Jung." Secretary Park rushed over to Yerin, clearly distressed by Yerin's absence this morning. "You have a meeti-"

"Cancel all of my meetings, Secretary Park. I have a migraine and I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone."

"But-"

"Secretary Park. You should be lucky that I even bothered to show up today, so if you don't want me to fire you, you'll do as I say and cancel the rest of my meetings." The pounding in Yerin's head only grew as she yelled at the poor secretary. Perhaps she should've stayed at home.

"Y-yes of couse, Ms. Jung." Secretary Park squeaked out before bowing and returning to her desk.

Bringing her hand to her head, Yerin let out the tweflth sigh of the day. By the time she showed up at work, it was already noon, and her hangover had not gotten any better. Opening the door and entering her office, Yerin's posture slouched slightly.

"Ugh this ."

"How kind of you to finally show up to your own office Ms. Jung." startled by the sudden voice, Yerin sharply turns her head, ignoring the pain and dizziness that causes, and meets the intense glare of Kim Yewon. Oh ...

"Ms. Kim, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I kept you waiting" Yerin said, attempting to come up with an excuse as quickly as her hungover brain would allow. "I believe I asked my secretary to cancel all of my meetings for today." This causes Yewon to raise her eyebrow at Yerin as she cross her arms; her posture exuding anger.

"I believe I scheduled our meeting for Monday morning, Ms. Jung, and if you didn't realize the time, I've been waiting here for hour hours now." Yewon did her best to keep her voice even, but the rage was still there. "Whatever, you're here now, so you might as well go over your ideas and designs for your product."

That's when it truly dawned on Yerin what it was she was supposed to be doing this morning, and what she should've been doing yesterday instead of drinking. Not only had she kept the Kim Yewon waiting, she also failed to prepare a single idea or design for the collaboration.

"...I don't have anything." Yerin mumbled out. Even though her voice was only above a whisper, the silence was intense within the office.

"What? You don't have a single idea?" If Yewon wasn't angry before, she was clearly livid now, her voice steadily growing in volume as she began yelling at Yerin. "I can't believe this. Why did I even bother to show up today? You made me waste half of my day only for you to show up late and have nothing!?"

"Yes, but if you give me one more day-"

"Enough! Ms. Jung, I already gave you an entire weekend to come up with something after you made me angry at our first meeting!" God, why is she so loud? 'And you expect me to give you another extension?" My head hurts... "Believe it or not, the world doesn't revolve around yo-"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP!!!" Yerin had really done it this time. For a single moment, her head was clear, and she could clearly see how badly she had ed up this meeting. But was she wrong in telling the other woman to stop talking? How dare she walk into my office and speak to me like that. When Yerin finally calmed down, she looked up at Yewon who was shocked by the sudden outburst. Her eyebrows were raised and her eyes wide in shock and, perhaps, fear. And then suddenly, it was all gone. Yewon's expressions were suddenly controlled and where before the room was excruciatingly hot, the room was suddenly unbearably cold.

"...You will be hearing shortly from my secretary about the cancellation of the collaboration as well as the compensation" said Yewon, her voice chillingly emotionless. "I'll be taking my leave now."

With nothing else to add, Yewon stood and walked out the office, leaving Yerin alone. All of the tension gone, Yerin slumped into her office chair when suddenly, her migraine came crashing back. Hunching over her desk, Yerin felt herself growing increasingly nauseous until she quickly reached over for the desk-side trash can and threw up. Groaning, Yerin called out to Secretary Park.

"Secretary Park, I'm taking the rest of the day off."

While she should've gone home to rest, Yerin decided that being at home alone would give herself too much time to think about the events of ealier that day, so she decided to head to her cousin, Jung Eunbi's house. Despite being only cousins, Yerin and Eunbi had grown up together and were more like sisters than anything. They both had a shared love for drinking and partying and would often go out to clubs together while they were still in college. This became infrequent once it came time for Eunbi to take over Jung Entertainment. Using the Jung family wealth, Yerin created her own compnay centered around her creativity and love for cosmetics. While Yerin and Eunbi couldn't go partying as often as they used to, Yerin still liked to visit Eunbi.

Arriving at Eunbi's home, Yerin entered using the spare key given to her by Eunbi. What greeted her was the sound of two loud voices coming from the living room. As she made her way to the living room and announced her presence, the owners of the voices turned their attention to her.

"Hey Eunbi. Hey Sinb" Yerin said before plopping down on one of the couches.

"Yerin? What are you doing here? Don't you have work today?" SInb, or Hwang Eunbi, asked, arching an eyebrow at Yerin. As Jung Eunbi's best friend and childhood friend, Sinb was a common sight at Eunbi's house when she wasn't in the dance studio creating choreographies and training dancers. Because their names were both Eunbi, they had decided to create nicknames for each other. Hwang Eunbi, very much liking the nickname "Sinb" decided to use it as her stage name as well. Yerin found it easier to call her Sinb and kept calling her cousin Eunbi.

"Decided to leave early because of a hangover. I shouldn't have gone drinking last night." Yerin answered simply, leaning back into the couch to rest her head.

"What a coincidence, I was out drinking last night too." Eunbi chimed in, looking far too happy and chipper for someone who drinks as much as Yerin. "Thankfully I had some hangover soup, so my headache is pretty much gone." Yerin found this strange since Eunbi couldn't cook to save her life, so she couldn't have made the soup for herself. She did have a maid though, but last Yerin checked, her maid only cleaned the house. Guess she bought it.

"I should've bought some before I went into work. Maybe it would've saved me from that disaster," Yerin sighed. Just the thought of the argument between her and Yewon made her slightly angry and, though she hated to admit it, slightly remorseful at the result.

"What happened?"

"I got into an argument with one of my collaboration partners and the collaboration is definitely cancelled now."

"Well it's unfortunate, but you're Jung Yerin! I'm sure that people will be lining up at your door looking for a collaboration!" Eunbi, ever the positive spirit, tried her best to cheer up Yerin. It worked as Yerin chuckled to herself, grateful for the kind words.

"That's right, it's her loss! Who wouldn't want to work with a genius like me?" This caused Sinb to groan at her words.

"Speaking of work, shouldn't you be at the studio today, Sinb?"

"The dancers are finishing up the routine they're working on, and since I'll be checking in on them tomorrow anyway, I decided to take the day off." Sinb answered before sighing, "I also haven't had any inspiration to create a new choreography lately."

In the silence that followed Sinb's words, Yerin could see Eunbi with her hand on her chin, thinking about something. Eunbi then turned to Yerin.

"Hey Yerin, the club we usually go to, don't they have performances on Thursday nights?"

"They do, why?" Yerin tilted her head, wondering how it came up from the conversation they were just having.

"Well, I was thinking maybe Sinb could get inspiration from that?" Eunbi turned back to Sinb before continuing, "How 'bout it, Sinb? The performers there are really good!"

"You guys know that I don't like going to clubs." Sinb didn't seem particularly enthralled with the idea.

"It's different on Thursday nights," Yerin decided to chip in this time, "it's quieter and the crowd on Thursdays are more of the leisurely folk. It's all about the performances."

Sinb took her time to think about it, looking between the expectant gazes of Eunbi and Yerin before finally caving in.

"...Fine I'll go. It's better than nothing, I guess, but if it turns out that it's not as good as you guys say it is, I'll be coming for the both of you." Sinb threatened, glaring at Yerin and Eunbi. The trio then spent the rest of the day chatting before Yerin and Sinb decided to head back to their own homes.

Author's Notes:

Yerin and Yewon get into yet another argument. Does this mean the end of their collaboration for good? I find all of their interactions to be so messy, but I think we're finally out of the messiest parts. We also got to see Sinb's first appearance. The introduction to how Sinju meet will come in a couple more chapters.

Finally posted a chapter after almost two months. I have no idea how authors on here ever post regular updates. It's been a struggle. The sudden surge of motivation has been nice though. Anyways, I hope everyone stays happy and healthy! See you in the next chapter!