-CHAPTER T.W.O-

The morning sunlight shone mercilessly through the windows, onto the face of the figure deep in her slumber, slowly stirring her awake, her eyes fluttered wide, this was worse than asking her to work out; her head was throbbing and her body was aching.

Or did she kill somebody while she was sound asleep?  Because the last time she checked she doesn’t sleepwalk or wriggled around like a worm, a prickling chill hits her skin as her hand reached up to rub her eyes groggily.

And that was when it struck her the most, breath hitching, she bolted upright, dragging a side of the duvet with her, no!  She did not just sleep with a fellow colleague, this was too absurd; what was she even thinking the previous night?  She knew it was a bad idea to go for the celebration.

felt as it was rubbed on a sandpaper, gritting her teeth, she got herself down from bed and picked up her clothing laying everywhere on the floor with shaky hands and in the blink of an eye, she was out of the door, all this while barely bothering to cast another glance at the woman or feeling guilty for the ruckus she caused.

Once she was certain nobody had caught on her trails, she lets out a frustrated sigh, ruffling her locks, what was she supposed to do now?  It was a well-known rule that there should not be a single romance happening between colleagues in this company, should she pretend nothing had happened?

Biting down on her knuckles and mind blanked out, Irene stumbled clumsily onto a passerby; she bowed low on reflexes, the other party merely scowled and mumbled curses before continuing on their way.

She checked the time on her phone and saw she was late for work but there was no way she would be wearing her wrinkled shirt back to work, tongues would be wagging.

And there seemed to be no cabs in sight, fortunately enough, a bus stop wasn’t too far.

For now, she has to be in the office in another twenty minutes or faced the consequences.  And this day was slowly turning out to be really fine.

She took a quicker shower, brushed her teeth, dressed up and in less than fifteen minutes, she was out of her house.

Almost tripping on her feet as she came rushing through the entrance of the building but no one paid her any heed.

Yet among anyone that could catch her looking so dishevelled; it has to be her irritating best friend.

“Irene, what on earth happened to you?” The woman was probably talking about the scratch marks left on her neck and the bead of sweats forming on her forehead.

Caught off-guard, she used her hands to hide them “Did you fell into the drain?”

But of course, only a best friend would gloat over your misfortunes.

She growled “Very funny, I tripped when I was alighting from the bus earlier.” That was quite a pathetic lie, frankly speaking and with all the intelligences that Seulgi had in her brain, it wouldn’t be too hard for the woman to see through her lies.

Arms folding, the woman made a look as if she had placed a surveillance camera on her.

Frustrations grew “What?”

“You think I’m anything like those gullible women that you came across every day in the company?  Spill the beans.” Seulgi unfortunately remained unfazed on her spot, to which Irene was regretting that she had not taken the morning off, anything to get away from all of this.

A sigh passed her lips “Seriously Seulgi, as one of the directors in the company, you could afford to turn up late for work but for a mere photographer like me, anymore tardiness and you would not be seeing me around soon.”

Her best friend’s sickeningly chuckle travelled back into her ears “Yes, yes.  Keep deceiving yourself.  Anyway, I was informed earlier that your model would be late because the whole team is still stuck in a terrible jam but in the meantime, I have a project that might interest you.”

Irene finally felt her heart getting back into a normal beat, all this rushing for nothing “What was it?”

The woman then held out a report to her “We had our head of departments meeting yesterday and Editor Son brought up about Katz & Beans fashion line would be working with us for two photosets and they were suggesting someone from our company to do it and guess what?  Editor Son recommended you.”

Her jaws went slack “What did you just said?  Had she forgotten my current project would keep me busy till the end of this month, did she actually thought I was fooling around all this while?”

Seulgi grinned, which reminded Irene of the Cheshire cat, her roommate used to keep “Katz & Beans fashion hits much closer to home with the androgynous communities and also, they wanted someone with more experiences in this sector and that was why Editor Son brought you up.”

“Was that meant to get me all fluttered?” Irene remarked sarcastically, eyebrows rising as her fell onto the sofa beside her.

The woman followed suit, legs crossing “No, it was supposed to make you swooned. But if that was really making you uncomfortable, you should let her know but strange, I hadn’t seen her since I had arrived, probably had a ‘wild night’.”

The unintentional misused of words scattered redness all over her cheeks and as sharp as the woman’s eyes would be, she was hoping they wouldn’t give her away, not now, not forever, especially not after what the both of them had done (or even admitting she was a brilliant kisser, it had her heart setting on fire for the entire night) while the sassy woman was probably on her way to the office now, she has to disappear soon.

“I-I have to go, there were other things I needed to do before the shoot, thanks for the info, by the way.” Irene breathed out, receiving a subtle nod in response and sprinted off in the opposite direction.

Seulgi’s piercing voice traced behind her “Could you get me a coffee on your way?”

Not only coffee, she would literally buy the woman a house.

Back in the walls of her quiet abode, Irene felt as if her soul had left her body, her bloodshot eyes could most probably be seen from even a mile away, her hands were trembling as she stared out of the windows blankly, the vivid memories of them caught in between the thick duvet, begging for relief and spewing lustful moans was what kept her so alive, the previous night.

Her hear