“Please help yourself to some more drinks, okay? And enjoy the rest of the evening”, she tells them with a warm smile before politely excusing herself and breaking away from the small group of people she’s been talking to for the last couple minutes.

Joohyun releases a small breath as she regards her surroundings and immediately seizes the opportunity to take a glass of champagne from the waiter as he walks by. She takes a sip while carefully scanning the room, estimating how many people she still has to talk to.

She’s making progress, she notes. Thankfully. As one of the hosts of the party tonight and the boss of quite some people currently present, she’s slowly making her way around the room, making sure to have greeted everybody personally before they take their leave later tonight. Whenever that may be.

Employees and their spouses as well as some close friends and frequent clients that they’ve gotten to know very well over the years are happily mingling and she joins them one by one. She takes the time to exchange some pleasantries and talk about the past year for a little bit, expressing her gratitude and well-wishes for the new year, before excusing herself and moving to the next group of people.

Nothing too spectacular.

But there are about 70 people attending and she’s pretty sure that she has only talked to about half of them by now. And although she’s delighted that people are enjoying themselves and socializing, the fact that people are walking around as well is hindering her progress slightly. By the time she gets to another group it suddenly consists of more people that she did rather than didn’t talk to already.

Taken together, it’s going much too slow for her liking and approaching so many people is a little exhausting for her. But at the same time, she doesn’t feel it’s professional or appropriate to start to fully relax and enjoy the party herself until she has talked to everyone. She can’t exactly make a beeline for the person she actually wants to talk to and celebrate with for the remainder of the night and completely ignore the rest of the people that took the time to join them this Friday night. It will have to wait until later.

She has (self-imposed) responsibilities to get to first. But the promise of later easily makes her smile and determined to power through as fast as possible (and socially acceptable).

With that thought she slowly makes her way across the room towards Mr. Lee, who’s standing beside the snacks-table by himself, no doubt contemplating whether he can take piece of cake if she’s judging by his pained expression. He’s a nice guy, clean-cut, in his early forties, and has been a well-respected, faithful client. He frequently requested them for legal advice on several different matters regarding his company since the firm first started and working together has always gone quite smoothly. He actually has become somewhat of a good acquaintance over the years to some of the people in the firm as well, which granted him the privilege of attending today’s party and be included in the thank you speeches given earlier. After all, he contributes to quite a percentage of the cases they work on.

She crosses the room in a few quick, determined strides, barely avoiding a collision with an inattentive waiter in the process, and she carefully and quietly slides into the space next to him unnoticed. When he realizes he’s no longer alone, he scrambles to hide the cake, startled as if he got caught. “I-Irene. Hello.”

She smiles. “Mr. Lee, the cake is there to be eaten, no need to stop now. You indirectly paid for it anyway.”

“Oh- Ehm- You know… It’s- I’m actually on a diet”, he says in a hushed voice while looking longingly at the cake he’s still holding. He sighs. “Well, more accurately my wife decided that we should go on a diet together so I really shouldn’t eat this but I couldn’t help myself.”

“If only you caved that easily with negotiations, that would’ve saved us a lot of time”, she retorts, amused and an eyebrow raised in a challenge.

“I think I’ve lost my appetite just now”, he jokes while genuinely laughing and putting the cake away for real this time, having made up his mind.

She smiles smugly and chuckles. “Your wife will be so pleased.” She looks around curiously. “Is she here, I haven’t seen her yet?”

“Oh, no. She couldn’t make it tonight. She’s down with the flu so she’s been resting at home for the last couple days.”

“That’s very unfortunate. I do hope she feels better soon then, extend my holiday-greetings to her as well, will you?”

He hums in agreement with a small smile. “I will.”

There’s a slightly awkward silence as neither of them really know what to talk about next and both just look around and play with their drinks. It’s not necessarily uncomfortable, but she doesn’t know him all that well either –usually she’s not the one directly working on his cases– so she’s unsure of the proper way to continue this conversation. Talking about business would be easy but that kind of ruins the idea of this being a party and having a chance to relax.

With the number of people she still has to talk to in mind, Joohyun starts to wonder if she can already move along but before she can ponder on that thought for much longer, he clears his throat to catch her attention. She turns to him expectantly.

“But we do want to thank you for inviting us. That was really nice of you”, he adds as if he just suddenly forgot that he didn’t thank them. “And you look amazing by the way, I just know my wife would be jealous of that dress.”

She looks down at what she’s wearing. “Thank you”, she says shily. She’s actually not too keen on the dress herself. She had another one picked out for tonight but an unfortunate mishap at the drycleaner meant she suddenly had to look for an alternative only a couple hours ago, in the midst of stressing about setting up the party. This was the best she could come up with in such a short amount of time.

Honestly, it’s a nice dress but it is just not her style and that makes her a little uncomfortable and self-conscious. Even if the most important person to her assured her she looked great. Which they did. Numerous times.

Mr. Lee looks at her curiously, perhaps noticing the faint blush that she can feel on her cheeks. “Any special reason, beside