Song Ji Hyo was not in a good mood.

She had woken up at the much too early hour of eight thirty in the morning. Really it was only because her schedule for that day demanded it so, otherwise she would have fallen back asleep without a moment of hesitation. Trudging to the bathroom, Ji Hyo slowly recounted what her manager had hold her about today’s plans.

A trip to her management company to discuss further plans now that her time We Are In Love had ended, and then to file through potential photoshoot events and then buying some groceries. Some makeup would be nice then, but perhaps that could wait until after breakfast. And some coffee, definitely.

Two shots of espresso and a hastily consumed bagel later, Ji Hyo headed back into her room. She carefully eyed through her closet all the while patting moisturizer onto her mildly swollen face.

It was a blur of eyelash curler, eyeliner, toner and the concealer until Ji Hyo thought she looked presentable enough for her monthly trip to the company. The glowing digits on her phone read nine twenty-three. Perfect. For once, she was actually early.

Ji Hyo made her way towards the elevator with a little more of a spring in her step than usual. She actually liked being early, except her body also felt like it wanted to melt into the ground right then and there.

Her ringtone suddenly reverberated throughout the quiet of the elevator.

“Hello?” She stifled a yawn.

“Hey, unni.” It was her manager Sun Mi. A sweet but serious, hardworking girl whose tone still retained her usual pep despite the morning. “Are you out of bed yet?

“Yeah, I surprisingly got out of bed pretty early today. Only ten minutes of loafing around as you’d called it. I think you’ll be proud,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Oh yeah, about that... The company called this morning and cancelled the meeting. You didn’t get the text message?”

“...No.” All of sudden her shoulders felt very heavy, like some weight had been dropped onto them.

She lifted her face off the screen for a moment to check through her messages and sure enough there it was. A message from her management company, with a laughable smiley face saying their meeting was postponed till next week because of some matter.

“I checked it just now.. Is the potential photoshoot offers still scheduled?”

“They wanted to wait until after the monthly meeting to finalize offers. I’m sorry, unni. Apparently, one of the newer actors got into some trouble so the heads are running around trying to quiet down the issue. We’ll probably have to wait a couple days or so to get that figured out.”

Sun Mi was quiet for a moment, waiting for a response. She was pretty bummed about the situation as well but at least she had the rest of the day free. “Unni?” she tried again.

“Hm?”

“I was just saying you don’t have anything else for the rest of the day, so you should probably take it easy…. Were you waiting outside?”

felt parched, but she managed to swallow that bitterness.  She wasn’t going to take it out on the poor Sun Min of all people, there was no reason for that after all.  It was more like Ji Hyo suddenly felt very tired. Of course instead of voicing that she decided to respond with all the false (but well meaning) cheer she could muster at the moment.

“I barely left the house Sun Mi. Alright thanks, take care!”

Ji Hyo hung up the phone as soon as the words vo