Title: Black and Gold (4/?)
Pairing/s: Luda/Dawon, OT13 and a lot of side pairings
A/N: back to our regular programming. just a head’s up that after all the chapters of black and gold, i’ll probably rearrange them so that they’ll appear in order unlike this messy one where ch14 - lesson one is sandwiched between black and gold chapters lmao     unbeta-ed overdue self-indulgent worldbuilding fic with no moral lessons whatsoever let's go!

IDY

Every second Friday of the month, on the auction room floor in Gangnam Center, ten to thirty paddles move in a frenzy exclusive to the privileged. Im Dayoung, the only child of IM Hospitality, acquired a 1560 Painting of a Lady from the Flemish School at a modest 95 million won and was ready to call it a day until the next auction piece was revealed.

Dayoung watches her agent, Mr. Hwang, through a pair of vintage brass opera glasses from the VIP mezzanine. The auction master unveils a Le Corbusier tapestry from the Fondation Le Corbusier. It’s an abstract piece, a fine handwoven work by Pinton in the 1950s, with free-flowing lines crossing over a rich motley color palette. At the right angle, one could make out an image of a sitting cat with its tail curled in a rectangle with soft edges.

The tapestry would look good on her yacht; no doubt the perfect instrument to broadcast her desire for all things cosmopolitan.

“Let’s go for fifty million,” she tells Mr. Hwang over the phone and sips on her special Pol Roger Vintage Brut 2009 champagne.

Mr. Hwang bids and outbids the rest. Once the millions begin, they don’t stop for anyone, especially not for the agents in the VVIP section.

Dayoung takes three phones out of her Birkin, spreads them on the coffee table, and presses a button on each one. There’s a barrage of notifications from the gold and silver phones, but she ignores them and focuses on the silent, black phone.

When the black phone finally lights up, a cryptic message from Son Juyeon reads:

11:21 pm (sms) found something about the ring. call me ASAP.

“Finally,” Dayoung mutters. As she was about to call Juyeon, another message comes through her black phone. The words on the screen make her do a double-take. She braces the armrest of her chair (by this time, Juyeon’s distress gossip message was already forgotten).

The wired telephone beside her rings. Dayoung picks it up immediately.

“The last bid from Samsung’s rep is only 30 million won. We can easily outbid her,” Mr. Hwang says on the other end, but Dayoung has stopped caring about everything else. She tells Mr. Hwang to withdraw her bid immediately and meet her in the lobby. Her scurrying away turned a few heads, but most of them were rallying to get the Le Corbusier.

The moment she steps in her service car, she presses two on speed dial. As soon as the call goes through, she says, “You won’t believe who texted me just now.”

“Who?” Lee Yeoreum yawns on the other end.

“Hyunjung unnie,” Dayoung proudly says. “She said she wants to see me tomorrow.”

“See you as in…?”

Dayoung puts her phone on speaker mode and browses back to her messages, “Okay, here it says: Let’s meet up. Mr. Choi will pick you up in front of the Signiel tomorrow. 5 PM,” she says. “Do you think she’ll take me to her house or somewhere super-secret? What do you think I should wear? In case we’re meeting up in her house, I think it’s safe to prepare a cute pair of pajamas for Hyunjung unnie’s niece. Yoonna? …But I don’t know her size. Do you think Sojung unnie knows? Maybe it’s better to ask Jiyeon unnie.”

“Im Dayoung, can you hear yourself right now? Maybe Hyunjung unnie is testing you. You know how she is,” Yeoreum replies. “Either way, congratulations.”

Congratulations because Kim Hyunjung never asks to meet up with just anybody (unless you are Chu Sojung, Kim Jiyeon, or Park Soobin).

“I’ll tell you all about it when I get back,” Dayoung grins. “I need to be mentally prepared for my one-on-one with Hyunjung unnie. Oh my god! Yorm, what if Hyunjung unnie wants to buy me out? Become impossibly richer, you know? The sky’s the limit with these people.”

“Just calm down for a second. What do you have that Hyunjung unnie, doesn’t?”

“Uh, you?”

The other line drops dead immediately.

Dayoung doesn’t get much sleep that night. The next day, at 5 pm sharp, she arrives in Signiel dressed to the teeth.

Mr. Choi, Hyunjung’s chauffer, leads Dayoung to a black Mercedes S-class sedan and hands her a velvet pouch. “Please turn off all your electronic devices and put them here. They will be returned upon your arrival.”

Dayoung looks at him skeptically. Good thing she’s already scheduled her SNS apps to post every three hours. She turns off her phones and dumps it in the pouch.

“You’re not kidnapping me, are you?” she half-jokes, squinting hard to see past the tinted windows and read the signboards on the streets when the drive began to feel suspiciously long. “My friends know I'm meeting up with Hyunjung unnie.”

Mr. Choi doesn’t move a muscle. The car slows down and passes through an automated metal fence. They enter a pitch-black tunnel and come to a complete stop at a bright red light. The dark tunnel becomes an all-glass hoistway, and the floor rises.

Dayoung gapes at the sight of the night city below, looking for landmarks she could recognize. The car elevator finally stops on what feels like the hundredth floor. The floor pivots and rotates the car on a turntable, before coming to a full stop.

Mr. Choi opens the door for her and hands her electronics back. The lights simultaneously turn on, Mr. Choi welcomes her inside the penthouse, and Dayoung takes what probably was the biggest gasp of her life.

An enormous room with floor-to-ceiling glass greets her in modern sophistication. A tall, stone-clad waterfall stands on the center of the limestone floor, clear water overflowing on its four sides.

Standing in a luxurious penthouse is one thing, but she notices the people in the room and for the first time in a long while, she feels a little nervous.

At the center of the room is a grand piano, a white Bösendorfer, the identical twin of the black one in Pyeongchang. Nam Dawon plays what Dayoung recognizes as Sufi Ellman’s Bliss, and the skylight above basks her in a pocket of moonlight. On Dawon’s right, Wu Xuan Yi occupies a red velvet chair with a high backrest. Her long legs are crossed, and her eyes languidly skim over the pages of a magazine with her very portrait on its cover. On Dawon’s left, Kim Hyunjung stands by the wall of windows and looks at the city below.

Dayoung swallows a lump in . No matter how long they’ve been friends for, she knows her place is not here, not within this rarefied air of aristocrats. She opens for a greeting, but gets cut off by cool fingers brushing her arm.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

Dayoung looks behind her and feels the chills run from the back of her neck to the tips of her fingers.

“Whoa. Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you. Are you alright?” Lee Luda catches her arm when she steps back.

“Luda unnie?” Dayoung blinks. Last night, she imagined at this hour, she would be laughing with Kim Hyunjung over cute animal videos while drinking coffee. It never crossed her mind that Hyunjung might not be alone or that she would be standing awkwardly in an empty penthouse, sharing the room with heirs of wealth bigger than anyone could comprehend.

Before she could speak, Luda gestures to Mr. Choi behind her.

“I have something for you,” Luda says.

Mr. Choi unfurls a huge piece of cloth. Dayoung recognizes the squiggly lines on a motley color palette. Something resembling a cat, then lots of hands and a rectangle with soft corners.

“Isn’t this…” Dayoung stares at Mr. Choi and Luda, completely lost. Her mind reels, and she wonders why in the world is Lee Luda giving her the Le Corbusier tapestry. A cool breeze of premonition blows on the back of her neck. “Wait a second. I thought… Hyunjung unnie—”

Hyunjung glances at her, but somebody’s phone rings.

Luda digs in her pocket. She answers the call and puts it on loudspeaker. Club music blasts from the other end, a remix of PSY’s Gangnam Style swallowing Dawon’s music. Xuan Yi snaps the magazine shut and stands near the grand piano.

Luda waits for the other line to go somewhere quieter, “What do you want?”

“Where are you?” A woman asks. The voice was familiar, but Dayoung couldn’t put a name on it yet.

“Apgujeong,” Luda replies. “Where are you?”

Dayoung’s heart drops. She makes long strides to the tall glass windows and looks down at the bustling cityscape below. “This is the Apgujeong?” she whispers to Hyunjung.

“Is Hyunjung there?” The woman on the phone asks.

Hyunjung turns, instinctively, but Luda presses a finger on her lips.

“What do you want?” Luda repeats. “Have you bought three percent of Dosco yet?”

“Luda-yah, they’re relentless. I’ve traced multiple accounts, and all of them lead back to PM Electronics, SSE Motors, and Neo Culture Tech.”

“I know, and until you buy three percent of Dosco, we won’t have enough leverage,” Luda presses on, her eyes going to-and-fro Hyunjung, Dawon, and Xuan Yi.

“It’s not enough. They took OMMedia from the CJ Group. They almost took Ssonhotels too, but at what cost? And this is just the beginning. They’re not going to stop pulling investors out. They’re coming for IM Hospitality next.”

Dayoung almost let out a loud gasp if not for Dawon’s hand clamped tight on .

Luda reminds them with a finger on her lips, “We’re ahead of them, unnie. Hyunjung unnie went to Japan recently and sealed a couple of deals. Just get Dosco first. We’ll take of the rest.”

“Yeah, I’m trying. Hey, do you know if Hyunjung told Jiyeon anything?”

Luda turns to Hyunjung, who gives her a blank stare. “No, of course. Hyunjung unnie didn’t tell her anything.”

“In any case, Jiyeon has been snooping around. Tell Hyunjung she might have to get her out of the country if this gets worse. Take a few weeks off the grid.” The other line takes a few moments of silence. “I’ll call you again when I get Dosco. Be careful, Luda.”

Dayoung bites the inside of her cheek at the unusual exchange. It’s as if she’s reading a book with a third of the pages ripped out. It