Perfume today has lost its soul. 
It is far too mass and too marketed, lacking in personality.

-Michael Burke, Chairman & CEO (Louis Vuitton)

The scent of coffee fills a windowless room, whorls of steam rising from a white mug of china. A milky flower blooms on the surface. The room is as dark as the starless night sky, the only hint of light leaking out from the crack in the doorway.

To the little girl waking up in this room, this is her own personal Hell.

The fragrance of ground coffee beans carried on molecules of air enter her nose, , her lungs. It suffocates her, like a powerful hand that chokes her in a vice-grip. She claws and claws at , leaving red trails of histamine-tinged skin down her neck, but the bittersweet stench is stuck in her windpipe like superglue.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” a tall man with a musical baritone voice calls out as he casually leans on the door, although the frantic girl inside is too occupied trying to breathe to answer. Ignoring her desperate coughs, he inhales the scent of coffee and hums appreciatively, sipping at the hot liquid in the cup, and waits until the child’s laboured wheezes subside. 

“Your mother’s here to visit you today.”

Mother. 

At the word, the child scrambles back, huddling in the furthest corner of her room. The clicking of heels against the floor announces the arrival of the woman she only knows as Mother, and the girl shrinks into a ball, trembling hands covering her nose and mouth.

As the silhouette of the woman approaches, her cloying perfume reaches out to fill the entire room. The woman lifts the child’s head with a manicured claw to her chin. Tendrils of evaporated cade oil snake up her finger and seep through the gaps between the child’s fingers, entering her nostrils and mouth, leaving the heavy taste of smoky earth on her tongue.

When she starts to gag and choke, the two adults in the room do not even bat an eyelash. The woman strides back towards the man still standing in the shadows. Both of them, grey figures in a black room, watch as the child rolls over and vomits bile, empty stomach not allowing for anything else.

“Another day, another failed specimen,” the woman drawls, raising her wrist to sniff at. “And here I thought it smelled pretty good. What do you think, darling?”

“Honey,” the man growls seductively at her, tugging her close and nibbling at her neck, “you always do.” They shift out of the room, the woman giggling as her partner’s hands roam around her body, oblivious to the child who now lies prone on the ground in her own sick puddle, chest heaving up and down exhaustedly, long black hair stuck to her face by a mixture of puke and sweat.

This is not the first time; she also knows it will not be the last.

*

Seungwan has had her fair share of odd first days, but this one takes the cake. She looks around, taking in her surroundings — the superfluous greetings of employees, the hollers of customers as they drain each other out with their constant requests, the miasma that resulted from an overwhelming mix of perfumes and colognes — and attempts to calm herself down before meeting her boss.

It wasn’t everyday that the CEO of a multinational corporation hired you, after all.

Cue the entrance of the most apathetic woman Seungwan has ever met. Her features contort into odd expressions as she yawn, and she strides over with arms tucked into pockets at either side of her black culottes, highly reminiscent of a model on a catwalk. Next to her, the staff member that attended to Seungwan titters nervously as she escorts the woman.

“Right, what did you want again?” The newcomer asks, looming over Seungwan. The woman’s caramel shoulder-length hair brush against Seungwan’s own blueish ones as she leans down to make eye contact, lowering her sunglasses as she does so.

Why the manager is wearing sunglasses in a mall, Seungwan hasn’t the faintest, but she stands her ground and announces in a clear voice: “My name is Son Seungwan. I’m the new secretary.”

“Oh, really?” The tall brunette scans Seungwan from head to toe with narrowed eyes, then puts her shades back in place. “You don’t really seem like his type though. Well, whatever. Follow me.”

His type? Seungwan laughs inwardly as she trails behind the manager; she doesn’t want to know what the woman thinks goes on between secretaries and their bosses — something , probably — and she’s pretty sure that it wouldn’t happen with this CEO. I’m not even going to be an actual secretary.

“So, um,” she attempts to start a conversation with her --manager in the elevator. “You’re in charge of the whole shopping mall?” 

Silence. 

“Well, okay.” Seungwan isn’t going to take a lack of response for an answer. “How about your name. You’re not wearing a name tag, I thought all employees have to wear one.”

More silence.

“What should I address you as? My name-”

“Yes, yes,” the taller woman sighs, taking off her sunglasses — finally! — and hooks them on the lowest point of her white V-neck shirt, right where Seungwan is trying and failing not to stare at her cleavage.