A familiar scent on a distant breeze
Brought memories of remembrance.
-R. McFreshington

Hands in her pockets, Seungwan stands in an elevator as she prepares herself to meet the CEO. As she waits for the lift to arrive at her destination, her mind goes back to the night before, when she requested to see Joohyun again. She doesn’t deny herself the fact that she was slightly disappointed when she did not receive an immediate response.

In fact, Joohyun had hesitated before asking for more time to think, and it bothered Seungwan a lot. Even now as she fidgets in the lift she wonders whether she had done something wrong. Was she not as warm and polite as she should have been, or were any of her actions suspicious in any sort of way?

Her reverie is shortened when the lift doors open with a soft chime, and her eyes focus on the man that stands on the other side, in a sharp suit and hair slicked back. He glances at her and smiles; she offers a nod of acknowledgement. As they pass each other, Seungwan wonders who he is, and why he seems familiar.

But it is not the time to dwell on thoughts, as she has a client to appease.

“So, you’re telling me that you’ve met someone with the same… disease as my daughter? Interesting.” CEO Park rubs at his upper lip with a finger, deep in thought. “But you’ve said that MCS isn’t particularly rare, right?”

Seungwan nods affirmative. “About a third of the population would have some variation of the syndrome - it might be mild in a person, but severely crippling in another. So far, there is no conclusive evidence to prove that this particular person may be related to this case.” She hesitates, then: “But, sir, do you still want to continue this investigation? The police…”

The chairman looks up with a glare so piercing it stops Seungwan before she continues any further. “Are you giving up?” he shouts accusingly. He takes in a deep breath, then exhales sharply. “Do you need more money? I can pay you more to prove that the police are wrong… or right. I just need proof.”

“Yes, sir,” Seungwan quickly says, metaphorical tail between her legs. She remembers the unknown man at the elevator then. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, there was someone else here before me. May I enquire as to who he is?”

The CEO dismisses her question with a wave of his hand. “It doesn’t matter who he is. I just need you to do your job and find Mina,” he says before sending her away.

Seungwan personally feels like her client is getting ruder and ruder with every meeting, but she wouldn’t ever say it to his face. In any business, the customer is always right.

She opens the office doors to leave and comes face-to-face with a tall woman staring down at her with a frown on her face. “What were you two talking about?” Joy asks. “Who’s Mina?”

*

“Are you kidding me?” Yeri shouts over the phone at a quiet Joohyun. “You rejected Seungwan?”

“I didn’t reject her,” Joohyun retorts with a pout. “I just asked for some time to think.”

“That’s basically a rejection, Joohyun,” Yeri fires back. “What happened? Are you not interested in her any more? Were any of her actions actually, like, a huge turn-off for you?”

Joohyun shakes her head in denial. In fact, Seungwan had been nothing but considerate and polite throughout their first date, but something had prevented Joohyun from agreeing to meet her again. It was that same feeling that nags at her now, and she recalls the woman’s odd behaviours during their date. “I don’t know, Yeri,” she muses. “Something just… didn’t feel right.”

She hears someone call Yeri’s name in the background, creating a crackle of static. “They’re calling you, right? You should go.”

“Yeah, it looks like filming’s starting soon, sorry.” Before Yeri hangs up, however, she offers Joohyun a piece of advice. “Find out what felt off about Seungwan, because a woman’s intuition is hardly ever wrong. Be careful, Joohyun.”

After their call ends, Joohyun heads downstairs to open her laundromat for the day. Flipping over the ‘closed’ sign on the door to ‘open’, she then starts turning on all the laundry machines and fills them with customers’ clothes. Perching on her stool by the counter, she begins to daydream about Seungwan while the washers whirr noisily around her.

“Um, excuse me?” Joohyun shakes away the fog from her brain, looking up at a rather well-dressed man with boyish good looks. “Sorry, but are you the owner of this shop?” She nods. 

“Oh, excellent!” The man exclaims, beaming widely. “I’ve just moved in and haven’t had time to sort everything out, and I needed to find somewhere to wash all the laundry that’s been piling up.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Joohyun spreads her arms out in a rather proud demonstration of her sleek contraptions. “This is a laundromat, after all.” Standing on her tiptoes, she peeks over the counter at the floor next to her potential custo