“Yoboseyo? Oh, oppa…I’m almost done…Ye~ I’ll be down soon.”

A young woman was sitting on a chair talking on the phone whilst an older woman stood behind her, finishing the last strands of hair to be curled. It was nearly noon and the hustle and bustle of the salon can be heard from downstairs as more and more customers were coming in to get their hair done.

“And….we’re done! Let me just comb through your hair a bit and you can go,” the older woman said as she set down the curling iron on to the table.

“Thank you as always, Mi young-unnie!” The young woman smiled at Mi Young through the reflection of the mirror in front of her. Her radiant smile was pure and infectious, causing her hairstylist to instinctively smile back at her.

“Aigoo, our ALUU representative. Absolutely pretty! No wonder all of Korea is going crazy over you,” Mi Young takes off the salon cover from the young woman who was waving her hand in face back and forth in disagreement with the stylist’s statements. “ Of course, it’s also thanks to your unnie that’s helping you become more pretty every day, right?”

“Andwaeyo, I was just born this pretty,” the young woman haughtily puts her hands in her hips while laughing. “Joke! Of course, it’s ALL thanks to all the unnies and especially my Mi Young-unnie! I’ll contact you so we can have fun once all the filming is done.”

Mi Young walks to send the young woman off from the salon whilst chatting away.

“Is Mi Young noona in? I called her and told her I was dropping by to give my greetings.”

“She is. She’s taking care of someone right now but I think she’ll be down soon,” The new receptionist busily looked at her desk before looking at the customer in front of her. Across from the front desk table, stood a broad chested man that stretched the fine threads of his (most likely designer) plain black t-shirt, black tufts of hair for bangs covering half his forehead, pressed down by the dark baseball hat he was wearing. At the sight of the good-looking man with one side of the face mask unhooked from his ear that allowed her to clearly see his face, she exclaimed. “Omo! Omoomomomo! It’s Ji Chang Wook!”

Ji Chang Wook smiled and laughed at the girl’s behavior. He leaned in to the receptionist and beckoned her to come closer, “Thank you for recognizing me but…can you keep it down?” Chang Wook furtively looked at the customers that were waiting in the salon’s lobby to see if anyone was staring at them. (A/N: Though who wouldn’t?? With a man that tall, shoulders that wide and that tell-tale sign of a celeb’s getup of a facemask and baseball hat? Oh Changwook oppa…)

The new receptionist apologized and sheepishly smiled. She was about to inform Chang wook that she’ll go get Mi Young quickly before noticing that she didn’t need to as she saw her in the level above, looking and waving at the customer going down the stairs. “Oh! Chang Wook-sshi! It looks like she’s done. You can just come up the stairs to see her.”

Ji Chang Wook turned around and saw his noona waving goodbye to someone. He smiled after not seeing her for a while and called up to her to get her attention. As he walked from the receptionist to the stairs, he brushed by a woman. Though it was only a slight graze of their shoulders that came in contact that could be ignored, Chang Wook instinctively turned around. The woman he bumped into was fairly shorter than him, probably barely eye level. It was a pity that he couldn’t see her face but even the sight of her back somehow left him briefly enraptured. Light brown hair that came off as almost golden as it caught the sunlight streaming from the windows of the salon, giving her a glow down to ends of the wavy tendrils that gracefully flowed down the back of her light blue off shouldered dress. The vision of her set something to light within him and yet just like that, she simply walked off the salon not knowing of the attention she had held within a man.

Working to shake himself back to sense, Chang-wook sheepishly reasoned it to be the celibate military life that had made him a simple base of a man to get struck at the figure of a woman. Though there was something familiar about that woman…to have caught his attention like that, he conceded in his head.

Going back to the task at hand, he quickly scaled the stairs to greet his longtime hairstylist and friend after not seeing her since his time in the army.

“Jihyun-ah, here is a copy of the interview questions that they’ll be asking you. Look over it again, just in case.”

“Oh okay, oppa.” Nam Ji Hyun said to her manager who was turned around to face her from the front car seat, reaching to take the sheet of paper from him. She scanned the paper to review the questions she needed to ready her answers more for the ongoing film promotional period.

“How was Mi Young-sshi by the way? I heard that the salon was going to open another branch in…was it in Daechi-dong or Yeoksam-dong?” Ji Hyun’s manager inquired after a moment of silence.

Setting the paper down in her lap, she replied, “She’s doing well as usual and I think she said Yeoksam-dong? Ne…I told her we should have another vacation again with the rest of the team once the film’s been officially released?”

They continued to hold a brief conversation before Jihyun went back to reviewing the questions. At nearly an hour drive to the set place for the interview from the salon’s location of Cheongdamdong, she was soon done with the task and was able to take a rest and occupy the time on her phone. Careful not to press down on the hair that her hairstylist did, she laid back on her chair, sending texts to friends and surfing on Naver.

Reviewing the top searches before scrolling down on the day’s stories, a sizable article headline caught her attention:  ACTOR JI CHANG WOOK RELEASED FROM THE ARMY- WHAT’S HIS NEW PROJECT?

“Oh! Oppa is back,” Jihyun murmured to herself, smiling slightly. Briefly looking at the press’ picture of Ji Chang Wook on the steps of the district office, she scrolled further down to look at the other stories.