Suddenly want to take a break from the angsty-angsty. Do not worry. Still breathing for it.

Call it a reversed My Fair Lady, or an inspiration after watching this HK movie “The Greatest Lover” by Chow Yun-fat and Anita Mui. A whacked plot and dumbed down stereotypes but keeps me grinning the whole time. Trying to finish it faster while the gears set in motion. Here we go!

Everything has to be set in perfection for her.

Her, as in, the most renowned image consultant of the city, with a reputation so wide she has been known to give birth to a lot of aspiring actors, casanovas, even with the rumored politicians and the respective rivals requesting for an image grooming from her, an image so powerful it comes with the greatest probability of winning the heart of the public, winning a seat in the parliament.

Everyone sought her services. Everyone can’t get enough of her.

But today she feels like dying.

‘This is just too cliche’ is the first thing that came to her mind as she watched the scene unfolded before her. The sweetheart of nine years, now slipping the necklace around a woman she doesn’t know, sitting at the desk she reserved months before, sitting on the spot that should have been hers.

I mean… is he stupid or something? Why don’t just slip the ing thing at someplace else? Not that she thought the deserve anything else than a good kick in the . The pang of humiliation comes first even before the broken heart, which is sick and twisted in itself. What would she has to said for herself after this? The best image consultant that can’t even hold the good image to save her own life? Who would even trust the crappy excuses like that?

And the event. Ugh. It’s in two weeks.

Dying in the most elegant red dress and the most elegant flowing hair seems like the best way to end it all.

She really can just walk to the river and take a dip, drowning herself for the eternity, unless the numb feeling in her legs, that dull throbbing that reminds her together with the high heels that has lost its heel. Right, the entire dumb walking along the river and the dumb crack of the pavement that caught her heels and successfully tripping face first on the concrete.

“Ahn Hyejin, the best! Ahn Hyejin, nothing can get past her…”

But unlike any other days, the mantra did nothing rather than crumbling her faith to pieces. Now she can feel something wet flowing around the cheek, great, a smudged makeup will be the next thing she’ll get this time. The cycle would be completed. She inhale a deep breath, keeping the air in her cheeks and looking upward with the shimmery eyes. It’s not the first time anyway. The jerkface has been done it several times already. The thought keep her head hung low, fighting hard not to let out a sob.

So much for trying to keep it together.

An attempt to wallow herself whole was interrupted with a light poke to her side. She ignores it, but one poke become two and almost turning into jabs, fishing out an annoyed hiss. How can a woman can’t even allowed to be sad for just a minute? Is this the end of chivalry?

Wanting to give a piece of her mind, Hyejin looked up.

He was a she. A woman in… a high school uniform. Holding out a balloon attached to the plastic stick that Hyejin suspect she has been poked with. Correction. A high school uniform means she’s a girl. Before Hyejin can comment at the the absurdity of the scene in front of her, the girl speak.

“Sorry, I just got this from the candy stall over there… And it seems like you might need it…”

Hyejin’s manicured hand taking the balloon extended to her in a daze. The girl seems wanting to burst into sentences before she stopped. “Oh… your face…”

A realization hits Hyejin as she rashly wiping the eyeshadow around her eyes that surely has become lumpy and smudged everywhere. Or she can just rip her face altogether so no one would recognize her after this. “Oh no, don’t do that… Wait.” The girl scuffling through all her pockets in her uniform. Before Hyejin realizing it, her cheeks are being dabbed gently with a handkerchief.

“It will just take a second.”

Something in Hyejin tells her to just shout at this stranger for not treating her like a baby and that she is able to take care of herself instead of being pampered by a high schooler, but her entire body frozen in the spot, letting the high schooler erasing the remains of the eyeshadow smearing her face. The dab was just embarrassingly soothing, but she will never said that out loud. Even the girl squat in front of her while doing it. One point for Gryffindor.

Hyejin will never miss the smirk she sported as she looked satisfied with her job.

“Done. You can keep the handkerchief. I hope you have a good day.”

Sensing the goodbye, Hyejin don’t know what came over her as she grab the stranger by the wrist.

“I do not have a good day. At all. Possibly in the future as well.” Hyejin’s voice become stern as the poor girl looking confused. “Could you help me?”

--

“So let me get this straight.” A pout jutting out as the girl try to comprehend the situation, but Hyejin can only land her eyes to her lips. So cute. Wait. “You need my help for the party you’re about to attend?”

“It’s not just any party. More like a gala.” Hyejin shrugged. “A big nest of networking. Loads of connections you can’t even imagine. But that’s not the point.” She went on explaining the source of her headache. “Almost all of my acquaintances will attend, even some clients.” Thinking about it gives her chills. “And my boyfriend just cheated on me, so no couple for the gala. Only for that day. And image training class is important for anyone these days if they want to make it in this twisted society.”

“Seems like a pain, though, ahjumma.”

Her eyes are this close to pop out of the sockets. Ahjumma?! “You take that back! I’m sure I’m not that much older than you. Besides, this will be good if you want to broaden your connections early, even when you are still at school.”

“School?” The girl averting her eyes at her own uniform for a moment. “Oh… Oh, right…”

“I’m not sure if I need it now but… okay, I will help you.”

“Really?” There has never been a deal struck this easily, it borders on suspicious. “Do you want more compensation? Of course, everything’s on me.”

“Nah~ That image whatever-you-call-it is something everyone sought after right? That will be enough.”

“Okay…” A shady feeling lingers at the back of her mind at how smooth this is all going. “We will start tomorrow. Wait, what’s your name?” She extended her right hand, acting like she hasn’t mess with the order of things.

“Moon Byulyi. You can call me Byulyi. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” The girl accepting the hand with an amused look.

“Ahn Hyejin. Now that I am older than you, you should treat me with respect.”

“Okay ahju- Noona.”

“Ya!”

--

‘Trying to process the absurdity of it all’ is a phrase that becomes overused to Hyejin these days.

No one, in their wildest dreams, will imagine the image consultant to hang out in a place cafe with frilly table cloth and blinding neon lights, a group of customers with bag packs shouting ‘HURRAH’ and getting crazy over the dancing girls in maid uniform that shooting heart fingers and the loads of cute poses that Hyejin just can’t understand the charm of it for the life of her.

And among those girls is Byulyi. Even with less heart fingers and stiffness when it comes to sensual lines, it was something that borders to the point of scarring for life.

Okay. That would be too much when she just doesn’t want to admit how cute the girl is when she looked like she will just do the cute pose on a gunpoint. A blaring speaker spouting a list of anime songs on cue jolting her out of the reverie as a plate of omelette rice being served on her table.

“What kind of writing would you like for today, ojou-sama?”

“... You’re just pulling my leg right now, aren’t you?”

“Can’t say I didn’t have fun doing it.” Byul chuckled as she take out a yellow sauce bottle and drawing a heart sign on the egg. The utter cheesiness of it all almost causing a heart attack. Hyejin shot a glare at her. “What?” That -eating grin again. “I’m just doing my job.”

“No time to waste! Come.”

Hyejin just have to drag Byulyi out of that place.

--

“This is an important event that only last a day. So…”

Hyejin press a switch with her thumb as the screen behind her flashing, displaying a range of complicated-looking profiles. “I have already taken care of it. You said that you don’t have any social media, and it turns out you’re not lying, so I took the liberty of making you one. This is the persona that you’ll be in for next week. Moon Byulyi, a financial advisor that decide to take Liberal Arts at NAFA after graduating from Stamford in order to pursue a longtime dream.” The screen swiped to a series of images of Byulyi edited impeccably as she was having tea at England and playing golf at some field in Rome with many others. “A long amount of time spent abroad didn’t update you much on anything happened in this city recently and here,” Hyejin drop a big, intimidating-looking dictionary with a SLAM that make Byulyi jumped. “So much to work on that pronunciation, because of course someone who has been studying abroad should have at least a good command of English and… Is there anything else?”

Byulyi shutting her jaw that just dropped before. “You have to admit that this is a lot to take in… And what’s with the obnoxious setting? Can’t I just become the pleasant-looking , fun to have around?

Hyejin clicked her tongue, visibly annoyed. “Not possible. I was known to never lower my standard. And don’t you worry about that online profiles that just steadily gaining followers as we speak. You can just sell it to someone else and be done with it. Now, let’s start!”

--

“Absence.”

“E-bu-cents-su.”

“Confusion.”

“Kon-uh…Kon-bu-shion.”

Hyejin drumming her fingers on the whiteboard as she proceed.

“Crossroad.”

“Uh.. Wait… Ku-rosu-ro-du…”

“Come on!” Hyejin brushing her own hair to the back frustratingly, it must have looked like lion’s mane by now. “We have been doing this for three hours!”

“I’m practicing, okay…? Uh, how to do this one…”

Wow. Is this going to be the first failure that will taint her reputation as a renowned image consultant? Okay. Let’s try to calm down first… “Noona…”

Hyejin look at her with a shocked expression at the unexpected term of endearment. Their eyes locked as she realizing Byulyi pointing a finger at her while mouthing a word. You. A thumb pointing to herself. Me. She motioned for Hyejin to come closer, pointing to the part in a book while doing so. “What is it?”

Right beside her ear is the deepest voice she have ever heard from a high school student.

“Compatible.”

“KYAH!” Hyejin jumped back, rubbing her earlobes ferociously, an attempt to fight a heat that creeping ever so quickly to her ears. Just in front of her, Byulyi laughing maniacally. “How is it? I’m doing a good job right? Right?”

It just pissed her off to no end. The Great Hyejin being duped by a high school student? “Ne-next lesson!”

--

Hours becomes a day, and it becomes several days as the image consultant cramming all that she has to know for the gala this Saturday. Memorizing the names of all possible attendees including their likes and dislikes, table manner, memorizing all terms related to finance as the subject, the background story of how she and Hyejin met, how to dance, how to act, how to smile… A feat that doesn’t seem to push the high schooler to a breaking point, if anything, it is Hyejin that seems to reach past the breaking point.

Another set of gasps filling the high-end boutique as Moonbyul came out of the fitting room, undoubtedly coming from the majority of the female clerks. The high schooler donned a set of shirt and pants with red, blue and white stripes subtly stamped on it, along with a polished Tom Ford black shoes that screams nothing but regent and classy. One of the clerks stepping in hesitantly with a blazer. “Uh, if you could excuse me…”

“Oh! Thank you.” Byulyi stretched her arm while the blushing clerk pulling the blazer on her and step back hastily as Byulyi straightened out the crevices on her blazer. As soon as she checked herself on the mirror she let out a whistle. “How is it, noona?”

She. Is. A. High schooler. This should be criminal.

“Well…” Hyejin let out a cough, trying to keep herself composed. “That-that doesn’t look half bad at all.”

The statement pulling out a smile that is so wide it’s transforming her face to a scrunch with crinkles decorating it as she giggled. Hyejin found herself to become even more flustered than she ever was. Cu-cute… “We’ll take that.” A credit card is being extended hastily as the clerk’s face splitting a service smile. “I assume you’ll take it together with anything else?” Of course she refers to the heaps of suits that the high schooler has been tried on before.

“All of them.”

--

“A special skill?”

“Well, this gala is famous for its special show.” Hyejin shrugged as she scooped out yet another ice cream from a giant bucket of chocolate Hagendaaz. Donned in face masks and slices of cucumbers decorating the crevices of her flawless face, she take a deep breath and groaned as the high schooler, donned in a pajama with hamster motives cracking another sore as she massaged the consultant’s feet, eliciting another satisfied groan. The event is tomorrow, and everything has been prepared. Hyejin, gaining all the strength and convincing herself without much success that this is not an attempt to fulfill a hidden agenda, offering Byulyi a chance to spend the night at her crib, a chance that quickly bitten by the high schooler gratefully, especially at the chance of fiddling with the all too-popular Animal Crossing in her mansion, a chance that would hurt no one i