[A private meeting room on the 11th floor of La Rouge Entertainment HQ, at approximately 6.00pm]

It isn’t great news, really. Just when she’d gotten used to her manager of two years, the company board announces the decision to shuffle around its staff. And she’s a hundred percent sure it has something to do with the new addition to La Rouge Entertainment's management staff. Joohyun can’t help but feel annoyed.

Her previous manager had been difficult to adjust to – given that Seohyun is the same age as herself, the knowledge left them feeling awkward for at least half a year, figuring how their manager-artist dynamic could possibly work.

Now, Seohyun had been transferred to manage a duo of younger, rising girls, and the newest addition to the management team is due to take over. She doesn't know who the new manager is, save for the fact that her organisational skills must be so insanely good that La Rouge had decided to appoint them to her, a senior artist in the industry.

She really hopes that the newcomer isn’t the type with a stick up their . Seohyun is strict, and that had been slightly stifling for her. Even after two years of knowing each other.

She also hopes it isn’t a man.

Which brings Joohyun back to this very moment, as Seohyun prepares to hand over her role to the new manager. For a second, the soloist wonders if this whole “let’s-sit-down-and-talk-in-circles-about-this-new-manager-even-though-they’re-not-here” is hiding the fact that the new manager is late.

Not a great track record to start off, eh? Maybe they're not as great as La Rouge thinks.

As though the conspiracy theory she’d created based on her mildly biased irritation is some sort of summoning spell, the door to the meeting room swings open as an oddly familiar woman enters.

Joohyun nearly blanches.

It’s her.

The newcomer walks over and shakes Seohyun’s hand, taking a seat next to her. She turns to smile at Joohyun.

“Sorry I’m late. Had a little accident earlier.”

[Half an hour ago]

Joohyun finds herself desperately craving coffee after three back-to-back interviews about her comeback. She taps her feet impatiently as she waits for the barista to call her name, her eyes flitting over to the menu restlessly.

“An iced Americano for Irene?” The barista finally calls out, placing the cup on the serving counter.

Joohyun stalks over to the counter and grabs her drink with a slight nod towards the barista. She spins around almost violently to begin her dreadful walk back to that wretched meeting calling for a new manager, only to bump into someone.

Dark brown soaks the individual’s perfectly white shirt. Silence dragged out for several seconds, reigning over the atmosphere in the café. Joohyun feels her exhaustion-induced annoyance bubble into anger. Her eyes race up the small figure, up to shoulder-length platinum blonde that frames the stranger’s face, where her glare is finally met by widened brown eyes.

Her unfortunate victim’s mouth falls open as she registers the absolute tragedy that had befallen her shirt. Before the woman can say anything however, Joohyun cuts in sharply, “You should’ve watched where you were going.”

Refusing to wait for a reply, the soloist trudges off and decides to make quite a show of dumping the half-emptied cup into the bin on her way out, leaving the stranger to deal with the aftermath of their accident alone.

[Back to the present]

Joohyun’s eyes flit down to the stranger’s top, a tinge of guilt tugging at her. The ruined white shirt had been replaced by a softer, cream-coloured wool sweater. Of course. Of course the universe would decide that she had to be caught on a bad day by her new manager, ruin her shirt and cement the worst first impression possible.

“That is all right,” Seohyun’s voice interrupts Joohyun’s spiral into her shame and regret, “Are you okay though?”

The woman chuckles, shooting Joohyun a knowing look, “I’m good! Just didn’t watch where I was going just now.”

The soloist tries incredibly hard not to cringe externally as she remembers her own cold words to the stranger. She steels her expression to glare at the woman warningly.

Seohyun’s eyes swing between the two uneasily, and she clears , “Let us move on to why we are meeting.”

“Whatever.”

Seohyun rolls her eyes at Joohyun’s curt response before continuing, “Joohyun, this is Wendy. She will be taking my place as your new manager. Wendy, this is Joohyun, your new…charge.”

“Nice to meet you, Joohyun,” Seungwan extends her hand towards the soloist for a handshake.

Joohyun regards her new manager’s hand with suspicion, her mind beginning to race. You literally made an enemy of her with your petulant behaviour no more than thirty minutes ago and she’ll certainly smother you to death with that fake friendliness. Take that hand and she’ll crush you.