It feels like Irene is the only other person in the room. Everything in her peripheral vision has blurred as if it's just her and this enigma of a woman alone. It's like without them, reality would just phase away. She's utterly unfazed, arms resting on the wood above her waist, her fingers delicately poised on the table's b and that same impeccable posture that she had seen yesterday. Not one part of her moves; she's so still to the point that Irene can feel a sense of nervousness at the unnaturalness of it all churning in the pit of her stomach. Despite the devil's static eeriness, she exudes fire, fear, and force- the absolute pinnacle of purposefulness. She hasn't even said a word- in fact, she's late, and yet nobody has questioned her. Why was it that they were so scared of her? She wasn't Satan himself, she's just his left hand and so surely everything she does is just a relay of him. Irene likes to think that those types of people only hold as much power as you let them have, she had hoped that the stranger would face a lot more 'don't shoot the messenger' situations but clearly this woman's word was never trespassed against. Despite her beliefs, she can't calm the spine-chilling trepidation crawling up her back.

Did she know who she was? That's a stupid question. Clearly a woman so influential wasn't stupid enough to forget about a literal angel spilling wine on her at her own party. There are enough guards stationed around the room for her to simply snap her fingers and never even have to worry about the trespassing angel again and yet... she stays still. Why isn't she moving? Why isn't she saying anything? Their eyes still haven't wavered from one another's and Irene is feeling her hold on maintaining eye-contact beginning to sputter out. The trepidation on her back had become a vice of terror gripping her head and it isn't just last night's wine that's making her head throb now.

Irene's fingers bend and hold the edge of the table, arms tensing up so that she can stand and leave or make a run for it or something because she's sure that this staring contest is going to lead to her demise but just before she does so, the almost tangible laserbeam between the two of them is gone at the click of a tongue. The woman has turned her attention away as if the interaction had never just happened, it's like Irene may as well have just vanished. There is no fiery temperament in her eyes like what she could have sworn she just saw. It's replaced with a calm coolness, one that is exuded most ominously. Whoever she is, she has an overwhelming amount of influence. It's evident not only through her manners and her physical character but the brainless way that everyone had reacted when she had entered. It would be a lie to say that she wasn't intimidated.

"I see a few new faces here today," The captivator of everyone's attention raises an eyebrow, her finger dancing across two others but, curiously, not Irene. "In that case, I'm Kang Seulgi and--"

As soon as her name leaves her lips, a woman beside Irene is rendered into a fit of coughs that wrack her entire frame (which isn't much of a feat judging by her petite size.) Her short, blonde hair bounces wildly, her cheeks paled with shock growing increasingly red at the force she's exerting and one of her hands clutches at her chest as if she's gasping for air. Nobody moves. Is that what Hell is like? Irene reaches a friendly hand out but once again she's interrupted. It feels like nothing is going right for her.

"Moving on," Seulgi steeples her fingers, eyes narrowed suspiciously in a manner similar to that Irene had been on the unfortunate receiving end of at the blonde-haired woman who's breathing is ragged although her chokes have subsided for the most part. Upon meeting Irene's concerned gaze the woman gives her a few dismissive nods, her eyes fearfully flitting back to whom she can only presume is Seulgi. "I said: moving on." With bated breath, Irene turns to face forwards not paying attention to the woman at the head of the table. Not the woman who's eyes are burning holes in the side of her head. No, no. Not her. Not Kang Seulgi.

Whether this small act of defiance just blew the unusual terms on which Seulgi has allowed her life to continue, Irene has yet to find out.

The rest of the meeting slips by unusually fast. For the most part of it, Irene is weighing up her fate between her two palms. Will she live, or will she die? She's sure that living would mean her tongue gets chopped off and becoming a nameless creature who's only purpose is to serve. She'd never feel the warmish glow of her halo on her head ever again, doomed to live in a world of autumn hues for eternity; how awful. Now that she's thinking about it, does her halo actually radiate any heat? Or was that something she'd made up to elate her social status amongst devils? God, she hopes she lives to debunk the theory.

If she dies... well. Would it be painless? Irene likes to think Satan would have enough power to just 'vapourize' her. That sounds painful. More like just take her out of existence as if she wasn't even there in the first place. Upon reflecting on that wish, if Satan did have that much power, then her angelic counterparts most likely aren't going to fare well in the future.

Did Hell have a justice system? Maybe that'd be too contradictory--

"You're dismissed,"

Seulgi's low register snaps her out of her thoughts and Irene is dragged forcefully back into reality. Satan's second in command is already half-way out of the door and as soon as the same skittish servant has swung the wood closed again, the devils surrounding the table make haste in packing away. The older man opposite her, with horns that protrude from his forehead in such an odd manner that it looks like they would ache, is eyeing her with caution and Irene feels a flush of embarrassment as she realises that he was the unfortunate soul her eyes had landed on for the entirety of the time she was spaced out.

Dodging and weaving through the clumps of devils outside of the conference room is a hard enough feat to complete without drawing attention to herself too. They chatter amongst themselves, idly standing with one another for no real reason other than unanimous, mutual politeness that they all pretend to enthuse in but most certainly will complain about how they were 'kept back' later. Devils are more sequacious than one would initially expect considering the very anarchistic ideologies that they centre their lives around. 

The hallway is long, people at the end of it are seemingly materializing from nothing or disappearing as if they were never there before. No one gives her a passing nod and greeting or even a glance. Away from the thick bubble of a dismissed meeting where each attendee is unsure how to break through it, attention is a precious commodity and time cannot afford to spare it. The tiles beneath her feet don't seem to end, the grout in between the whitened slabs is darkened and the soles of her shoes scuff them, sending squeaks that make her back stiffen like that of a nail drawn down a chalkboard would which echo throughout the tunnel, no doubt making a few horned heads turn in her direction. Doors line the walls, leading to other rooms most likely a hub for devils and the thought of how many she is truly amongst is beginning to become suffocating and so she picks up her pace and the only thing that snaps her out of her determination to leave is the absolute, foreign feeling of someone else's skin upon her own: more poignantly, a hand around her wrist and it's dragging her inwards before she can cry out and her words are lost in in a hitched whirlpool of shock and confusion and yet the same silhouettes fading in and out of sight continue with their predetermined paths.

Irene is in a bathroom now after being pulled with unforgiving force through one of the doors she now so wishes she had been paying attention to, as if the very presence of her gaze might've warded off this threat. Traipsing her eyes up the index finger and thumb locked around her wrist up to the shoulder leads her to the threat in question: Kang Seulgi but before she can utter a word, whether it be apology, cry, curse or thanks (for whatever inane reason that could be) she's being backed up against the tiled walls and Irene is pushing too (with the underpowered force she can muster in such a short turnaround.) The bathroom is small, the gap between the wall and the stalls opposite is no more than a metre at most, the gap between sinks and the door to the world outside continuing undisturbed is even less than that and there would be no use running out there where Seulgi's brainless minions would most certainly veer and swarm her as if they had all been moving to her in the first place. Seulgi's back barely misses the stall behind her to a point that any loose threads on her blazer would have tickled it and yet the size of the room doesn't seem to affect the sudden ferocity that sparks behind her irises. 

A fist swings towards Irene's sculpted jaw but whether it's from the fear and anticipation or some other primal survival instinct that Irene would otherwise be curious in learning about, she turns her head past it, catching her arm and yanking her forwards into her now upraised knee which sends the devil reeling. Either the woman trusts her fists or Irene has angered her beyond a point of control because now punches are flying this way and that and her knuckle connects with her lip and a pain blooms around her lower face and the second connection is at her temple, sending her crashing into the enamel sink and adding to the mounting pain from her hangover. Hands slipping on the water lining the sink's brim in which a normal situation she would have cried out