CHAPTER 2: RING

"You had been groaning for God knows how long it was, Seulgi had been waiting for us for about an hour or two and you're just there sleeping and I'm here throwing questions at you and how foolish I am to understand that you're still on your dreamland, sleeping beauty." Wendy complains a thousand times as she watches her friend doing her job to finish her plain and clean look, the older woman is currently tying her hair into a messy ponytail as she never bothers to answer her grumpy friend who had been spitting all the things she could say towards her. Meanwhile, Irene just couldn't stop thinking about the words written in her grandmother's diary, she had read a lot of stories about love but the way her grandmother Joohyun wrote it for someone had never tried to get sugar-coated words, all of them were written with hurt and sadness.

"Anyways where did you get that book?" Wendy asked looking at the book sitting next to her bed. "Are you practicing something?" She added. Wendy was about to grab the book when Irene looked towards her direction.

"If I tell you, you'd probably think that I'm also starting to get crazy, I swear." The older woman said as she pushed Wendy out of her room. "Now you better entertain your friend and I'm just going to fix some things here, I'll be following shortly after this." The woman nodded her head and left the older one in her room. While fixing her bed, Irene found herself sitting at the end of her bed, browsing some pages of the book of someone's nonexistent love story, when suddenly, a sketch of a woman fell on her lap, an old sketch of a person sitting on a bed, her palm seemed to be wrapped with bandage and her knees who looked pretty wounded but no matter how the businesswoman tried to distinguish the person on the sketch, she still couldn't tell who the person was, as she all knew that it wasn't her grandmother."

"What if..."

"Sorry for keeping you waiting, Seul." Wendy said as she stepped out of the kitchen. "The old woman was sleeping so I have to scold her to wake up." Seulgi laughed and answered that it was okay. She and Seulgi had been friends for a while now, they've known each other since college as they attended the same university and had been classmates to some core subjects before and since then they've got to get closer.

"Do you know Velvet Fragrance?" Wendy asked as she sat across the couch facing her.

"Yes, I heard they started to walk in Europe after they successfully landed in the Americas, am I right?" Seulgi answered as she looked straight to her friend while observing the calm ambiance of the businesswoman's living room when her eyes landed at the picture frame hanging in the wall.

"Yes, have you already met her? The president you know, that woman in the picture frame?" Before Seulgi could even answer, a light footsteps were heard that made the two of them turn their head towards the bedroom. A woman wearing a black plain tee and skinny jeans appeared, a casual fit that can be rarely seen to the powerful woman of the Bae's. Irene and Seulgi's eyes met, making the psychologist smile politely to the older.

"Unnie, finally." Wendy rolled her eyes and pointed to the psychologist. "This is Psychologist Seulgi Kang, the three of us attended the same university but I think you haven't noticed her there since their building was kinda far from yours but I went to some subjects with her and that's how we came to know each other. Seulgi-yah, this is Irene Bae, the president CEO of Velvet Fragrance, we've been friends since then but she's boring and old you know, she's doesn't even know how to fli-"

"WENDY!" The two called her on cue. Wendy then stopped from talking and showed a peace sign to them, Irene glared at her and stretched her hand towards the psychologist.

"I'm Irene, nice to meet you." She said, waiting for the professional to accept her hand. The psychologist accepted her hand and shook it. "Seulgi, Seulgi Kang. Nice to meet you. The woman shows a charming smile and then they decide to leave the house after the short introduction to each other.

--

"What on earth is this ing place Wendy?!" Irene shouted as they stepped inside a crowded club blasting with electro music, smoky atmosphere, stinky air, drunk, flirty and ing people around the corner and a light that almost knocked the out of the older but her friend didn't give a damn as she just slid herself inside the dance floor.

Meanwhile, Seulgi who stood on her side said. "Follow me."

"No, I'm going home." Irene was about to turn her back away from the psychologist when she suddenly remembered.

"Do you want me to call an Uber?" Seulgi politely asked from her back, the older sighed and faced her. "I haven't brought my car either, so-" Irene waved her hands and asked her.

"Are we going to sit with these bunch of people?" She asked and stood back on the psychologist's side. Seulgi shook her head and laughed.

"No." Seulgi answered. "Is this your first time coming in here?" The older nodded her head that made the psychologist hold her laughter at the back of . Seulgi can see how the eyes of the businesswoman turned from happiness to disgust after she saw how many people she needs to see tonight. "Are you really that old? You seemed not, are you sure you're 29?" Irene glared at her and that made the psychologist laugh.

"So are you just going to tease me here in the middle of this club or you're going to bring me to the place where that small person went?"

"You're way smaller."

Irene's eyes widen as she turns her head towards the psychologist. "I didn't say anything." Seulgi said she the insides of trying to pertain the laughter that was about to escape inside of her.

"Are we just going to stay here in the middle?" Irene asked, obviously starting to get irritated at the presence of the psychologist.

"No."

"Then where?"

Seulgi offered her arm to the older who obviously just looked at it, the psychologist shook her head and said. "Hold my arm, don't let go if you don't want to disappear inside this strip club." The older abruptly did what the younger said. The two dispersed to the crowd, unintentionally hitting each other's body.

They stood in front of VIP lounge when a bouncer stopped them from entering. "ID?" He asked calmly, his arms crossed to his chest as the two women looked at each other, as if their eyes were trying to search for answers.

Seulgi was about to answer the bouncer when Irene suddenly spoke. "Excuse me, we are not underage, and if you can remember or whatever, a short person might just enter this lounge so you might let us in too." The older kept her composure collected as she looked at the man straight to his eyes. "And also, I haven't bring any of my ID's mister, if you want to make it sure that we're not breaking any of the rules, you can go search for Wendy Son inside that ing lounge, bring her out of here and get her ing statement." Irene was slowly losing her patience. While tapping her foot on the carpeted floor, her eyes landed to the psychologist who seemed to be quiet standing next to the railing watching the wide vastness of people partying downstairs.

"You seemed to be quite often in here." Irene said as she stood next to her.

Seulgi smirked and looked at her fingers. "It's been two years since the last time I've been here with Wendy." She answered as she took a ring off of her ring finger. "I wasn't allowed to come here and I'm too busy to go out with Wendy." The psychologist put the ring inside her pocket and faced her.

"So you're married?" Irene asked, looking at her, the psychologist nodded and sighed. "Congratulations to you, your husband wouldn't really allow you to come here in this kind of place, for sure a lot of people would be drooling over your feet."

Seulgi smirked. "Oh God, now seriously? Do you really think I would be ending up with guys?" She laughed. "Of course not." She laughed and left the older standing there surprised on what she just heard.

"Unnie, are you just going to stand there?" Wendy shouted in front of the lounge as the person standing next to her had burst into laughter as she watched the surprised reaction of the older.

"You've got to be kidding me, what the hell did you just tell her?" Wendy asked Seulgi who just showed her pointed her empty ring finger towards her friend and left her.

"."

--

"Gracious goodness." Irene silently palmed herself as she watched her friend who's going out wild in the middle of the dance floor, obviously high intoxicated with the liquors she had drunk an hour or two before, she already lost the count on what time they have arrived at the club but there is one thing she knew, the sun was about to rise a few hours from now. "Is there anything we can do for her?" She asked her table buddy who was just sitting there starting from earlier.

"Why? Do you want to go home now?" Seulgi answered as she drank her second glass of cola.

"Yeah, there were a lot of things I needed to do today, I might just get some enough sleep before I go to the company or I wouldn't be able to finish the papers." Seulgi nodded and drank the last drops of her cola. "How about you? Aren't you supposed to be home now?" The psychologist just smiled and went to their friend who was incredibly drunk at the moment.

"Why do I even get to be friends with a woman who likes to get wasted and to a psychologist who seemed to be cheating to her husband or wife or whatever it was, I don't know." She stood up when she saw the psychologist walking back to their table.

"Your home isn't that far from here right?"

"Yeah, why?

"I need to walk you home, she doesn't want me to borrow her car, and we also need to wait for another hour for an Uber to arrive and it's really hard to look for a taxi at this type of hour so there would be no other choices for us plus my car is in your condominium's parking lot." Seulgi shrugged her shoulder and slid herself out of the crowd.

The two walked in silence, the spring breeze of March hitting differently after a few hours of moderate drinking, Irene could feel her head slightly swirling up and down as she kept her feet moving straight forward when she remembered that the person walking next to her was married. "So, how does it feel when you're married? Does it feel good? Would there be any benefits for us as a woman? The ups and downs?" Irene asked, her head being flooded again with the thought of her father who wanted her to be married with someone she merely knows.

"It feels good, yes, but living in a country with people who see my relationship to my better half makes us feel more awkward." Seulgi said as she fetched her ring from her pocket. "Everything started with bright and light colours when we suddenly needed to come back here in Seoul, at first I was really confident that we can fight for our relationship, but the eyes of people here makes us sick and..."

"We're slowly drifting apart?" Irene said looking at the psychologist who seemed sad as she looked at her wedding ring. "Do you love your better half?" She asked slowing down her speed from walking and looked at the person next to her. "Why aren't you answering?" The businesswoman's eyebrow rose up as she watched the psychologist play with her wedding ring.

"I don't know anymore, for years that we've been married, I just realized that type of question would feel unknown to me now."

Irene shook her head and stopped from walking. "Then you're just a person who wasted its life for nothing. You know what, you look good but you're a fool." She said, making the psychologist to look at her.

"What do you mean Ms. Bae?"

"You misinterpreted infatuation for love." After Irene said what she needed to, the older walked ahead of her kicking some stones she could see lying around. "What if it isn't love? What if you just enjoyed the idea of your better half being with you the whole time that you are miserable? It doesn't mean you grew old now you wouldn't misinterpret the infatuation for something, girl, infatuation is infatuation, if your relationship with your partner wasn't going well the way they used to before, then you better let go, you're just killing each other's pride and glory as a person."

Irene said realizing that even though she'd never been into a right person before but the feeling of being right to the person who wasn't ever the glorious love for you would feel toxic and will be the one who's going to kill you.

"Years are never been enough for you to realize that you love that certain person, Seul, even though that you're going to say that you've been together for 6, 7, 8, 9 and many more years together, if he isn't the right one for you, he would never be the right one for you."

The psychologist listened to the things that the older had said to her, she never had been in deep thoughts for a while now, the only thing she knew was she went home at night feeling the empty and sadness as she watched her wedding photo who seemed to look so happy but in reality, it was already shuttered into pieces.

The only thing that Seulgi could wished every night was to wake up from the nightmare she was facing, hoping that everything's okay, that everything was fine but this was the reality, a cruel one that she needed to accept.

"You can go now. I can handle myself from here." Irene said as she turned around to face the psychologist. Looking straight to her long face, the businesswoman could felt the heaviness from what the younger was carrying, Irene had never seen such a wonderful person be this miserable for love, she could sense that Seulgi Kang was a nice person but how could a woman like her fell in a problem of love while she, the older woman who never get to experience to fall inlove for someone and now advices her like a pro as if she has been hurt.

The older sighed and opened her arms. "Come here." She said feeling the sense of giving the psychologist a warm hug, the younger came near her and let herself fell to the warmness of the older woman's embrace. "There's nothing wrong to feel miserable to your romantic relationship with someone Seul, first just figure out the problem and after that do a move to make it right and if you have to let that person go, let him be because one day, you will just realized that your better half isn't the right person for you but someone and love didn't mean that since you two have known each other for too long, you really are for each other, love can happen anytime, anywhere, even if you just newly known that certain person, it can be love Seul." Irene let goes of the psychologist and bows down.

"I hope the next time we're going to meet, you're in a much better state." The businesswoman left the psychologist standing in the middle of the lobby as she proceeded herself to the lift. The things that the older had said towards the younger had kept on repeating inside Seulgi's head, as if someone had just picked the burden she felt for the very long time. For the last time, Seulgi looked at the businesswoman before she could even closed the elevator's door, the older smiled and bowed her head before she completely left.

Seulgi then whispered. "Thank you."