Jung Woo ignored the catastrophe blowing up outside her closed office door, her brain already branching out several schemes trying to salvage something, anything.

She looked through the design, comparing the cut, the sleeves, the freaking color patterns, and a nasty smirk emerged as she shook her head in disbelief. That little turd didn’t even have the decency – does she even try? – to change even a minuscule of her design before turning it into a dupe with shabby quality material, rotten stitching, pitiable unaligned pattern, and ill-fitting cut that belong only in the garbage bin.

Repulsed, she threw the flimsy scanty dress to the floor and pinched her nose’s bridge to fend off the incoming headache. Her fingers twitched, wanting the feel of menthol and the burst of nicotine to calm her spiking adrenaline.

That weasel launched 3 out of the 12 new designs for the up-and-coming spring collection and sold them through her social media.

Three.

The management team and her financial backers would say that it was still salvageable, that it won’t detract much from their progress, that she could simply replace those designs with new ones if she wanted to, or just continue and show the world the difference in quality. Anything but scrapping the whole collection and wasted 11 months of hard work, stopping the manufacturing process, and destroying the already produced clothes.

She could.

But she wouldn’t.

The other house of design would’ve guessed her concept, her color palettes, her patterns. They probably already bought those 3 designs and deconstruct them. From it, it would not be hard to guess the direction of her collection.

She prided herself to be unpredictable in her designs, to always bring something authentic to the table, and to help shape the fashion currents and set the trend.

So would she let herself fall victim to fast fashion and uncreative rip-off just because it was the easy way out?

Definitely not.

Squaring her shoulder, she walked out from her office toward the commotion, the sound of her stiletto boots turned the raucousness of the hall into nearly deafening silence.

Everyone had their phones on their hands, she could hear dissonant blabbering coming out from a couple of phones, sounds overlapping, but she somehow could hear snippets of her own voice mixed in between.

KayDay, one of her social media experts, stepped forward, her already sharp features turned sharper, something pissed her off so bad that the usually soft and calm kid looked like she was ready to extract her claws and shredded them into pieces.

“You might want to see this.”

Jung Woo took the phone and saw the paused Tik Tok video. Sliding the time bar to the beginning, she was distinctly aware that the room had gone dead silence, everyone’s eyes were on her as she pressed play.

Her face hardened as the video played out, there was a thunderous storm lurking just beneath her calm exterior, but anyone that know her knew that she was anything but.

She was livid.

Sketches. Her sketches for the next collection were shown clearly inside the video as Jo Eun ranted on the screen. There was a high pitch sound ringing inside her ears but she could still hear that ungrateful dimwitted imbecile claiming that those sketches are hers and that the big bad corporation had been working her off and trademarking her design.

Bile rose and burned when she saw the edited version of her saying, “You’re done for” were edited into the video to be on repeat three times, each time getting closer and closer to her face – she almost wondered when the devil’s horn would appear – before Jo Eun ended the video with a sob story about how the company axed her and blacklisted her from the fashion industry because Jung Woo was jealous of her young talent.

When she woke up that morning, she did not expect to come to the office and found out that her apprentice for the past 2 years had been backstabbing her for the past year. She also did not expect that in the five hours since they terminated her contract and slapped her with a confidentiality agreement so strong – even that infamous silver-haired lawyer from Jung, Moon, and Ahn wouldn’t be able to break them – she chose to strike instead of reflecting on her wrong-doing.

She looked up and saw that everyone was on their phones, already trying to do some damage control, the view was still low enough but progressively increasing, and she knew from experience that people love to hate on other people. Gave them a mark and they would jump on the bandwagon, simply just to hate.

Well. Let them.

She tapped on KayDay’s shoulder, cutting her mid-speech with whoever it was on the other line, handed over the phone back to her, and walked over to her pissed-off Art Director.

Jo Hyo Won had been by her side from the start, she knew exactly how she painstakingly build this brand. Unfortunately, the world that she was currently living in put her into a pedestal placed in a tight rope that one wrong move, or one malicious intent viral video, and everything that she had worked so hard for–

Jung Woo shook her head, she looked at the worried look on Hyo Won’s face and the same expression on everyone’s face – what she and her team worked hard for, could easily crash and burn.

“Hyo Won-ah, scrap it.”

The Art Director closed her eyes in resignation. She meshed her lips together in frustration, counted to three, and then nodded.

Whatever Jung Woo said was law in this building, but more than that, she was rarely wrong in her decision, and if Hyo Won ever trust another human being, that would be Shin Jung Woo.

“Consider it done. I’ll deal with the suits. Go, I know you need to….” Hyo Won shooed her off with her right hand, the other hand still holding the phone to her ear, “do whatever it is you always do whenever you are pissed. Go.”

Jung Woo gave her best friend a small smile and quickly head out from the skyscraper building, while she could still walk out freely, before the vultures descent on her.

***

It was supposed to be a quick detour, just to change out her clothes and grabbed her sketchbook, but when Jung Woo entered her apartment, she was torn between locking herself in her bedroom and retraced the past 2 years, just to analyze where exactly she did wrong or to march into that backstabber apartment and confronted her. She would rather fight it face to face than have to face this cowardice.

She paced her living room, frown marred her handsome face, deepening the worry line between her eyes. Something pounded on the back of her head and reverberated into the back of her neck and settled heavily onto her shoulder. Burden. She felt responsible somehow. This whole fiasco was caused by her apprentice, months of work down the drain just like that.

She groaned and rubbed her face with both of her hands, smudging her makeup in the process. She fought the urge to scream and throw something, break things maybe, just to let out the anger that currently bottling up.

“No, no, breaking things won’t do any good.”

She in a cleansing breath, letting the strategic part of her brain take over. She had a deadline to catch, she needed to start sketching.

Taking off her crop biker jacket roughly, she threw it on the floor and started stripping all the way to her bathroom. She cringed when she saw her reflection under the harsh lighting of her bathroom. She was a mess. The dark smudges of her mascara only contrasted the redness of her eyes, making it more prominent. There were splotches of red on her cheekbone from rubbing off her lipstick.    

Scrubbing the remnant of her makeup quickly, she hit the shower, hoping that the icy water would help cool her down and maybe her brain would finally tell her what to do to salvage this cluster.

***

Ji Hye expertly made a bear on top of the steaming cappuccino before giving the red-hot cup to her co-worker. Thank goodness she could make latte art even in her sleep, because right now her head – okay, maybe her heart too – wasn’t in the right place.

She was worried.

Aside from following all of Jung Woo’s social media, she also set up alerts for Jung Woo’s name on practically every platform ever existed. Okay, so maybe it was a tiny bit stalker-ish, but it was harmless. It wasn’t that weird wanting to be the first to know about your favorite person, right? And it also wasn’t all that weird if you also want to know what other people think of your favorite person, right?

As the result? She saw that blasted video before it got taken down.

Jung Woo’s PR team sure does work fast. It took them exactly one hour before they snuffed it completely. It took a herculean effort to be able to achieve that, but they did. Unfortunately, some people still managed to save it and several videos already started to pop out, conspiracy theories started to roll out and it might be a tiny dot in the grand world wide web for now, but those dots could cover the entire map if not quickly taken care of.

By force of habit, she chewed on her lips, wondering whether she should text Jung Woo or not. The older woman did give out her personal number, saying that she was rarely on her social media account. They did exchange a couple of light texts these past few days – mostly her saying Hi and Jung Woo saying Hi back – but it counted, right? They were friends, right? Sort of?

*Should I? But she might be busy now…*

“Extra-large black coffee, triple shots. No, no sugar. Ah yes, my own tumbler. Thank you.”

Ji Hye was so lost in her thoughts, she was sure that her brain had finally given up and started imagining things.

She turned her head slightly and her eyes widened when she saw the owner of that slightly husky voice was really standing there, ordering coffee in her shop.

She quickly averted her eyes and looked down, her heart started beating into a different, faster rhythmic tempo.

She stole another glance, half-hidden by the coffee machine from where she stood making coffee, she let her gaze linger. Jung Woo looked softer than what Ji Hye remembered – the Jung Woo from her memory of their date night already overshadowed by the fierce persona that the media portrayed her to be.

She looked younger, easily blended in with the other young patrons, with her face devoid of make-up, hair tied back in a loose low ponytail, comfortably cozy in her cowl neck hunter green maxi knit dress with a giant dark chocolate sling bag slung across her torso, nearly covering them completely. 

She watched as Jung Woo took back her filled-in tumbler with a small smile and a soft thank you, before making her way to the empty dark gray sofa overlooking the window.

Ansso nudged the distracted young woman and whispered at her harshly, “Ya! 256 to 259 still haven’t gotten their order, hurry up.”

“Got it.” She stole one last look at the woman that has been the starring heroine in her dreams lately and went back to work.

Time passed, customers went in and out of the coffee shop, picking up pace when it hit 7 PM when the store start giving discounts on the day’s pastries and slowing back down as they hit 9 PM, just an hour before closing time.

Ji Hye slightly crouched, still preferring to stay hidden from view as she spied on Jung Woo once more. In roughly 3 hours since Jung Woo entered the coffee shop, she only nursed that black coffee. Just sitting there lost in her own world, sometimes looking out the window and watching pedestrians pass by. Sometimes she would put her pencil to use, sketching something on her book – a permanent frown on her face, as if she was not satisfied enough with what she was doing.

Taking out a cup of homemade Greek yogurt topped with granolas from the refrigerated display case and 2 bottled water, she placed them and a plastic-wrapped spoon on top of the tray. “Can you take it to that woman over there? Just tell her that we’re giving out taste samples.”

Ansso looked at Ji Hye with questioning eyes, but Ji Hye just shooed her away, “Go.”

She waited with bated breath as her co-worker made her way over and saw the confusion on Jung Woo’s face. Ji Hye made a small yes gesture when she watched Jung Woo grab the spoon and started to eat, but quickly schooled her expression when she saw Ansso made her way back toward her.

“Done. Happy now? Ughh, why do they have to hang around until closing time, we still have to clean and close shop. I want to go home so bad.” The blonde younger woman complained as she placed her tray near the pickup area.

It was their turn to close up shop, the other two baristas and two other waiters already ended their shifts. Their remaining customers were only Jung Woo and a couple on their coffee date, and Dolla already finished cleaning up the dishes before heading out, so closing up should be fast enough. “You can go early if you want, I can close up myself.”

Ansso perked up at the offer before coming back to her senses, “How could I let such a skinny girl like you lift the chairs to tables all by yourself? Are you crazy? You’ll break your arms.”

Ji Hye laughed, she rolled the right sleeve of their white shirt uniform and playfully flexed, showing off the lean muscle on her surprisingly toned arm, “You were saying?”

Rolling her eyes with a blush, Ansso looked at Ji Hye with a hopeful look, “Are you sure? Actually, I’m meeting this guy….”

“Say no more, go, I’ll be fine.”

Squealing silently, Ansso threw Ji Hye an ‘I owe you one’. Hands were already busy untying her apron as she walked toward the back-office area to change.

Ji Hye let out a small laugh at her friend’s antique and quickly gave the couple a bow when she saw them make their way to the door, “Thank you, please come again.”

She gave Ansso a big wave when her friend – already changed back to her own clothes – bid her goodbye.

It was just her and Jung Woo now.

Cleaning up as much as possible without distracting the older woman, Ji Hye flipped the signage to Close before fixing herself a hot black coffee and sat in the far corner, debating whether or not to make her presence known.

One look at the sketching woman, Ji Hye smiled and opted to just sit there in the corner, instinctively knowing that what Jung Woo needed was to drown herself in her creative space.

***

Jung Woo combed her fing