case 01

chapter 08: b l o o d  i s  t h i c k e r

“I hate reunions,” Wendy grumbled, sliding off her jacket. She downed her glass of water as though it was a shot of Soju, for dramatic effect. “They’re the bane of my existence.”

Seulgi looked at her friend with quizzical brows. They had just managed to excuse themselves from the riot that was their biannual, females-only college reunion, escaping to another restaurant a few blocks away. Seulgi had always found it a tiresome affair, mostly revolving around bored ladies gossiping about their ignorant husbands and lazy children, about new high-rise apartments in Cheongdam and private school donations, about the latest Chanel tweed suits, which, in Seulgi’s opinion, had been the same for the last two decades. Yuta would throttle her for her blasphemy, but she still thought it was mostly true.

And Wendy’s remark would have been fine if she hadn’t been the one harping to go to begin with. Seulgi only ever attended because Wendy dragged her out.

Wendy grabbed the nearby menu, flipping through the pages with a scowl. “I swear, if I had to spend another minute there listening to Nayeon go on about that new gem ring- no, amethyst ring,” she eyeballed while making the exaggerated emphasis, “that her husband got her, I’d lose my .”

“It’s a wonder you haven’t already,” Seulgi replied, chuckling.

Wendy leaned towards Seulgi, her brows meeting in the middle. “How much do you think one of those costs? Would that be even more than an engagement ring?”

Seulgi laughed. “Why didn’t you ask Nayeon?” She glanced at Wendy and gave her a teasing nudge. “Too busy being envious?”

Something about the way Wendy’s lips contorted back into an annoyed frown told Seulgi that she had hit the jackpot. Wendy was irked for the same reason she had insisted on attending the reunion – there was part of her that still fed into that trope, that societal ideal, against her better judgment.

Wendy propped her chin on the back of her palms. She sighed musingly, fixating her eyes on her half-empty glass of water. “What I would give to be a trophy wife. Or just a wife, really,” she said. “Should I have just taken Chanyeol back?”

Seulgi narrowed her eyes. “Wen, he cheated on you,” Seulgi deadpanned.

“But even he’s married!” She threw her hands into the air. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She extricated it from her pocket excitedly, but her expression quickly soured. “And all I get are texts from my kid brother telling me that he’s going to drop his laundry at home because he’s too lazy to wash them at his dorms! Seriously, my life.”

Seulgi erupted in peals of amused laughter. She could imagine Wendy glaring at Mark’s pile of dirty laundry and resorting to washing them herself, cussing Mark as she scrubbed away at his grimy sweatpants. With a loud groan, Wendy shut off her phone and shoved it into her bag. She turned her head, eyes involuntarily falling on a familiar face.

“Hello ladies, what can I get you– Oh, Wendy?”

Wendy’s eyes widened as her eyes transfixed on the equally startled Choi Minho. Only, he wasn’t in his usual getup of a suit and tie – rather, he was in the most unassuming combination of a t-shirt and jeans, with a stained apron loosely trussed around his waist.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Choi,” Wendy said, immediately standing up and dipping into a bow. Minho quickly reciprocated. Seulgi stared at them confusedly, wondering which side was the patron in the equation. “Nice seeing you here.”

“Yeah, uhm, nice seeing you here too,” he replied, albeit rather awkwardly.

Wendy’s eyes darted about. “This is my friend, Seulgi,” Wendy introduced quickly, trying to diffuse the strange atmosphere that had followed.

They shook hands and said their customary greetings, and the awkward silence made a return.

“Well, uh,” Minho said, punctuating the silence, “how about I bring you girls the specials for today, on the house?”

“Oh, that would be great, Minho, but you don’t have to–“ Wendy started politely.

“Don’t worry about it. I still owe you one for whatever happened with Yuri the last time, anyway,” he smiled, and then bowed again. “I’ll go put in the order, then. Won’t disturb your conversation any longer.”

As Minho ducked away, Wendy met Seulgi’s questioning eyes. “Someone you know?” Seulgi asked.

“Yeah, a client,” Wendy sighed. “You know – Choi Sooyoung’s brother, Choi Yuri’s husband.”

Seulgi’s hands rose to her lips to cover a gasp. “The Choi Yuri who slapped you in the face? Jungwoo’s clients that Yuta said would end up with me and Johnny?”

Wendy nodded. “Yeah.”

“Christ,” Seulgi muttered. “What a small world.”

Wendy’s gaze tracked Minho as he scuttled to the kitchen, accidentally bumping into another waiter and sending his entire tray of food flying into the air. The manager hurried over to the scene of the crime, shock and horror splashed across his face. He began spouting every insult in the book at an apologetic, tired-looking Minho. In that moment, Yuta’s words flooded through her mind, and she felt a sense of shame for her earlier gripes, which seemed more like unimportant trivialities in the face of a man who seemed to have a lot of trouble making a living.

Wendy checked her rearview mirrors, inching her car into the parking lot. As she tugged the handbrake, her eyes settled on the tall, unavoidably beautiful woman standing by the entrance of the hotel. She looked around, searching the crowd of people weaving in and out of the hotel doors.

The universe probably had been in the mood for a coincidence. The morning after the reunion and Wendy fatefully meeting Minho at the restaurant, she had arrived at her office to Giselle telling her that Sooyoung had dialed in, leaving a message for Wendy – Sooyoung had decided to continue her package. Wendy was naturally overjoyed, but there was a part of her that still felt slightly unsettled by the events of the night before.

Wendy took a deep breath. Whatever had eventually transpired between Minho, Yuri and Sooyoung was none of her business – it wasn’t her job. Her job was turning Sooyoung’s decision into a picture-perfect wedding, nothing more and nothing less. She dressed herself in her usual, warm, client-ready smile and strode towards Sooyoung.

“Good morning, Sooyoung!” she chirruped cheerfully. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry I’m late. I hope you haven’t been waiting for long!”

“Not at all! I just arrived five minutes ago,” Sooyoung assured.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Wendy made a polite gesture towards the double doors. “Let’s head in?”

Wendy pushed the doors open before the doorman could, keeping her head bowed until Sooyoung had long crossed the threshold. It was a petty sales practice that Yuta had taught her during her initial years in the service industry, and it had stuck ever since. She ushered her client to the plush sitting area and took the responsibility to announce their presence to the employees at the reception.

“The assistant manager is attending to another guest at the moment, but she’ll be with us shortly,” Wendy said, approaching Sooyoung and answering her before she could vocalize her questions. “It’ll probably be about ten minutes or so – would that be alright with you?”

“No problem,” Sooyoung nodded.

Wendy stood across the woman, staunch on continuing to stand despite the woman’s repeated calls for her to sit. Another practice of Yuta’s. “So,” Wendy said, drawing the conversation away from her choice of courtesies, “I’m really happy for you – that you’re able to continue your wedding without a hitch.”

Sooyoung chuckled softly. “It was my brother who insisted, actually.” Wendy flinched. “He said that this is probably the most important time of my life, and he didn’t want my wedding to be disrupted by whatever was going with him. He didn’t really give me a chance to argue, either.”

“That’s very considerate of him,” Wendy commented. Her curiosity was rising through her, fighting against her sense of professionalism. “He’s probably excited for you too, as your ‘Maid-of-Honor’.”

“He is,” Sooyoung smiled. “We’d been talking about it since we were little – that I’d be his ‘Best Man’ at his wedding, and he’d be my ‘Maid-of-Honor’.”

Wendy laughed sportingly. “Oh, that’s lovely. The both of you must be very close.”

She nodded. “We are. We only have each other, after all.” She lifted her head, gazing at Wendy with a wistful, faraway look. “You see, our parents passed away when we were both in our teens.”

A lump caught itself in Wendy’s throat. A muted, doleful feeling welled up within her, nipping at her heart. It was something she hadn’t felt in quite a long time, a feeling she thought she had stored away.

“I’m so sorry,” Wendy croaked.

Sooyoung forced a smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’s been a long time,” she said reassuringly. “It’s just probably why Minho pushed me to continue with my wedding plans. He still feels a sense of responsibility to ‘hand me over’, so to speak. Sooyoung shook her head with a quiet sigh. “Even to the extent that he’s trying to cover some of the wedding costs.”

The image of Minho with his eyes lowered and hands respectfully folded, being castigated severely by his boss, materialized in Wendy’s mind. Her heart sank further into her chest.

She knew Sooyoung had not been made aware of Minho’s plight. In any other setting, Wendy would’ve set all the details straight, but in that case, it really wasn’t her place. Sooyoung was her client, not her friend, even if being around her felt like she was her fr–

“Ms. Son, Ms. Choi, thanks for waiting.” A woman in an off-white uniform approached them, thankfully saving Wendy from herself.

Wendy swallowed her thoughts and rose to her feet, pressing her client-ready smile back on her face. As Yuta would have said: Don’t put the cart before the horse. Know your place.

“What’s got your wand in a knot?” Wendy looked up, seeing Jungwoo pull the chair across her. “Got your heart broken by some boy again?”

Wendy glowered at him. It was more of a reflex at that point, since most of Jungwoo’s greetings to her started off with insults of some kind. She thought that he would have known better, after more than a decade of Wendy giving him the literal and figurative middle finger, but Jungwoo was Jungwoo.

“No,” she snapped,