case 02

chapter 15: the only person

Yuta strolled through the store at a purposefully slow, leisurely pace. He stopped at all the right middles, curving his lips in all the right angles, smiling at all the right people.

Midweek at his boutique was always a ruckus. There were all kinds of brides, each looking for their own fairy-tale dress, and each a different kind of demanding. His trusty assistants were scattered across the store, armed with their metaphorical water hoses to fight the very real fires. Sometimes the flames were a little too big to tame, and that was where Yuta would come in, a mega-sprinkler showering sweet nothings that would turn even the deepest frown around.

From his periphery, he noticed Renjun looking rather frazzled as he attempted to reassure his set of customers. Upon closer inspection, Yuta realized Renjun’s party consisted of not only the bride and groom, but two much older women sporting annoyed, exacting looks, who he could only assume to be the couple’s mothers. Both the bride and groom looked like they were at the bloom of their youth – they probably were newly twenty-one, at best. Angry mothers, troubled young couple – it was a classic formula Yuta knew all-too-well: Shotgun wedding.  

After assuring a particularly indecisive, yet quarrelsome bride that she looked like “a swan floating over Lake Tahoe in the spring, a ballerina gliding across the Bolshoi stage”, Yuta made a swift exit and headed towards the struggling Renjun, ready to save the day and, probably, Renjun’s life.

“This dress is too low-cut, the bodice is much too embroidered, and why isn’t there a bow–“

“Good afternoon, my pretties, may I help you?” Yuta sing-songed, swooping in gallantly. He saw relief flood through Renjun’s face, like he had been rescued from a thunderstorm.

One of the older women, who Yuta mentally nicknamed Karen One, quickly turned to him. “Are you the manager? Can we customize this dress?” she asked, the speed of which she moved to her second question showed how little she cared for an answer to the first.

But Yuta didn’t mind. It didn’t matter who they thought he was, as long as they forked out the moolah for his dresses.

“Of course,” he smiled. “It can be customized in any way the bride desires. The sky is the limit!”

As usual, his words worked like a charm. Her expression immediately softened. “Can we customize it even after we place the order?” she continued, eyeing him carefully – what Yuta knew was an instinct when someone was aware of the unreasonable nature of their own request. “Say, if the bride’s stomach gets bigger–“

“Mom!” The bride interrupted, turning a bright shade of red.

“It’s true, Yeri.” The other older woman – Karen Two, probably Yeri’s soon-to-be mother-in-law dismissed the girl. “If we don’t getting a wedding hall anytime soon and end up pushing your wedding, your baby bump might show, and you might not even be able to fit into your dress.” She made a haughty turn to her son. “Luckily, Jaemin will always look good in his tux.”

Obviously, Yuta thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, the dude isn’t the one getting pregnant. The young couple looked like they were about to burst, and it was probably one of the only times in the world that Yuta thanked his lucky stars that he didn’t have parents.

“Given the right dress, a bride will never have to worry about any of that,” Yuta smiled sweetly. He waved a hand at Renjun. “Get the rack of princess dresses that just arrived yesterday – there’s one with a sweetheart neckline that would work perfectly for this beauty.”

Renjun nodded quickly, flying away faster than his legs could carry him and mumbling “you’re a godsend, boss” on his way out. Yuta knew that. He wasn’t just a godsend, he was a god– But the hour for self-praise could come later. He still had fires to fight.

“How many months in are you?” Yuta said kindly, bending towards the young bride.

“Two,” she muttered, still clearly flustered.

“Not to worry,” he said. He gave her a reassuring pat on the back. “This happens more often than you think. There’s a dress for any kind of bride – we’ll find something just for you.”

She eased into a small, albeit hesitant smile. Even the groom seemed a lot less tense. He was telling the truth – he’d seen a lot of pregnant brides at his store, and all of them had left satisfied. He didn’t need to tell a lie to sell a dress. Sometimes, a carefully curated truth was more effective.

Just when he thought he’d made a killer move, Karen One and Two were back in action. “Oh, we wouldn’t even be in this if they weren’t so silly,” Karen One started to nag. “Only in university and already pregnant – seriously!”

“And,” Karen Two added, as though the young couple hadn’t had enough public-shaming, “we’ve been completely unable to find a wedding planner! No one’s been willing to plan a wedding in under a month, and we’ve just been so desperate!”

As if on cue, Yuta felt a tap on his shoulder. He tilted his head and found an excited-looking Wendy behind him – probably excited for lunch. He felt a lightbulb go off in his head.

“Ladies, if I may,” Yuta said, grinning at Karen One and Two as he pushed Wendy forward, “this is my friend Wendy Son, one of the best wedding planners in Seoul.”

Wendy’s eyelids shot up. Always easier to ask for forgiveness than to beg for permission, Yuta thought, chuckling.

But Yuta had forgotten that the concept was applicable to everyone but Wendy Son.

“You crazy !” Wendy hollered, thwacking him with a rolled-up newspaper. Yuta didn’t know where the heck she’d gotten it, considering he’d never seen her read. “You’re out of your ing mind!”

“No, you’re out of your mind,” Yuta said. He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Only an idiot wouldn’t be able to recognize a business opportunity staring her in the face.”

Jaehyun and Seulgi looked across the cafeteria. The loud squabbling –mostly Wendy– had drawn the eyes of half the lunch crowd, and Jungwoo had shifted a seat away, like the one seat could dissociate him from their business-meeting-turned-full-on-shouting-match.

“What’s going on?” Jaehyun asked. He pulled a chair, at first a gentlemanly gesture to Seulgi until he plopped down on it himself. He laughed as Seulgi responded with a stink-eye, and amusedly tugged her chair for her.

“Yuta recommended Wendy to one of his clients,” Jungwoo replied, before Wendy or Yuta could respond with their own skewed rendition of events. “Some youngsters are having a shotgun wedding and need a wedding in a month – Yuta thinks it’ll make them good money, but Ms. Loudmouth here,” Jungwoo eyed Wendy, “thinks it’s completely impossible.”

“Because it is!” Wendy shot both Jungwoo and Yuta furious glares. “I have protocol to follow, you know? My suppliers aren’t that flexible. It takes a lot to get them to bump up a wedding into two months, not to mention, less than a month–“

“Then charge it back to the client,” Yuta interrupted. “Offer your suppliers higher margins, and double your prices. Those kids and their parents look desperate – they’ll pay anything.”

Wendy threw her hands up in the air. “It’s not just a matter of cost – it’s a matter of logistics, too!” She stared at Yuta, dumbfounded by what she perceived to be his utter ignorance. “Aren’t your logistics going to be ed too?”

Yuta waved her off coolly. “I’d sew her dress with my bare hands in less than a week, and charge them triple.”

“Well you have one dress to make – I have a whole wedding to plan! It’s not just covering a baby bump with a fluffy skirt–“

“Baby bump?” All five raised their heads in horror. Johnny calmly took his seat among them. “Is one of you pregnant?”

Yuta stared daggers at Wendy, who cussed under her breath and started slapping . Jaehyun promptly reached over Jungwoo and knocked a glass of barley tea on Johnny’s lap, pointing an accusing finger at Jungwoo when Johnny looked up. Jungwoo’s mouth fell open in protest, screeching for dear life as the much taller, much larger man chased him around the cafeteria.

Seulgi threw a half-annoyed, half-grateful look at Jaehyun. “Someone had to be tribute,” he shrugged. She elbowed him because she had to, hiding the small smile that formed on her lips.

Johnny fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat. He convinced himself it was because the pants he’d stolen off Jungwoo were much tighter than he’d expected –why didn’t he go for Jaehyun’s, the pranking er– and not because the woman in front of him seemed a lot less uncomfortable than he was.

For someone making a difficult, extremely personal request to a person she hardly knew, Victoria Song seemed unnaturally composed. She sat across him with an undented posture and hands steepled on her lap. Her eyes were vacant, like the life had been out of her, like anything and everything had ceased to matter.

Johnny had come with a game plan, or rather, an exit plan. He was going to decline politely, offer her a few of his best contacts, and run for the hills, possibly take a leave of absence for a few days so no one could blame the impending pandemonium on him. But as he gazed at her, he felt an itching curiosity creep over him – a lawyer’s sense of persistence that had to come at the worst possible moment.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Victoria said, before Johnny could execute his plan of action.

He coughed out a nervous laugh. “Do you?”

“I do,” she smiled, and Johnny already felt ed. “You’re going to turn me down, but you’re here, prolonging this conversation, because you’ve got too many questions and you know that if you just leave, you won’t get any of them answered.”

Christ. It had nearly slipped his mind that she had been a lawyer’s wife for decades. No way she could’ve stuck around Changmin for that long if she wasn’t able to outsmart him in one way or another. And outsmarting the Shim Changmin was no small feat.

Victoria chuckled. Johnny’s reaction told her she was right. “You have three questions,” she said cleverly. “Anything more than that I’ll only answer if you take my case.”

Johnny snorted. She was definitely Changmin’s wife.

“Fine, I’ll bite,” he acquiesced. “Why do you want a divorce?”

“Because I don’t