The Cutting Edge

022

For the first time this morning Hyejin stared straight at Hyunwon, unable to mask the look of disbelief on her face. "You want me to do what?" she asked.

"Replicate this look for the awards ceremony."

"For who?"

"Ares Hwang."

Now it was Remington's turn to stare at Hyunwon in shock. When he finally came back to his senses, he immediately jumped in and exclaimed, "Are you out of your mind? I thought we just went through this! Hyejin is still a trainee so we can't possibly have her styling Ares for the MBC awards. I've already told Gina that!"

"Well just call her and tell her that we've changed our minds then," Hyunwon replied calmly. "Log the appointment under my name. In any case, I'll have to supervise. Tell Gina that if anything goes wrong I'll step in immediately, so she has nothing to worry about. I won't send her boy onto the red carpet looking like a poodle, in case that's what she's worried about. I think my name still has that level of credibility."

Hyejin wasn't quite sure whether or not she was dreaming. Perhaps she had fallen asleep in the training room after having stayed up for too long trying to finish those sketches, so this was all just some crazy dream that she was experiencing. That has to be it, this must be a dream. Without thinking twice, she reached out and pinched Hyunwon on the cheek, expecting herself to wake up immediately.

To her horror, Dream Hyunwon didn't evaporate and she didn't wake up in her own bed.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Hyunwon cried out, appalled at what she had just done. His hand instinctively flew up to his cheek, which was now burning because of how hard she had pinched him.

"I'm so sorry!" Hyejin immediately exclaimed, taking two steps back. "I thought I was dreaming!"

"If you thought that this was a dream then shouldn't you be pinching yourself instead of me?" Hyunwon stared at her incredulously. He had almost forgotten that this was the same girl who had given him a tight slap in this very same office previously, but now he remembered it all too clearly. This was what happened when he let his guard down, he told himself. Glancing sideways, he caught sight of Remington trying desperately to control his laughter, so much so that there were tears streaming from his eyes—he immediately shot his friend a warning glare.

Hyejin's cheeks quickly turned a flaming shade of red from a mixture of embarrassment and shame. This clearly wasn't a dream, which meant that she had just gone and pinched her boss, and what Hyunwon had said earlier had been real after all. But how could it possibly be real?

"If this isn't a dream, then what you just said about the MBC awards and Ares..."

Hyunwon stormed back to his chair and sat down in a huff. "You clearly heard what I said earlier so I'm not going to waste my energy repeating myself. If you want to achieve that look then between now and the day of the awards you're going to have to learn how to use different waxes properly and also how to get the correct dye shade you need. Now go back to the training room and get out all the different types of wax we have—if you're not ready within ten minutes I'm going to kick you out of the salon."

Hyejin stood there frozen to the spot, somewhat shell-shocked.

"Do you seriously want me to kick you out?"

Hyunwon didn't need to repeat himself a third time because within the blink of an eye, Hyejin was gone.

"What was that all about? You're seriously going to let Hyejin style Ares for the MBC awards?" Remington asked, still not quite sure whether or not everything he had witnessed had actually happened. Unlike Hyejin though, he chose to pinch himself instead—and it hurt. "Ryu will have a fit when he finds out. Ares is one of the biggest celebrities out there. All the cameras are going to be on him the moment he steps out of the car and onto that red carpet. We can't afford for anything to go wrong, especially not after the last time."