The Cutting Edge

023

Hyejin was slumped on her bed with her head buried beneath her pillow, wishing she could just dig a huge hole and jump into it. Throughout the day, she could barely concentrate on anything she was supposed to be doing because every now and then an image of Hyunwon would slip into her mind and then her mind just turned into a jumbled mess.

"Song Hyejin, get a grip!" she chided herself. "This is all an illusion. You are just confused because you haven't had enough sleep over the past week." Yes, that had to be it. She knew that she had a perfectly logical mind, so there had to be a logical explanation for these illogical thoughts.

Just then, her cheesy ringtone went off, making her leap up with a start.

"Hello?" she said, once she had managed to locate her phone somewhere in the black hole of her bag.

"Hey, it's me." Ares.

Hyejin groaned. The last thing she needed now was another guy trying to mess up her life and Ares tended to be exceptionally good at doing that. Hearing his voice, it reminded her of the score that she needed to settle with him.

"What do you want," she replied curtly.

"Could you come outside for a while?"

Hyejin immediately ran to her bedroom window and peered downstairs—sure enough, there was a silver BMW parked below with someone in a white baseball cap standing beside it.

Is he out of his mind? she thought to herself as she hurriedly threw on the thickest jumper she could find lying around and dashed out of the house. The last thing she wanted was for the neighbours to realise that Ares Hwang was standing outside her house—the woman next door was possibly the biggest gossip in the nation.

"What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" she hissed at him. The time was now ten to midnight.

"Sorry, my schedule ended slightly later than I had expected," was his reply, completely missing the point.

"Get in the car. If we hang around here my neighbour will—"

What happened next was even more mind-boggling, so much so that Hyejin was completely stunned into silence. Ares suddenly enveloped her in his arms, burying his head against her shoulder.

"What are you doing? Let go!" she cried, looking around in horror to make sure that no one was about. If anyone took a sneaky shot of this scene then the tabloids would have a field day and there would be hell to pay tomorrow morning. She frantically tried to push him away, but the more she resisted the tighter he held on to her.

"Just a minute. Please."

Exasperated, Hyejin stopped moving and stood there stiff like a washboard, willing the minute to go by as quickly as it possibly could. The strong smell of vodka suddenly accosted her, causing her to wrinkle up her nose in disgust.

"Have you been drinking?" she remarked with a frown. "Is that why you're behaving so strangely?"

Ares didn't reply. Instead, he just kept his arms quietly wrapped around her for the rest of the minute, before he slowly let go. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he said.

Now that she had the chance to look at him in the face a little more carefully, she realised just how bloodshot his eyes were. Either he hadn't slept in days or he had been crying—whichever it was, the alcohol only served to exacerbate the effects two-fold. Tonight, Ares didn't look the slightest bit like the poster boy that he usually was; he just looked like a broken young man without the slightest bit of hope in his eyes.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I think I'm just too tired. The past few days have been pretty hectic. With awards season coming up, Gina's got way too many interviews and shoots lined up. It's typical for this time of year."