The Cutting Edge

026

Hyejin spluttered and almost coughed out all the ramen broth she had just shovelled into her mouth. "A hundred thousand?" she exclaimed in disbelief. Quickly doing the math in her brain, she came to the conclusion that cleaning Ares's place three times a week would earn her enough to pay off the monthly installment with some cash to spare. It was almost a five-fold increase from the pay at the convenience store (she knew because she asked the store manager about job openings while she was buying her ramen).

She raised her hand straight up into the air. "Alright, I'm in," she declared. It was too good an offer to pass up. And besides, Ares was right, she would be working for her keep so there was nothing wrong with that. Reaching out her hand to him, she said, "Let's shake on it."

It was just cleaning, what trouble could come out of cleaning?

#

When the day of the next interim assessment arrived, Hyejin was back to her usual chirpy self after having found a solution to her barbershop woes. When she arrived at the salon in the morning, she found Yeseul already in the training room, staring at the piece of paper in front of her so intensely that the paper would soon catch fire. Seconds later, it struck her that Yeseul was still wearing the same clothes that she had been in yesterday.

"Did you not go home?" she burst out in surprise, walking towards her friend. Sure enough, when she got closer, she could see the huge eyebags beneath Yeseul's eyes, evidence of having not slept the night before.

Yeseul just continued staring at the mess in front of her in a daze, her hand still gripping tightly onto the pencil.

"Yeseul, I think you should go wash your face," Hyejin said slowly, forcefully extricating the pencil from her friend's hand. She helped the girl up to her feet and steered her by the shoulders towards the door, else Yeseul would never budge.

When she saw her friend actually head in the direction of the washroom, Hyejin retraced her steps back into the training room. She glanced at the loose sheets of paper strewn all across the table, then at the balls of crumpled paper that had fallen all over the floor. With a sigh, she quickly helped to clean everything up before one of the OCD senior stylists (and there were quite a few of them) came in and found the disaster zone.

Sure enough, Roxy, Yeseul's mentor, waltzed into the room minutes later carrying all the material needed for the assessment, having been tasked to prepare the room for it.

When she saw the stack of drawings on the table, she remarked, "These must be Yeseul's. They've improved somewhat, but why do they still look like a kid's school artwork?" After tossing out that casual comment, Roxy went ahead to lay out the stacks of blank paper and stationery on the various tables, whistling a tune as she went along.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hyejin caught sight of someone standing by the door. When she turned, she realised it was Yeseul standing there, her lower lip trembling and her face drained of its colour. Knowing that Yeseul had probably overheard her mentor's remark, Hyejin quickly rushed over and gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder, saying, "Your designs are great! Roxy just has sky high standards, that's all. Don't worry about it!"

"Really?" Yeseul looked at Hyejin hopefully.

"Of course!"

There wasn't much time for anymore chit-chat because the clock struck nine and everyone else began streaming into the room for the assessment. The nine trainees were all jittery as usual, with the exception of Hyejin who felt strangely calm. Perhaps it was because she was in a particularly good mood after having solved the barbershop problem, she thought to herself, but right now she needed to focus on the task at hand. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and thought about all the designs she had ever done and all the comments that Hyunwon had given her before.