*Warning: The following material may contain strong language, unusual humor, violence, and sexual contents that readers may find offensive. Please use your own discretion.*

1.4

Sukyung felt herself blush. She quickly stood up and bowed to him.

“I…I’m so sorry. I… I guess I fainted. This has never happened to me before.”

“It’s because you starved yourself. If that’s how you plan on transforming yourself, you can just forget about it. I don’t want someone like that in my shop.”

Sukyung hesitantly looked at the man, who took his glasses off and stared at her. Sungwoo narrowed his eyes and studied her up and down. Sukyung pulled down her skirt with shaking hands and averted her eyes.

Sungwoo asked,

“So why did you come here? You want to do something about yourself?”

Sukyung bit her lower lip and nodded. The man continued to stare at her uninterestedly.

“And what is it that you want? Do you even know what my shop does?”

“Umm… It’s… a beauty shop… I heard you can transform someone’s appearance…”

She murmured hesitantly. Sungwoo neither nodded nor shook his head. All he did was just stare at her, making Sukyung uncomfortable.

“And how do you want to change yourself?”

“P…pardon?”

“I asked you how you want to change yourself. And what’s your goal? I can’t imagine you planning to enter a beauty contest.”

“N…no.”

Sukyung could feel her face turning red. She nodded quickly before shaking her head.

“Oh, no I mean… No, I’m not entering a beauty pageant… It’s just that… right now, I…”

“You look awful.”

Sungwoo said to her bluntly. Sukyung jolted and looked up, but when their eyes met, she looked down again. Her face was now boiling.

Yes, she knew. She knew very well that she looked horrible. But was it okay for him to say this to her face? Even if it’s the truth, she still didn’t like hearing this. Just because he looked so amazing didn’t mean he could say this to her.

And didn’t this man work here? How was he able to run this place acting so rude like this? This was a service business, wasn’t it? Jaewon used to tell her all the time that the hardest thing for him was dealing with the customers.

But then… Jaewon told her this three years ago. Perhaps the beauty industry has changed a lot since then.

Just once in her life… Couldn’t someone be nice to her?

“You should know that no matter how much you change your appearance, it will be useless if you act like that. Looking down and acting so hesitant… Have you ever met a beautiful woman who slouched like you? Who stammered like you? Being shy and having low self esteem are two very different things.”

But considering how she looked… Wouldn’t it be stranger if she had high self esteem? Of course, there was something even she was good at.

Accounting.

She could do her work with her eyes closed. Sukyung was confident that she was better than most accountants in her office. She has been working in this department for the past seven years. Even the managers told her that the company would be in trouble if she wasn’t there.

But everything else…

“I will ask you again. Why are you trying to change your appearance? What is it for? For a man?”

Sukyung blushed again as Sungwoo looked at her knowingly.

“Hmm, so it’s for a man… Who is he?”

“It…it’s not like that.”

Sukyung yelled urgently, but Sungwoo only raised his eyebrow.

“No? Then what is it?”

“W…well…”

What was she supposed to tell him? What could she say that would make her sound normal?

“Umm, well… My little brother… He’s a hair designer.”

The man looked at her blankly. Pressing her cheeks with her palms, Sukyung continued,

“He just came back from studying abroad. He got a job in Korea recently and… I… I look so bad that… I think he’s embarrassed by me, so…”

The man remained quiet for a long time. Wondering if he heard her, Sukyung looked up when suddenly, Sungwoo began to laugh.

Sukyung blinked in confusion.

“Are you serious? I’ve never heard such a ridiculous thing in my life! So you want to spend tens of thousands of dollars¹ just because your brother is embarrassed by you? Are you rich? Or did you win a lottery or something?”

Rather than feeling embarrassed, Sukyung felt surprised. She murmured,

“Umm… H…how much is it?”

She did have some money. It was true that it cost a lot to pay for Jaewon’s education, but after he graduated, he interned at an upscale hair salon, so she only had to pay for his living expenses for the last few years. Sukyung, being a frugal girl, has been saving most of her money.

Besides, Sukyung was determined to spend however much it was going to cost to become the woman Jaewon wanted.

But then… It sounded like this was going to be very expensive, so she couldn’t help feeling nervous. Sukyung was so used to being frugal that the thought of spending any money on herself felt wrong.

“The starting rate is 10,000 dollars. It will probably cost more.”

***

1. I’m just gonna write in dollars instead of Korean Won to keep things simple.