There weren’t many people in the hotel bar at the moment, it was just about to be 3PM and having a good number of people there would be odd.
The place was dimly lit but daylight still shone outside so it was not difficult to see the patrons, some jazz music lightly played drowning out into background noise.
Asa sat at the counter on a bar stool that was high and caused her legs to dangle above the wooden floor. She wore a formal attire of royal blue blazer on a nude-pink silk kneehigh dress. Her shoes were open toed nude-pink heels that eased the edge out of her look.
Her short dark hair was let down in elegant waves reaching just below her chin with a middle part.
Asa hadn’t ordered anything yet, the bartender was busy at work mixing drinks and wiping cups. He seemed irrelevantly busy for a place that was barely open. She let her mind wander.
The quiet in the place started getting to her somewhat, she had unconsciously begun scratching the inside of her palm, and tapping her heel to the side of the stool. She focused intently on the sounds, until they overshadowed every thought she was scared to have.
She didn't know how long she was at it until she felt a pat on her shoulder which pulled her soul right out of her body, she gasped, turned around in a frenzy and slapped the owner of the hand across the face. The sound of skin colliding against skin resounded in the quiet room that everyone stopped what they were doing to see what was going on.
Asa now refocused on what was happening and saw a tall man standing before her with his hand to his cheek and his face turned away in the direction to which it had been slapped.
Another man in glasses holding a tablet stood at his side barely concealing his urge to laugh, little sounds escaping through his nose as he tried to exhale calmly.
The man Asa had slapped turned sharply to look at her, livid.
“What was that for?” He asked, hardly able to contain himself, the bright red of his face giving him away.
Asa was flustered, “You touched me without permission.” she replied.
“I was calling out to you but you weren’t responding!” He flailed. The man in the glasses couldn’t hold it in anymore and snorted loudly then instantly added sounds to make it like he had not just done that.
“ehem, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The secretary said, looking away.
“Who are you?” Asa asked, her focus not shifting from the man before her.
“You won’t even apologize for slapping me?” The man asked in disbelief.
“I don’t think I was wrong.” Asa folded her arms on her chest and looked away.
The man looked floundered for a few moments, then collected himself and took a seat on the stool beside Asa.
He took a deep breath and let it out, then said, “My name is Kim Hoseok. CEO of the advertisement company you want to partner with.”
Asa’s eyes bulged, this was Kim Hoseok? Kang YuRi’s son? She thought he would be older, he looked so young, barely into his thirties, and he was so attractive that Asa looked away for a moment, reassessing what she was supposed to do from there.
Her plan was to seduce him, but that was going to be a problem now that Park Soo Myun’s daughter was getting into the picture not knowing how far they had gotten with the relationship. That’s not even the worst part, how would she work her way back from her first impression, being slapping him hard across the face and embarrassing him in front of strangers.
This was already not going well. However, a plan was a plan and Asa was not going to give up. She couldn’t afford to.
“I’m sorry about slapping you, are you hurt?” Asa said trying to get a better look of his cheek which was turning so many shades of red. An apology was a long shot but she was not averse to trying.
Hoseok looked at her like she had grown an extra head, she realized then that he wanted to be petty about it which he had every right to be.
“You slapped me, of course I’m hurt.” Hoseok replied deadpan.
Asa didn’t know where to go from there so she remained silent.
“Would the couple like to order some drinks?” The bartender chimed in trying to cut the tension but completely misread the situation.
“We are not a couple.” Hoseok replied stoically and said, “Yes, and give me a whiskey dry.”
“Ice and a cloth.” Asa said, Hoseok was rubbing his temples as though entirely too stressed.
The bartender brought the drink and Hoseok took it in one swallow, Asa received her ice in a cup and a cloth from the bartender's shoulder. She thanked him and asked for some gin and juice.
Asa put the ice in the cloth and pressed it suddenly against Hoseok’s heated cheek. He just stared blankly at her, she said nothing and started patting it up and down until he took the cloth from her hands and held it to his cheek himself.
“It’ll reduce the swelling.” She said, “I know what it’s for.” he replied flippantly and Asa just rolled her eyes.
Her drink came,she took it and then they got down to business. They discussed actionable frameworks for how the work would go, getting more details for what she wanted to see from the advertisement, which models she wanted to use for it as well; be it mainstream ones or more breaking into the scene models, what message her overall commercial was trying to get across.
Her project had no budget and hearing that put Hoseok in a better mood, she found this funny. All the while they took drink after drink after drink. Somewhere into their conversation it started to seem like her vision was blurring.
Asa wasn’t a lightweight by any means, in fact she could drink her weight in alcohol but something felt off with how she was suddenly feeling.
She decided to stop drinking altogether after the fourth cup, yet she looked more inebriated than Hoseok who was on his eighth. Asa tried to pull it together by asking for water, she took it yet she was still feeling bad.
It had been almost 2 hours since they started talking and 30 minutes since she began to feel terrible. She decided to call it a day, she was not making any progress with him anyway this was the best she could do for today without coming off too forward, she decided to leave it.
“I guess we can call it a day, it was good to meet you Mr.Kim Hoseok.”
“And you.” He replied, shaking her hand and holding it out for her to take as she stumbled off the chair.
“Are you okay?” Hoseok asked holding Asa up, Asa righted herself even though the room was starting to spin, something about this felt familiar. She was missing something.
“I’m fine, it must have been a while,” Asa chuckled and started walking away trying her hardest to look as natural as possible, hoping beyond hope no one could tell how much she was struggling. Her body started to feel extremely hot and it was getting hard to breathe.
She knew this feeling, she knew what this was, the realization struck her as she took the elevator to the basement level to where her car was parked.
Asa could tell for a fact that she had been drugged, it was a familiar drug too, they’d used it on them when she was younger, the drug acted like a tranquilizer and sometimes an aphrodisiac.
The black pearl, most of their captors just called them pearls, because of how they looked. They used to force them to drink them so they wouldn’t fight. Asa truly believed after so many years she would never have to feel this way again. It was getting even worse now, as she walked along the parking lot she could barely stand on her own, grabbing onto the walls as she walked to her car. She could hear it, footsteps following her, she tried to start running but she felt too weak.
She got to her car panicking with the keys.
It did not last long, she felt a pair of hands grab her from around her waist picking her off the ground. She struggled as much as she could but it was for naught, a gloved hand clamped her mouth shut but she instantly opened her mouth around it and bit the person. They let out a grunt but did not let her go.
Asa struggled even more as much as she could knowing what was happening here meant nothing good for her, they were here to hurt her, she could tell.
The person started dragging her away from her car, she kicked and fought, nothing was working and even more of her waning energy was lost. When she thought she could struggle no longer a few things happened in concurrent phases one after the other through her blurred vision.
Her body was dropped to the ground like a heavy sack, a fight erupted around her, and someone picked her up gently from the ground. She wanted to push them away but at this point she had no strength left to even blink without straining her eyes to open again.
She saw that the one holding her now was Hoseok, he looked so worried, he was shouting something but Asa couldn’t tell what it was he was saying. Suddenly she was in a room, it seemed unfamiliar but Asa could tell they were still at the hotel, Hoseok placed his hand on Asa’s forehead and flinched at the heat.
He rushed to soak a towel in water and put it on her forehead. He tripped multiple times yet managed to do so with minimal injury to himself.
After the towel was placed on her forehead Asa just stared at Hoseok, wondering why he was fussing so much over her, someone he barely knew, someone who slapped him the first time they met, hard.
He sat at the edge of the bed as he talked to his secretary who was right beside him, he said something to his secretary who just nodded and left.
Asa sat up and Hoseok just watched her carefully, his eyes not entirely focused.
Asa began to take off her blazer and Hoseok panicked.
“What are you doing? Don't move.” he asked, moving away from her to give her room to take it off.
“It’s hot,” she replied, pulling her hands out of the jacket, “I can’t breathe.” she finalised.
“Oh.”
Asa was breathing slowly, finally feeling some air in her lungs again.
“Why didn’t you want to go to the hospital?” Hoseok asked.
Asa looked confused, “What?”
“We wanted to take you to the hospital after that man attacked you but you said not to, you almost punched me.”
“Oh, that,” Asa was trying to organise her thoughts. It was too hot, she started to dab the wet towel over her chest. “They can’t help me.”
“How do you know?” Hoseok was suddenly paying attention to everything in the room apart from her.
“I just do.” Asa said then she asked, “How did you find me?” looking at Hoseok skeptically, “Did you follow me?”
Hoseok’s head whipped in her direction clearly affronted, “I followed him, he was following you. He looked suspicious, that's why I did it.”
Asa just stared blankly at him, mostly due to the drug.
“You know, I don’t need to stick around here long enough to be made a suspect.” Hoseok stood from the bed about to leave.
Asa grabbed his hand, and Hoseok’s eyes widened, he just stared down at her without saying another word. Her hand was so hot it was almost uncomfortable.
Asa pulled him slowly back onto the bed to sit next to her, her breathing was a bit laboured and Hoseok was so confused.
Asa sat facing Hoseok on the bed, mere inches away from his face. She put her hands on either side of his face, her chest rising and falling quickly getting close to him. The strap of her dress fell down her shoulder exposing the skin there, Hoseok had not realized he’d held his breath.
“I need your help.” Asa stuttered hovering above Hoseok’s lips and he unconsciously licked them full and pink. Asa followed his tongue with her eyes and looked right back at him.
“The heat... is killing me.” Asa whispered to him, moisture covering her neck and causing her skin to glisten, “it’s the only way I know how to make it stop.”
Hoseok’s pupils were fully dilated and so were Asa’s, they breathed into each other, Asa’s hands on either side of Hoseok’s face and his on either side of her waist pressing into the bed.
“I can’t do this.” Hoseok tried to blink back into common sense when Asa lightly tugged him to fall on the bed on top of her.
“Please.” Asa begged and like a wire snapped somewhere within Hoseok. He dove in and took her lips captive.
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