The Cutting Edge

019

The next morning, as the clock was ticking towards nine, a flustered girl with messy bed hair and mismatched socks came dashing into the Cutting Edge's training room, immediately looking up at the clock. When she saw that she was just on time, she heaved a huge sigh of relief and collapsed down onto the nearest empty chair.

"Song Hyejin! Where have you been?" a familiar voice called out from across the room. "I've been so worried about you. You weren't picking up your phone or replying my texts! I almost thought you weren't going to show up today."

Hyejin looked up and saw her friend walking towards her, and a broad grin immediately appeared on her face. Waving cheerily, she replied, "Sorry, Yeseul, didn't mean to vanish on you. It's just that signal was terrible at the village so I couldn't respond."

"Village?"

Nodding, Hyejin replied, "We went to a small fishing village to give free haircuts for charity. The people living there are mostly elderly and some of them are bedridden so they can't even leave the house—"

"We?" Yeseul's sharp ears immediately picked up on the key word. After the thought sank into her mind, she grabbed hold of Hyejin's hand and whispered, "Was it Hyunwon that went with you? He wasn't around for the past two days either and we all thought he was just throwing one of his artistic tantrums and staying home as usual. Was he with you all this while?"

"Uhh well yes..." Sensing that this could quickly be misconstrued, Hyejin immediately added, "But it was purely a work trip! In fact, it was training from hell. Do you know how terrified I was of making a single wrong snip of my scissors while he was observing me? I don't think I've ever been this scared since oral exams in school."

Yeseul looked like she was in plain awe of what she had just been told. When she finally came back to her senses, she said in all seriousness, "Do you know how many of us would kill to have the chance to be trained by Hyunwon? You lucky girl! That's like a dream come true! You'll ace the interim assessment today, that's for sure."

Hyejin laughed, but before she could reply, a snide voice interrupted their conversation.

"Oh look who's decided to show up? I thought you'd finally come to your senses and decided to quit! What ever possessed you to return?" Hannah was standing by the door, arms folded across her chest, looking none too pleased to see Hyejin in the room. As she walked past the two girls and took her seat, she made sure to toss them a condescending glance as she went by.

Looks like someone's still sour about what happened the other day, Hyejin thought to herself as she recalled how Hyunwon had abruptly shut Hannah down and put her back in her place. At the thought of how hurt Hannah had looked back then, she couldn't help but stifle a giggle. When she looked up, she locked gazes with Hannah, who seemed slightly put off at the fact that Hyejin seemed to be smiling at her comments instead of looking vaguely offended—that just made Hyejin grin even more.

"Alright, are we all here?" Remington swept into the room, once again with perfectly coiffed hair and impeccable grooming. He surveyed the group that had gathered and did a mental headcount. "Looks like we're ready to begin! Today you will be going through your first interim assessment of this training programme—all these assessments are to be taken extremely seriously because your culminated performance across all the assessments will be used to decide if you get to stay with us." Noting the nervous looks and shifting of feet in the room, he smiled. "Nothing to be worried about, just do your best and let your skills do the talking. Without further ado, let me get you started in your assessment task for today."

Walking up to them, he handed each of them the exact same photocopy from a magazine. The sheet contained a photo of a female model from one of last season's Chanel shoots, wearing a simple asymmetric bob to match the overall simplicity of the collection.