A/N: Not so long of a wait this time...
Ga Eul had to get up.
She had to get up.
She had to get out of this stall.
She had to get out of this bathroom and out of this building and go home without being seen.
She had to be strong.
"Be strong," she repeated to herself.
Strong like Jan Di.
When Jan Di had been dating Jun Pyo and his mother had been out to destroy her, Ga Eul had worried about Jan Di but always knew deep down that her friend was strong enough to handle anything Jun Pyo's mother put her through. Unfortunately, she could never feel the same way about herself, although she knew she couldn't depend on Jan Di or Yi Jeong to defend her forever.
But what a great job she had done defending herself!
Ga Eul sank her head into her palms again and tried to make sense out of her frenetic thoughts.
Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then thirty, and still no one came into the bathroom.
Finally, she heard the bathroom door open and the clack of heels on tile, a sound she had a feeling she might learn to hate.
She opened her mouth to say something but quickly froze.
She hadn't thought this through.
What was she going to say?
Please tell the bride-to-be that she is needed in the ladies' restroom?
Jan Di would only cause a commotion, which would stir up reporters looking for a nice gossip column. There were too many members of the press here tonight, and there was no way she was going to embarrass Yi Jeong or her family or humiliate herself further.
That, surely, was Madeleine's intention all along, and she wasn't going for it. She would simply have to stay here until…until…
While she mulled over this, the pair of heels stopped directly in front of her stall, and a beige wool trench coat was thrown over the back of her stall door, toppling onto her head. She barely had time to react before she heard the heels receding and then the door slamming shut. Swinging the stall door wide, she looked around the bathroom but saw no one.
No one but her naked reflection in the mirror.
Staring at her reflection, she slid the coat on. It came down past her knees.
How did that woman know she was here?
Ga Eul shook her head.
She didn't have time to care about that right now. What she needed to do was get out of here as quickly as possible.
Stuffing the remains of her dress into the trash can, Ga Eul tried to remember the layout of the building from what she had seen when she came in. If she remembered correctly, there was a door leading to a stairwell a little ways down the corridor from this bathroom.
The wool coat scratched against her skin as she made her way to the door, but at least she wasn't cold anymore.
Poking her head tentatively outside of the restroom, she surveyed the corridor.
All clear.
Time to make a run for it.
Exiting the bathroom, she spotted the stairwell entrance she remembered and took off for it when she pulled up short.
There it was—the reason no one had entered the bathroom—a maintenance sign posted in front of the restroom entrance. No wonder no one had come in after the girls left. They must have planned this—the wine, the sign…except for that one lady.
Who was she? And how had she known…
A couple of people rounded the corner at the end of the corridor.
She had to go now.
Ga Eul ducked into the stairwell.
Tumbling down the stairs two steps at a time, Ga Eul came to an abrupt halt at a landing where an older man and a woman about her age were locked in a passionate embrace.
So Hyun Sub.
When he noticed Ga Eul standing there, he pulled his hand from underneath the woman's skirt and pushed her away.
"Miss Ga Eul, we meet again." His piercing gaze reminded her that she had nothing on underneath her coat except for her panties. She bowed quickly and mumbled a greeting as she dashed past him down the remaining flight of stairs.
"Honestly, aren't you a bit too old to be making out in stairwells?" Ga Eul muttered when she had burst out the door into the parking garage.
It was not coat weather, and she had no idea why anyone would have even had a coat like this at the party tonight.
"Just be grateful," Ga Eul reminded herself. She didn't exactly have many wardrobe options at the moment.
Now the looming question, though, was how to get home, seeing as she had no money and no way to call for a cab.
No way was she going to ask Yi Jeong's father for help. Even when Yi Jeong was being mean to her, she had always trusted him to some extent.
His father, not so much, especially clothed as she was.
She should have gone back into the ballroom. What had she been thinking trying to deal with this on her own?
Yi Jeong would be livid when he found out about this. Why had she been so scared of those—
Pictures.
Crap.
They had pictures of her. what would happen to Yi Jeong if those got out? What would happen to her?
Ga Eul tried to swallow down the panic rising in her chest and shoved her hands inside of the coat pockets.
A wad of papers lay buried inside one of the pockets, and she took it out and opened it up.
Money.
The wad of paper had crisp new money inside of it—more than enough to buy her cab fare, she realized—but when she opened up the note that had been around wrapped around it, she read these words:
If you are smart, you will go home like a good little girl and stay there forever.