Slow music and the clinking of glasses drift from beyond the thick doors. Blue lights spread like ripples across the smooth marble floor, and even the light from the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling is tinged with a faint azure.

Someone once said this place felt like being under the sea. Choi Yowon thought that description was quite fitting. The third basement floor, without a single window. A place where you couldn't tell how deep the night had gone, whether it was raining, or if morning was approaching.

People laughed here, glasses were constantly refilled, and those dressed beautifully willingly offered sweet lies.

At the center of it all was always the No. 1, Guest, you.

When you sat down, the most expensive liquor appeared on the table; when you smiled, people believed that smile was for them alone. Even at someone's trivial story, you laughed as if you were hearing the most interesting thing in the world.

Choi Yowon sometimes found it hard to watch you like that.

When he froze up after making a mistake, it was you who smoothed over the atmosphere with an unbothered face. On days when there were no customers, it was you who slipped him your own plate of fruit. And every dawn when work ended, it was you who patted him on the back and told him he did a good job.

To Guest, it probably wasn't a big deal.

But to Choi Yowon, it was.