I can't show you a run-down part of myself 

I wear a mask and go to see you...

"Rain!!!!!"

Rain looked up from her crouched position at the end of an aisle to find Julian running towards her. 

"Rain! Rain! We got a mamoth order!", Julian said as she halted right in front of Rain. Rain got up and said," Really? Where? How? Who?".

"It's MYRA Corporation! They contacted us to decorate their venue!", Julian huffed trying to catch her breath and calm herself.

"That's amazing! What's the occasion?", Rain asked her as she picked a pot. 

"Something about their CEO stepping down and taking over as chairman. He is having a congratulatory party after the press conference and we were contacted to the decorate the hall for the event", Julian said as she followed Rain to the staff room. 

"We have to go there right now their event is at seven in the evening  tomorrow", Julian informed. A clatter of pot smashing on the floor followed.

"What?"

"Yeah, their event manager had contacted us yesterday but our oh so busy boss forgot to inform us", Julian said as she mimicked the owner of the shop in her haughty style. 

Rain laughed hysterically as she swept the mess into a corner. 

"Let's get going!", Rain said as she went to the staff room to take her stuff. Julian nodded and followed her.

After a bang of the door, a cat's mewl and a shriek, Rain and Julian were finally seated in her car and on their way to 'Gardenaire'. The extravagant hall- no ballroom- that existed in Korea. Rain got off at the entrance and left Julian to park her car. She walked up the marble staircase, letting her hand run along the cool surface of the banister. 

Rain stood at the entrance and oogled at the view. The entire floor made of polished white marble. A gold chandelier hung at the middle of the room bringing light to the darkest corners. The ballroom was in the shape of a clock with dark red drapes covering windows on the circumference of the room. At the far end of the room was a majestic marble staircase with golden banisters leading to the upper balcony. The ceiling of the room was simple yet unique with architectural designs. Numerous tables with cream tableclothes were already placed while a structure of a low fountain without the water running was right in the middle of the room.

Going upstairs Rain gawked at the long table with gold linen covering it. A glass partition was set  on the table such that it acted as a divider between the two long sides of the table. Going further out, Rain leaned on the golden railing looking at the vast garden before her. 

Julian gasped when she stood beside Rain. "How are we going to decorate this in such less time?"

The time read half past nine in the morning when Rain checked her watch. Clapping her hands she said,"By starting right now. What is the theme?"

"The event manager had said something about spring in winter", Julian said as she and Rain walked inside and removed their notepads. Rain hummed and started sketching on her notepad while Julian listed down the colours of both winter and spring flowers. Stopping her sketch Rain removed her phone and connected her bluetooth earphones saying," Julian give me their event manager's number I have to ask something".

"Yeah", Julian said as she handed Rain the number. Rain dialed the number and was almost surprised to hear Ashlene's voice at the other end.

"Hello?", Ashlene's voice blared through the earphones.

"Hey Ash, you could have given me a warning you know? Is this the big event you were talking about when I was sick a few days ago? Has this been keeping you busy the whole time?", Rain rushed with the questions.

"Slow down! Yeah this was the one but wait why are you calling now? I mean I informed your boss a few days ago", Ashlene said. Rain heard some shuffles in the background. 

"Yeah same story as always she forgot, anyways can you come over to the venue right now I need to confirm the placements before I place the order and start", Rain asked as she looked around the room and again started sketching.

"Yeah, coming right over"

"Thanks, see you in a few", Rain said as she ended the call and went back to concentrate on the sketch for placement of the flowers. 

"Their manager is coming over, she'll help us with the placements", Rain called over to Julian who on the other hand had already started placing the favourable colour combinations together. 

Julian hummed and Rain went back to her sketching. After completing her ideas about the room and the flower placements she closed the notepad and put on some music on her phone. Humming along to a songs she pulled back the dark drapes to let in some light. Just as she opened the last window in the room near the entrance she noticed a familar car driving down the path to the parking. Smiling she waited at the entrance as she saw Ashlene walk up the staircase while removing her hat and letting her dark hair fall. Pulling Rain into a side hug she asked,"How have you been? I guess I last saw you a week ago"

"Yes a week, miss executive assistant has been quite busy since. Your CEO has been keeping you all to himself", Rain said while pouting slightly.

Ashlene laughed as she said, "Yeah you can tell him that. He'll be coming over in the evening to check up on everything".

Rain gasped as she removed herself from Ashlene and said,"Evening?! You got to be kidding me. Let's get to work right away". 

Ashlene laughed and followed Rain inside. Greeting Julian she asked," What do you both need?"

"A confirmation for the placement of flowers and the theme for their colours. It's winter themed right?" Ashlene nodded gesturing Rain to continue. 

"So I'm thinking about draping snow flowers and lilacs down from the ceiling, the architecture is nice but the flowers would make the whole theme stand out, you can look out for the lighting later. Then we can go over to the tables and place centerpieces of floral arrangement on each one. As for the fountain we can decorate the outside of the lower and middle level. Going further the outer sills of the windows, they can be decorated with roses".

Walking to the upper terrace Rain continued, "The glass partition here can decorated with flowers and I was thinking about the banisters but that will become too much flower".

Ashlene was astounded. She gawked at Rain and said, "How did you come up with that?"

Rain shrugged her shoulders and Julian said, "All our major events, including the decoration for Louis Vuitton's new launch of spring collection, it was all her".

"I would not have believed had I not known her artistic side", Ashlene exclaimed and Rain just swayed her hand disapprovingly. 

"I give you your freedom, do anything. I'll be back here around the afternoon to check the last technicalities before my CEO critics", Ashlene said as she checked her watch. Rain and Julian nodded before Ashlene gave Rain a quick hug and went downstairs and outside. 

"Julian call Daniel up and ask him bring in lilacs, amaranthuses, red greenery, ranunculuses, anemones, white genistas, amaryllises, ilex berries, garden vines, and finally roses. Most preferably in shades of white, cream, purples, pinks and blues. There should be enough, make a quick estimte and order it", Rain called out to Julian who was already typing it all down and sending it to their delivery boy. 

Just as Julian got on her phone to ask for help with setting up of the flowers with the other workers of the shop, Rain got into her car after a nod and drove away. Passing the already open and bustling shops Rain got off and bought dark grey vases for the centerpieces on the tables. As she got back to the venue she noticed Daniel already unloading the flowers with great care. Greeting him with a smile she parked Julian's car. 

"All fresh?", Rain asked as she approached Daniel. 

"Yeah, I was wondering when you girls would be calling me back for your work", Daniel said with  smile.

"Yeah we hadn't got a lot of work in the past few weeks", Rain said as she carried a basket of ranunculus and amaryllis away. Sitting at a table she immediately got to work. Daniel came after her and set down baskets of garden vine, ilex berries and roses next to Rain and asked, "Tell me what I should do and the other workers too".

"Set up the white ranunculus and lilacs together and hang them down from the ceiling. The whole ceiling should be covered but leave spaces for the smaller chandeliers. Their manager will guide you in that. While you do that if you have more workers left then put them up to placing white roses along the fountain in any design that might look great with it", Rain replied as she started bunching up peach amaryllis, pink ranunculus, cream roses and ilex berries with garden vines tying the whole arrangement together. Daniel nodded and went off to help with the preparations.

Within few hours the whole place was bustling with people. Ashlene was yeeting and yelling out orders at different people for the placement of tables, lights, chandeliers, and seats. Julian was briskly walking, throwing instructions for colour codes of the flowers. The ceiling was now completely filled with lilacs, ranunculus, anemones and white genistas. Rain had finished arranging all the centerpieces and placed them on the tables. 

The fountain was finished with a look of elegance with the white roses and white genistas accompanied with greenery and the water running smoothly down from it's sides. On the upper balcony, the long table was all done with gold linen, gold chiavari chairs, tall purple, plum, lilac, red greenery and purple hanging amaranthus floral centerpiece.

Rain was now working on the extended lower sills of the windows, outside the main room. She had finished with placing shades of blue and cream roses and greens along the lower sills next to the 'Gardenaire' entrance and was at the back under the balcony.

The setting sun's rays glinted off the shiny black surface of an Aston Martin as it's tyres came to a silent stop in front of the 'Gardenaire' entrance. Rain did not notice the new developement and carried on with her work. Several strands of her hair had come loose from the bun, framing her face. Her glasses were set on her nose framing her dark and focused eyes. Having finished with the last window she stood up straight. Her cream shirt and black jeans had taken quite a toll with the day's work. 

Waking back with a towering stack of empty flower baskets Rain was quite done for the day. The stack in her arms prevented her from seeing directly ahead so she navigated by looking at her sides. It was all going well until she crashed against a rock, sending everything tumbling down. 

Rain fell to the ground with the impact. With the baskets out of the way she was now greeted with an almost handsome face of a man in a grey checkered tuxedo. Almost handsome.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you there", the man said while offering Rain a hand.

"You must have potaetoes for eyes if you couldn't see a towering stack of baskets or you must have thought they were moving on their own right?", Rain replied as she pushed herself off the ground, ignoring his hand.

The man's eyes widened just a bit but he said, "Ahh I'm sorry, I should have been more careful".

"Yeah no shit", Rain said as she eyed his the Gucci symbol on his coat pocket. Not having the patience to deal with anything else she bent down to pick up the scattered baskets.

"Let me help you with that", the man said as he too bent down to pick up a basket. 

"I can't have your highness get belittled by a peasant's task", Rain bowed as she snatched the basket away from him and walked away with all the baskets back on her arms, leaving the man dumbstruck in his tracks.

Having returned all the baskets to Daniel, Rain waved goodbye to him and Julian who was helping him with the loading. Walking back to a waiting Ashlene inside her car, Rain slid into the front seat and huffed out an exhausted breath.

"Gotta say, you really helped this whole thing. It wouldn't have been completed by now if not for you", Ashlene said as she pulled out of the parking.

Rain only nodded and was about to doze off when Ashlene said, "Before you get knocked out take this". Rain raised her eyebrows as she took a fancy card from Ashlene. Opening it she saw that it was an invitation to the CEO's celebratory party. 

"Specially from our CEO, he specifically asked to give this to you as he was awfully pleased with the decoration. He really fancies lilacs and you had covered the whole ceiling with them. No wonder he liked it at once"

"Wait. He had come over?!", Rain asked.

"Yeah just sometime ago. He wanted to meet you and personally give you the invite so I sent him out to the garden where you were doing the windows but for some vague reason he came back pretty quick and asked me to hand the invitation over to you", Ashlene said as she stopped at a red light and looked over at Rain.

Rain read through the invitation stopping at the name 'Kim SeokJin'.

"Oh shit", she said exasparated.

The amount of research I had to do on winter flowers, their apparent arrangements according to both the flower type and its colours was what took me so much time to update. I'm telling you, writing a book is no easy job. 

You have to work your brain off.

Here are some pictures that might just help you all understand the flower arrangements. Also the time when Rain asked Julian to place the order uttering weird words, they are all flower names. Anyways here you go-

The Fountain.

The centerpiece for the tables.

The glass partition at the dinner table in the upper balcony.

Just think of the ceiling. The ceiling decorted here is somewhat similar to it except the shades of colours.

Aren't they just lovely.

~RV