First Impressions
People sometimes remember a single, very brief scene far longer than it deserves. For Kang Chi-yeol, the beige coat that had brushed past beyond the glass door the previous evening was exactly that kind of moment. It had lasted only a few seconds. They hadn’t exchanged a single word. All that happened was one slight nod of the head. Yet the image kept returning to him, uninvited.
It followed him home that night, hovered while he brushed his teeth, and lingered even after he turned off the lights and lay in bed. The reason, perhaps, was simple. Just as he had finally begun to focus entirely on his own shop, the energy of someone else’s fresh beginning had appeared. And that energy was strangely neat, carrying no trace of hesitation.
Kang Chi-yeol had always been the type to hold first impressions for a long time. The same had been true at the company. He remembered whether a person smiled during their first greeting, whether their fingertips were impatient when accepting documents, whether they used names when asking someone to fetch coffee. Not everything proved useful, but at least his pace with people was slow while his observation remained thorough.
And last night, from the few seconds he had watched that woman walk, he had already sensed several things. She was someone who worked. Someone whose own standards came before reading the room. And, probably, someone who had lived a rather exhausting life.
He couldn’t easily explain why the impression had formed. Such people simply had a particular way of seeing space. The moment they stepped inside, they didn’t ask whether it was pretty or not. They first noticed the flow of movement, the light, the smells, the possibilities.
Early that morning, while raising the shop shutter, Chi-yeol unconsciously glanced at the neighboring storefront first. It was still closed. The fact should have been ordinary, yet he felt oddly hollow. He let out a short, self-mocking laugh.
“What exactly were you expecting?”
Muttering to himself, he finished raising the shutter. Morning air rushed in. The shop was still empty before opening, but it no longer felt desolate. The new lighting sat neatly in the ceiling, and sunlight poured through the windows, stretching long across the hall floor where the sign lights remained off. The spaces he had spent days cleaning, sweeping, and rearranging were finally beginning to resemble a place where people could live.
Chi-yeol stood in the center of the shop and looked around slowly. It felt more like a real store than it had yesterday. Perhaps because his own handprints were visible everywhere, today the space seemed a little less foreign.
He went into the kitchen first, checked the sink, and reorganized the utensils. It wasn’t fully equipped yet, but he had already developed a sense of where everything belonged: the exact spot for the seasoning containers, the proper place for the tongs, the ideal distance between the frying basket and the workstation. Adjusting these small details felt surprisingly pleasant. His hands moved on their own, and the more they moved, the more his mind settled into order.
At the company, the word “organizing” had always carried the sense of belatedly cleaning up someone else’s mess. Here it was different. This was organizing from the creator’s side—arranging the work he was beginning in a way that pleased his own eyes. The difference felt larger than he had expected.
Around ten in the morning, Jo A-ra dropped by. She wore an oversized check shirt over a hoodie and carried two convenience-store coffees in one hand. The moment she opened the door, she scanned the interior and said, “Oh, boss. It actually looks like a shop today.”
“It was a shop yesterday too.”
“Yesterday it looked like a construction site.”
A-ra pressed one coffee into his hand and walked naturally into the middle of the hall. She measured the spacing between tables as if she were inspecting her own living room, then walked from entrance to back wall and nodded. “It’s fine. Doesn’t feel cramped.”
“You check that the second you walk in?”
“Of course. The first impression when customers open the door is the most important. Oh, but—” A-ra turned back toward the entrance and smiled. “Did you see the neighbor yesterday?”
Chi-yeol tried not to show any reaction but answered far too quickly. “I did.”
A-ra’s lips curved up on one side, as if she had been waiting for exactly that response. “Oh.”
“What do you mean, ‘oh’?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you’re pretending to be indifferent, but your voice sounds very interested.”
“Interested? Hardly.”
“Think she’ll open up shop?”
Chi-yeol peeled the lid off his coffee and glanced once at the neighboring store. “I don’t know yet.”
“It was a woman.”
“I know.”
“She was pretty.”
At those words Chi-yeol paused with the cup halfway to his mouth and looked at her. A-ra saw his expression and burst out laughing. “Wow. You really did see her.”
“I have eyes.”
“Too bad it’s not just eyes.”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
A-ra laughed for a long moment, then perched on one of the boxes on the floor. “But she definitely looked like someone who’s run a business before. Her posture was different.”
“You felt that too?”
The words slipped out before he could stop them. Too late. A-ra sipped her coffee, eyes narrowing. “Oh, at this point you must have studied her pretty closely.”
Chi-yeol walked over to the workstation and folded a dishcloth for no particular reason. “It just… gave that impression.”
“Gave that impression, huh.”
“Do you always latch onto the end of every sentence I say?”
“It’s because the boss leaves so many loose ends to grab.”
Chi-yeol responded with a snort instead of words. Inside, however, he was slightly startled. He had admitted far too easily in front of A-ra without realizing it. It was only someone he had seen once. Preparing his own shop was already overwhelming enough. So why did those few seconds keep pulling words out of him so easily?
All morning Chi-yeol found it difficult to concentrate on opening preparations. He sorted packaging samples, double-checked the oil delivery schedule, adjusted the chicken marinating ratios, and recorded everything several times. Lately he had come to feel keenly that busy hands quieted a busy mind. When he focused on the work, thoughts of the neighboring shop did fade somewhat. But they never disappeared completely. In every quiet gap, the brief motion of that nod from the night before resurfaced.
As lunchtime drew near, the alley slowly came to life. The smell of boiling broth drifted from the snack shop, and people paused briefly in front of the laundry to pick up shirts. While wiping the glass door, Chi-yeol glanced unconsciously toward the neighboring store. The shutter was still down. He continued cleaning as if he had no particular interest.
Then came the metallic clank. The neighboring shutter began to rise.
Kang Chi-yeol’s hand stopped without his permission. Half-turned with the mop still in his grip, the pose felt ridiculous, but it was already too late to move naturally. When the shutter reached halfway, he first saw the cuffs of black pants and sturdy sneakers. Next came a deep navy shirt and neatly tied hair. The figure hidden beneath the beige coat yesterday appeared clearer today.
The woman was alone. Without a word she raised the shutter fully, bent slightly to inspect the floor, then stepped inside. She immediately opened the windows, ran a hand across the dusty shelves, and tested the kitchen faucet. Her movements were quick and decisive. Not the eyes of someone wondering What is here? but the eyes of someone deciding What needs to be done here?
Watching her, Chi-yeol felt an odd surge of admiration. She had clearly pictured this moment dozens of times in her head before stepping inside, just as he had. She was different from people who simply came for a casual look.
At that moment the woman lifted her head and looked in his direction. Unlike yesterday, their eyes met for a longer stretch this time. Suddenly the fact that he was holding a mop felt unbearably embarrassing. It made him look like nothing more than a man who cleaned glass doors. He quickly tossed the mop onto the workstation and gave an awkward bow.
“Hello.”
The greeting came out first—far too quickly. It surprised even him.
The woman paused for the briefest moment, then answered in the same measured tone. “Hello.”
Her voice was lower and clearer than he had expected. The words were unadorned, yet each one had a distinct edge. Chi-yeol felt his nerves sharpen for no good reason. Why did every syllable sound so precise?
“It seems… you’ll be opening the shop next door.”
He had felt the need to say something, anything, but the sentence trailed off awkwardly at the end. The woman nodded with an expression that gave no hint whether she had noticed.
“Yes. It looks like that’s what will happen.”
The single word looks carried no excessive certainty, which somehow made it feel more realistic. Chi-yeol forced a smile.
“I’m preparing a chicken shop here.”
“Yes, I saw.”
Her gaze rose briefly to the sign above, then returned. “Chiyeolhan Chicken.”
The moment the name left her lips, Chi-yeol felt heat rise beneath his ears. It was a different kind of embarrassment than when he said it himself. What if it sounded unsophisticated? What if she laughed? All sorts of thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.
But the woman continued without any visible change in expression. “It’ll stick in my memory.”
The remark was ambiguous—compliment or subtle jab, he couldn’t tell. The uncertainty left him even more off balance.
“Ah, yes. Well… it does have to be memorable, I suppose.”
Even as he spoke, he felt pathetic. It does have to be memorable? What kind of answer was that? He sounded like a new hire awkwardly laughing along with the team leader’s joke at a company dinner.
The woman looked at him once, then offered a short, polite smile. It was so brief and thin it barely qualified as a smile. Yet strangely the atmosphere shifted. The face that had seemed only cold tilted, for a fraction of a second, toward something more human.
Kang Chi-yeol found himself wanting to hold on to that instant longer than necessary.
“I’m Lee Do-hee,” she said first.
The moment he heard the name, Chi-yeol repeated it silently. Lee Do-hee. The cool, precise sound suited her face perfectly.
“Ah, I’m Kang Chi-yeol.”
“Yes.”
“Please take care of me from now on.”
The words sounded too much like a neighborhood newcomer’s greeting, and he felt embarrassed all over again. But Lee Do-hee simply returned a single nod, offering no particular reaction.
“Likewise.”
That was all. No further conversation followed. Lee Do-hee moved naturally deeper into her space, and Chi-yeol retreated into his own. With a single glass door between them, both had returned to their separate worlds.
Yet after only a few exchanged sentences, the air inside his shop felt subtly different. Chi-yeol picked up the dishcloth again, only to realize belatedly that he had been wiping the same spot for some time.
“What’s wrong with me, seriously…”
He muttered the words under his breath, but his hands remained clumsy. His mind kept replaying the short conversation they had just shared. Lee Do-hee. Her name, her speech, the person herself—all of it was neater than he had expected. And he still could not decide whether “It’ll stick in my memory” had been praise or something else. The ambiguity bothered him more than anything. If she had simply laughed it off, it might have been easier. Instead she had left the remark suspended, and now he kept turning it over alone.