At the Cafe
"Come in. It's cold. Just a second."
"Okay."
"Have a seat."
"No, it's all right. I said I'd work, so I ought to follow you around and see what needs doing."
"......Honestly. Be that diligent, and all you get is a hard life."
"Turns out diligence isn't only a virtue."
"That's what I mean. A person has to be a little sly now and then."
"Funny thing to hear from you, when your coffee is completely old-school. You use good beans, too. I've never once caught a stale smell off them."
"Th-that's just... my taste runs that way, so......"
She switched on the cafe lights and started the unit in the ceiling, trailing off in embarrassment. Hearing the most diligent person I knew talk like that was honestly a little funny.
"That's why the price being a bit high is the flaw. I thought hard about compromising, but I just couldn't do it."
"Still, three dollars isn't all that expensive these days, is it?"
"That's the thing, though. People get touchy over even a dime. A lot of budget coffee shops have opened up, too. And it's only the americano—the other drinks aren't that cheap."
Fair enough. It was a difficult business. Office workers and students who started drinking coffee like medicine rather than for the flavor might well care more about saving even ten cents. I'd been the same when I was a student.
"I used to hunt around for the cheap places myself when I was younger, so I can't talk."
"So did I, come on. When I was in college there were plenty of shops selling it for eighty cents."
"......I know."
"Oh my, really?"
"Yeah. When it went up to a dollar, it felt like the sky was falling."
"Right, right."
Then she smiled and pointed toward the curtain hanging beside the counter. I nodded and followed her through.
"This is the storeroom and the office. Office in name only—it's tiny, right?"
It wasn't as cluttered as a warehouse, but there was only a single chair to sit and rest in, aprons hanging on the wall, and an Ikea-looking drawer unit with a laptop perched on top. It felt closer to a utility room than an office. The bathroom was probably just beyond it.
"Wouldn't it be better to open this up and put a table in?"
"The landlord says absolutely not. It's an old building, so it's dangerous."
"Ah."
Now that I thought about it, the shop was built of red brick, the kind you hardly saw anymore. It sat on a main road, so the location was good, too. Good enough that redevelopment wouldn't have been out of the question. Well, that was their business to worry about.
"So I just wear my regular clothes and put an apron over them?"
"Yeah. That's right. I'll get you a new apron. One second."
She shrugged off her puffer, hung it on the wall, and bent to rummage through the drawer. Before I knew it, my eyes had gone to her backside. The panty line showing through her jeans, and the gap of her thighs beneath that lush ass, nearly stole the sense right out of me.
"Here. You're the first male employee this cafe's ever had, so I don't know if the size will fit. Want to try tying it on?"
"Ah, sure. But are you really okay with this?"
"Hm?"
She tilted her head, tearing open the apron's packaging.
"Even so. Wouldn't younger kids go over better?"
"......What are you talking about. If it's you, Shinwoo, it's more than enough. I'm sorry. You're high-end help, and I'm putting you on something like this."
"High-end, nothing. It just ended up that way. And with an hourly rate like that, I'm the one who should be grateful."
She'd gone that far; asking any more would have been rude. And once I decided to do something, doing it properly was my style. It was the moment I thought a change like this, once in a life, might not be so bad.
"Here. I'll tie it for you."
"Ah, okay."
She had already knotted the neck of the apron into a loop and held it open for me. I ducked my head through, looked up, and our eyes met—and in that instant I realized how close we were. She must have felt it too, because the moment our gazes locked, she dropped hers at once. I already knew she was pretty, but.
Sh-she's strangely sexy.
It was the first time I'd felt anything sexual coming off her. Maybe I hadn't noticed because we'd gotten along like friends until now. Had those older male customers been onto this charm of hers all along? A rich rose scent, like body wash. Or maybe cologne. Could have been lotion. Nothing sharp about it, but a fragrance with a very heavy body. Below the pale line of her neck, a single mole sat in the hollow between her collarbones, and it caught my eye as if it had been waiting for me.
"U-um, could you turn around......?"
"Ah. Sure."
And those long lashes, lowered shyly as if she were embarrassed, were long enough that snow might have settled on them. I could at least tell whether they were extensions. Clueless as I might be, at this distance I could see. Besides, what woman glued on lashes while she was out walking her dog? From the way she swallowed as she tied the strings at my waist, the tension of that moment hadn't been mine alone.
"......I knew it already, but you're really beautiful, Boss. You startled me just now."
"I-it makes me so happy when you say that. I'm all old now, though."
"Old? Someone like you ought to have a boyfriend."
"......I don't."
"What?"
"I-I've never dated......"
Now that I thought about it, even in the previous world she had never once brought up a man. Even so.
"......I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Everyone's like that these days."
"Wasn't there anyone you liked?"
"There was, I guess. But I'm so timid by nature. I never even managed to talk to him."
"Timid? That decisiveness earlier was something to respect."
"What decisiveness?"
"Raising my hourly pay."
"Oh, but if you want to hire a man part-time, it starts at twenty dollars an hour, minimum."
"......Sorry?"
She had finished the knot at my back at some point. At the pat of her hand between my shoulders, I turned quietly around.
"Even then, you're lucky if one person shows up for an interview in a week. They're really hard to find."
"It's that bad?"
"Yeah. Thirty an hour isn't exactly a low rate, but you don't need to feel burdened by it."
"......I see."
At that price, a place like a convenience store could never survive the labor cost. Come to think of it, labor costs alone were reason enough to put in a kiosk, and yet she was still taking orders herself.
"You don't use a kiosk?"
"No. I'm still not quite there. There's a pleasure in taking orders from customers, you know. You end up learning more than you'd think, and it's easier to remember them."
"Ah. I get it. Do you happen to like cassette tapes, or LPs?"
"Huh—how did you know? I collect LPs."
"That's a nice hobby."
She scratched her cheek as if embarrassed by that, and I cleared my throat without meaning to.
"Then let's start with working the POS. Ever done part-time work?"
"Of course I have, back in college."
"Then you'll pick it up fast. Let's go to the counter."
"Okay."
And that was the moment we drew the curtain aside and stepped out. The door opened, and the bell gave a bright little chime.
"Oh, you're not open yet?"
A woman had come in carrying a laptop. Maybe because there was no one else inside, she stopped short and looked at us as she asked. The instant her eyes met mine, she frantically yanked her hoodie up and hid her head and face.
"Ah, well, we aren't, but."
At that, the owner turned to me for a moment.
"Want to just give it a try today? I'll take the orders and show you as we go."
"Sure. We haven't even cleaned yet."
"It's fine. She'll understand. Let's get her a coffee and clean together."
"Okay."
"I'll take your order. Only coffee's available right now, though."
Startled, the customer who had been glancing between me and the owner through the gap in her hood began to approach the counter. When I stood beside the owner at the POS with my hands clasped behind my back and bowed, the woman flinched and bowed back to me.
"......Ah, an americano...... one large, please."
"Iced, right? For here."
"Y-yes...... Um, Boss, but......"
Hood dragged down to hide most of her face, she shot me a glance and asked the owner.
"Ah, he's a friend who'll be working with me starting today. Just mornings and lunch, though. Handsome, right?"
"......Y-yeah......"
"I'll be in your care from now on."
"P-please take care of me."
"H-haah...... y-yes......"
She answered in a voice that shrank in on itself, dithered, turned to go, then bowed to me and the owner once more before slowly making her way to a corner seat.
"It's because she isn't wearing makeup. Of course she's embarrassed."
I nodded at the words she whispered to me. So that was all it was. After that, she only showed me where the stock went, a few kinds of toast, and how to warm the bagels, remarking that nothing here really sold well anyway. It was a pretty enjoyable stretch of time. So this was why a person needed a change of pace now and then. The owner and I took rags from the cleaning cabinet and started in on the cleaning, talking and laughing as we went. But that peace didn't last long. It was the woman in the corner, secretly stealing glances at us. Because of her—if that was the right way to put it.
The moment she posted it, her friends' comments came racing in. She giggled, then hurriedly shut her mouth. Part of it was the fear they might hear her—but then the likes suddenly began to shoot up. It must have been the pure-boy tag. Of course, she only learned that thanks to a customer who showed up around late lunch. There was no way to know it now.
The customer kept stealing glances at me with the face of someone who had just caused an accident, and I was wondering what was going on when the owner, wiping a table with the rag she'd brought over, chatted about this and that. We had just finished cleaning. That was when the customers descended.
"Um, an americano, please......"
"I, um...... what's the thing here that takes the longest?"
"This, and this, and this, please...... Oh, anyone in a hurry can go first, that's fine."
"Could you do hers first? I've got way too much time......"
"No, no. I've got more. She ditched work to come here."
"Ah, no. I'm not that kind of woman, okay?"
The five or six women who had rushed in all at once spilled out orders of roughly one drink and one food item apiece. They started placing orders that came to double the usual. In the end I took the orders while the owner frantically pulled the coffee. Once the counter grew hectic, I even heard the strange insistence that their own orders could come out slowly. But already another customer had walked in and lined up as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I was beginning to wonder why she had picked a day like this as her day off.
"Boss, I think you picked the wrong day off."
"......S-sorry. I never thought it would suddenly get this packed. This is usually the slowest day for sales."
The counter was too narrow for the two of us, so she had no choice but to brush past me as we moved. Maybe I ought to have called it a blessing. Her hip grazing mine, and the unmistakable give of what had to be a bra pad touching my back on the way by—it was practically a reward.
"U-um......"
"Ah, yes. Can I take your order?"
"......Ah."
I had been whispering with the owner behind me, and the moment I caught the presence of the customer calling me from the front and smiled without thinking, the inside of the cafe began to stir. The customer who had called to me especially—her eyes went round, she swallowed hard, and her trembling lips parted.