Our Cafe is Open for Normal Business
The next day, Friday, late in the evening. I picked up some simple snacks and headed to the cafe where Park Nayoung was waiting. ‘Nayoung said I didn’t have to come, but…’ She acts tough, yet she’s surprisingly soft-hearted. Having grown up together since childhood, I know her well.
When I arrived at the cafe, sure enough, not a single customer was seated inside. Park Nayoung was holding down the fort all by herself in the empty space.
“You’re here?” she greeted me in a weary voice.
“How’s it going?”
“A bit better than yesterday.”
I glanced at the sales report. Only about twenty cups of Americano had been ordered. It was a noticeable improvement over yesterday, but still nowhere near enough to keep the cafe running. ‘Americano barely turns a profit.’ Selling one 2,000-won Americano nets less than 1,000 won. Even selling a hundred cups barely breaks even. To properly sustain the cafe, we’d need to sell at least two hundred cups a day.
‘On the bright side, we still have plenty of cake left. Did any of it actually sell?’
Checking the cake sales, I was surprised to see that two slices of strawberry shortcake had been sold. I’d thought even one would be a miracle, yet two had gone.
“The cake sold?”
“Oh, that? Some pretty girl bought two slices.”
“A pretty girl?”
If Park Nayoung called her pretty, she must have been quite attractive. One woman immediately came to mind.
“Was she the one with the brown bob and the rude face?”
“I’m not sure about the rude part, but the brown bob sounds right.”
Apparently our generous customer had paid us a visit. ‘I didn’t expect her to show up the very next day.’ I’d already suspected it when she snatched the cake from poor Jundong, but she must really have a thing for that cake.
“You know her?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“I dropped off cake at our department’s student council yesterday. Someone there seemed to really like it, so I took a guess.”
“Hmm, I see.”
By the time we finished the snacks and chatting, closing time had arrived. Not a single customer had come in during that time. Park Nayoung let out a quiet sigh. I tried to cheer her up.
“Hang in there. Customers will keep increasing the more we do this. We already had more today than yesterday, right?”
“Even with the half-price promotion, this is all we got. Once the discount ends, won’t nobody come at all?”
The greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment. The negative feelings now flowed from the same woman who had once been so confident of success. I was wondering how to comfort her when she spoke first.
“Sorry, Hyunjin.”
“For what?”
“If I’d just done what you said, it wouldn’t have turned out like this. It’s all because I got greedy.”
Even though she apologized, it didn’t feel good. Seeing her so downcast made me feel sorry for her. We finished cleaning up the cafe together. Back home, lying in bed, I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I should contact Han Gaeul soon?’
I wasn’t sure how effective it would be, but it had to be better than the current situation. I called Han Gaeul and asked for her help.
* * *
Right now, this moment was the happiest time of Han Gaeul’s life. Of course, it wasn’t all good news. She opened her work email inbox.
Thinking they might be ad inquiries, she clicked on them, only to find most were sponsorship offers like this. A relationship where she had sex with strangers for large sums of money. She’d never considered it even during her hardest times, and now that she was successful, she wanted it even less. Despite rejecting and blocking dozens of them, they kept crawling out like cockroaches, stressing her out.
Han Gaeul checked the comments on her YouTube channel next.
While community posts tended to stay within certain bounds, YouTube comments were full of outright sexual harassment and profanity because reporting was difficult. The channel had grown rapidly in a short time due to various issues, which naturally attracted all sorts of trolls stirring up trouble. Han Gaeul felt her irritation rising as she read the comments, but soon snorted.
“Hmph, comment all you want. Like I’d ever give it to you!”
Countless people contacted her asking for it. Yet the one person she actually wanted to give it to hadn’t reached out. She wanted to create some excuse to contact him, but nothing came to mind. Han Gaeul recalled her first time. His face wasn’t particularly handsome, but the reassuring feeling that he would protect her no matter what had appealed to her. She’d heard first times were supposed to hurt like hell, but instead it had felt so good she thought she might die.
“Hnn…”
Just thinking about it made a soft moan escape her lips. To think she’d lived half her life without knowing something this good. She hesitated over whether to contact him again to feel that pleasure once more when a message arrived from Kim Hyunjin first.
“Cafe ad?”
He was asking if she could promote his cafe as a YouTuber since he was opening one with a friend. Kim Hyunjin was practically her lifesaver. She could do that kind of ad for free ten or a hundred times over. More than anything, the fact that she now had a reason to meet him again made her happy.
Late Friday night, another message came from Kim Hyunjin. He asked her to come to the cafe when she had time. The moment she heard it, Han Gaeul replied that she would come right away tomorrow. Of course, she didn’t forget to add that they should meet afterward as well. She posted on her YouTube community that she would be doing an outdoor broadcast at an acquaintance’s cafe.
* * *
The moment the stream went live, hundreds of viewers flooded in as if they’d been waiting. It was only a tenth of the viewership from the arm-wrestling contest, but it was still satisfying enough.
“Hello, this is Han Gaeul. Can you see me well?”
Han Gaeul switched the camera from her face to show her full body.
Instead of her usual leggings, she wore a black stockings and a skirt today. Even just showing a glimpse of her legs got a good reaction. To show viewers the store’s location, she started the stream at the front gate of Gukhan University and headed toward the cafe. Though it was an ad stream, she tried to act as natural as possible.
“This is my acquaintance’s cafe that I’m visiting today. Shall we go inside?”
She opened the cafe door and stepped in. A subtle coffee aroma greeted her. Whether it was just her imagination or not, the moment she entered, she felt a sense of calm wash over her. A woman wearing an apron welcomed her.
“Welcome to Cafe Serer.”
“Hello. I’m YouTuber Han Gaeul. Could I ask for a quick self-introduction?”
The woman paused for a moment, looking at the camera. She must have been told about the filming, because she smiled awkwardly and stared at the lens.
“I’m Park Nayoung, the owner of Cafe Serer. We specialize in delicious cakes.”
The chat exploded with the unexpected appearance of a beauty. Even Han Gaeul was flustered, having had no idea such a stunning woman was involved.
‘…She’s not his girlfriend, right?’
Kim Hyunjin had introduced her as a friend he’d been close with since childhood. She’d naturally assumed it was a guy, yet here was a beauty on par with a celebrity.