The Don [1]

𝐎𝐧𝐞

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓮𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓰

There was blood beading from my palms as well as my lip. I started to taste the metallic liquid seep from there as well as I tried to make sense of the bill in front of me. The papers in my hands were cutting deeply. 

The rent had nearly doubled and the landlord was serious. 

The small studio apartment as well as the bakery where my sister, Alice, and I, make our wages on was in the air. At nearly four years my senior, she had already given up her dream to go to college and pursue higher education. She was content with living a simple life running our bakery in a small cornerstone strip mall in Seoul.

Unfortunately for us, the bakery would soon be taken from us if we couldn't meet the new rent prices by the end of the month.

Tears threatened to come out as I shoved the bill into my sleeve. It wasn't even necessary for the prices to go up, as Seoul's inflation was relatively stable. 

"Just greedy pigs," I whispered bitterly to no one.

The work that Alice and I had put into our bakery would all go to waste as we would be forced to shut down in a few months' time. I, unfortunately, knew this day would come. I had hoped I would be out of high school by then, though. 

The bakery is all that Alice and I have known for the past few years. She would always use her creative mindset to come up with new ideas she wanted to create, fawning over every detail because there was no room for error. 

On the other hand, I simply keep the bakery running as we have little to no staff. Financials, wait staff, cleaning. Alice would oftentimes find me sleeping there after a late night. But it's only fair.

Alice worked for months and had several jobs within a day just to provide a steady income and keep us off the streets, motel to motel. Alice's favorite, however, was when she was able to work alongside Micha Lichter, a famed baker who took pity on her.  

The cafe was Alice's idea. She started doodling it one day and for her hard work, got the downpayment paid for by Micha. It did pretty well in the beginning, with Micha's blessing and his image behind it. 

But then a new bakery, a franchise, moved two doors down. Most of our customers were attracted to their flashy signs and commercials as opposed to our cafe's ads in the newspaper. I tried everything, but more than half our foot traffic was diverted to the new cafe.

I glanced down at the number circled in red on the bill. Alice and I were overdue in rent for our studio for the second month in a row. If we couldn't scrape some money together, we would have to sleep in the back of the cafe, which might not even be ours anymore.

I refused to tell Alice of our bankruptcy. Instead, I prayed that more customers would come to our cafe. Just a handful more each day could turn up some profit that I could give our landlord.

I turned to Alice, who was sitting on the couch. She was trying to think of something to put out that could compete with the new company. 

"We could bring back bingsu." Alice nibbled on the tip of her eraser, crunching the numbers. "That did pretty well last summer."

I crumpled the eviction warning and the bill as I shook my head. "Fresh fruit can be expensive. How about roll cakes?"

"Our supplier for flour is sick. I'll have to get it from the local grocer, which is about double what we normally pay for."

I raked a hand through my hair. This wasn't good. With our main supplier gone, even temporarily, we wouldn't be able to make any income on half of the things we put out that involve flour. We'd only be able to serve fruit and sandwiches made with regular white bread and our drinks.