A Promise Of Romance (MewGulf AU)

🌻Chapter 3

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Gulf went straight to work after his classes were over. The pub's owner was a typically brusque Englishman of few words. He glanced at Gulf's face and silently set a plate of food out for him.

The menu was standard working-class fare: fried fish and chips. Gulf had gotten a bit tired ofnm it, but he was in no position to demand luxury. He ate in a corner of the pub, then went behind the bar. He would be working non-stop from now until midnight.

The pub was filled with the lively energy of laborers returning home from work.

Gulf's main duty was washing the dishes behind the bar.

It was physically exhausting to work a part-tine job after the demands of acting all day in classes, but he had so much fun listening to the rapid-fire conversations around him, the one thing that made his job enjoyable. And sometimes, the customers would treat him to a beer.

When he had finished washing the first batch of dishes, he glanced up at the end of the bar. That was where Brenda, a regular customer, usually sat.

In the course of his many conversations with her, he had been shocked to discover that Brenda was only 10 years older than him. He had been sure she was nearly the same age as his mother. And even accounting for the idea that Westerners aged more quickly than Thai. He still couldn't believe how young Brenda was.

Apparently, she was not living a very comfortable life, dressed in second-hand out-of-fashion clothes. She would always order one beer and nurse it preciously before going home. She had told him that her parents died early and she had lived alone ever since. But that shouldn't have made her life so wretched. Never without a friendly smile for him, Brenda always worried about Gulf's well-being, since he had come all the way to England all alone. She had also been the one to negotiate with the pub owner to include meals in his pay. She was unusual among English people, who were usually stand-offish and reluctant to interfere in other people's business.

But Brenda hadn't been by the pub in several days.

He remembered that she had been coughing constantly the last time he had seen her, and he started to worry.

"I guess she's really sick."

"If you ever need anything, you can come see me," she had told him once. With no relatives in England, her words had struck Gulf's heart, which was already strained by loneliness.

It must be difficult for her to manage by herself if she's sick and all alone.

Gulf decided to go see her.

TBC