Serenade, Jung Jaehyun [DISCONTINUED]

3. Hello, Hello

"Last night was freaking insane!" There, right there, Daeun's biggest fear was to witness Ashley going all out about her favorite bands and singers, much more celebrities, and Daeun who literally just entered the shop with her undone hair looking all frail and sleepy. Long short story, she went to several events last night, so Jiah had to volunteer her already banging eardrums to listen to every single stories coming from the blue haired one.

"Where did you go last night, Ash-berry?"

"Well, now listen Daeun, I finally went to that comeback show of TS and also some other girl groups! So like, in conclusion, TS won my heart I might have to stan them right at that moment I saw the vocalist."

"Wait, so you're telling me TS as in The Serenade? I thought you like Xdinary Heroes? And The Rose—"

Ashley's fingers made it way in front of her face, and slowly landed on top of her closed lips. She smirked, pushing her hair away from her shoulder before scoffing to the shorter one. "It's Ashley, Kim Aera, what do you expect, Shin Daeun?"

Daeun sighed, laughing it away before starting off her day with wiping the window and made some replacement for the plants to make the cafe alive. Her semester break helped her to focus a lot on doing things she actually enjoy—planting, reading, working at a cafe with people she loved and so on—because clearly, art class is either exciting or depressing. Meanwhile Ashley, skipping classes is a form of self-care, let's just say both of them were this close to be the dropout students.

"Jiah, I thought you bought new plants? Where are they?"

"Sweetpie, I bought them for my cousin. I think he needs them, his place seems dead without it so why not?" Jiah sounded like a really sweet mother, Daeun thought. She nodded and continued to arrange more books in the shelf—ready to break her spine again. Ashley was nowhere to be found, the fact that Ashley always visits to hand out some help never failed to ease Jiah's mind. The cafe only needs three workers at a time, with Jiah as the owner and three workers under her. The barista is no other than Sunghoon, the tall and cold-looking barista that always drives girls crazy. The waiter and the one who is in charge of cafe's hygiene is obviously Daeun, sometimes she bakes pastries and serves easy beverages too. Lastly, the cashier—Jake or Jaeyun, who caught everyone's eyes with his own charm and specialty. Though he works as a cahsier, he tends to do more things inside the cafe because these boys are the real dropouts, they are working at Jiah's cafe for their income.

The cafe is open around eight until five, from Monday to Friday, closed during weekend and public holidays. With Jiah as the owner as well as the baker, she thinks the three workers are completely enough for her and they had been together with her for around a year, right after the old workers resigned and ended their contracts.

"Oh God, Ashley's missing again."

"You know, that one wealthy and jobless friend." Sunghoon bugged in, pushing Daeun's waist with an empty cup making her jumped into the cashier's location. Despite of Sunghoon's cold and stiff look, he chose Daeun to bicker with a lot—he is the other challenge after Ashley, to Daeun.

"Sunghoon, it's barely eight and now you're putting up a fight?"

"Listen, I just want today to get over."

"That's the only thing you repeat everyday, mate." Jake's appearance, plus his strong Australian accent succeed on making Daeun giggled in her lifted apron, covering her face. Jake is a person—at least to her—who you can define him as a ray of sunshine, always there to complete the three of them. Though they are the dropouts, both of them are really some intelligent dudes in campus, which is a big lost to the campus they were previously in.

"Morning, Jake."

"Morning, Daeun." They did the fist bump greeting to each other, and the Australian immediately went into the cashier seat to get ready as the shown number on the digital clock seems to get close to the number '8'.

"It's kind of chilly, right?"

"Yeah, the breeze's kinda cold. Also, I bought new sweaters last night."

"Wait, you spent more money?" Sunghoon stared into the one who was sitting weirdly. The last time he checked, Jake already spent some penny on shoes, the Jordan edition, again and again. Jake could only throw a small grin towards the barista who lowkey was judging him yet again for that week.

"Attention, ladies and gents. Prepare for a huge table later because we are going to welcome some important people—not that important, but since they are coming all together, it must be important."

"Jiah, who could it be?"

"Mhm, I suppose none of you are into them."

"President of Korea?" Sunghoon's lame joke got canceled by the others made Jiah laughed out loud. He scratched the back of his neck before taking a chance to sit down again after getting smacked by Daeun, a sign to not to make any lame jokes or they'd fight against him.

"Let's just wait and see."

🎸

"Kim Doyoung, how much longer?"

Johnny's painful groan made the whole car groaned, except for the driver of the day, Doyoung, who had a hard time on searching for a better parking place so the medias wouldn't spot his car in a click. Furthermore, Doyoung also had a hard time on remembering the exact location of his cousin's cafe in the middle of Seoul.

"Hanjoon must be better at using map." Yuta joked, Doyoung paused just to pull Yuta's hair to make him suffer at the back seat. From left, Yuta, Johnny, Jaehyun—three of them seated in a row wasn't a good choice—all stuffed since they were the ones who work out a lot resulting Doyoung's car's space to appear smaller. Meanwhile the leader took the seat beside the driver to avoid getting stuffed by them—he would be a piece of paper if he did.

"I think we are already arrived." Taeyong pointed out a place filled with plants and flowers, wooden themed and seems very empty to their liking. A private moment just for The Serenade, a day off at an underrated cafe to enjoy—very The Serenade things.

"I guess Jiah's staffs already knew about us. Let's hop in."

🎸