Through the narrowed view of the display windows, Yeosang kept his eyes peeled for any pedestrian that could possibly peer from the direction of the main road, or any type of vehicle approaching the premises of his shop.
Knees bouncing as if he'd gotten coffee jitters, fingernails scratching back and forth along the edges of the open envelope on the table, he glanced at the clock on the wall of his display room for the nth time.
12:12 p.m., which was exactly twelve minutes later the time his client promised to pick up their order.
Alongside the artisan stood a marble tiger in a prowling stance above the rocky terrain, baring its flesh-tearing dentitions to declare a soundless threat.
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The two black onyxes embedded in the carnivore's eyes observing the human, however, seemed to glint in sympathy.
The blond hair - long since groomed - was pulled into a ponytail of a rather impatient formation. Roots as almost the shade, if not darker, of the area under his eyes peeked from his scalp, under which the complex of nerves throbbed severely.
Needless to say, in him, feeling self-conscious could easily be outweighed by the image of a bedridden child and the content the letter inside the envelope conveyed.
Kang Jiu was a quite a lucky girl who surmounted death by a narrow margin at birth. Two dreadfully long hours of postnatal when Yeosang was unable to do anything else but stand outside of the MRI room and pray for the better while the specialists were performing a scan on his daughter was how parenthood began for him.
And he could see the pattern of the past overlapping in the present.
After three years, the hole in the child's heart they deemed to have reached a complete closure after a few weeks of monitoring had enlarged again. The cause was unknown. According to the doctor, if Taehyun hadn't rushed to the hospital immediately that day, something Yeosang didn't dare to imagine would've happened.
Not long after that, as Yeosang had foreseen, consequences trailed after him like dark shadows in the name of scant health insurance and an overdrawn account.
He had stopped going to the cafe since then to pay attention to his main source of income. If only sales hadn't been too dull to make things work...
After tying himself here without a single window-shopper coming, the last ray of hope that could instantly solve his problems eventually hit Yeosang - the remaining half of the commission fee.
