Beyond This Fucked Up World [choi yeonjun]

Chapter Twenty One - Defloration Of A Coffee

[31. August 2022]

It was Wednesday afternoon, I was standing behind the counter of the café where I had been working since Monday, watching Kai talking to a customer.

Considering that I had only been working here for three days, I liked it better than my old job. The owner, unlike my old boss, was not an asshole and was actually quite nice.

Yesterday he had bought Kai and me a coffee and even though I didn't really drink coffee, I drank it anyway out of joy that I finally had no bad luck in life for once. To my further good fortune, the coffee wasn't bad at all and I strongly considered buying my own coffee machine at some point, but at the moment I had limited money and could only afford coffee filters at best.

I was also quite happy to have someone I knew (and liked) directly as a co-worker. This made the work less nerve-racking and boring, especially because Kai always did his work with such an encouraging face.

Normally, I knew him as the quiet colleague who always looked like he was about to pull out his baseball bat and kill everyone. Now he always seemed cheerful at work, welcoming everyone with a big smile and laughing much more often at the customers' or the boss' jokes (which were actually quite funny).

His positivity filled the cafe every day and for the first time I really enjoyed and felt like going to work. I hoped it could go on like this forever with my not-so-terrible job and my not-so-terrible co-worker. I wished that very much.

"Ah excuse me, I'll get you your coffee right away!" I heard Kai apologize to the customer and take the drink he had put down earlier back with him. He turned to the counter and looked at me with an embarrassed smirk.

"What did you do?" I asked him curiously, smiling slightly amused.

"Gave the customer hot chocolate."

"We don't even have one customer in the café right now, who ordered hot chocolate." I explained, gesturing slightly to all the customers currently in the café. Kai just grinned awkwardly and put the hot chocolate down on the countertop.

"I know. I wanted the hot chocolate."

I laughed at the thought that Kai was so fixated on wanting a hot chocolate that instead of thinking about the customer's order, he had thought about his own. Kai just scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, sipping the hot chocolate that now had to be disposed of somehow.

"You make the coffee, I'm busy here right now disposing of the leftovers."

"What a poor excuse."

I turned away from the till and turned to the coffee machine which was directly behind me. From the top shelf, I took out a white cup and placed it under the coffee machine. Then I took the sieve out of the machine and filled it with coffee powder, then pushed it back into place and pressed the start button. I watched the coffee machine as it pushed the hot water through the strainer and a nice smelling brown liquid was poured into the cup.

My eyes briefly turned to the order board, looking for the customer's order. While the coffee machine went about its business, I reached for the sugar container and placed it near me. The coffee was almost done brewing when I heard Kai call out a familiar name.

"Yeonjun! Are you coming to see me?"

I turned my head slightly to the side and caught sight of his shiny black hair in the doorway, and could see from my distance that his lips gleamed brilliantly. I cautiously turned back to the coffee machine and noticed that it stopped pouring coffee into the cup. As I continued to work on the order, I listened to Kai's and Yeonjun's conversation.