Ice Cream Bar, Book 1: Keep Lucky (🔥🔞 Spicy Version)

Chapter 5 - Keep (Friday afternoon into evening)

It's 3:30 PM and the entirety of the staff of the Ice Cream Bar is huddled around the bar even though its doors do not open for another 30 minutes. I glance around the room and realize that JiHoon and I are the last to arrive. We are freshly showered from the gym. We stand together, leaning against the bar, chugging waters.

The newest bartender, Bank, is sitting on a bar stool, scrolling absentmindedly on his phone. His chin-length hair pulled back in a ponytail and his girlfriend, JangMi - another bartender - is sitting lazily in his lap. They haven't been dating for very long but they've already moved in together; which is both surprising and awkward because she already had a roommate. JangMi is braiding her almost waist-length hair while she chats animatedly with her aforementioned roommate, Title, who is behind the bar and already stacking glasses in preparation for tonight's shift.

Title and JangMi have been friends since childhood. After high school, they got a job at Ice Cream Bar at the same time and moved in together to save money. Bank and Title seem to get along pretty well, too, so the current living arrangement seems to be working out okay. I haven't asked because it's not really my business but I have to admit that I'm curious. I don't know if I would be able to live with a couple.

ChaMin with his shock of bright red dyed hair is behind the bar, helping Title. He's a sweet kid who only started working as a barback a couple months ago. We didn't exactly need another barback, especially since the bar has been having some financial woes ever since that new chain bar moved in down the street a few months back. But he's Mint and Cake's pet project, I guess you could say.

ChaMin had been hanging around the bar every night for weeks, making friends with our regulars, and it was discovered that he had been kicked out of his house since coming out to his parents. He'd been couch-surfing at different friends' houses and very much adrift and depressed. Sadly, that's not an unusual story around this neighborhood. Cake and Mint decided to step in to help. ChaMin demonstrates his deep gratitude by working extremely hard every day.

Cake and Mint have always been like that. They are pillars of the Homo Hill community. They help out neighbors, take care of their employees, feed stray animals, and take in the occasional stray person. Many of us have been rejected by our families for being a part of the LGBT community. It's also extremely difficult to make it in Korea as a foreign-born or mixed-race person. Itaewon, and Homo Hill in particular, can be a safe haven for people like us. But it can also be a rough area without support. It's very easy to get into a lot of trouble and just languish around here without direction. Cake and Mint like to provide that guidance and assistance.

These two lovebirds met at university in Thailand and have been together ever since. Rumor has it that, before Cake, Mint had only ever been with women. In fact, Cake is the only man that Mint has ever been with. Something about that is kind of romantic, isn't it?

Anyway, they came to Korea, years later, just to party in Itaewon on a vacation, fell in love with the area, and never left. They bought this building, opened Ice Cream Bar on the first floor, built their dream apartment on the second floor, and rent their third floor out to me. Yes, at one point I, too, was a stray that they took pity on and helped out. They have enjoyed so much success that they were able to buy the building next door, as well.

The two buildings are impossibly close together. A tiny alleyway that is probably only 5 feet wide is the only thing that separates them. That building is solely apartment units so Mint and Cake are able to make more income off of that one. It is also three floors and houses six units. Some of the apartments are inhabited by other employees. JiHoon lives in one apartment; JangMi, Title, and Bank live in another one; and now ChaMin is in a third one. Does that make us sound weird? Like some kind of religious compound? All I know is that it's convenient and I am never late to work.