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

Chapter 12 - JiHoon (Sunday)

Brzzt-brzzt! Brzzt-brzzt!

My hand flies out and violently squeezes the side button on my phone. I groan angrily. I bring my phone to my face.

Whoa. It's already 11 o'clock. I guess I have no right to be angry that my phone is ringing. I swipe in my passcode to check the text.

It's a group text initiated by Mint to Keep and I. He wants us to meet with him and Cake to talk more about implementing our ideas to save the bar. I sit up excitedly. Now I'm awake. Let's do this. I respond that I'll be over in an hour, to give myself time to eat something and shower.

At noon, I'm knocking on Mint and Cake's apartment door. They welcome me in with smiling faces. Keep arrived before me and is on the couch with a beer in hand.

"Drinking already?" I ask him. He shrugs and looks at his phone.

"It's officially afternoon. I've been up for hours. I went for a run this morning. What have you been up to?"

"Uh..." I don't want to tell them that I just woke up because I couldn't sleep last night. "Nothing really. Just relaxing at home." Keep raises his eyebrows at me.

"I stopped by your apartment to see if you wanted to run with me. You didn't answer the door. Where were you? Were you home and just avoiding me?"

I force a laugh. "Yes!" Keep feigns shock and then takes a big swig of his beer. But his smile quickly fades when I continue, "What did you have so morning anyway? We all worked late last night?"

"Alright kids, focus!" Cake interjects with some claps to accentuate each syllable of the last word. "We're past brainstorming. Let's move on to an actual plan. I loved all of the ideas you mentioned yesterday. But now we have to decide what to try first and how to promote it."

"Let's start with a Thai night," I suggest. "It makes the most sense since the majority of our regulars are Thai and most of us are Thai or half Thai." I look at Keep and he nods at me encouragingly so I continue. "You know the owners of all of the Thai restaurants around here. You know all of the top hits on Thai radio right now. It would require the least amount of effort to start." The other three nod in agreement.

"Yeah, it makes sense to start simple and expand from there," Keep points out.

"Agreed," Cake replies. "Do you think we should try the guest DJ at the same time? A Thai DJ to bring in more Thai people?"

"I have a few friends I could ask," Keep reports, already taking out his phone to scroll through his contacts.

"Great! Do it!" says Mint. "When should we try to do this? Is it too soon to try it this weekend? How should we publicize it?"

We're all quiet for a few minutes. We haven't had to do any real publicity for the bar since it first opened. We never really had a need. Word of mouth had always gotten us the business we needed. Sure, we have all the required social media accounts but we're not great at keeping them active. Ugh, are we officially old?

"We need a young person!" Cake says as if he's reading my mind. "We need someone to make TikToks and shit. Someone who can get a new, young crowd excited about the bar; excited about Thai night and all these other new ideas we want to do."

"Lucky!" Keep blurts out. We all turn to look at him. His face flushes bright red. He clears his throat. "And ChaMin. I saw them making TikToks last night. I bet they could do it."

"Wait, what do you mean you saw them last night?" I ask. "Did you see them after work?" There's a pinch of jealousy in my chest that I'm trying to ignore.

Keep stutters for a second before explaining. "Remember how they said they were going to Lucky's place after work last night? Well, apparently Lucky lives on the top floor of YOUR apartment building." He points at me.