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"Songmin! How wonderful it is to see you again!"
Mrs. Ki rushed up to the girl, an excited beam painted over her features as she made her way up the road. The sight of the old woman, with her usual flower-print jacket and cane, made Songmin smile from her spot standing beside the locked up music shop.
"I know it has only been a week and you only work here two days a week, but I have missed seeing you around," Mrs. Ki babbled, shakily taking out a ring of keys from her pocket. She flipped through the keys searching for the one to the store. Finding it, she tried to insert it into the padlock over the door but her trembling fingers-whether it was from excitement or her old age-kept missing the keyhole. Reaching forward, Songmin gently took the keys from Mrs. Ki and opened the door for her, pulling the door open for her to enter.
"Thank you, honey," Mrs. Ki said, taking the keys back and giving Songmin a grateful smile as she walked into the shop and flipped the light switch. The lights hanging from the ceiling flickered weakly before finally finding the strength to turn on fully, filling the familiar space with a soft, comforting yellow light. Mrs. Ki hobbled over to the door leading into the back room, her cane clicking quietly on the wooden floor. "It was getting real quiet around here without you, though I'm glad you got to go on a vacation with your friends. My daughter came to visit last week. I wish you'd been here, I would've loved to introduce you to each other..."
While listening to Mrs. Ki, Songmin closed the shop door and did her routine lap around the aisles, checking for anything abnormal. Other than a couple near empty shelves that needed to be restocked, everything else was just as she had remembered it. She stopped at the cashier's counter to set her messenger bag down beside the swivel chair.
"Songmin, sweetie, Do you want some tea or snacks?" Mrs. Ki called out from the open door of the back room. Songmin made her way to the back room so she wouldn't have to shout, as well as to grab some of the albums she needed to restock. "Yes, please. Which flavour is it?"
The back room was much more spacious than the crowded shop up front. Aside from a piano in the corner, a bookshelf beside it with an abundance of music books, a small table surrounded by some chairs, and the round floral carpet at the center of the floor, the room was practically empty. One window offered a view of the evening sky, but otherwise the room was closed off from the outside world. Three doors, each of varying sizes, lined the walls: one for a closet that held boxes of new products for restocks, one into a small kitchen in which Mrs. Ki often brewed tea and kept food in case anyone in the building was hungry, and the one out into the shop. The room was a little cold and the walls definitely needed new wallpaper, but it was a homely spot nonetheless.
"We have some new ginger tea that my daughter brought when she came to visit." Mrs. Ki's voice was muffled by the wall separating the kitchen from the back room. "You're not allergic to ginger, are you? I don't want to make you eat food that will make you sick if I can avoid it."
