sugar; hansol vernon chwe

c h a p t e r 8

8

The sound of the shop's bell ringing reached my ears. I put aside the ice cream scooper that I had been using to transfer cookie dough onto a sheet.

"I'll take this customer," I assured my aunt, who smiled and bowed her head in response.

Ducking out of the kitchen, I was surprised to come face-to-face with someone, "Yah!" I yelped, "Seungkwan?"

"Oh, hey Iris." He responded casually.

"You can't be behind the counter!" I scolded, pulling him away from the cash register.

"Sorry, I just figured because we're friends and all now, I could work the desk." Seungkwan reasoned as he moved to the customer portion of the shop to stand next to his two friends.

"For the record, we told him not to." Hansol informed me with a sideways smile.

"Well thanks for the tremendous effort you put into keeping him contained," I said sarcastically, though I couldn't suppress my giggles.

"You wouldn't understand quite yet," Scoups gave me a serious look, "But getting Seungkwan to stay put is almost as hard as keeping him quiet."

All three of our gazes rested on the hyper boy as he bounced in place. He noticed our eyes and immediately straightened his back so he was standing tall, "I can stay put and be quiet." Seungkwan challenged, "Just watch." His facial expression went rigid and soon enough, he was as motionless as a statue.

"Seungkwan you don't have to-" I tried to set him at ease when Hansol interjected.

"Just leave him, he won't stop until he's proved his point." Hansol mused, sweeping a set of loose hairs out of his eyes. Scoups' head bobbed in agreement.

"Well, alright." I obliged. Remembering that though they are my friends, they were customers too, I then inquired, "Are you guys ordering?"

"Yeah, the boys liked your desserts so much last time, they sent us to pick up more." Scoups raved, "The muffins are heaven, by the way."

"I don't know why we didn't come to this shop earlier," Hansol murmured, "Though we may not have liked it as much if you weren't here, Iris." He gave a bashful grin as if he regretted his last sentence.

"I'm glad to hear that you guys liked it," I responded, dodging Hansol's dialogue.

He was always directing subtly sweet comments at me, yet  somehow I felt friend zoned. Hansol is quite friendly once you get to know him, so maybe that's just how he talks to all his companions? "Was your brownie good, Vernon? Erm, Hansol I mean."

Scoups and Seungkwan looked to Hansol, apparently anticipating his answer. "It was really good," He responded, almost too quickly, "I was hoping to get another today, actually."

"Lucky for you, a batch just came out of the oven." I enlightened, gesturing to an arrangement of freshly sliced brownies. The glass of the display case fogged a bit on account of the steam still rising from the warm dessert, "Just one again?"

"Yeah, one should be good." I could feel
his eyes on me as I got his order. I wrapped it neatly in our blue tissue paper and packaged it in one of the
to-go bags.