ʙʀᴏᴋᴇɴ ᴄʟᴏᴄᴋs

Chapter 3: Nervous

The next day he headed to the same coffee shop on his own.

He tried to crane his neck over the cashier to try and spot her, but she wasn't there. "Sir?" The cashier snapped him out of it, he apologized and he paid.

He had looked up the lyrics to the song she was singing and listened to it more than a couple of times.

And he saw her.

Her tired face, her hair in a loose ponytail, and earphones in again.

But to his dismay, she wasn't singing again. And something that had never happened before had occurred,

He was frozen. He couldn't speak at all.

But there was no point anyway.

She wouldn't listen.

~~~

"Who was that girl, Jae?" Tae asked him at work.

"My girlfri-"

"The other one."

"Oh you mean her... she doesn't mean harm really." Jae took a sip of his water, "I don't understand her. No one really does, but I remember him telling me she had a beautiful mind."

"'Him'?"

"Oh... uh, her ex. You might wanna ask Soonyoung about it. She tried to keep her mouth shut so she spill anything on accident."

"Her... ex? Did he break up with her?"

"If only." Jae sighed. "Oh I gotta go back to work. Next week, same day as last time, she'll be there."

"Okay."

~~~~

"Please don't think bad of her." Soonyoung said to Tae as Jae stood in line to get his food. "She's actually the funniest person if you got to know. She's a ride or die. I would know, i'm her best friend."

"I see. But she doesn't look..."

"Alive?" Soonyoung sighed, "That's because her ex... isn't."

Tae's eyes widened in absolute disbelief. He was gaping at her.

"She loved him so much Tae. It was so heartbreaking when he passed away. Happened a year ago. Don't tell her please... I'm only telling you because-"

"I bought dessert." She came.

Tae bought his mask down and grinned but she didn't even bother to look at him, as she was busy unwrapping the delights. But his grin didn't last long anyway, he felt a little bad since he had almost thought she was just a cold, mean person...

She then looked up, thinking Tae was a different guy since Soonyoung never bought the same guy twice. It was a new dude every week. She literally froze as she turned to Soonyoung, who just smiled. Was she really serious about trying to get her to move on?

She looked at the clock on the right wall of them, but the hands were frozen. "Time broke." She muttered as she looked at her own broken clock on her wrist.

"Time broke? I'd say it froze." He suddenly said as he followed her eyes to the clock.

She was taken aback for a moment.

"Why do you say that?" She said.

"It's a bit negative to say it's broken, don't you think?" He said, as he tried to find the right words without messing up, "like..." he was really afraid of screwing up his words in front her, which was a bit unusual, "if it's frozen... it means you can still fix it by melting or warming it up or whatever... but if it's broken, it'd be really hard if not impossible to fix."

She gaped at him which made Soonyoung gape at her. She never had an interest in any of what the guys Soonyoung brought would say but now...

Then, she looked at him with glittering eyes, "you sound just like him."

Soonyoung had never seen her friend's face look alive, even thought it was just a tiny bit, it was a tiny bit that proved she could be saved.

"Sorry. There I go muttering off again." She said.

She looked at her broken clock, forgetting it was broken for a moment,  then looked at her phone. I overstated my welcome did a minute.

21 minutes.

That was a first.

"Thank you for being here today. Nice seeing you again,"

And even now.

Tae would like to believe he had caused some of that beautiful smile.

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