ROCK-A-BYE

19~ Rest-au-rant

At the sight of the restaurant, Minnie gasped and held Jin's pants tightly from the back. Jin pushed the door open, making Minnie hide behind him.

In the morning, the restaurant isn't as busy; but it was filled with people enough to make Minnie want to run for her life. "It's okay, just don't let go." Jin glanced down at her.

Jin was crazy if he thought she was ever going to let go for a second. "Rest-au-rant?" Minnie asked as she looked around with alerted eyes. "Yeah." Finding it a little funny, Jin chuckled.

"Morning, hyung," A young worker greeted Jin and received a nod from him. The worker's face changed as he noticed the baby clinging to Jin's pants; and he almost ran into a waiter holding glasses of cold water.

"Yah! Sehun!" The almost-ran-into worker yelled the younger's name. "You know mistakes are not tolerated when-" the younger, whose name is Sehun, silenced the waiter by pointing at the anonymous baby, who clung for dear life.

The waiter's brows furrowed, too.

Jin just continued his way to the kitchen. "Morning, fellas. How's work?" Jin walked in casually. "Morning, Jin. As you can see," one of the cooks replied.

"Good work, everyone, keep it up." Jin nodded approvingly. Jin turned and walked out the kitchen, meeting Ji-hun; best known as Jin's arch enemy.

"Morning, Ji-hun." Jin forced the words out with a straight face. Instead of greeting him back, Ji-hun noticed the baby as she waddled behind Jin and made sure to say something about it.

"Who's that?" He nosed in. "Who?" Jin temporarily avoided his question by feigning obliviousness. Ji-hun looked at the baby pointedly. "How many times did Sehun tell you to mind your own business, really?" Jin spat.

"It will be my business when I tell Hitman you brought a baby to work." Ji-hun had an obnoxious smirk playing at his lips.

Hitman is the manager of this restaurant while Jin is only his assistant. He was a cook last year when he got promoted to the position.

"It's a restaurant not a company office. Get busy, Ji-hun, or I'm going to inform Hitman you're nosing around instead of serving customers," Jin snapped.

Minnie never saw Jin so angry before, and she tightened her grip, her eyes wide at the irritable stranger.

"Who do you think you are? You know both of us have the same position," Ji-hun scoffed. "No, we don't. I got the main position. You became a substitute after nagging Hitman," Jin scoffed in return as he picked Minnie up.

"I got the promotion with hard work," Ji-hun crossed his arms, affording being complacent. "I'm afraid you're wrong, again. Hitman only conciliated you by making you a second assistant-much like giving a lollipop to make an annoying child shut up-so I don't think it's even considered as a promotion," Jin roasted.

Ji-hun stood with his mouth open, not believing Jin just snapped at him like that-even its being not the first time. "Ji-hun sweetie, honestly this is humiliating. When are you going to just shut up when he tells you to, hmm?" One of the female workers pat his shoulder, almost failing to hold back her snicker.

Jin just turned around with Minnie in his arms and walked away. If you think throwing tomatoes at someone contemptible in public is humiliating, you should've seen the dirty looks all the workers threw at Ji-hun-even the maintenance man snickered.

It was more or less normal when Jin and Ji-hun bickered like that; everyone knew how they despised each other, but not how much.

Even Minnie had her mouth open as she looked from over Jin's shoulder at Ji-hun, who was glaring holes into Jin's back.

"He's scary," Minnie mumbled as she curled up in his arms and looked up at him. "Ignore that schmuck," Jin scoffed. "Sch..?" Minnie scowled. "No, don't say it," Jin chuckled and opened his office door.

Yes, he has an office; even though he spends most of his time out with the workers and the customers. He required one in his contract after getting promoted. It's just Jin things no one will understand.

The small room was orderly and neat; and it didn't smell like food or spices, rather like freshly washed laundry hung in the winter breeze. He put her down after closing the door behind him.

"Can we play, already?" Minnie asked. "I'm at work, kiddo. I'm gonna be busy," Jin said as he went through the paperwork on his desk. "Can I draw something?" Minnie said as she peeked over the papers on his desk.

"Yeah, sure," Jin said as he looked for a paper he doesn't need. "There you go." He gave her a paper and a pen. She smiled cheerfully and sat down to the floor excitedly.

"Stay here, okay? I'll be back later," Jin said as he took off his coat and headed out. Minnie didn't even acknowledge him as she stayed focused on her scribbles.

It was only a half hour later that Minnie actually realized his absence. She lifted her head in admiration of her work, then looked around for someone to show them.

"Jinnie?" She said in a small voice, realizing he wasn't there. She got up and threw her pen behind. She walked to the door and tried pushing and pulling at it, but it didn't budge.

She hit it with her palm a few times in frustration. "Open," she whined. "Jinnie," she said through the very thin crack between the door and its frame.

"Jinnie," she continued calling through the crack, though not receiving any response. She looked up at the door knob and hopped to reach it, but to no avail. She started shuffling and whining loudly.

Tears started slipping out of her eyes as she hit the door a few more times. Unexpectedly, as if the door finally complied, it opened.

Minnie looked down at the feet that appeared in the doorway, then up at the person's face; she was taken aback when she recognized it.

She took a few steps back as she locked gazes with Ji-hun. "Jin locked you in here?" He spoke up. She frantically looked behind him and weighed the possibilities of running through his legs.