[JENLISA] Age of Death

Chapter 1

Here we go again...

"Welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?"

I feigned a smile at the guy who stood on the other side of the counter. His eyes scanned the menu on the wall behind my back as my finger continue to tap over the cash register in front of me. Even as he began to give me his order, I couldn't keep my gaze from darting to his left cheek. The number 45 rested there, etched into his skin. It certainly felt too big to avoid looking at, even as much as I hate to see it.

Why couldn't it be on his neck, or in his back or whatever, somewhere hidden by clothing? It always had to be on the left part of the cheek, where I couldn't avoid it. Even if I very much liked to.

I bit my lip, anxiously. Whilst my mind run through potential causes of death. Car accident were common, so that guess wasn't particularly creative. Maybe it'd be cancer? Or heart disease?

"I'll take two BigMac Together Pack. To-go." He said and my thoughts immediately disperse.

Yep. Heart disease.

I winced but quickly smile as I tap onto the monitor and repeated his order. "That'll be ₩25,200"

Heart disease was one of the leading cause of death in South Korea, and yet here I was, working at a fast food place on the outskirts of Hongdae, with the literal ability to see peoples' age of death, and – in case like the guy, supporting it to happen.

From my decent perspective, that might've seemed wrong. In fact, it certainly was. But I had a single solution to this decent dilemma. To simply ignore it in hopes that it will eventually go. I tried not to think about it. I didn't allow myself to care about the people I was serving. Knowing when they will die made it inconvenient to get invested, to say the least, and if there was one thing I'd learned, it was that sometimes you have to let people make their own decisions.

I tried to interfere once and it didn't worked.

He gave me an exact amount and hasty paved when I gave him his order. Next up was a woman on her phone flanked by two small children – a boy and a girl, a twin rather, both about six years old. My heart dropped into my stomach.

"Lisa, don't look, don't fkin' look," I repeatedly said in my head like a mantra, as I smile and took the order of the woman who'd die at age 81, but then she went back to her phone and made her kids order for themselves, and I had to look. The boy would live up to 72, but the girl would die at 51. I'd seen worse.

I gave the woman her total, and she distractedly handed me her driver's license instead of her credit card. She was trying to balance her phone call and her children.

I smile and corrected her, I curiously glanced down at her date of birth. August 20, 1979. Today is August 23, 2019. She just turned 40 a couple days ago and about thirty years older than her daughter. That 81 and 51 suddenly became a lot harder for me to stomach.

I swallowed hard as we swapped cards, and then she paid, took her food, and moved on. So did I.

I can't help not to wonder if the mother and daughter would die at the same time or just a few months apart from different causes.

"Lisa. Breathe," a voice commanded near my ear as a hand gently squeeze my arm. Hoony oppa.

I must've looked as tense as I felt.

Seunghoon oppa or as what he liked to be called, Hoony was a 27 year old college dropout who worked here with me. He was the only person who knew what I could do, and that was because he could do it too. We'd spotted each other instantly when we'd met and just known. It'd been hard not to. We were both kind of obvious about our obsessions, cheek-looking obsession.