Ever since the day he walked through the front door of your cafe hand in hand with his sweet daughter on one gloomy afternoon in the middle of winter, he had captured your heart without him even knowing it. All the time, you had chosen to stay on th...
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chapter iii. autumn leaves
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The cafe has been void of customers since you put up the 'closed' sign about an hour ago. Only you and the new waitress, Nari, are left in the cafe. You have finished packing up today's leftovers—not that there is a lot of them left from both the kitchen and the display counter, thankfully—and you are now working on the accounting, filing up today's sale while Nari is at the back kitchen, cleaning up today's mess.
You have been working at the cashier instead of in the back office, making sure that you would notice it once your ride home is here. But you must have been too deep in your work that you missed out on the sound of the front door's bell ringing and you nearly jump hone you suddenly hear a deep voice speaking to you.
"Are you ready?"
When you look up to find Minhyun standing there in front of the counter with a wide grin on his face, you know that he had done it on purpose. "God, you scared me," you tell him while pressing a hand on your chest.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you," he teases you with a grin still appearing on his face, which only makes you doubt his words even more, but you say nothing and simply shake your head. "Are you ready to go yet?" he asks you again before looking down on his watch. "We should be on the road now if we don't want to miss dinner."
Hearing this, you glance at the clock on the wall and grimace. "Oh, damn. I totally lost track of time. I had initially thought it was a good thing that we ran out of most of our baked goods today so I could close up early, but I got too invested in this," you tell him, pointing on the laptop that you have been using to record the cafe's accounting. He looks over and you begin telling him about all the recent purchases that you have made because both you and Naeun wanted to try some new recipes to add for this year's holiday treats. "Give me 5 minutes to finish this up and we can go. I should probably fetch Nari too so she can go before it gets too dark. Do you want something to drink while you wait?"
Minhyun shakes his head. "Nah, I'm good. Just had coffee before I left the office. Go ahead and finish up while I sit right there," he says, pointing at the long cushioned bench attached to the wall.
"Okay," you tell him before disappearing into the back kitchen to find your young waitress.
Around ten minutes later, you bid your goodbyes to Nari and lock up the door while Minhyun goes to unlock his car, carrying the packed leftover baked goods in his arms to carry home. You keep your eyes on Nari as you watch her walking towards the nearest bus stop, making sure that she would get onto her ride home safely, when you notice an SUV driving slowly towards you. Right as the car reaches the cafe, the window rolls down and Soojin's adorable face appears.
