100 Days DISCONTINUED

14

Seonghwa's POV

Friday night was always busy at the restaurant. Never an open table, a line of hungry customers waiting to be seated outside the open door, and new plates being tossed to us waiters and waitresses every five seconds. Walking briskly and balancing four plates on my arms, I arrived at a table seating a family at the back of the establishment

"Alright." I said, managing to set one of the plates in front of a small child. He grinned excitedly and grabbed his spoon. "One order of mac and cheese. One order of grilled salmon, one order of house tomato soup and cheese toasts." I set down two more platters for the parents and finally a plate of chicken tenders. "And one order of chicken tenders for you." The tiny child clapped her hands in anticipation, the children were very hungry. 

"Can I get you folks anything else?" I asked, the common restaurant courtesy so practiced I never forgot to ask anymore.

"No." The woman replied with a note of snark in her voice. Continuing to fake smiling, praying my face didn't screw up in disgust, I nodded and made my way back to the kitchens.

"The hell?" I muttered indignantly. "So rude and for what?" 

Taking another stack of dishes into my arms, I sighed, exhausted. I absolutely hated my job, never finding how anyone could possibly enjoy serving plate after plate of food to generally obnoxious, ungrateful costumers. For no reason, I was treated like shit by customers who I was trying to serve as quickly as possible unlike some of my coworkers who hung out in the back room, skipping work to gossip about the day's crowd.

And of course, my annoyance inflamed my sickness. No, it's no a side effect but yes, the bristling vexation induced by my occupation oftentimes made me want to vomit and cry. That's when the breathing issues kicked in. 

Padding confidently across the marble tiled floor, I served a couple swiftly, setting down the dishes before they could find a reason to raise hell with me. 

"And can I get you two anything else?" I repeated in a fake cheery voice, the personal, playful comments I used to make with customers took to much effort for me to do anymore. 

"Ummm...." The man hummed unsatisfied. "Well I asked for no tomatoes." He stated matter-o-factly, pointing a tanned finger at his burger. 

"Oh, we are so sorry sir." I immediately jumped on the situation, my voice seeping apologetically. "If you would allow us, we can fix that in a jiffy." 

"No no, it's fine." He waved his hand absentmindedly, voice higher than before. "Just kiss your good yelp reviews goodbye."

Licking my lips in order to keep my sarcastic remark inside of me, I responded again, this time with a little more personality. "Really sir, I personally don't care about the reviews but of course, I don't want to jeopardize my only source of income. Tough boss." I laughed, kicking myself inside for trying to appeal to the snotty brat. "Like I said before, your meal can be fixed easily if you'd allow us to-"

"What's your name?" The man interrupted me, pulling out his phone. "I just wanna....write it down so I can let the world know how horrendous the service has been."

Tapping my foot impatiently and laughing sardonically at the bafoon's behavior, I gesture to my name tag which simply reads 'Seonghwa.' 

"What the hell kind of a name is 'Seonghwae?' Is it Chinese?" The man babbles rudely, pronouncing it incorrectly and adding an extremely uneducated and unfunny quip at the end. Even when no one laughed, he still seemed proud of himself.

Great. I thought, digging my nails into the palm of my other hand to relieve my pent up aggravation. He's not only a moron, he's also racist.