Last Night at the Café

11 | Iced Americano

"SAJANGNIM, DID SOMETHING happen between you and Seollal unnie?"

Kazu cast Jieun a glance before returning to the mocha in his hand. He hadn't raised his head in the last half an hour. An ache had picked up in the back of his neck, spreading slowly to his shoulders. If he didn't move soon, he thought, his head would remain permanently tilted.

"She didn't come in last Monday," she went on lightly as she packed a sandwich into a bag and handed it over to a waiting customer. "And when she did come on Saturday, she wasn't her usual self."

He turned aside to place the drink onto a saucer. With a press of a few buttons, a low buzzing resounded and a chair clattered back.

"Enjoy your drink," he said with a smile and a nod before quickly turning to the next order.

The whirring of the espresso machine, the smell of ground beans, the hiss of the milk frother; those were implements familiar to him. He had picked up learning coffee quite by chance on a rainy night when sleeplessness sent him on a walk through his neighbourhood and into a café. There, he had learnt to discern the subtle aromas of beans from different countries, had fallen in love with the more intricate latte art and developed a passion for developing drinks on his own.

Yet his co-worker's curious question had jolted him out of his concentration, rendering his hands a fumbling mess.

"The two of you didn't speak to each other either," she said.

Behind him, ice rattled noisily into cups. He jumped at the sound, nearly spilling a fresh shot of espresso onto the counter. Anna squeezed an arm between them, lining up three cups by his side.

"And what are you trying to say?"

Iced Americano was the easiest and the least time consuming drink to prepare. Ice, water, espresso. He was done in a matter of seconds. Kazu snapped the plastic lids over the cups with practised ease before sliding them into waiting paper bags.

"You upset her, didn't you?"

His hands paused as he turned his head to narrow his eyes at her.

"It can't be that this time you need some tips from me?" she suggested, her brows shooting up.

"Hey," he started. "Why are you so interested?"

He was pretty sure the both of them could do with some tips. How had Jieun gauged her crush's interest so wrongly anyway? The girl seemed entirely unaffected now, flouncing about in her usual manner, as if the boy she had mooned over had never existed.

His hands moved automatically to wipe down the espresso machine before flying to grind the beans. Crushed beans filtered out, giving off a rich aroma.

"I'm looking out for unnie," was her simple response.

"Unnie's a nice person," she went on with her head tilted to the white ceiling. "But sometimes she keeps things to herself. You know how long it took for her to finally tell me that she came in every Saturday to write a book. She doesn't tell people things easily."

"But she told me that she's – "

Then he stopped short, his brows knotted as he stared at his own hands tamping the beans.

She had told him she was adopted.

Those words could not have been easily said.

Yet she had mentioned it over supper like as if she – what? Trusted him?

Could it be possible to trust the person who made one's coffee with information of such gravity? Then again, he didn't want to just be the person who made her coffee.