Last Night at the Café

14 | Thai Milk Tea Ice Cream

"TONIGHT IS ON me!" she announced.

Seollal had brought Kazu to a little family restaurant that sold comfort food. Their plastic table was filled with a platter of rice cakes doused in hot chili sauce, one stone bowl of kimchi soup, its steam dousing her face, a bowl of seafood noodles in a spicy broth, and a quiet bottle of soju.

"I wanted to bring you to a nicer place but it's closed today," she said. "I'm so glad this place is still around. When I first moved to Seoul, I came here often."

It was a hole in the wall shop, one she frequented when she missed the taste of home, but unlike what one went to on dates. Customers shouted their orders across the shop, answered by boisterous old ladies decked in aprons.

"It's the people you eat with that matter," he returned simply.

He raised a finger close to her face as if he were about to tap her nose but he drew his hand back with an embarrassed laugh. Seollal blinked at the retreating finger with amusement in her gaze. She still kept the slip of paper on which she had asked him out. It was tucked between the pages of a book; she flipped through it when her fingers had the urge to, for the sole purpose of seeing his writing.

"Anyway, I asked you out because I wanted to thank you."

"To thank me?" His brows heightened. "Why?"

"Well – " She shrugged her shoulders, her mouth pursed as a slow burning filled her face. "Just because."

"Hey, want to try my food before I start?" she quickly blurted. "This jjamppong is really good."

It had been on the tip of her tongue, but they weren't words she could easily say. Thank you for still wanting to be my friend even though I was rude? Thank you for being kind and patient? He'd probably laugh his head off.

"Is it as good as the jjamppong near my café?"

"There's good jjamppong near your café?" she asked with a gasp, her eyes wide.

"I see now that you're the type who lives to eat," he muttered with the side of his mouth tugged wryly.

"Of course!"

With a small chuckle, he scooped his bowl of rice into his kimchi jjigae, before giving it a few quick stirs with his spoon.

"I'll bring you there one day."

"What's working with children like?" he asked all of a sudden. "Is it something you've always wanted to do?"

She tilted her head to the side as she thought, her chopsticks idly piercing a mandu. Soup spilled from the dumpling, exposing the meat and vegetables filling within.

"It's fun," she returned shortly. "Tiring but fun."

"I've always wanted to do something where I could work with children," she went on. "I enjoy being with them and I think it's important to invest in their upbringing since a young age. It's a refreshing experience, although I always get tired at the end of the day. They're so innocent. But they can also be very wise."

"Why teach English though?"

"My appa used to live in America. He speaks to us in English at home. That's how I became fluent in the language. I realised how important it was to invest in a person's potential from young, especially in English. It's a universal language, but we don't fare very well in it. The way that English is taught in our educational system isn't very effective when it comes to speaking. Most young people are able to read sentences and answer test questions, but when it comes to simple conversations, they don't do well. That's why I also emphasise on having English conversations in my classes."