Mr. No || NCT || Completed

14 - Where Renjun drops a bomb

"What should I get?" Chaewon pondered aloud, staring at the menu on the wall.

Renjun, who had just finished preparing a latte macchiato for a previous order, ignored her and started preparing the next drink.

Chaewon leaned against the counter. "Are you saying that you don't have any recommendations?"

"I'm not saying anything", Renjun answered, searching for the vanilla syrup with his eyes. It wasn't next to the other syrup bottles, so he must've misplaced it earlier.

"You should put stuff in its proper place after using it", Chaewon chided him, as he turned around frantically, looking for the bottle. "Otherwise, you might make a - "

The loud sound of vanilla syrup bottle hitting the floor interrupted her. Renjun's elbow had bumped into the bottle, which he had forgotten next to the sink.

"- mess", Chaewon finished her sentence.

Renjun glared at her. Luckily enough, the bottle hadn't shattered but some of its contents had splashed on the floor and on his apron.

"Can you stop making my life difficult?" he complained while cleaning the sticky mess from the floor.

Chaewon was confused. "What do you mean?"

"Whenever you're around and say something, bad things happen", Renjun clarified. He prepared the espresso shot for a vanilla latte and then turned to foam the milk. "It's annoying."

His words seemed to genuinely surprise Chaewon. "Do you really think so?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Chaewon shook her head. "I've never heard that before. Are you saying that I'm making bad things happen?"

She seemed to be intrigued by the idea.

"I've heard about bad omens before and I'm damn sure that you are one", Renjun said confidently. Well, grandmother had spoken about bad omens at least once even if he didn't remember much of it. "You've never been told that before?"

"No", Chaewon said. Her nose wrinkled. "Bad omen, you say? That doesn't sound very flattering."

Renjun shrugged as he poured the milk over the espresso and vanilla syrup. He attempted to create a tulip shape on top of the drink but failed. As always. Somehow the foam tulip ended up looking like the middle finger.

Maybe he could start his own café where the latte art would consist of offensive symbols.

Chaewon looked at the menu again and ended up ordering a cappuccino. Renjun was pretty sure that she had ordered it every single time she came to the café but somehow it always took her a long while to come to the same conclusion.

"When are you coming over to look at the documents?" she asked when she pulled one of the stools next to the counter for herself while waiting for the coffee. Renjun wasn't even surprised that she had decided to sit there again.

He focused on grounding the espresso beans and didn't hurry to reply. He had tried to come up with a way how to not go to Chaewon's place or interact with her in general but nothing had come to him.

He clenched his jaw before answering the question. "Saturday evening." It was a statement, not suggestion. Usually, Saturday evenings were reserved for family dinners but this week mom had told him that instead of doing the normal dinner, they were going to have a casual lunch in the city because father was out of country.

"That works", Chaewon nodded. "I'm so happy that it's almost weekend. This week has been so long, you know? I'm definitely ready for it to be over."