The Choices I Never Made (annyeongz version)

The Persistent Persuades the Persuadee

Ahn Yujin meets all types of people because of her 9-5 job as a cashier at the local grocery mart. Because it is a small town, she can recognize a face easily. The same people visit to purchase their daily supplies and Yujin greets most of them with the same professional smile she has mastered through the years—the one that's not too sweet to be creepy but also not too forced to be annoying.

It's around half an hour of no customers so Yujin thought of checking up on Wonyoung with her friends. She was busy trying to backread the flock of messages and sea of emoticons on their group chat when a voice speaks up.

"You're not supposed to be on your phone at work."

It's only a smile at loss when Yujin gets a surprising new customer around four in the afternoon, just when she's about to finish her shift at the market.

The cashier immediately keeps her phone away, dropping it inside the big center pocket of her grocery mart apron uniform. "I apologize, ma'am, I was just--..."

But the apology gets cut short when Yujin meets eyes with a familiar girl with jet-black hair cut to her shoulders, clad in a rather dashing leather jacket and a juxtaposing black floral dress.

"You're going to get in trouble if your boss sees you." It's a futile attempt at a warning, a really soft one at that, and it irks Yujin.

Causing a scene in public and getting fired from her only job is the last thing she would want to happen though, so she keeps her composure and professionality, and focuses on swiping the plastic of fresh vegetables on the barcode reader.

Yujin continues on with her work even if she feels Yuna's staring piercing holes through her skull.

After finishing with the barcodes and billing the customer, Yujin moves over to pack up the groceries in a bag. The mart was small and driven by an old, grumpy man who couldn't afford any more extra employees, so the cashier people also packed up the groceries.

Yuna pays her bill and Yujin hands over the paperbag."Thank you for shopping with—..."

"Are you really going to be like this, Yujin?"

Yujin should have known the civility between them was too good to be true.

If anything, wishing for a dispute-free workday is too impossible to happen. Something bad would always follow her. She must have done something awful in her past life to be this unfortunate.

"I'm at work, Yuna. Let's not do this." It's a statement more than a request. Yujin will never ask Yuna for anything even if her life depended on it.

"I heard you had a visitor?"

"Excuse me?"

Yuna doesn't even try to hide the spark of interest at the topic. She grabs her bag of groceries. "It's a small town, Yujin. It's not hard picking out a lost rose in a sunflower garden."

Yujin rolls her eyes at the poetic analogy. Yuna always had a thing for literature, it was, quite frankly, endearing only if it were used for appropriate situations.

"Well, she's not your business, Yuna. Now if you may, you're holding up the line."

"What line?" It's clear enough, the cashier counters are empty and Yuna is the only customer—aside from the old, bickering couple in Aisle 17—around.

That doesn't faze Yujin though. "The line I'm pretending to have because I don't want to see you anymore."

Yuna scoffs, expecting the crude remark from someone like the younger woman. "Is that how you talk to a customer, Ahn Yujin?"