back to the city ✮ han yujin

chapter 6

After having the best day yesterday at the fair, you almost forgot that you had to rot away at work the next day. Almost.

Although you're exhausted from getting home late yesterday, after clocking your card into the machine in the employee's lounge to validate your shift, you quickly get ready for the succeeding hours ahead of you. You tie the half-folded apron around your waist, only now noticing that there's a small stain of unknown origin dyeing the corner of the cloth. Work is just great.

"Y/n," your coworker Danielle addresses you, peering through the narrow entryway. Her tone has an underlying sense of haste when she says, "They need you at the restaurant today."

"I'll be out in a minute!" you yell back, and she disappears from your view and presumably returns to waiting on the bar customers.

You exit the employee room, making a beeline for the outdoor restaurant across the bar area and fixing your name tag as you do so. There, they brief you on the ongoing orders and assign you a section to attend to. You get the section that spans from tables ten to sixteen, and you begin to serve the food that's already ready.

Just when you place a dish on table twelve (noticing that no one is present at the table), someone taps you in the space between your shoulder and collarbone. Probably Nara-- who else that you know would be at a country club on a Monday afternoon?

"Y/n!" she exclaims as you turn around, throwing her arms over you and pulling you into a hug. "I'm so tired from yesterday," she says, now resting her head on your left shoulder bone.

You pat her awkwardly on the back, reciprocating it. "Me too," you agree. "Shouldn't you be at tennis lessons right now?"

She lets go, taking her seat at the table. "Yes, but my instructor cancelled," she slightly pouts. "It's okay though, I was too tired anyway." She picks up her spoon and fork. "Do you have time to sit with me?"

Do I? Your gaze flickers from Nara, who is now digging into her food, to the rest of the tables you were placed in charge of managing. Not really. But technically... since a customer asked me, I have to say yes, right? Loopholes are so great.

"Since you asked, I think I do." You sit across from her, cupping your chin in your palm with your elbow on the table. She starts to cut into her food before looking up at you. "Are you hungry?"

Thinking about it now, maybe you are kind of hungry. But what could she do about that? It's not like she's gonna buy you some food. "No, don't worry," you say, waving her off. Much to your surprise (and relief), though, she pushes the plate to the middle of the table. "I can tell you're lying. Just eat with me."

You're probably breaking a bunch of rules as you speak, but they did say that you could take one twenty-minute break whenever you wanted to. You tell Nara you're going to be back, rushing to the employee room to register your break into the system so you wouldn't be breaking that many rules.

When you return, she's scrolling through her phone and only half of the food is left. She sees you approaching and hands you the extra utensils she asked for, wordlessly telling you to eat what's left.

You wonder why Nara is so unbelievably nice to you even though you've only known each other for two weeks. You settle back into the chair once again, starting to eat and she goes back to looking at her phone.

It's not awkward at all, weirdly, as you both sit in silence. What makes it awkward, though, is when she flips her phone over to show you what's on screen: a picture of you and Yujin sleeping. "You two were so cute yesterday."

You knew you'd fallen asleep in the car yesterday, but you didn't know the extent of it. You just thought you slept with your head leaning on the back of the car seat.