The Elephant Between Us || SKZ

chapter five

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DON'T COUNT YOUR CHICKENS BEFORE THEY HATCH

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Who likes waking up at 06:00 a.m. knowing they have to work in a new job in less than one hour? Jeongmin didn't, for sure, mainly because she had lost count of the nights she had got no sleep already. 

Realizing it was already the fourth night in that apartment, she turned to the side to look at Jeongin, who was still asleep. 

We're making it, brother.

At least, they no longer had to sleep with a thin broken mattress separating them from the ground: they had finally found a bed they could pay for.

One good thing happened, thank God!

"Hey! Jeongin!" She called, shaking his body by the shoulders. "First day at work, let's get this!"

She was not motivated. At all. Yet she had promised Jeongin she'd make an effort, so there she was: getting up before the roosters to prepare breakfast. 

She laughed. When was the last time she did that?

I must be sick.

"Hey..." Jeongin appeared at the exact moment Jeongmin was putting the scrambled eggs into two plates. 

She raised an eyebrow, silently watching him walk over to his chair, sleepier than sloths.

"Guess somebody didn't get any sleep last night." She said, receiving a pout in return. "Was the bed uncomfortable or something?" He laughed, and she did too, handing him his breakfast. "Tell me. Nervous about working again?"

"I don't know." Jeongin took a sip of his milk. "Something deep inside tells me this is too good to be true."

"What is too good to be true?"

"The way we just settled around so peacefully."

"Peacefully?" Again, Jeongmin laughed, leaning against the kitchen counter. "You almost punched a guy in the face at a café and killed him with your glare after."

"That was different."

"Yeah, sure."

"I'm serious, Jeongmin. I mean, we got here one week ago." His face approached her as if he thought walls could hear anything he said. "Where are the mails? The neighbours talking behind the trees? How about the cameras on the edges of the windows?"

"Geez, Jeongin, would you mind stop scaring me?" 

She knew her brother was right. Things had been good for way too long, and of course, she had already wondered when they'd start to lose control of all those things. They knew that, at their first slip, everything else would fail like a pack of cards. The domino effect. It had happened before. Way too many times. They knew all its parts already, all its signals and all its tricks. 

"Have you seen anything weird these days, sis?"

She gulped. 

The giggles from five three ago, yes. 

That was the answer she should have given him, yet she refused to sow chaos inside that little head of him. Not on their first day at work.

"Nope. Have you?"

"Not yet." He glued his lips to his glass of milk, looking at Jeongmin with those suspicious eyes. "Not yet."

"We won't find anything. We're safe here, okay?" She came closer, holding his hand. "Nobody followed us."

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"So, do you have any experience doing these things?"

"Table service?" Jeongmin asked the man, tying the red apron around her waist as the other employee left the breakroom. "Some."

"Great." The male said coldly, throwing a cloth into her hands to clean the tables before disappearing from her radar.

Jeongmin automatically pulled a silly face in his direction, rolling her eyes before getting psychologically ready to start cleaning the dirty counter. If that was not the café where her brother had grabbed Bangchan by the collar in front of everyone, Jeongmin would have left that job immediately. Who did he just think she was?

That ruined her morning in the stupidest ways.

He didn't like her, and Jeongmin started to think he'd never really do. 

"A coffee, please!" A woman requested, sitting on a stool in front of Jeogmin with her eyes glued to the screen of her smartphone. 

"Sure. It's on the way!" She answered, smiling widely before turning to the machine behind her, rolling her eyes once again. She definitely needed to get used to that.

Client after client, Jeongmin forced smile after smile, nodding her head whenever they decided to take their life problems out on her, as well as when they thought winking at her with a sneaky smile would grant them an automatic free slice of lemon cake. 

Tourists.

"I better start meditating." She mumbled to herself, stretching her neck to the sides as the last clients of that day were already served. "I've definitely underestimated the guys working behind counters."

"Said something?" The other employee from before asked, coming from behind to her side.

"I said this is way more tiring than it looked like."

"Oh." He laughed, looking at her. "I'm Hwang Hyunjin, here if you need a hand." Then, he showed her his hand, waiting for her to shake it, which she did with a smile.

"Yang Jeongmin." She folded her arms over the counter. "Are you sure I can borrow you a hand from time to time? You can't go back later."

"I'm sure." He smiled, looking ahead as he changed the subject. "I saw you cleaning the floor the other day."

"Damn, I'm sorry for that, really."

"What happened that day?"

"My brother woke up with his super protective older brother instincts on." Hyunjin laughed automatically, already able to guess what was coming next. "So he kind of grabbed a guy by the collar, turned tables upside down and broke glasses."

"So you kind of felt bad and decided to work here as an apology?"

"Basically."

Hmm... not really.

Jeongmin was just not in the mood to get into a café's blacklist right on the first week, and working there to compensate for all the damage caused seemed like a great excuse to get the job, way too good to be wasted.

"Well, ahm..." Hyunjin said, pulling away from the counter as he pressed his lips into a thin line. "I'd love to tell you you'll enjoy this here, but nah, you really won't."

With that, the boy entered the breakroom, leaving a smiling Jeongmin alone with one more customer in the room.

A customer who wouldn't take his eyes off her.

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