French Cup: A Neighborhood Story

Chapter 112: -Kazuya- Golden Lights

The bell chimed one more time as I closed the door. The night air was chill and comforting, swirling in a breeze around Gyeong-Wan and I, and still my heart was warm. It had been warm all day. My key inserted into the lock and twisted, this same motion that I did every day. It usually told me of a job well done, a satisfied feeling that made me immediately tired and prepared to go to bed.

But, today was different. Gyeong-Wan had told me in the middle of the day that he'd wanted to tell me something. Something he couldn't say at French Cup. It had made me immediately blush. I'd been doing that all day, too. He'd seemed nervous about it, making me nervous, too. But, as we'd worked together, that nervous feeling tried to ebb away. We were in sync together, it seemed. Like this was meant to be. I'd hand him a waffle cone, and he'd take it as if he were expecting me at that right exact moment. As if we were cogs in a clock, those Swiss or German clocks you see, with the little people spinning around when the clock struck twelve. 

Here we were now, though. He was taking me back to the hotel, and it was surreal realizing he still had something to do with it. I'd been in a dream all day it seemed. Trying so hard to forget reality, hoping this was my new reality. That any worries I had weren't true, just making ice cream cones with him. Seeing all those smiling customers. The rose part of my rose colored glasses, nothing else going on beyond my rims. 

I'd even watched him eat a large chocolate ice cream when we'd taken a break. I'd been eating vanilla, but hardly able to focus as I watched him lick. He'd been distracted, still trying to learn from Nikki. Observing him going around the room, no doubt trying to see how he held the coffee pot. But, I'd been watching Gyeong-Wan's tongue. Hoping this reality never became untrue. Wishing we served ice cream more than once in a blue moon. Astonishing me that I was looking forward to it this much. Coming out of a nightmare, this incredible feeling.

Now, I was going back to something that wasn't the reality I wanted. These intrusive thoughts from earlier, about Gyeong-Wan's employment. Realizing now that he still lived at the hotel. As we walked together, he held my hand tightly in his mittened one. I loved that mitten. Not many men wear mittens. But, he was wearing mittens. There was something adorable about it. It almost showed a vulnerability about him, something else I loved.

I loved everything about him, and I didn't want him to live at the hotel. I hadn't thought about that before. It was just a fact, him working at the hotel. Living at the hotel. But, he didn't work there anymore. 

Sudden worry. Folding in on itself, compounding. He didn't work there anymore. He was still living there. How did that work? Was it a term of his employment? Was he allowed to still live there? 

I didn't want him to live there.

The lights of the hotel appeared as we turned the corner. It was large and imposing as ever. It looked so normal, like nothing had happened there at all, too. Completely clean. It was surreal. Seeing it like that. I blinked a few times, seeing the crowds of people in my mind's eye who'd been there not even a few days ago. Now they were all gone. And yet, there wasn't a valet outside. There were no cars in the drive. It gave my heart a blip of hope.

As we ascended the stairs, I decided to focus on his hand. His mitten. The lights were more powerful here, though strangely a soft golden glow. It reminded me of the golden glow of the fairy lights in the back patio of French Cup, such a strange comparison. How could they be similar? And yet, they reminded me of that. How odd. 

Gyeong-Wan opened the door that was beside the revolving one, and suddenly we were inside. It smelled clean. There was light piano music playing over a speaker. The piano in the corner was silent, nobody there. It felt so fake. Piano music over a speaker, when there was one right there. It only justified my feeling of this feeling so foreign and wrong. How much Gyeong-Wan didn't belong here. This fakeness of the hotel.