My Solace (mxm)

8

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Restaurant was quite busy as it was lunch time. Ahn-soo was busy cooking which he whole heartily enjoyed on normal day, but today was different. Right now he was kinda forcing himself to focus in cooking because his mind was to much occupied with Jiwook's condition. No matter how much he told himself to stop thinking about that man he couldn't. Even though he knew very well that Jiwook was with his parents now, and he didn't need to worry, but his unconsciouse mind kept thinking about the events happened last month and even their childhood.

A millionth sigh left his lips. He shakes his head to clear his mind and closed his eyes to collect his scattered thought. A boy he avoided all his childhood, he was thinking about his well-being and was worried for the same person now. And that same person hates him now which wasn't really surprising.

His lane of memories took him back to those days, while at the same time his very skilled hand kept working on cooking. At this point he could cook with closed eyes, and right now he was really doing it absent mindly. Thinking about childhood, he hissed at himself for being so silly and dumb. But he was just listening to his grandma, whom he loved dearly, and like any other good kid, he listened to his elders well. And his grandma always and almost everyday reminded him to not to talk to Jiwook or his Dads ever, she strictly prohibited him from being anywhere near that family, which he didn't understand until his teenage,that too after being laughed at by Byun for being so clueless. He was still greatful that thanks to his parents guidance he never ill-spoken to Jiwook or anyone else, even though he heard his grandma openly cursing that family most of the time.

Ahn-soo thought things would have been different if he was not prohibited from being friends with Jiwook. They might have been good friend, if not best friends, Ahn-soo might have known him a little better, maybe a lot better than right now. There was muffled voice in his mind ,or heart he didn't really know, but it told him to help the devastated man. But how? He had no idea. And he was no one to help Jiwook, they were not even friends to begin with.

A sharp sting got him out of his thoughts, making him hiss in the pain. He looked at his hand to see a red spot near his left thumb because of hot oil on his hand due to his lack of focus on the task.

"Oh my God! Ahn-soo-ssi?" he heard a sweet voice. "You got yourself burnt. Please rinse your hand in cold water." a worried, sweet voice of one of his employee said as she looked at his hand. Ahnsoo blew the burned place as he nodded with small smile.

"It looks bad." he heard her voice as she looked at him with concern, eyes frown in worry.

"Don't worry, Ha-Yeon-ssi. It's not that bad. It's a small burn, you get back to work, I'll take care of it." he said with a polite smile. Ha-Yeon nodded still looking worried.

He walked to faucet to rinse his hand. As the cool water ran on his hand he felt instant relief. He kept his hand under the water for few minutes.

"Ahn-soo-ssi, here is the ointment. Do you need help applying it?" The same girl Ha-Yeon stood beside him with ointment in her hand.

"Oh thanks, Ha-Yeon-ssi." he took the ointment from her, accidently his fingers brushed against her thumb, which made the girl blush which she hide by looking at her feet, her lips automatically got tucked between her teeth. Ahn-soo didn't notice any of it.

"I'll manage this." he said with polite smile as he turned off the faucet.

"Okay." the girl said timidly. "Ahn-soo-ssi, you should get some rest. The burn looks really bad... and also you seem tired too." she said in small voice, showing her concern.

Ahn-soo knew he needed a break. He was working since morning and he didn't realize it was already 4pm by now. He nodded and walked out of kitchen area. He went to second floor, which had a big storage room, staff room, his office in the which had another small room and a personal bathroom attached. In the way he applied the ointment on his burnt wound.

He walked to sofa, plopping down and nodded within few minutes of closing his eyes. He was quite tired, for last few days he couldn't stop thinking about him.

He blinked open his eyes as his sleep was disturbed by hush voices. A yawn erupted from his mouth as he rubbed his eyes to get rid of the remaining drowsiness. As he was now awake he realized he was in his office.

He noticed Ha-won speaking to someone in silent voice. Ahn-soo raised himself into sitting position and soon he realize the person Ha-won speaking to was, So-min, his girlfriend.

Another yawn escaped his lips. He looked at time to see it was almost six in the evening, which made him wide his eyes. He stood up abruptly gaining attention of the couple.

"You up..!" Ha-won greeted with a smile.

"When did you come?" spoke Ahn-soo in groggy voice.

"Not long ago..  Just 15 or some minutes." replied Ha-won as he drummed his fingers against table.

"Okay, Why didn't you wake me up?" a very natural pout on his lips which he himself didn't knew existed there, some sleep still lingering in his eyes as he walked to his table where his cousin was seated with his girlfriend.

"Hello So-min, how are you?" he greeted So-min without waiting for any response from his cousin. So-min was same age as him and was interior designer by profession and was also the one who who worked for his restaurant's interior designing, as Ha-won proposed the idea.

"Hello Ahn-soo-ah, I'm doing great. And about not waking you up, this guy was eager to do so but you looked cute thus I didn't want to disturb you." So-min smiled at him as he sat on the empty chair instead of his own boss chair, three of them sat in small circle. "You are being too hard on yourself." she added, as she was well aware of how Ahn-soo was always busy with his restaurant.

"I'm not being hard on myself it's just business is new and need keen attention." Ahn-soo said as he sat sideways on chair, and rested his arm on backrest of chair and head resting on his fist.

"I know Mr. New business, but with all this dark circles and eye bags, you might scare away the customers." joked Hawon with a light laugh, So-min also let out a giggle.

Ahn-soo let out a chuckle too, he couldn't disagree with his cousin. His eye bags and dark circles were getting worse. He hadn't slept more than 4 to 5 hours every night since the restaurant had started and since last month his mind was always occupied, very unintentionally.

"Tonight I'm going to get big ear pull by Halmoni for this state of yours, she will blame me for this state of yours. She'll be 'You are not taking care of my pumpkin..'," Ha-won said as if complaining and imitated his grandma. Out of all the family members, Ahn-soo was her dearest. "And that means we're here to pick you up." he added.

"We are going home?" Ahn-soo asked and Ha-won and So-min nodded together with a smile.

"Okay, I'll tell Woo-Han to manage here." he said as he called Woo-Han, his employee.

"uh! I need a new manager soon." he rubbed his forehead. The last manager was a headache for him, he couldn't tolerate that woman. Her focus was less on work, and more on him. So he didn't wait much longer before firing her.

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