Beer and Spicy Rice Cakes

Chapter 15 - Work

After Jinhye apologized to me that day, everything could've been fine. But my life just didn't work that way.

As soon, as the first customer came in and surprised us both, a huge load of them started to appear, seemingly out of nowhere.

So many, that we seriously had to call our boss because we couldn't handle all of them on our own.

As long as we've worked here already, it was too much all of a sudden.

And as soon as Tae arrived, I became some sort of an eye rolling teenager who got nagged at for absolutely nothing.

Sure, he did help with the customers, but when they were all gone and the store found back its usual peace, he started attacking me.

Not that it was the first time, though. 

"Didn't I tell you not to wear those damn piercings to work?"

"They are earrings, Hyung... Almost everyone has them."

"Well, I don't. Listen, you can wear whatever the heck you want in your freetime, just take them off when you get here, got it?"

"Yes..."

"And why couldn't you two handle these people on your own? For what exactly did I train you?"

And that was the moment when Jinhye finally stepped in, to take my side.

A gentle smile was formed on my lips. 

"Didn't you see just now, how many of them were here? You wouldn't have been able to do it alone too, we helped out lots."

I saw him blinking a few times, until he raised his eyebrows and came  a little closer.

"Are you talking back to me right now? I'm your boss, show a little respect, would you?"

His face turned into my direction and I quickly gulped down the rage that was building up inside of me.

"And you... If I see you wearing those earrings again, I'm going to rip them out personally. Do me a favor and take out the paper trash. And I'm talking about today. It's piling up."

I lowered my gaze and quickly nodded at him, before he turned around dramatically and finally left us alone.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second, until I couldn't handle it anymore and kicked against one of the rice bags that were standing next to the cash corner.

"That narcissistic son of a bitch!", I yelled out and clenched my hands into fists after that.

A hand was placed on my shoulder and I slowly calmed down again.

My gaze wandered off to Jinhye's face and I patted her head for a brief second. 

"Why am I still working here again?"

"Because you need the money, idiot."

"Yes, right..."

A deep sigh left my mouth and I carefully lifted up the rice bag to place it back in it's original state, before I slowly walked outside to take a look at the mountain of paper trash that piled up in a small alley next to our store.

My eyes widened.

That was going to be a huge crapload of work.

Running the fingers of one hand through my hair, and blowing it out of my face after that, I quickly started ripping the empty food cartons into smaller pieces, shoving them into bags and carrying them across the street to the place where all the stores around here collected their trash.

And it took me about three goddamn hours to finish it all. 

When I was finally done, I felt like crap.

It was getting darker and colder outside and my ribs hurt so much that it was driving me insane. And I'm pretty sure, I smelled like I did a full body workout.

Taking small steps, I set off to the store again.

And when I saw Jimin, standing next to the door, it felt like lifting off a huge weight from my shoulders.

In this moment she was the most beautiful thing I had seen for a very, very long time.

So, without thinking about it too much, I took the last few steps to approach her and kiss her like I hadn't seen her for years. 

- - -

When I felt the first snowflake on the skin of my face, I looked up and stared at the pitch black sky for a while, that was slowly building up more and more white spots.

It was one of those rare moments, where everything around me started to get peaceful.

With Jimin still in my arms, the snow falling, there wasn't one thing that could've triggered me anymore.

A soft smile found its way to my face and I lowered my eyes to look down at the tiny person who buried her face on my chest again.

My hand placed itself on her head naturally, like it didn't had any other job in this world.

"Let's go home now... before we freeze to death. Just have to get my stuff.", I mumbled, placing my lips on her forehead and softly pushing her away from me a little.

She didn't look too pleased.

I grinned at her and kissed her for another time, before I quickly walked into the dressing room of the store to get my bag out of the locker.

And as I was just about to lock it after taking it out and turned around, suddenly...

"She's cute."

"Oh god, you startled me!"

My hand pressed to my heart, I took a shielding position and stared at Jinhye's face in complete shock.

She leaned in to me and gave me an innocent grin.

"Is she your girlfriend now?"

"What the fuck?! Where did you come from, you creep?!"

"The toilet, actually."

I slapped my forehead and squeezed myself out of that situation, straight up walking out of the dressing room. 

"Oh, come on! Tell me something about her! I'm your best friend. Yah, Kim Jaehyun!!"

"You're a complete nutjob!"

I shook my head in disbelief and couldn't help but chuckle a little about her damn nosiness.

I knew that she was dying to get some information out of me, but it was too soon for that.

Sure, I was going to tell her something when the right moment appeared, but that wasn't just yet.

And I actually liked to torture her with stuff like that. It was funny to see her struggling that way.

My feet carried me outside the store, where I quickly put my arm around Jimin's shoulders and left my workplace and whining Jinhye behind. 

(I changed the names, I'm sorry. I was so annoyed by the fact that Yura had a different name and Yugyeom and Hyemin didn't... So they're the 3J-Squad now. Satisfying, right? Right.)