You Got Me (JenLisa)

Chapter 4

Meanwhile, Lisa was hanging around outside The Era. Her camera was dangling on her neck and was holding a pack of chocolate milk on her hand. It's been more than a week since the first time she was in the place. And it wasn't the first time she was hanging around the place.

She's been fighting off the urge to barge inside the cafe and look around. So she chose to stand closer to the glass window to take a peek inside the old cafe from time to time. Hoping to find what she's been looking for for the last few days.

"Can I help you?" a voice of a man from behind her asked Lisa that startled her.

"Uh, no. Not really, ajusshi," Lisa answered and bowed down apprehensively.

"I've seen you hanging around here lately. Are you looking for someone?" the man asked kindly.

Lisa halted her steps and turned around to face the man.

He was wearing a white toque on his head, which was smeared with tomato sauce and grease. He was a sinewy man, with a large belly and a handlebar mustache. He was wearing an apron around his waist and was holding a lit cigarette on his hand and was looking at Lisa with an amount of curiosity. His face was red and his nose was smudged with char. Perhaps he had been staying in the kitchen for years now that it was already normal for him to look like he had been working in a coal mine.

"I was just, uh," Lisa started but couldn't find the proper words for an alibi. "Uhm..."

"Are you a photographer?" the man asked, pointing at the camera. His handlebar mustache quivered when he speaks.

Lisa nodded and held up her camera in front of her.

"Yes, I am," Lisa answered proudly. "Can I take your picture, ajusshi?" she asked.

The man nodded happily and gave Lisa a toothy grin, showing Lisa his set of poor teeth. Lisa grimaced at the sight and prayed that the man wasn't the main person responsible for the food production of The Era. She was thinking about the greasy burgers and fries that she and Chaeyoung ate last week. Although, it was one of the best she's ever eaten. But still...

"Of course!" the man said. "You know, I've been waiting for this day to come. I want to be featured in a food magazine and be interviewed and talk about The Era for the world to read. Are you working for a magazine?"

"Ah, sort of. I'm kind of working on my photo book, actually. It's like a compilation of the photos I have took eversince I started doing photography," Lisa explained.

The man nodded and was about to throw his cigarette in the sidewalk.

"I think it's best if you keep it, ajusshi," Lisa said. "I'll take a photo of you smoking and the façade of the cafe will serve as the background. Can you please sit down in there?" Lisa said, pointing at the trash bin, with the lid that was half open.

The man did as he was told and sat casually atop the garbage bin.

"What about them?" the man asked Lisa, pointing randomly at the passersby who were obscuring his view on Lisa and her camera.

Lisa smiled and positioned herself a couple meters away from the man.

"Don't worry about them, ajusshi. You'll still be the main point. I promise," she said and started clicking away the shutter of her camera.

Lisa as a professional photographer was a perfectionist. She wanted to tell a story through her lens, hoping that in every photograph that she would took would mean something relevant to someone, like an emotion, even if it was only fleeting.

It's in the eyes of the people inside her masterpiece. She wanted to capture the raw emotions being displayed unwillingly through the eyes by her subject. And the man was full of it. So Lisa made sure to capture all of it, one by one, so that when she sits down and scan the set of photos on her camera roll later tonight, she would have to choose the best that would describe the individuality of the man.