Hairstyle | nct

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

The second day of my part time wasn't as bad.

Everything felt a little more familiar. I learned a few more things today and I was getting used to the cashier, with the help of Renjun whispering which button I had to press during which instances. During the times when we didn't have any customers around, I would stare at the buttons of the cash register and inhale the information on it.

Like I mentioned before, the cash register was an old, rustic one. So it had different buttons with different purposes. An example would if someone bought stickers. There was this one button you press for that specific purchase. It was a good thing they had it written and plastered on the cashier register button so I wouldn't need to remember which number button is for what.

It wasn't slow today. Yesterday was slower. Today felt like a roller coaster speeding up a straight rail before it would be thrown up a slope all at once again.

Customers lined up. Hyung and Renjun tended to most of them while I was the one pulling out the roll of stickers they wanted from the glass rack fixed to the side of the store, where the glass window was. It took up 95% of the glass window but there were horizontal gaps so we could still see the food court when we peek out of it.

The busyness finally died down and we successfully were able to reach 250, 000 won right before lunch time.

I sat down, exhausted by so many human interactions in just two hours. I was still feeling nervous or scared—as if I slept in a ghost house the entire night and was bothered every second by a spirit.

Renjun looked at me. A bad habit of his, I noticed lately. Then again, he always had that habit even before then. "You doing OK? It's only your second day."

"Are you going to keep asking me if I'm doing OK? Every single day?" I asked him but my lips were curling in a smile. I readjusted my seat on the backless plastic chair—my butt was starting to hurt from the chair since it was so uncomfortable—and opened up my bottle to drink some water.

"Maybe," he simply answered. "What do you want to eat for lunch?"

I looked out of the gaps of the glass, examining the food court. "What are you feeling today?"

"I don't know. I'm going with your choice today."

My choice, huh?

"How about chicken and beer?" I suggested, in which I got a reaction from Renjun—surprised.

"You drink beer?" he asked.

I shook my head.

Renjun was surprised again.

"I want to try it," I told him, slightly confessing all at once. "But not too much."

"What if you're a light drinker and you get drunk?" Obviously, he was worried about how this could affect him and their entire business.

I hummed. "I'll have one sip and that's it. I won't go crazy. I won't get drunk either. I promise."

Renjun stared at me with doubt.

"I promise."

He laughed and ruffled my hair. "I was just playing, Nam Jinseo. Come on, let's get your chicken and beer."

I once tried soju during this year's new year's party. My parents were busy with our relatives and my youngest and only sister, Nam Jini, was busy with the younger cousins. They were all playing dolls then. So I sneakily grabbed the soju bottle and poured some into my white plastic cup while everyone was distracted. I went on with pretending what I had in my cup was water and finally took a sip. It had this shocking bitter taste and I didn't like it at all. Not even one bit.