Stella's Cafe: A Jang Geun Suk Fanfic

4. Crash Landing

***Thanks to my SeOul Sisters whose chat room encouragement helped me form this chapter and who gave me great suggestions for more flavors of coffee!!^^Love u guys!!! Leave comments!! **hugs**

Chapter 4.

I was satisfied already. If my life continued this way forever, working at the cafe and secretly seeing my idol once a week, talking with him, laughing with him, looking into his eyes without the glass of a television screen between us - I would not complain or take it for granted. After all, how many people got this much?

To see him, most girls had to wait months or even years and scrimp and save to go to fan meetings. And even then they still had to share him with hundreds or thousands of other girls. Yet, for them a glance, a smile, a hand shake - maybe even a hug was more than enough to make it all worth it. So who was I to want more?

I just stood behind my counter at the cafe and - he came to me. Brighter and more beautiful in life than in any drama or movie I'd ever seen him in, he came to me.

So I was content and did not hope for even a little bit more. Which is why it seemed a little unfair to me when, in one moment, fate took it all away.

***

That week, I found my co-worker waiting for me outside after one of my morning shifts. She had that scrunchy look on her face people get when they have something hard to say or ask.

I didn't mind. These days I was blissful and zen. Even boss had commented on my improved complexion asking if I was taking vitamins. I didn't know what to tell him - that I was in a way? I just smiled, made up an excuse and floated away.

Now, I wondered distractedly what my co-worker wanted this time. For me to cover a shift? Take all her shifts? Lend her money? I didn't think there was a thing she could ask me that would bring me down. It took a while for her to get it out too. "Min hee-ah, can I have the Friday night shift back?"

We had been walking side by side on our way to my bus station and I stopped abruptly.

What??!!!

She stopped too, peering at me worriedly. "Min hee-ah? Did you hear me?"

Of course I'd heard! I just couldn't say anything because I felt like I'd been punched in the belly. I managed to answer her in a very small voice. I asked her why. "It's my boyfriend!" she said.

Ah - apartment boy. I had never met him but I'd been grateful to him for his role in bringing my idol to me.

"He's moving back to his hometown!" my co-worker continued looking tearful. "Of course I can't go with him, my job and my family are here and it would be crazy anyway cos I haven't even known him that long but -" she stopped to breath, "but Min-hee, I'd just die if I couldn't see him once in a while!! That's why I need all the money I can make now so I can visit him every other weekend!"

No. This wasn't happening.

I looked into my co-worker's face hoping for some sign there that she was just pulling my leg. Instead I saw huge, shiny eyes on the verge of tears. She took my hand which had gone cold like the rest of me and clutched it. "You don't mind right? It'll just be going back to how things were before! Please say you don't mind!"

But I did mind! I minded more than anything in the world! There was no "how things were before" for me. There was only Sunshine and Darkness. Heaven and Hell. Him and No Him. Maybe I had become greedy after all. Just three encounters had made me completely addicted to being with him and now the idea of never being able to see his eyes twinkling at me again except from the other side of a TV screen sat like a heavy,sharp edged stone in my stomach.