Breaking Walls

Chapter 12

Sipping his bottled milk, Jeonghan leaned against his chair, pressing the space button to start the video he received from the lecturer, a reenactment of a classic Korean theater by the performance art students. He knew there was supposed to be something really deep he should analyze here, something symbolic, but he was already halfway through and yet nothing meaningful came to mind. Honestly, if he had a choice, he would not be caught watching this 3-hour video with some traditional songs sounding as if they had nothing better to do other than screaming, monotonously but, he didn't and so, he would have to interpret the play and write a review of it. Of course he could always just look for someone else's work and copy it to get the minimum passing mark but if he had to torture himself and watch this thing anyway, he would rather ace it.

Yawning, stretching his body as he tried to keep himself awake, Jeonghan looked at the clock. He was already at his limit. Right now he couldn't process anything. Old Korean language was already confusing as it is, his lack of focus just turned his ears into a shield and prevented all the information from reaching his brain.

Guess he needed to take a rest.

Jeonghan turned his head to look around for something to do besides staring at the computer screen. Everyone was in their own world minding their own business. No sound could be heard except for a few whispers the moment he took his earphones off. He wouldn't expect anything less from being in a library, but this also meant his only choice of distraction was either sleeping or reading books, and he couldn't do the latter because he brain was already overloaded. And he wouldn't want to sleep here either.

Taking out his phone to check for any new messages from his friends, he turned it off again when he realized there was none. Obviously because one was at home with his girl and the other one was working so...

Owh, Seungcheol was working at the café today.

*****

Seungcheol tied his apron as he made his way to the front, telling his senior he was ready. The dishes were finally done, the ingredients stocked and all the preparation for tomorrow done. He was now ready to take over the front until the end of the shift. It was a weekday so by dawn, there would usually be only a few customers, one staff could handle the café alone. And today, that would be him.

Passing the latte to the two ladies, Seungcheol heard the bell rang, noting the customers leaving. As usual, he took the cloth and walked to the table they occupied, cleaning it for the next customer.

'Jeonghan?' He called softly, finally noticing his friend sitting on one of the sofas, his brows furrowed deeply as he stared at the screen. With no reaction from the omega, and him realizing the man had his earphones on, and a notebook with him suggesting he was working on something, Seungcheol decided to leave the man be.

Returning to his spot, the young alpha couldn't help but smile at how focused his friend was. It was almost as if, the man was a really good student. And today was a Thursday too, if he was not mistaken, the day he first saw Jeonghan coming back from the club. The fact that the man was here instead of the club... did that mean he actually changed his lifestyle?

Pretending to be busy as he noticed the omega glancing at him, trying his best to ignore the pretty man's presence, Seungcheol started to rearrange all the stocks before returning them to the initial places. He would usually just sit at the cash register playing with his phone on days like these but he wouldn't want his friend to think he was slacking off would he?