Reverse Cinderella

One-Shot

When a young male strolled into an unusual 24-hours tea shop when the city was in deep slumber, Fayel Yua was unexpectedly taken aback. For the past two months, never had he seen such a customer.

Fayel, or Fay as everyone else called him, had spent his long holidays after junior high school working part time in his cousin’s tea shop. Nothing unusual with that. The catch was that he was working on the night shift, the midnight shift to be exact. The shift started when the two hands of the clock strikes twelve.

He was not running away from home. He was not being a delinquent. This preposterous conduct was within due approval of both his parents and his cousin. It was what they agreed to the best, most productive way of coping with Fay’s insomnia after all.

Fay too enjoyed his time working his insomnia out. There were many surprises he looked forward to. The days he spent serving tea had exposed him to the well-hidden aspect of his country- people in poverty seeking food and shelter, people seeking escape from real life, people too drunk to notice they were walking into a tea shop…all the negativities in life, cumulated under one roof.

It was getting predictable.

23.59.

Fay donned his working uniform- this time he wore his previous junior high school uniform which consisted of white collar shirt and red pants and his green apron. After all, the moment the sun rises it would be his first day of entering high school. Glancing through the window the impenetrable darkness outside, Fay braced himself mentally for another night.

Just when you think life started to become predictable, an unexpected customer walked in.

The long hand of the clock strikes twelve.

The door swung open accompanied by the chime of a bell, marking the arrival of Fay’s first customer. Fay had his service smile plastered in place, staring directly at the person that blocked Fay’s line of sight to the outside world.

The smile didn’t hold on for long.

Meeting Fay’s pair of eyes back was a pair of sharp, crystal clear black orbs- unlike the ones all the other customers he had served before sported.

Clad in black collared shirt and long maroon trousers with a shoulder bag slung over his right shoulder, the young male broke the gaze and entered with a certain gait. Each of his steps was sharp and precise, as if depicting the owner’s clarity of his purpose being there. Amidst all the other customers shrouded in purple sorrowful aura, his clear pitch black aura outshone everyone, including the green-ness of the shop. It was as he was the king-

No, that wasn’t right.

He was like the grim reaper.

Fay’s eyes were glued to him as he watched the young male walked past a table with a slumped customer. A living oxymoron, one with purpose walking past one who had lost all his life. The young male sat at the padded seats diagonally across that pitiful table, right against the wall to Fay’s left.

The crystal clear black orbs returned Fay’s transfixed stare. It was like that for a seeming eternity.

Until Fay regained control of his conscience.

Stumbling away from his trance, Fay hurried to serve his new customer.

“May I have your order sir?” Fay managed to regain his composure in time. Why on earth was he acting like an overly excited fangirl??

The young male’s gaze pierced deep into Fay’s, as if scrutinizing his mind. Fay faintly noticed that the young male had quite significant eye bags under his eyes.

“Aren’t you going to pass me the menu list?” He demanded, gesturing at the menu list laid forgotten on top of the counter where Fay had been standing before.

Fay had never forgotten his menu list. But when he did, he knew exactly what to do. “Our house specialities is the green mocha milk tea.” Fay began. He was entering his teaching mode. “Of course, we serve a wide array of tea for you to choose. Black tea, milk tea, green tea…”

“…We also serve certain unique tea such as Earl Grey-”

“I’ll have that.” The young male interrupted. To Fay’s surprise, he seemed to be enjoying Fay’s display of proficiency in memorizing the menu list, if the smirk was to tell anything. Regardless, Fay immediately brought his order into the kitchen. Several minutes later, he reemerged from the kitchen with a cup of freshly brewed tea in hand, it’s smoke dancing faintly above the cup.

In that short span of time, the young male was engrossed reading a dictionary-like book sprawled before him. As Fay set down the cup of tea, he took glimpse of the contents of the book- biomedicine apparently. Fay’s presence seemed to elude the customer’s mind.

Normally, Fay would just take his payment, and immediately leave the customer to his entitled privacy. However he did not feel like breaking the wall of isolation this man before him had built upon himself in such short span of time. Silently, he took a seat across him, and threw his gaze at the upside-down words on the book.

The clock ticked by as time passed. Much to Fay’s surprise, the man failed to notice anything at all, not even after three hours had passed. The smoke had entirely disappeared from his cup of tea.

Fay decided that rather than spending another hour reading about blood transfer upside-down, he would break the silence instead.