“You’re coming, right?”

To be honest, Sooji wasn’t supposed to be on her lunch break yet, but Miyoung had marched into the gift store and forced her out from behind the counter. Now they were seated at a table by the windows in the hospital’s cafeteria. As Sooji eyed Miyoung’s rapidly cooling (read: untouched) bowl of noodle soup, Miyoung explained to Sooji about how her cheer team was able to convince their strict, unfun coach to let them hold the holiday performance that he so badly wanted to remove from their agenda to fit in more training. Miyoung wanted Sooji to be there.

“Are you going to eat that?” Sooji’s hungry eyes were fixated on the bowl sitting in front of Miyoung. The steam that was previously a large cloud was now just a small stream of white as the heat escaped into the cold winter air.

Miyoung pushed the bowl towards the younger girl, “No, I ate already. I just used food as an excuse to get you out of work early.”

After pushing her glasses back up her nose, Sooji clicked her tongue and began nagging Miyoung about how she should have just called ahead of time, so she could at least be prepared. She didn’t like leaving Eunchae to man the gift store alone for too long; she had developed a habit of leaving the gift store to meet up with her boyfriend and return only when her shift was over. The last thing she wanted to do was get in trouble for taking her break. Miyoung pouted in a pretend sulk, apologizing that she’ll try not to do that again, but immediately went back to begging for an answer.

“C’mon, Sooji! It’ll be your first time watching a cheer performance, right?” Miyoung leaned against her arms that were crossed on the table, staring Sooji down as she lifted a spoon filled to the brim with broth to her lips, “At least you can cross that off your bucket list! Not like it was on your bucket list anyway, but at least now you can add it and cross it off.”

Sooji looked up and sighed, “You know I want to say ‘yes’, Miyoung. I really do. The thing is, I’m not sure if my parents will let me even skip a day of volunteering.”

“Have you told them that you don’t even do anything?”

“Yeah, and they said to just it up because at the end of the day I volunteered at a hospital and that’s what college admission officers are going to see,” Sooji wrinkled her nose in frustration as she remembered the heated argument she had with her parents at dinner a few evenings ago. However, her gaze softened when she reached over and took the older girl’s hands in her own gloved ones, “But if it were up to me, I would skip a whole weekend to watch all your showings. The most I can promise you is that I’ll try my best to convince my parents to let me go. I know this means a lot to you and I want to be there to cheer you on!”

Miyoung beamed her toothpaste advertisement smile and tightened her grip on Sooji’s hands, “Thank you so much, Sooji! You’re the best!”

“It’s the least I can do.”

There was a playful tone in Miyoung’s voice when she said, “Besides, you could say it’ll be a win/win situation for the both of us.”

“What do you mean by that?”

With a playful smile on her lips, Miyoung dipped her spoon into the broth and took a sip, “Because Bae Jinyoung is going to be there~”

Sooji stiffened, then stabbed her chopsticks into the noodles before shoveling them into , “Oh, that’s nice. She said simply, hoping she sounded indifferent.

“Now you have to come, don’t you?” Miyoung teased, wondering if she should mention Sooji’s ears were turning a bright red.

The jittery, earthly piano melodies of jazz echoed underneath the abrasive grinding sounds of blenders, high-pitched clanging of metal cups, and a collection of machines beeping and different voices talking. Jinyoung – whose rolled sleeves were staring to fall – contributed to the atmosphere as he ran back and forth and weaved through the bodies behind the café counter.

For possibly the hundredth time that hour, he grabbed a plastic cup and poured the right amount of freshly brewed coffee from the machine before replacing it and brewing another cup. This pattern had been repeated many times the past week that they had already become second nature to him. Preparations for hot coffee, he knew like the back of his hand. He could eyeball the measurements for the proper amount of ice needed for an iced drink. Sometimes, he could even prepare two drinks at once without getting mixed up.

After calling customer Jinho to come pick up his complicated order of iced coffee with half almond milk, half 2% milk, two shots of caramel, one shot of hazelnut, and a quarter shot of energy booster, Jinyoung eyed the register to see how much longer he had to endure rush hour. Luckily for him, it seemed to end a bit earlier this time since there were only a few customers left trying to order. From his experience working the register, these people were usually the stragglers who either left work or class late and were trying to squeeze in food in the little time they had left before their break was over.

Ducking past his co-worker who was on his way to add whipped cream to what looked like a caramel macchiato, Jinyoung checked to see the next customer’s order: an iced hot chocolate with whipped cream. Jinyoung never quite understood what the point of an iced hot chocolate was. Jinyoung topped the order off with a healthy serving of cocoa powder on top of the whipped cream and headed to the pick-up area to hand it to the awaiting customer. A crooked smile greeted him when he arrived, “Good afternoon, Jinyoung!”

“Oh, Sooji,” Jinyoung blinked in surprise; he hadn’t expected to see anyone he would know so soon, “What are you d