“Arisu-ssi! Can you clean up that table please?”

“Ne!”

With a bus tub in hand, the young girl waddled over to the unoccupied table near the back which was occupied by a young couple just a few minutes go. They departed, leaving behind the empty wrappers and dirty cups for her to clean up. Sometimes it frustrated her that people couldn’t even bother to toss the wrappers away on their way out since there was at least one trash can on their way to the exit, but at least it gave her something to do. After all, she was here to work and cleaning up after paying customers was part of her job.

Arisu didn’t mind working at the coffee shop. She liked working with people, coffee and pastries and the pay wasn’t that bad either. She made enough to help with the expenses while she stayed with her grandparents and keep a bit of pocket money to spend on her own though she usually used it to buy groceries anyway. It wasn’t much to spend and all the things she was longing for required a lot more than just a few Won.

She placed the dirty cups in her bus tub, grabbing the wrappers and tossing them in the nearest trash can before taking out her damp cleaning cloth and wiped the surface of the table clean, ready for the next customer who, by the sound of the silver bell hanging above the door, had just arrived. Though this wasn’t the only table in the café, people usually preferred sitting in the back and with a clean table the place looked a lot better.

“Customers!” her manager hissed over to her as she was finishing wiping off the surface of the table.

“Ne!” she replied, trying to hide her slight irritation. Because it was a Monday, the place usually wasn’t as crowded during mornings as it was during the afternoon so they didn’t call in a lot of people. Most of the time there were one or two waitresses who doubled as busboys and a manager. But her colleague had called in sick this morning so it was just Arisu and her manager who apparently was on her break and couldn’t make an exception to help a customer while Arisu cleaned up after the previous ones.

She walked back to the counter and took the order after which she went back to cleaning the table. As she placed everything back to their original spot, a long and bored sigh escaped from her lips before leaning her elbows on the counter and staring at the open book in front of her. She only had  a few more weeks left until her mid-terms and she barely had any time to study up until now, with her two part-time jobs to take care of financial issues as well as helping around her grandparents’ house and visiting her parents and younger siblings. With everything being so quiet, now was the perfect moment for her to try and get some of the material into her memory, though it seemed like a hopeless case.

With her focus on her book she barely heard the tinkling bell above the door that announced the arrival of another customer. Her eyes were fixed on the page as she desperately tried to get all the difficult words and phrases into her mind, completely unaware of the customer that had appeared in front of her with crossed arms, waiting for any response.

Her concentration was broken, however, by the sound of a low and impatient clearing of the throat and she finally looked up from her school work, her eyes widening almost instantly as they rested upon the customer.