Glass of Water by Coldplay

The small shop softly played a song. It was five minutes before closing time, and Kyungsoo was cleaning up. After looking around for a while, examining the place he was in and making sure nobody could see, he forcefully grabbed the mop he was holding, and sings along to the chorus loud and clear. He danced around the empty café, singing along to the song with his mop-microphone. This was one of his favorite moments during work—cleaning up. Spinning across the room as he wiped the floor spotless, he felt like he owned the world. It doesn’t sound amusing in the least, but he has learned to appreciate it over the months of working here. The shop doesn’t have a proper janitor so he just volunteers for this work, if he wasn’t busy.

The song ends and he wipes the sweat that was accumulating on his forehead. Kyungsoo finally finishes cleaning and gives himself a mental pat on the back as he looked at the spotless cafe. Heading towards the door, he was about to turn the A4-sized “Come in, we’re open~  ＾ω ＾)” sign to “Sorry, closed! ( ; ω ; ),” when suddenly, a young man pops up. The door had fairly large glass windows so suddenly seeing a random guy show up in front of you was surprising. Kyungsoo almost tripped back upon seeing the figure in front of him.

The boy knocks on the door softly and looks at Kyungsoo. “Hello? Are you open?” The boy asks Kyungsoo as he knocks. Just when Kyungsoo was about to give him a flat-out “No, sorry. I really had a long day and I don’t think we can take any more customers” he instead nodded and opened the door for the customer. “You’ll be the last customer for today, sir.” Kyungsoo flips the sign and closes the door. The young boy lifelessly walks and sits on a couch. He was staring blankly into space, and Kyungsoo could’ve sworn that he saw dried trails of tears on the boy’s cheeks.

“Good afternoon,” Kyungsoo starts. “May I have your order, sir?”

He is unresponsive. He continues wearing that ‘clueless’ look.

“Sir?” Kyungsoo repeats, hoping to get his attention.

“Oh?” The guy snaps up in his seat. “I-I’m sorry… uh... can I have water?”

“Sure,” Kyungsoo turns and walks toward the dispenser and rolls his eyes. Sighing, he mutters to himself, “Unpaid over-time. And he's not even ordering anything on the menu!”

With a glass of water in his right hand, he plasters a smile on his face as he gave him the drink.

“Thank you very much. I’m sorry to trouble you like this, I just needed a place to stay...” He takes the glass and sips on it. He then takes the glass with both of his hands and starts to stare at it. “I’m sorry...sorry…” He mumbles to himself. He gulps down more of the water in mere seconds, and wipes his slightly wet face with his arm. Kyungsoo sits behind the counter and unknowingly observes him. The boy stops muttering, and he doesn't even move an inch. His expressionless face quickly disappears as his mouth formed a frown. He lowers his head and stars to breathe heavily. It was pretty obvious to Kyungsoo that the guy was crying. The customer throws his head back and looks up at the ceiling, covering his mouth, trying to hold back his tears, but he couldn’t. He continued sobbing until he had a hard time breathing. After gulping down what’s left of the water, he covers his face.

This goes on for Kyungsoo doesn’t know how long. Though, he eventually leaves, thanking Kyungsoo and apologizing once again. Kyungsoo doesn't know what was going on in the guy’s life, but he himself feels like he wants to cry out of how sorry he had felt for the stranger.

Kyungsoo lets out a deep sig, and takes a little notebook from his back pocket. He flips to the last pages of the notebook and looks for a blank space. He begins to scribble on it, writing: