Kiseop brought the plate of rice forward with a smile. “Hello, what would you like?”

He noticed, that the male before him looked exceptionally good. There was his dark black big round eyes, along with his porcelain white smooth skin. The sharp nose and the thin pink lips. In all, that face spelt perfection.

Wow.

“The chicken over there, I want beef too, and the fried fish. Yeah, thank you.” The male ordered. Kiseop noticed that he didn’t want any vegetables.

“Ah, a carnivore.” Kiseop commented to no one in particular. (No, he was really talking to the guy, but he ignored him. To avoid the awkward atmosphere, he quickly handed the guy’s plate to the counter and started working on another order)

“Good afternoon. Are you new? I haven’t seen you before.” A greeting, before Kiseop placed rice in a plate. Kiseop notices the warm smile and grinned back. This guy is nice, more rice for him.

“Yes, today’s my first day. What would you like?” At the corner of his eyes, Kiseop saw an impatient burly man, frowning. Uh-oh.

“Could you spread out the rice on the plate and flatten it so it’s rectangular in shape? Add those vegetables on the top left hand corner but please don’t take the gravy. It’s salty, you see. I want the fried egg below the vegetables, nearer to the bottom left corner but pretty much in the middle. Fried chicken wings on top right hand corner and sausages at the bottom, placed horizontally. Oh, by the way, I’m Kevin.” A smile.

At that point of time, all Kiseop could do was to smile back.

“Oh, Kevin, same order?” Kiseop’s coworker came to save the day. She took a look at the stunned Kiseop and laughed. “He needs practice.”

“Oh, sorry. Too much information for the first day?” Kevin giggled and moved to the counter.

Kiseop gulped. Here comes the burly man.

“Rice, more rice, more rice.” The burly man hurriedly called out. “Meat, a lot, I don’t care which. Throw in some brocolli too. Yeah, done. Oh wait, rice, more rice.”

Kiseop blinked. The plate was already full...Not wanting to anger the man any further, he stacked more rice and tried to balance the rice properly.

Slowly...slowly...

“Hurry up!”

Kiseop jumped and ran to the counter. Phew.

And the man ran off without paying.

“Hey!”

-

“Hey honey~!” Alexander greeted cheesily with a fake seductive smile. “How was your day?”

“It was spectacular, darling.” The girl grinned back. “Wow, your lunch looks great!”

“Obviously. The cafeteria vendor adores me because I told her something regarding that coworker she doesn’t like since forever.” The whole table chuckled along with Alexander. “Hey, did you all see the new guy working? Isn’t he pretty hot?”

“You check out on guys?!” The other girl on Alexander’s other side shrieked. “Man, I thought you were straight!”

“Hey babe, I think you’re hot too. I’m just stating facts, you know.” Alexander winked. “Now seriously, if I was gay, I wouldn’t be sitting with you girls. I’m the only guy here!”

“That’s true. But what do you know about him? He looks pretty good.”

“Oh? Someone’s interested? But I don’t know much about him. I mean, he’s so new and all that-“

“Xander? I have some awesome chocolate eclairs over here shipped from New York.” An innocent smile.

“Aw, you shouldn’t have. That’s so kind of you, knowing that I love sweet things!” Alexander reached out a hand and took a bite. “Ah, heaven! Well, as I was saying, he’s Lee Kiseop. He’s only a year older than our seniors, which makes it two years older than us. He doesn’t have much of an education though, so he found a job here and became one of our many chefs, but he becomes the shop front worker during lunch time since it’s chaos in here. Might as well, since he likes cooking a lot.”

“He sounds ideal, looks pretty great too.”

“No. I’m better.” The whole table laughed as Alexander high-fived the girl opposite him.

-

Kiseop panted. He had ran all over the school (which he is not familiar with) right after he settled the last order and still could not find the burly man. Where could he be?

In his rush to find that certain burly man, he collided with another pretty burly man who was in a rush. What’s with all the rushing the burly men in this school do?

“Hey, are you okay? I’m sorry.” The man helped Kiseop up and made sure the older man was okay.

“I’m fine, thank you.” Kiseop nodded with a small smile, a little afraid at the student who looked scary, but he didn’t show. “Do you know where all the musclemen go?”

“Huh?” The man blurted out without thinking, shocked at such a question. “Pardon?”

“Ah, nevermind. I’m finding someone who didn’t pay for his lunch. The school’s big.” Kiseop replied while pouting, prepared to walk away in the direction he was advancing towards before falling to the floor.

“Hey! You can try the school gym. Take the staircase over there up to the second level and turn right. It should be in sight soon enough.” A smile was flashed across the student’s face. “Hwaiting!”

“Ah, thank you.” Kiseop grinned back. That student wasn’t as bad as he seemed. The smile made him look a lot better than he already did.

-

Dongho was getting ready for his next lesson, and he saw this man that wasn’t in his school uniform. “Hello there, you must be a Lee, judging from your face. Jeonju Yi, aren’t you?”

The man looked confused.

“I must be right. I think I might know your aunt, no wonder you look familiar. Oh, I’m from Goryeong Shin clan, my name is Shin Dongho.” Dongho greeted. “Your aunt is Lee Siyeon, isn’t she?”

“Erm...no.” The man now looked afraid. “The only Lee Siyeon I know is my cousin.”

Dongho blinked back. “Oh? There’s something wrong with the Lee family then.”

The man stared at Dongho as he whipped out his notebook and flipped to a page with countless names. He saw his own there. “You’re Lee Kiseop, aren’t you? Ah, I linked your father to your aunt, sorry.”

“How...do you know so much?” Kiseop scratched his head, tentatively forgetting what he was supposed to do. He leaned in closer and realised it was really not only coincidence that the younger boy got his name right. His parents name were right too, and there was his cousins’ names, his aunts’ names, his uncles’ names, even his grandfather’s name which he didn’t really remember.

“I know a lot more.” Dongho winked. “Well then, I shall let you head to wherever you were heading to before.”

Kiseop halted Dongho from walking away. “Wait, I need help. Where’s the school gym?”

“Are you a new student or a new staff?” Dongho asked. “Why are you going to the school gym? It’s a bad place to go, don’t go in there.”

Kiseop scratched his head. The gym is a bad place? “Well, you see, someone ordered lunch, took off with it without paying. I’m finding him to get the money he owes.”

“Oh? Must be a Kim then. Those people think they’re the majority so they’re big. Tch, never liked them.” Dongho shook his head disapprovingly. “With majority on their side and muscles on their arm, no wonder their noses are so high up in the air. Daring to steal, tsk! Turn left, walk straight, turn right and it should be there. Doesn’t make much sense for it to disappear.”

Kiseop nodded and thanked softly, not knowing how to respond to such negative words about people with the family name “Kim”. He personally knew many, and it definitely didn’t fit his impression of them.

-