Title: Magic Words
Pairing: Taemin-centric
Genre: Restaurant!AU
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Same as always. I don’t own SHINee…yet
A/N: I had fun while writing this.

“Excuse me, waiter. Excuse me!” Taemin mentally gritted his teeth preparing to deal with the customer. Unfortunately, he was a regular. Taemin put what he thought was an effortless smile on his face. “Yes sir?”

“I’d like it very much if you’d wipe that smile off your face. This isn’t funny business. Every time I come here, they always add cheese to my burger. I can’t eat this! I’m lactose intolerant for Christ’s sake.”

Then why don’t you go somewhere else old fart? “Yes sir. I’ll let the chef know.” Taemin stood there like he always did waiting for those magic words. Instead he got:

“What are you doing just standing there with your mouth hanging open? This stomach isn’t going to feed itself!”

He wasn’t surprised in the slightest. He never understood why people couldn’t simply say thank you. It wasn’t hard. Being a waiter was already bad enough and serving ungrateful people made his job even worse. He didn’t get enough tips to be treated this way and he had enough. If he didn’t hear “thank you” the next time around, he’d teach him a lesson. Sure enough when Taemin brought the hamburger to the table, all he heard was:

“What are you looking at? I swear children these days...”

He waited, stalking behind the counter until he saw the customer’s drink getting low. Taemin grabbed a clean tumbler, filled it with tropical flavored juice, spat in it, and twirled it around with a straw. The top of the drink looked frothy, but, could easily be passed off as air bubbles. Perfect.

He walked over to the table careful to hide his mischievous grin.  Once in proximity, he set the cup down at the old man’s table and continued walking as if nothing happened.

“Thank you.” He heard almost out-of-earshot.

Serves him right Taemin thought.