ENTRY 4

                 —His comments put a smile on my face for nearly the rest of the day.—

            After three days of avoiding the diner, I decided that enough was enough. I was being a child about the whole situation and I needed to at least go and apologize to Minseok. I basically stormed out because he gave me sound advice that I was too absorbed in my own thoughts to understand… I felt (and still feel) pretty stupid.

            So this morning, I hauled myself out of bed and through the neighborhood to the diner. Each footstep felt heavier than the last, my heels scuffing against the cement sidewalk. But the silence of the morning didn’t seem to creep up on me as much anymore, and the barking of a neighborhood dog helped fill in the soundless air.

            A long five minutes later, I found myself frozen at the front door of the diner, unsure of whether to really walk in or not. I’ve always been bad at apologies. My awkwardness gets the best of me.

            I could see Minseok through the clear door, slumped over on the counter like the first two times I saw him. His head nodded a few times in a light sleep before jolting a bit up, but his eyes never opened, and his hair just characteristically flopped each time he nodded, the ends just brushing his eyelids.

            Finally, I walked in, the door chime waking Minseok abruptly. His head nearly smacked onto the counter, but he pulled himself up at the very last second, saving his forehead and nose from terrible bruises. He announced his consciousness with a slurred, “Welcome to the Morning Glory Diner!” that sounded more like, “Welc’m t’the Murnin’ Glury Dinr.” He rubbed his eyes a few times, allowed his eyes to adjust to the lighting, and smiled at me when he realized who it was. “Feeling better today?”

            Immediately, the apology spilled from my lips with several stutters that I won’t recap here, and he smiled understandingly in response, graciously ignoring those ungraceful trips of the tongue.

            “Everybody has their bad days or weeks, especially university students. There’s plenty about college life to put people into a bad mood. Don’t worry about it.” He turned around right after and clicked a button on the coffee machine, immediately starting a fresh brew.  Without another word, he whisked away into the kitchen before pulling back out with toast and strawberry jam on a classic white plate.

            I asked how he already knew what I was going to order.

            “It’s the least I can do for my first customer of each day,” Minseok replied, setting the plate in front of me before coming to a resting stance behind the counter. “And it was fairly predictable.”

            I smiled before beginning my breakfast, sipping the steaming coffee and slowly munching on my toast. He continued with his routine of cleaning already-spotless tables, refilling napkin holders, and so on at a relaxed pace. The sleep was lingering in his eyes a bit, as usual, and he yawned a few times, compelling me to ask how he always woke up so early for the shift when he could barely stay awake at the counter before I got there.

            “I have to admit, sometimes I get here a few minutes late,” he answered sheepishly, tucking a towel into his back pocket. Sliding next to me across the squeaky clean floors, Minseok leaned against the counter and faced me. “But I know that sometimes you’ll come in here in the morning, needing that cup of black coffee, some food, the occasional bit of advice. My motivation for getting here somewhat on time.” Grinning, he tapped me on the nose gently before pushing off the counter and back into his morning groove.

            His comments put a smile on my face for nearly the rest of the day.

            The rest of the morning passed quietly. Neither of us felt compelled to speak, yet the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. Minseok kept wandering around the diner to put some salt and pepper shakers in place, wipe off a smudge from a table, and take my dishes back into the kitchen to wash after I’d finished my breakfast.

            I pulled out a set of notes from one of my classes to study as he did all this, preparing for a test later today.

            A little while after I’d finished my breakfast, people began trickling into the diner, a few rushing businessmen stopping for coffee, an old couple easing into a booth for a simple breakfast, and then…

            “Minseok!”

            “What’s up, grandpa?!”

            “Hey, Minseok.”

            Three high school boys who I vaguely recognized from one of the last time’s I came to the diner burst through the door, two striding in with energy I didn’t think was possible for high school students, and one sluggishly following, eyes half closed.

            Just as Minseok slipped out of the kitchen after delivering an order to the cook, he walked over to the three boys in a few large steps before playfully hitting the first two on the head and patting the third on the shoulder.

            “Don’t scream in the diner, Jongdae! There are other people here, too, for breakfast,” scolded Minseok, pinching Jongdae’s ear.

            “Hey, hey! That hurts, Minseok!” Jongdae winced as Minseok only pinched harder before letting go. “What about Tao? He was screaming, too!”

            “But he doesn’t always,” commented Minseok, turning to the other two. “Same as usual?”

            The tired one, Yixing I think, nodded and yawned while the other, Tao, responded with an enthusiastic, “Yeah, thanks!”

            “What about me?” asked Jongdae, clambering into one of the counter stools with Tao and Yixing following.

            Minseok only rolled his eyes before strolling into the kitchen at a leisurely pace, relaying the orders to the cook.

            “You’re here again!” said Jongdae, turning to face me. Sitting one seat away, he leaned towards me and bowed his head slightly in a greeting. “I’m Kim Jongdae!”

            I returned the bow and introduced myself.

            “This is Zhang Yixing,” said Jongdae, pointing to the guy who’d allowed his head to plop down on the counter. Upon the introduction, he raised his head, a little surprised, before facing me, realizing that I was being introduced to him, and in a flustered manner, bowed a little too much, causing him to nearly topple over.

            I stifled a laugh.

            “Ah, he’s always like this in the mornings,” commented Jongdae.

            “And in the afternoons and nights,” added Tao, who then faced me to say, “I’m Huang Zitao, but everyone calls me Tao. It’s nice to meet you!”

            “Are you one of Minseok’s friends from one of his jobs?” asked Jongdae.

            I shook my head. “I just come here for breakfast often,” I replied.

            At this point, Minseok swept back out of the kitchen to take a few dishes to the elderly couple, depositing the food down onto the table before swinging back around and over to us. “Hey, stop bothering her, guys!”

            “We weren’t bothering her! Were we?” asked Jongdae, first facing Minseok, then me.

            I laughed and shook my head, telling Minseok it was fine.

            “Well, if you consider being late to class alright.” Minseok pointed to a clock located on one of the walls of the diner. “You usually leave around this time for class.”

            Startled by the time, I quickly packed up my notes as Minseok carried the check over to me. Dropping some cash onto the small tray containing the check, I hopped off the stool. I thanked Minseok, said that it was nice to meet the three boys, and bowed once before speeding out the door, my bag barely on my shoulder by the time I was out of the diner.

            I don’t remember actually being late to my class. I’d left five minutes later than usual from the diner, but the running to the bus stop helped me catch it right as it was about to leave.

            When I finally got to class, I was just glad the professor wasn’t there yet, and the students were all too wrapped up in their own conversations to bother with me. I sat close to the front and pulled out some note-taking materials. Sinking into my seat, I prepared myself for the boring lecture ahead of me.

            The rest of my day followed the same routine as always. I would stop by a campus eatery for a snack or to pick up lunch, go to my other classes, avoid the stares of other students (as I still haven’t picked up quite what the latest trends in South Korea are), and trekked home, back slouching and feeling far wearier than I would have liked.

            Here I am, after dinner, scrawling in this diary. I’m not sure why I’m still keeping up with this. I used to be pretty bad at journaling when I was younger. Anyway, I’ll write in this for as long as I can remember. Hopefully, things start to turn up soon.

 author's note Hi, loves! It's been... quite some time, hasn't it? If you check out my latest blog post, there'll be more information about my return and why I've decided to keep writing on AFF, as well as how often I'll be updating (not as often as before, I have to admit). This chapter marks the end to my long hiatus, and I hope you all enjoy. I'm not sure if it'll flow, for my writing style has changed a bit in the past year or so, but I hope you all enjoy it! Please subscribe, comment, and upvote if you liked my story. I love constructive feedback, so if there's something that you find strange or not quite meshing together, let me know! Thank you all for staying subscribed to my story, for those of you that were here with me from the start. I hope to bring better writing to AFF in the future and to never leave you guys hanging like this again :) Thanks for reading, everyone!

~DespisedSecret

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