The Café Cadenza is a popular little joint known in the area by aspiring musical talents and for the amazing food. Though many visit Café Cadenza to cheer on fellow aspiring musicians, the majority of the customers are drawn in by Kana, the prodigious head chef of Café Cadenza.

It was Friday night and as usual, the Café Cadenza was jam packed with people. The trendy music café was filled to the brim as youths of all ages squeezed their way to the front to cheer on the popular singer, Kai.

Kana shook her head lightly and chuckled at the scene unfolding in front of her. Two girls weaseled their way to the front and nearly “ambushed” the unsuspecting singer. Kana watched as the two girls squealed and jumped with glee as the singer bashfully agreed to sign their impromptu posters. After witnessing the singer’s slight taste of fame, Kana shifted her focus back to what she did best, cooking.
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A week later…

“Kana!” Aujummah’s voice echoed from the back of the kitchen.

“Yes!” Kana shouted back, though certainly not looking away from the slab of chicken sizzling on her frying pan.

“One order of the Sicilian Scallops, two orders of your Kimchi Spaghetti, three orders of Moon-Bean pie, four orders of the Moroccan Mango appetizers, and five specials! All of them to-go!” Aujumma released all in one breath.

“Okay, Got It! And Sumi! Tell Yoojae oppa to deliver these RIGHT NOW.” Sumi, the slightly younger waitress of Cadenza bolted into action upon hearing her name.

It was Friday evening and usually the place would be jam packed with people. The trendy music café was usually filled to the brim with youths of all ages, but due to the bitter winter wind that has so graciously visited Seoul many people decided to have their food delivered rather than spend another moment outdoors.

Kana sighed in content as she sat down behind the cake counter. The morning and afternoon had been filled with takeout orders and cake reservations, Kana usually liked to keep busy but she was glad to have gained a slow day. For days now, Kana had been itching to create a new dessert and today would finally be the day to do it.

“Aujummah, would it be alright if I used the kitchen tonight?”

“Mmm, that should be alright but let’s wait until after Kai’s performance.”

“Can’t I use it now? He doesn’t start until 8 and if start right now I’ll be done in less than an hour and a half, I promise!”

“Kana, I know it’s been a slow day but you know how popular that boy is. We might get a crowd once his set time starts.”

“But,”

“Kana.”

“Ahhahh, Okay. I understand. Thank you Aujummah!”

Kana frowned and let out another sigh, this time slightly disappointed as she let her upper body lay fully against the countertop, her arms served as cushions as she buried her head atop of them. Kai Kai Kai. Hmmph. Why do I have to wait for him? He’s just going to end up eating it later anyways. She hadn’t been sulking for more than five minutes before the sounds of jingling bells caught her attention and Kana shot straight up with her eyes closed and shouted, “Welcome to the Café Cadenza!”

Muffled chuckling resonated in her ears causing Kana to open her eyes. Standing at the door was their Friday night regular, Kim Jongin, who was now dutifully brushing off the snow from his guitar and his hat. Kana scowled, “Oh. It’s you.”

“Kai!” Sumi greeted cheerfully.

“Hey Sumi!” Kai responded back just as cheerfully he continued to free himself from the heavy winter jackets that clung to his shoulders.

“Why are you here so early?” Kana questioned.

Jongin smiled and shrugged before he quickly hung his jackets on the coat rack and changed into sneakers. “I don’t know. I got bored waiting at home so I figured I’d come in early to practice. By the way, where is everyone?”

Kana sighed and leaned back against the counter, “We’re having a slow day.”

Jongin raised his eyebrow at her remark, “A slow day? Cadenza never has slow days.”

“Well we are today.” Kana responded monotonously.

Jongin was taken aback by the somewhat hostile Kana. Normally whenever he arrived at Cadenza Sumi would greet him cheerfully, Yoojae Hyung would give him a quick nod, and Kana would strike up a conversation with him. But today the only person who greeted him at all was Sumi and for some reason he felt as if Kana was mad at him.

            “Are you mad at me?” he questioned timidly.

            “She’s not mad at you, Kai. Unnie’s just bored and probably annoyed because Ajummah told her that she couldn’t use the kitchen for experimenting until after your performance.” Sumi pointed out.

            “Hmphm. It’s not faiiiiirrrrrr.” Kana whined and softly kicked the counter in front of her.

Jongin laughed at his friend’s childish behavior. He walked over to the edge of the cake counter and ruffled her hair, messing it up and succeeding in eliciting a whine from her as well.

            “Hey! Stop that. Huu. I just wanted to test out my recipe.” She swatted his hand away and sat up to fix her hair, but before she could finish Jongin did it again.

Jongin laughed at her again, a look of adoration in his eyes as he continued to mess with his friend. “Well think of it this way, at least you’ll finally be able to hear me sing!”

            “What do you mean finally?! I hear you sing every week!” Kana whined.

            “No you don’t! You’re always cooking or serving someone or taking a custom order during my performances.”

            “So? That doesn’t mean I can’t hear you!”

            “Lies. Fine then, name one song I’ve sang in the past month!”

Kana sat up, her hair was sticking up in random spots due to Jongin’s ‘punishment’, and stared at him. She thought for a minute before saying, “Didn’t you sing Mirrotic once…”

            “See! You don’t even know. And for your information, the last time I sang a DBSK song was three months ago.”

Kana rolled her eyes at him which caused him to mess up her hair again. “Well it’s not like you ever stop by to try my new dishes!”

Their little argument went on for a while and each time Kana whined, Kai would ruffle her hair and Kana would scowl and swat his hand away.

Sumi observed their actions from across the room and chuckled at her sunbae.

“Aujummah, Ajummah, come quick. Look at Kai and Kana.” Sumi whispered excitedly.

“Chh. Those two are always like this. If it’s not Kana nagging Kai about never eating her food, it’s Kai nagging Kana about never hearing him sing. Aigo, how can these two still be such good friends?” Ajummah teased.

            Two hours passed and normally Kai would be onstage singing or dancing his heart out to a packed house. And yet, the Café Cadenza was still empty- with the exception of the staff of course. Since there would obviously be no customers for the rest of the night, Sumi, Ajummah, and Yoojae took off early, leaving Kana and Kai to watch over the Café.

Kana noticed the emptiness and felt giddy, no customers meant that she could now do go and create her newest dessert dish. But before she left she stole a glance at the sound stage, Jongin sat there solemnly. Not only was the café empty, it meant that no one had bothered to come hear him sing as well, not even his loyal die hard fangirls who would’ve bombarded him with squeals and declarations of love. Kana sighed and made a 180 degree turn, leaving her precious kitchen behind as she made her way to Jongin.

            “Hey! K.K. Slider!” Kana shouted.

Jongin broke out of his slump and looked up, confusion scrawled across his face. “What did you just call me?”

            “K.K. Slider! You know the cute singing dog in the Nintendo game Animal Crossing?” Kana looked at Kai waiting for confirmation, “Oh come on! Well anyways, it’s this game right? And in it there’s a character named K.K Slider, and every Saturday night he would go to the little coffee shop in the museum and sing and take song requests.”

Jongin shot her a skeptical look and said, “So?”

Kana rolled her eyes, “I called you K.K. Slider because you’re basically K.K. Slider.”

Jongin burst out laughing at her remark, “So you think I resemble a singing animated dog?!”

“Well of course it would sound bad if you say it like that!” Kana scoffed.

Jongin’s laugh subsided and the both of them were enveloped in a blanket of comfortable silence. “Hey Kana, what’s that thing you wanted to make anyways?”

Kana’s face lit up as her thoughts were brought back to her new creation. “Well, I had this idea a couple months ago; it’s basically two freshly baked cookies and sandwiched in the middle is a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.”

At the sound of cookies, Jongin’s stomach growled making Kana laugh.

“Hey, Kana” Jongin asked, “Wanna make me something to eat?”

“And why would I do that?” Kana teased.

He pouted and whined, “I’m hungry!”

            “Well, if I make you something to eat, what do I get out of it?” Kana countered.

            “I’ll sing you a song!”

Kana raised her eye brow and looked up at the boy in question, “A song for a snack?”

Jongin shrugged, “Well why not? I bet that character you mentioned always gets a compensation for singing right?”

Kana scoffed, “Actually, he doesn’t. He does it because he likes to sing.”

Jongin shot her a goofy smile, “I guess we are more alike than I thought! I sing here for free too!”

Kana squinted her eyes at him, “No. You sing here because Aujummah’s café gains a lot of attention.”

Jongin feigned hurt at her accusation, “That’s not why!”

Kana scoffed.

            “Oh come on give me more credit, will you. You make me sound so selfish.”

            “Well then why do you come here anyways? Yoojae Oppa told me that you never sang here before I started working here.”

Jongin’s face flushed a little and he stuttered in his response, “W-well… whatever that’s not the point. The point is that I sing because I like it and I like singing here. Plus it’s nice here and the people are nice. So what do you say, I’ll trade you a song for a snack?”

Kana gave in, her itch to make her new creation won her over and the fact that she finally found someone who would be her taste tester urged her even more so to give in; but for Jongin on the other hand, seeing Kana give in so quickly filled him with great happiness.

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            “All done!” Kana shouted. The sweet aromatic scent of freshly baked cookies filled the open air. Jongin grabbed his guitar with him and joined Kana at the cake counter. A white square plate sat inbetween them, sitting on the plate was a cookie sandwich that consisted of two freshly baked cookies. The top of the cookie sandwich sat a snickerdoodle, the filling was home-made vanilla bean ice cream, and the last layer of the sandwich was a caramel-turtles cookie. The entire ensemble was assembled to look like a present, drizzled lightly with dark chocolate and caramel and sprinkled with crushed nuts.

            Jongin’s mouth dropped open at the sight of the delicious dessert sitting infront of him. Snickerdoodles and Caramel-turle?! This is the best! My two favorite cookies. YES. Thank you Choi Kana!

Kana laughed at Jongin’s reaction, “Well? Aren’t you going to eat it?”

Jongin snapped out of his thoughts and looked up at the girl in front of him. “Eat it with me.”

Kana stared at him curiously, “What? Why?”

            “Well why not? You made it and besides it’s more fun to eat desserts with other people.”

            “Did I ever mention how weird you are?”

            “Nope! Now come on eat with me.”

            “Jongin I didn’t poison it. Just eat it!”

Jongin looked at her questionably, “Who said anything about poison? Yah Choi Kana, you sound really suspicious right now.”

Kana rolled her eyes and stormed off but returned quickly with two forks in hand and a bowl of vanilla ice cream. She handed on over to Jongin and at down to join him. Jongin smiled at her response and nodded in thanks for the fork and began to eat.

            “Well? What do you think?” Kana asked, her voice turned soft and her eyes widened waiting for any criticism.

Jongin looked at her and felt his heart stop. She looked very innocent like that, like a child waiting to hear the praise and approval from his parents for accomplishing a task. He chuckled and gave her a thumbs up, “It’s great! And just out of curiosity how did you know these cookies were my favorite?”

Kana smiled, “I knew it! I mean no I didn’t, I guessed. You seemed like a person who would like sweet and simple things, so I figured why not go with the vanilla and the sugar cookie? But then I didn’t want the whole thing to be too drab so I stuck in the caramel-turtles and the chocolate drizzle. I’m really glad you liked it though.”

Jongin thought he was about to have a heart attack when the words “I knew it!” escaped from Kana’s mouth.

He cleared his throat and stated, “Anyways, now that you fulfilled your part in this compromise, it’s my turn.” He picked up his guitar and turned so that he was fully facing Kana.

Kana smiled and took a bite of the slightly soupy ice cream that sat in the bowl next to them. She waved and signaled him to go on.

Jongin took a deep breath and began to sing. Kana couldn’t help but notice that each time he sang, he turned into someone else… he turned into Kai.

During his performance Kana felt herself swoon a little. His voice was melodious and sweet and having just eaten a plateful of sugar, she felt her blood pressure level rise even more. Then she made the mistake of looking at him square in the eye, her face flushed at this moment because the song’s lyrics became more intimate and she felt her heart beat even faster. Then the song slowed down and ended, but their eyes were still locked on each other.

Feeling a bit flustered and slightly awkward, Kana cleared and looked down at her bowl of ice cream. “You’re really good a singing.”

Jongin’s face flushed red, “You think so?” Kana just nodded in response, unable to look him in the eye. “Hey Kana?” Jongin asked, his voice soft and gentle, “Did you like your song?”

Kana stole a look from the corner of her eye and stiffened because she wasn’t expecting him to be so close. “U-uhm. Of course I did! It was really sweet. And pretty.”

Jongin smiled again and scooted closer, “So did you get the message then?”

Kana looked at him fully this time, confused and a bit dazed she asked, “Message?”

“Well you said you liked your song right?”

Kana nodded.

“Well then, Choi  Kana, will you accept me?”

~~~~~

Author's note:
i didn't mention it in the story but the new creation of kana's is supposed to called KK Slider as well. I originally included that in the story but it seemed unnatural and not a part of their conversations so i kept it out. It's called KK slider because of their names: Kana and Kai/jongin. Slider's are usually little sandwhiches served in restaurants and diners but i switched it to be a dessert slider because i wanted it to feel like they were on date and well have my characters eat something sweet. anyways i hope you guys liked the story!