Chapter 2

“Oh my god, Jaejoong, you need to see this.”

Jaejoong blinked at her two friends, Hara & Yuri, who were ogling some large booth in the corner of her section? “What?”

“Have you talked to table twenty-one yet?” Hara asked, blinking her brown, almond-shaped eyes, “He is like the iest thing walking.”

“Sitting.” Yuri corrected, giggling “You have to talk to him.”

Jaejoong sighed, wondering why Hara & Yuri had taken it upon themselves to thoroughly inspect all of the men at Bang’s. She liked to believe that it was pure entertainment but the way they gossiped for hours on end about it, & weeks after the male customer left, didn’t seem likely, “I need to bring these mojitos to table nineteen. Why do you know the tables in my section?”

Waving her hand dismissively, Yuri just giggles again, “He’s so hot.”

“Don’t you have tables to attend to?!” Jaejoong snapped, although her tone was light-hearted, “Go run the food! The expo is yelling for hands!”

“Ruin the fun why don’t you?” Hara muttered, grinning nonetheless, “You better give us all the juicy info.” Rolling her eyes, Jaejoong wondered how she even became friends with those two girls. She loved them to pieces but they both desperately needed to get laid. Approaching table nineteen, a pair of women chatting about their stupid husbands, Jaejoong handed them each their mojitos, “For you.” She murmured, smiling politely at the one woman before looking at the other, “& this is for you.”

“What do you think?” The first woman asked, flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder, “Do you think that if your husband was seeing another woman behind your back, even though he swears that they have never touched or kissed or whatever, does that count as cheating?”

The second woman nodded, her short brown hair bouncing, “What do you think?”

In the many years that Jaejoong had been serving, she had learned what to say to best please the customers. These two women were obviously looking to make their husbands look bad so answering them with her honest no was not the correct answer, “I don’t think it’s cheating.” Jaejoong replied, emphasizing the word, “However, I think it’s deceitful which is just as bad. In order for a relationship, in my opinion, to work you need to be truthful & honest with each other. He should have mentioned seeing the woman because if it was as casual as he’s implying with the whole no touching business then there would be no problem with him seeing her, right?”

“Deceitful bastard!” The brown-haired woman agreed, raising her mojito, “You, Jaejoong, are good.”

Smiling, Jaejoong excused herself from the table when they told her they had yet to decide on dinner. Quickly approaching the infamous table twenty-one, Jaejoong put on her best smile.

It wasn’t until his hair came into view that she knew who Hara & Yuri were going coo-coo for coco puffs over. She still didn’t really know him. Wasn’t his name Yu-something? It had been over a week since the last time they met.

“Well, it’s nice to see you back.” Jaejoong said, grinning & leaning on the booth casually. Looking at the man & then the woman, she realized it wasn’t the same one as last time.

“Back?” The woman asked, her light pink thick, full lips curved into a small frown, “You came here often, Yunho Oppa?”

Ah ha. Yunho was his name. Jaejoong filed the information away for later since he seemed to be a regular customer of Bang’s. She didn’t mind that in the least bit, the guy tipped her a solid fifty percent last time. That alone made up a good chunk of her tip money, totalling all of it to be worth her month’s rest.

“I was here last week.” Yunho said, smirking at the woman, “Is that a problem?”

“Oh, no.” The woman said, shrugging & giving Jaejoong a soft expression, “What would you recommend to drink? I have decided on a martini but I’m not sure what’s good.”

“Do you like kiwi flavor?” Jaejoong asked, shifting over so that she was standing close to Yunho’s date. She opened the bar menu & pointed at a drink down the long list, “This is my favorite. It’s not overpowering like a lot of kiwi flavored drinks & you can hardly taste the alcohol. Many of the customers who have tried it enjoy it.”

“Then I will have that.” The woman agreed, smiling “What about you, Oppa?”

“Jaejoong knows.” Yunho said simply, winking at her, “Isn’t that right?”

“Sure.” She laughed, “Let’s go with that.”

Walking away from them, she noticed the curious gaze of Yuri on her back. She sighed mentally. This wasn’t going to be easy to explain when she was running hot plates & taking multiple orders at a time. Plugging in the drink order on the computer, Jaejoong turned to the service bar with her print out.

“A corona & a martini?” The woman behind the counter asked, looking at her with wide black almond-shaped eyes, “What an interesting couple you have there.”

“Seohyun, you should just be happy that all of my tables include alcoholics or you would be bored out of your mind.”

Sighing, the mid back length, dark brown-haired agreed, “How sadly true that is.”

Drinks made up, Jaejoong just barely managed to escape Hara walking in, mouth already open with questions. Obviously, Yuri had told her how friendly she had been to Mr. iest-thing-sitting. Walking back to the table, Jaejoong noticed how interesting their body language was. The woman was leaning forward on the table with her hands folded somewhere near the middle. Yunho was leaning all the way back in his seat with his arms crossed. While this dare was surely a better one than last week, Jaejoong was almost positive that it was an unwilling one on his part.

Handing out the drinks, Jaejoong let them position the glasses to their liking before starting in on her sizzle. Like the last time, her sizzle was a short spiel that every server had to make up to sell particular kinds of food. While in some restaurants, the managers told you what to sell, Bang’s steakhouse & bar let you choose. Generally, servers attempted to sell the most expensive while others tried to sell the monthly feature. Jaejoong personally changed hers up according to the customer & the chef working the grill. If she talked about an a-plus steak, it better out a-plus or her tip would plummet. After working there for years, Jaejoong was comfortable with the constant change-up in her sizzle, whereas most servers weren’t.

The entire time, Yunho seemed engrossed. He watched her intently, tilting his head & nodding in all the right spots. He even smirked at her a few times which was weird in her opinion because couldn’t he smile? The woman mostly looked at the menu, especially at the items Jaejoong pointed out. In the end, the two ordered their meal. Yunho chose the feature she highly recommended & the woman who she had learned was named Sooyoung ordered the cheapest thing on the menu.

Well, you couldn’t win them all.

The night went by in a blur of running food, taking orders & chatting with the guests. It was a saturday & the wait to get in was over an hour for smaller tables of two & four. At one point, she had been triple-sat, making her run around like her head was lost. She made sure that her service was the quality that her managers would appreciate & by the time the wait was over, she had already made a couple of hundred dollars in tips.

The funny thing about it was Yunho & his date, Sooyoung, were still there.

Sooyoung was pretty tipsy, hiccupping & laughing a little too loudly. Jaejoong didn’t mind mostly because the girl was a funny drunk & made coming to the table a lot more enjoyable. Yunho was his same self, if Jaejoong could call it that. He smirked at her, interrogated her when ordering food & then quieted down.

“Oppa! Hey, are you listening to me?!” Sooyoung demanded, pouting. Jaejoong had just been passing the table when she heard the exclamation. It was strange again, because even though he was getting yelled at, he was staring right at her.

Jaejoong gave a small smile before continuing on her way back to the kitchen. Table nineteen wanted an additional side of garlic cheese bread, table eighteen needed a refill on all of their drinks & table twenty’s food had yet to be brought out. She rushed into her tasks without even thinking, having repeated the same actions over & over again, through the years. She was just bringing out the refills to table eighteen when the same girl yelled again.

“Damnit, Oppa! It’s like the moment the stupid waitress walks by you zone out!”

Jaejoong tensed up. Not this again.

“That’s not true, Sooyoung.” Yunho said, a bit roughly like his throat was sore, “You have just been talking all night & asking me a million questions. I’m not even sure how you managed to eat with all the talking you do. Please let my vocal chords rest for a moment.”

Ouch.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” Jaejoong asked, the table of three people, watching them all shake their heads before making sure that table nineteen’s food was cooked to their liking. When she passed table twenty-one, Yunho’s table, she wasn’t surprised to see him alone & the woman storm