Sundays are Chaewon’s favorite.

The coffee shop isn’t bustling in the morning like Mondays through Fridays. Mondays through Fridays bring upon unsettling headaches and sleep withdrawal. Sundays only draw in a few customers that Chaewon can tolerate. And Sundays are a breeze in comparison to Saturdays. Saturday, everyone splurges on coffee for the entire family. All larges, all super complicated, and all oh so annoying.

It’s calm and quiet, until the chimes on the door ring. Chaewon stops mid-step from grabbing a rag to wipe the counters down. She’s just in time to see the mess of the girl that walks in with long hair, cute fringe, and an oversized bag decorated with animal patches that weighs her down. The bag seems to be on the verge of bursting open with crumbled papers. Chaewon is baffled to see the customer solving it simply by shoving them further into the bag. Doesn’t care about bent edges or crinkled paper.

Chaewon watches with mild interest as the girl stumbles to the counter.

She’s scratching the crown of her head with a sheepish smile before she cranes her head up to get a good look at the menu.

Eunbi is usually the one who takes the orders. She’s charming, and most customers are taken with her. And while Eunbi dazzles the customers and ropes them into buying a gift card or pastries, Chaewon stands back and makes the drink. Providing manual labor was nothing next to conversing with crappy customers late for their eight-to-five job. She knows it gets on Eunbi's nerves occasionally, but the older girl is much more aware of how Chaewon is. She steps up to the plate whenever someone comes in. Eunbi is preoccupied with dishes though, and Chaewon doesn’t have the heart to bother her to only take one girl’s order. She backtracks towards the register, stopping in front of the woman who has her lips pursed in thought. She glances down to Chaewon, offering a small smile. Her gaze lingers for a moment, on Chaewon’s face, before her eyes avert back up to the board.

“I’ve never been here before,” the girl hums.

The way her lip smack together while she examines the board is irritating, but Chaewon pays it no mind. In fact, she finds it more better than the quiet college boy who just rolled out of bed that came in ten minutes prior. At least she speaks at a reasonable volume. “What would you recommend?”

Lattes, she answers in her head rather than out loud. She likes lattes – warm lattes with skim milk and an extra shot of espresso. Nothing too sweet that tampers with the natural with the bitter taste of coffee.

But Chaewon has easily figured out that this girl doesn’t have the same palette Chaewon does. Her eyes are big and bright and her smile is wide, wider than most smiles she gets on a Sunday morning. She probably has a thing for sugar filled drinks. More than likely, something sweet. Enough to make someone’s teeth ache. Nothing that Chaewon would ever want to drink. “What do you like?”

The girl’s elbows fall onto the counter and the bag tangled around her neck slings to her side. All the unnecessary loops would make Chaewon go crazy, but she doesn’t seem to unsettled by it. “Something with chocolate in it. And lots of it.” Her smile is a bit dopey and lopsided. “I need to stop sleeping in.”

Chaewon stands to her full height and rests her arm against the register.

“Perhaps a mocha?”

She murmurs something under her breath. It sounds like a low hum, almost melodic. She pulls her wallet out of the side pocket of her bag. “Sounds good to me. Give me a large one over ice.” Her teeth tug at her lower lip when she adds, “With lots of whipped cream.” She hands over a faded and wrinkled bill and digs her wallet inside in her pocket right after. Chaewon makes her change and hands it to the girl. She’s surprised to see that customer clumsily shoves three bills and some loose change into the tip jar. The beaming smile she receives is the most surprising of them all.

“I’ll have that right up,” Chaewon says. The girl looks up from where she is untangling the bag and nods. Her eyes do that twinkling thing again.

She doesn’t know what it is about the particular customer, but there’s something that puts Chaewon slightly off. Chaewon finds herself checking back to look at her through the process of making the drink, trying to figure her out. And every time she does, the girl notices and shoots her a smile and Chaewon is quick to avert her gaze.

She can’t help but add a few extra pumps of mocha into the drink. Sweet, she remembers. So sweet her teeth will ache. That’s what she wants. The mound of whipped cream piles on top is overflowing out of the top of the lid. All Chaewon can see is sugar, sugar, sugar.

Chaewon sets down the drink in front of her, waiting for the girl to peer up from her phone. When she does, a perplexed look crosses her face. Almost like a confused fox. “What?” Chaewon asks. She looks down at the drink as well, trying to find out what’s wrong with what she made.

“I, uh, asked for an iced one.” The girl coughs into her closed fist and bites back a grin. And it’s then that Chaewon realizes the drink that she meticulously made is indeed not iced. It’s hot.

“I…” Chaewon doesn’t usually mess up orders. Only when the communication is off or someone forgets to punch in a special request. But this girl with her sticky smile and her sugary sweet request makes Chaewon mess up. “I’ll make you another.” She doesn’t want the hot drink she made to go to waste, so she slides it closer to her. “You can have this one.”

The girl stares, mouth parted slightly before it turns into another grin. Five. She’s smiled at her five times already. Not that Chaewon is counting. “Thank you,” she says, more grateful than annoyed that Chaewon just messed up her order. “I’ll give this to a friend.”

Chaewon remakes the drink, making sure to grab a cold drink cup. The girl beams when the correct drink is served to her, and she plucks out another dollar and drops it in the tip jar. “Thank you…” The girl says, trailing off as she stares at Chaewon’s uniform. Chaewon isn’t quite sure what she wants, until it dawns upon her that she’s looking for a nametag.

“Chaewon,” she says, and the girl nods, sipping on the straw.

She hums around the straw, making these little delighted noises as she drinks the coffee.

“I’m Minjoo,” she tells Chaewon, and then points north. “I just got hired at the pet store up the street. I was looking for a new coffee shop, and I think I found it.” She laughs as she takes another sip.

Chaewon observes that Minjoo’s laugh has light lit to it, almost like she’s whistling.

“So I guess I’ll see you later, then?” And although Chaewon can neither confirm nor deny it, she nods.

Minjoo laughs and waves at Chaewon in an awkward manner with both drinks in her hands. She takes one final look back at Chaewon before she exits the shop. The chimes clang below her.

“You okay?” Chaewon turns around, and sees Eunbi standing there with her eyebrows raised and lips quirked upward. “You seem a little out of it. It’s not very Chaewon-like.”

“I’m fine,” she says, pulling off the portafilter. She makes a face as she dumps the coffee grounds in the bin.

“If you say so,” Eunbi says. She gathers up the basket of dirty dishes and sets it down in front of Chaewon. “Go finish these in back. I got this.” And before she can put up a protest, Eunbi is already ushering her along to the backroom, telling her she doesn’t want to see her face until she calls for her.

At the end of her shift, Chaewon finds herself making herself an iced mocha, just how Minjoo wanted it. Her curiosity had gotten the best of her, wondering how something so sweet would taste good to some people. It’s dark, lacks that rich brown color that Chaewon usually likes, but she stills pops a lid on it and takes it home. She eyes it in its cup holder the entire drive, but she leaves it where it is, deciding to try it once she gets to her apartment.

The ice in the drink is melting into the milk when she gets there. If she waits any longer the drink will be too watered down. Chaewon inspects the cup one more time before she takes a sip of the coffee.

It tastes disgusting. Too sweet, too much sugar, too much everything.

Chaewon pours it down the drain and cleanses with tap water.

—

Somehow, it becomes a regular thing – Minjoo visiting the coffee shop before her shift down at the pet store.

The first time, Chaewon was surprised when Eunbi called her out from the backroom. She doesn’t usually bother her when she’s unloading the shipment unless it’s important. “Someone’s asking for you,” Eunbi had said, grin all too bright and knowing. Chaewon wasn’t sure she liked the look of it.

Minjoo was there, leaning over the counter, hair tucked behind her ears allowing Chaewon to notice her big ears and her oversized bag plopped on top of the counter this time. She beamed and waved when she saw Chaewon making her way over to her. “Oh good, you are here.” Minjoo was antsy, switching between which side to lean her weight on. “I tried your mocha, the hot one,” she clarified. “It was really good.” The tips of her ears were pink. Whether from the rain outside or because of something else, Chaewon couldn’t tell.

“Thank you.” Chaewon’s hands fist in her apron. She felt fidgety as well.

“I was wondering,” Minjoo started. Her polished nails were tapping against the counter, a steady rhythm. “If you could make me another.”

Chaewon nodded, and Minjoo sighed in relief. “You’re the best,” Minjoo concluded, running a hand through her hair to brush aside her a bit messy bangs. Chaewon didn’t know what to say in response. She kept quiet as she made her drink, but Chaewon felt proud. Proud of her coffee making abilities.

And she was all the more pleased when Minjoo took her drink, sipping on it thoughtfully. “I don’t think I could drink coffee made by someone else ever again.”

And now, Chaewon expects Minjoo ten or so minutes before eleven on Sundays and Saturdays. She’s surprised to see Minjoo make an appearance on a Tuesday evening, grinning from ear to ear. She’s winded, out of breath, and yet she still walks with a light bounce in her step as she makes her way over to Chaewon. “Hey,” she says breathlessly.

“Hey,” Chaewon responds.

Minjoo sets her bag down.

Chaewon notices there’s a new obnoxious animal patch sewn onto the strap, it’s a frog. “I didn’t know you worked night shifts.”

“Only on Tuesdays.” Minjoo nods in understanding. “Do you want a mocha?”

“Actually I was thinking,” Minjoo pauses and observes the menu. “I’d get something different this time. But there’s so much to choose from.” The laugh that bubbles out of is refreshing, and wakes Chaewon up. Evening shifts are usually slow, but it appears that it might just pick up. “What do you usually get?”

“Lattes,” Chaewon answers.

Minjoo makes a face, one of some sort of displeasure. “Any flavor in them?”