Seizing the Present- 8

Chocolate & Coffee
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"Stop! Stop! Staaap~!" Jaejoong's shrieking has Yunho swerve the car before coming to a stop by the curb.

"What the hell Jaejoong!" Yunho is breathless, coming down from the panicked high.

"I told you to drop me off here!" Jaejoong means the exact spot Yunho stopped, though it makes no sense to Yunho.

"The cafe is down that street!" Yunho emphatically gestures at the left turn in front of them.

"I'm walking there."

"It's a 30 minute walk!"

"10 minutes! You have no sense of distance because you go everywhere in a car."

"This is ridiculous..." Yunho mutters, turning on the ignition to just drive the usual way to the Dessert Room. But he doesn't even get to turn the wheel because Jaejoong is making a ruckus again.

"Ah-bub-bub-bub! I'm getting off!" Jaejoong unlocks the door on her side and is about to open it but Yunho locks the door again from his controls. "Jaejoong what are you trying to pull?"

"Nothing!" Jaejoong huffs, "I just want to save you the trouble... you take 45 minutes extra dropping me off and then going to work. Isn't it only 15 minutes this way?"

"It's 15 minutes without you." Jaejoong's face blooms red at his audacious cheesiness. It doesn't help that his hand is on the seat just behind her head and his face is dangerously close. "I have 45 minutes in the car ride with you every day... that's all I have tide me over the eight hours without you till we're home."

"We... we... meet a-at...lunch..." Jaejoong shrinks when she can feel Yunho's breath against her face. He better not try something here, in public, or she'll... well... blush more...

"We won't be meeting for lunch today, remember?" Jaejoong had forgotten Hyekyo was going to make one of her customary visits as a CEO and they would head out to lunch together. Which means Yunho has to do with the packed lunch sitting in the back seat.

So, she really won't see him till they're home. That just makes her sad... but not enough to let Yunho cop a feel of her thigh in a public place even if it's inside the car.

 "We're both getting late!" Jaejoong distracts him with a peck to his cheek before shoving off that sneaky hand off her lap and escaping. Yunho shakes his head when Jaejoong waves at him from outside before running off in the direction of the Dessert Room. Once she's out of sight, Yunho drives off to work.

Jaejoong skips to the beat of the song playing in her earphones as she walks in to the cafe through the front entrance. The waiter writing the day's specials on the chalkboard is the first to greet her.

She plucks the earphones out on her way to the little office in the corner of the locker room through the kitchen. It's just a temporary setup where they store the promotional materials. Most of the important stuff is in their corporate office on a floor of Cassiopeia's building, convenient enough for Changmin to coordinate with the handful of employees managing the Dessert Room LLC.

Jaejoong places her bag on the shelf and checks the rolled up posters, mock-ups of their signature cake with Chef Choi's seal of approval. Though Changmin and Heechul told her to pick which design she liked, Jaejoong likes them all. She'll just have to ask Hyekyo's opinion on it later.

"Boss, are you here?" A young woman peeks through the staff's door. When she caught sight of Jaejoong, she emerges from behind the door with a cup of mint chocolate mocha, something that has become Jaejoong and Minyoung's addiction ever since they hired Jeon Miyeon as a barista.

Jaejoong excitedly picks up that cup and takes a long sip of it, sighing blissfully. "You make it just right."

The woman beams as she always does when Jaejoong compliments her signature drink. "So, I have the four new baristas coming in today for training. Would you like to meet them first?"

"Four? I thought we only needed two for the new place?"

"Manager Shim said the new location is large enough for another coffee bar on the second floor too. So he wants extra baristas and wait staff." Miyeon shows her the folder she was carrying of the employee applications. "They recently completed barista training. So it's all fresh on their minds. I just have to get them used to the bartending style and speed."

"I'll meet them after the rush hour with Omoni. I need to discuss next month's menu with Chef Yoo first." Jaejoong thanks her for the drink again and goes looking for the head chef. After their discussion, the chef returns to her job while Jaejoong wanders into the crowded dining area and occupies the cornermost stool at the coffee bar.

While bent over her notebook she's scribbling in ingredients for a new dish she wants to suggest to Heechul. She's so into her recipe, she doesn't notice someone has been watching over her shoulder for minutes.

"Wow... that's a lot of ingredients..."

"Gah!" Jaejoong straightens up with a shriek and unwittingly headbutts the person behind her in his chest. "!" Jaejoong hears him curse and whips her head around to find Lee Minho rubbing his sore chest while coughing.

She notices the curious eyes on them and gives the crowd a disarming smile so bright they have to return to whatever they were doing to retain their senses. Keeping an eye on Minho, Jaejoong shuts her notebook and gets her phone out, discreetly sending a desperately typed "Sos" on the secretary group.

Meanwhile Minho gets over having the wind knocked out of him and looks at Jaejoong again. "You have a way of leaving me breathless..."

Jaejoong an eyebrow, "Really? You have to make a pickup line after that!" At the back of her mind, Jaejoong recalls Joongi and Sangchul have their own bevy of cheesy lines. Maybe it's a Lee thing.

Miyeon calls out Lee Minho to take his coffee to-go. While he is picking up his coffee, Jaejoong slips away, walking out of the cafe. It's just in time for her to answer a call from Changmin.

"Main branch?" Jaejoong hums in response. "10 minutes away. Don't hang up. I want to see what this POS spouts." Jaejoong spots Minho walking to the doors and turns on the speaker mode, holding the phone close to her behind her notebook. Her expression doesn't give away anything and neither does Minho's seemingly charming smile when he's closer.

"Do you always run away from people after headbutting them?"

"Maybe I get away because they were invading my personal space."

"Don't you hate it when they do that?"

Jaejoong scoffs internally at this conceited man. "So you are one of those?" She sniffs, walking off to the cluster of benches and seats in the centre of the mall.

Unlike Jaejoong the other day, Minho is amused. He falls into step with her with a couple of long strides, asking the obvious question, "I know I'm walking into a trap here, but who are 'those?'"

"Just the hundreds of guys who get into my space without permission." Jaejoong notes his clenched jaw when she hints at the unsolicited attention she gets.

She speeds up her steps to put some physical distance between them, sitting down on one of the benches. She belatedly realizes what a mistake it was to not sit in one of the solo cushioned chairs when Minho plonks down on the other end of the bench. At least he can take a hint and not sit too close to her.

Through it all, Jaejoong has her call running in the background as she is seemingly looking up a recipe for a cheesecake she already knows how to make.

"Don't you and your coffee to-go have to be at work on a Monday?" Jaejoong asks without looking at him.

"Let's just say I'm on indefinite vacation..." he sounds blasé but it only makes Jaejoong wonder if Joongi fired his brother or if Minho is not working to spite his brother. Though she should not provoke him, she finds herself egging him for information. "You must be really rich to not bother about work..." somehow her eyes stray to that watch on the hand holding the coffee.

She can't tell if it's expensive because it looks vintage and she has no idea about those things. But the plain watch doesn't seem to match the rest of his clothes. He's in a mint green shirt ed at the top and tucked into dark ripped jeans. Though it isn't the bespoke suit she saw him in the first time, she knows this attire is from expensive brands. It somehow reminds her of the first time she met Joongi. Guess they are not as different as they think.

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StarrySeraphim21
Sorry about the wait. Got caught with work.

Comments

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passantana
#1
Chapter 44: I wan't more! Thx for your work, i'm in love. ˆ-ˆ
icheepoo #2
Thanks for the update! It says here that this story is Completed?
icheepoo #3
Stumbled upon this story while looking up changmin couple stories but ended up shipping yunjae now! Just finished the last chapter and hoping for more updates soon!!
Now off to read strawberry and vanilla along with all your other stories! Hungry for moreeee
Kattan69 #4
Chapter 38: Poor girl....I’m afraid for her state of mind....hope she can over come that bastard and be stronger.
sillybee #5
Chapter 30: Oooh Changmin is not gonna like this. Its bad enough that Minho's trying to go for Jae, but then has to live in the same place, and try to 'snoop' into who he is and how he's related to Jae and possibly use it...hmm Changmin might take it personal. Haha and that's a different level scary.
Kattan69 #6
Chapter 22: I also can’t wait for what is going to happen......
Kattan69 #7
Chapter 19: Damn Yoochun and Jiseok for creating a scene and now caused Jae’s condition to worsen.
Kattan69 #8
Chapter 20: Minyoung should tell all about her past...she shouldn’t keep it a secret any longer....cause it is affecting other people...even if it is unintentionally. Poor Jae has to suffer because of them.
Kattan69 #9
Chapter 10: Hahaha......they are so cute.....the chaos and mess. But they sure are going forward smoothly....even with parents approval...^_~
kyufever #10
Chapter 7: The last chocolate wrecker part is too funny lol cuteness overload. I dnt really know about ji changwook amd park minyoung, but with your story i ended up falling in love with these two characters as you made them anyway <3 hope to also read more of jaejoong and yunho