The smell of greasy fries and the sizzling sounds of the patties on the grill keeps her on her feet as the quick pace of cars continues to come in and out. It reminds her of that Charlie Chaplin film she watched for a film course once, in which he kept working robotically, a never ending cycle. It summed up her life pretty well.

She’s been working at this cursed place since she was in high school, it seemed like she couldn’t escape it even after leaving college. It was fast money and Minjeong thinks if she were to ever hand in a resignation letter, her manager would shred it up into tiny pieces.

Plus, job hunting has been so troublesome. It's been a couple of months since she graduated, but she hasn't gotten any offers yet. Her nerves always gets the best of her during the interviews, and she would find herself back here knowing she ruined another chance.

“Order 192!”

A paper bag is handed to her, and she slides open the little window in front of the customer. “Thanks for waiting, have a nice day!”

The car drives away, and before Minjeong could let out a remark about how much she hated customers, she could hear from her headset another car just rolled up again.

“Hi, welcome to McDonald’s! What can I get you today?”

Minjeong wonders if they could identify through her well-rehearsed lines how tired she is of it now. But she has to make sure she seems at least somewhat interested.

It’s silent, the blonde thinks they may have not heard her so she repeats herself, “What would you like?”

“Ah, sorry,” a pretty voice calls out. At least, Minjeong thinks it’s pretty from how raspy and sweet it sounds at the same time. “I’ll just go with the Big Mac combo with a coke.”

What a basic choice, she thinks. She doesn’t say that out loud of course, she’s had her fair share of angry hostile customers banging on the windows before. One lady even threw a soft serve cone back to her. Good thing she was fast, and closed the window right at the perfect timing.

The order comes served in the paper bag in no time, and she is quick to take the drink in her other hand. Minjeong doesn’t have enough time to thank Yizhou. But she knows the other girl knows already how thankful she is, they’ve been in this hellhole together for far too long already.

When she reaches her arm out to give the paper bag, she expects for the customer to take it and hand her the money. But to her surprise, the girl from the car looks up at her and she remains still in her position.

“Um, are you paying with card or cash?”

Minjeong is beginning to wonder if this is some test her managers pulled, assigning such an odd customer to see how she would react. After eyeing her surroundings a couple of more times, she was certain there was nobody assessing them.

The girl in the silver Mercedes-Benz car remains silent, continuing to gawk at her with an expression Minjeong just can't quite grasp. It does make her feel weird inside though, kind of mushy. And if she were to continue with her stares for too long, Minjeong thinks she might just turn to putty.

The blonde also thinks she has to resolve this soon, because this is definitely slowing down the fast pace. And this could only mean some more angry Karens waiting for her. Yikes.

“Can you just pay now? Damn it!”

Now don’t get her wrong, this is not how she would usually react in most circumstances. Minjeong has always tried to keep herself calm and collected in front of the customers; she’s seen various different types of people from all walks of life. But she could only have so much patience.

Instead of giving her the money likes she expects her to, the strange customer asks, “Are you new here?”

The blonde’s eyebrows slant, “No I’ve been working here for years now.”

She watches as the customer’s jaw drops. “I can’t believe I’ve never seen you before,” she leans out more from her car to get a better look at something, “Min… jeong. Minjeong. I will remember that,” the dark-haired girl reaches out to give her a bill and some change, “And here you go. I’ll see you next time, Minjeongie.”

The McDonald’s employee watches in horror as the silver Mercedes-Benz car drives away. Minjeongie? Who does she think she is to address her with such endearment during their first meeting?

Hopefully there won’t be a next time, there’s just something about the girl that doesn’t sit well with her.

-

Minjeong is wrong, and she wants to curse under her breath the next day when she sees the same silver vehicle again.

“Did you miss me?”

She wonders where that sudden surge of confidence came from. Minjeong chooses to ignore the comment and she sticks her empty hand out instead, “Money please.”

“You’re making me think I’m a sugar mommy or something,” the dark-haired customer lets out a sigh before taking her card out this time. “Don’t you want to know my name? Instead of referring me to a ‘hot face?’”

The blonde hands over the machine for her to tap but she isn’t able to mask her disturbed expression. She will admit she thinks the other girl is somewhat attractive, maybe a little too attractive. The type she might daydream a fake crush on. But never actually make a move on because they seem way too out of her league.

So yes, she is attractive. Anyone with eyes could tell, but her personality however is a different question. And Minjeong is not going to feed her ego any bit more.

“No,” she concludes. She gives the girl her food and she expects her to drive away already. It seems like this will be a pattern, because the car isn’t moving an inch. “There are people waiting behind you,” she makes sure to grit her teeth to show how irritated she is.

“You sure about that?” Minjeong turns her head around a little and the one day she wished for there to be a long lineup, it’s empty. “We can take our time getting to know each other instead.”

The blonde considers calling her manager, maybe he could scare her off and the girl would never come again. But knowing him, he’d probably tell her she’s doing a good job in attracting a regular customer. What a useless prick.

“I’m Jimin,” Minjeong could see her dimple popping out, she tries her best to stay focused on her eyes instead. “But you could call me your future wife—”

Her hand is quick to reach for the sliding window; from the other side she could see the other girl’s appalled face. There’s just something so satisfying about how dejected she looks. Minjeong finally lets out a smile as she waves through the window, suppressing a chuckle.

Once the car eventually leaves, she pounds her forehead onto the window repeatedly. Maybe if she did it enough times, it would cause a reaction and her brain could alter and have that annoying customer be deleted from her memories.

“Rough day?”

Her ears perk up at Yizhou’s question, and she releases the heavy breath she has been holding in for too long.

“You don’t even know,” is all she could tell her.

-

The next week, when she hears from her headset that same velvety raspy voice, she decides she will not go through the pain again. It’s nighttime now, and of course her manager assigned for her to work a super late night shift on a Saturday. Thankfully, there’s not many people around this time. In fact, it’s rather empty.

So, she is quick to make her move, “Yuna! Can you take over for me while I go to the bathroom?”

Yuna started working less than a year ago. Minjeong made it her duty to take her under her wing to guide her since when she first started, nobody cared enough to instruct her thoroughly on the basics.

The younger girl agrees, and that’s all it takes for Minjeong to make her sprint. There was no way she was going to deal with that customer. Everything about her just irked her so much. The blonde can't understand why out of all the other workers here, that girl had to select her to trouble.

She begins to scroll through her phone while her back is pressed against the table of the sink. Just an hour more until her shift is over, Minjeong will make sure she'll take a long rest once she’s home. It is her free day tomorrow anyways, which could only equate to more sleep.

“Minjeong!”

The said girl almost drops the device from her hands, startled by the sudden intrusion of her mini-break. Well, it seems to be coming to an end now.

“I think you should go back and work at the drive-thru.”

That only results in one eyebrow cocked up in confusion. Yuna shakes her head, grabbing her inner elbow and directs her to go outside.

“Whoever this customer is,” she starts as they continue to walk their way out. “She said ‘I refuse to leave until I see my Minjeongie,’ you never told me you had a girlfriend!” Yuna opens the small gate to walk over to the workstation. “So, go talk to her already!”

Her plan of escaping the vicious presence of Jimin seems to have gone down the drain. To make matters worse, Yuna doesn’t seem to budge at her attempt of fake crying.

Minjeong has no choice, and she walks as slow as she possibly can to drag out time. She is not looking forward to this.

I should have worked at the back making the food instead, is all she could think right now. Only then she would not have to find herself in this situation.

That same, silver Mercedes-Benz waits for her. And that same, lousy smile is plastered as eyes meets hers. Minjeong wonders if she’ll get fired if she throws the ketchup dispenser on her face, or even on her treasured car.

It seems like it would be the only tactic for her to come to her senses.

“My Minjeongie!” Minjeong is quite stunned at the sight of the infamous customer’s hair, tied neatly up into a high ponytail, highlighting how flawlessly shaped her face was. “You should let me know your work schedule! So that I don’t have to come here every day just to see if you’re working!”

The blonde’s head shifts as she feels her blood start to boil. “You’re telling me... you’ve been coming here just to see me?”

Minjeong is certain she despises her now with every cell in her body.

Jimin gradually begins to sink into her seat as the McDonald’s employee's voice got louder and louder, she’s certain her car windows are going to shatter at any second now.

“Yes…?”

Minjeong braces herself, her hand grips onto the closest thing she could find—the edge of the counter—and she begins to mutter out inaudible words.

“Uh… Minjeongie? Y-You’re starting to scare me,” Jimin declares.

“Yuna, pull me back,” the blonde could feel the heat rising up to her face, and at this point it may have reached to her hairline.

The younger girl is already behind her, hands still by her side though with a perplexed expression at the sight in front of her. The blonde repeats herself once again before adding, “I’m going to do something stupid to that rascal if you don’t pull—”

Her sentence is cut short, the deafening sound of the car’s engine overpowers her. And to her relief, the silver car is no longer visible.

“I think you may have scarred her,” Yuna remarks.

Minjeong chuckles amusedly, “That was the goal. I better not see her the next time I’m working.”

That’s probably the last trace of her she’ll ever see.

-

Minjeong spoke too soon.

On her day off, she enjoyed her nine hour slumber. There were no noisy customers, no obnoxiously bossy managers, and the greatest part of it all, no Jimin.

She spent her day watching all the movies that has been on her “to watch list,” and even found time for her to brush up her guitar skills again. 

When she clocked in for work the next day, she thought nothing could ruin her mood. If her hand accidentally came into contact with the hot oil or some kid were to come and steal all the sweet and sour sauce packets again, she would still be smiling the whole entire time.

But she left out one part. She didn’t think a certain Jimin would be here again.

“Are you a McDonald’s meal?” Minjeong mentally counts in her head as a mechanism to distract herself from the woman spewing out complete nonsense. “Because I want to check you out.”

The poor paper bag starts to lose its shape, and the grease from the burger and fries are starting to stick themselves onto her hands because she is gripping onto it with her dear life.

“Wait!” Jimin calls out, startled. She is swift to lean out and snatch her meal from her hands. “You… you just crumpled up my whole lunch!”

“I did,” Minjeong confirms. “There, you paid and got your food. Now leave.”

Jimin, being the Jimin Minjeong has grown to know now, doesn’t leave.

“You can’t expect me to leave with this!”

Minjeong releases a sigh. Not wanting to drag this on any longer, she settles with, “Fine. I’ll get you a new order.”

She is about to turn to let Yizhou know but the dark-haired girl’s voice pulls her back from walking away, “Wait!”

“What?”

The blonde should’ve known it was too good to be true for her to have one day with absolutely no chaos.

“How about an alternative? You can pay me back by—”

The window is slammed shut once again. Jimin watches as the drive-thru worker is no longer in view before slumping back into her seat, hands already on the steering wheel ready to drive.

It seems like I’m making no progress. If Minjeong had waited just a few more seconds, she would have finally had the chance to ask her out on a date.

But Jimin has always been up for a challenge, so she won’t back down now. Either way, she’s already in too deep. Too deep into her crush on the blonde.

-

Minjeong is on her lunch break now. Normally she would either take a drive over to the small restaurants just a few blocks away and eat inside her car. Or, she would pack her meals in her most prized possession: a circular Doraemon container to eat in the break room.

Being around fast food all the time has made it unappetizing for her. Frankly, she can’t even recall the last time she actually had a McDonald’s meal. It might have been a few months ago when she left her wallet at home accidentally and didn't pack lunch. 

Today she chose to eat inside, and luckily Yizhou has the same break time also.

“You know she asked about you, right?”

Her calm joyous lunch comes to a halt at the younger girl’s sudden question.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“That pretty Jimin girl,” Yizhou drops her chopsticks to engage herself more into the conversation. “Sometimes when I’m working a drive-thru shift when you’re off for the day, I would see her, and she would ask me about you.”

Minjeong pauses for a brief moment in disbelief.

For how long is this Jimin going to keep going at it with her antics?

“What did you tell her?”

Yizhou gulps, biting onto the plastic straw of her drink. Minjeong could tell she was debating in her head if she should tell her or not.

“Come on,” Minjeong rests her hand by arm and softly squeezes it reassuringly. “I don’t bite, just say it.”

“Well…” the younger girl begins, “She asked me when you would work and stuff like that. Nothing too serious.”

If the other employee Minho wasn’t sitting a couple of chairs away, she is confident she would have exploded right then and there. But no, he had to be there chewing onto his rice cake and not-so-discretely listening into their discussion.

Adding another topic of gossip among her colleagues is the last thing she wanted to do. Minjeong could recall approximately two years ago when that ridiculous Renjun told everyone she was interested in him.

She’s pretty sure it was him who was interested in her, but she never had the guts to ask. Mostly because she knew if he were to say yes, it would just be a very uncomfortable situation. And the other workers would think Minjeong was some ruthless witch.

Minjeong chose to suffer from the countless annoying texts from the “McDie” group chat, despite how many times she denied it. Other employees kept teasing her every opportunity they could find. When Renjun finally quit, she could finally go to work not having to worry anymore.

Minjeong told herself she would never be the center of attention for their mindless gossips again. So, she was not going to let a repeat happen.

“Why would you do that?” Minjeong tries to whisper as quietly as she could, and she m