Aclaire’s POV

It was that time again, I waved goodbye to my friends at school and started heading towards my workplace, Juliette Café. Despite the weird name, the pay there was quite good for a teenage waitress such as myself. I checked the time and gasped,

“Crap! I’m so late!”

I literally sprinted across the street and to the road where Juliette Café was located. As I walked through the door my boss stood there giving me daggers.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Yeah, I know, I’m really sorry, this won’t happen again, I promise. To make up for it I’ll work extra hard today,” I said apologetically.

My boss started laughing. I didn’t think what I said was that funny or was supposed to be funny at all.

“It’s ok, you always work hard Aclaire so I’ll forgive you, just this once,” he said with a smile on his face.

I thanked him and got into my uniform. If you saw the uniform from far away, you would’ve probably mistaken it for a maid’s uniform because of its black and white concept but it’s not even close. I personally think that I’m lucky to have such a pretty and cute uniform.

Business today was busy as usual, there were so many customers after school it was crazy. I was so tired and glad that my shift was nearly over. I peered at the time and there was another half an hour until I finished. There goes another day.

It was almost time to close when a customer wearing a hoodie came in.

“Sorry, but we’re about to close,” I said to him.

“I’m just going to order some coffee, ok?” he replied.

Gosh. Rude much.

“Ok well, please wait a moment. I’ll be back with it soon,” I said.

When the coffee was ready I approached he hooded customer and handed him his coffee. He didn’t look up once and just said thank you. What a weirdo.

Customer’s POV

I took the coffee and was glad that it helped me refresh myself. All that running had made me extremely tired. When were those men going to give up? I looked outside the window and noticed the men coming my way. . Did they see me? Without a second thought, I stood up and ran out of the café.

Aclaire’s POV

The hooded guy suddenly stood up and left without paying for his coffee. Was he one of those people who ate without paying?

“Aclaire, what’s wrong?” one of my workmates asked.

“That guy just left without paying,” I said.

“He did what?” she said in horror.

“Well the stores about to close, I’ll be right back with the money,” I told her.

She was going to protest but I already ran out the café. No matter what, not paying for a meal is like stealing, and stealing is not right. I was determined to get the money back even if it means chasing him until I’m in another city.

I followed the street he took off at and finally spotted the hoodie he was wearing. As I followed, I noticed that there were some guys in neat black suits chasing him. I finally caught up to the customer when the men in suits lost track of him.

“Hey! You forgot to pay for your coffee,” I said. He turned around and just kept on running. Ok looks like it was time to play cat and mouse. I chased after him.

“Stop following me!” he ordered.

“You haven’t paid yet,” I protested.

He suddenly came to a halt, making me bump into his back. He must’ve seen something ahead because he grabbed my arm and started running the other way.

“H-hey, what are you doing?” I asked.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m being chased by some bad people. The coffee money, well I’ll give it to you when I find a safe place,” he said in between breaths.

We kept on running and running. Where was he planning to take me? He took a sharp turn and cursed. It was a dead end. Heavy footsteps quickly approached behind us.

“Men, we’ve got him. He’s at a dead end. Where are you going to run now Joon?” the tallest man said.

Joon? Where have I heard that name before...?

“Get behind me,” he whispered to me.

I nodded and stepped behind him. 

“Ok Joon. We can have this the easy way or the hard way, so which one is it?” another man said.

“I’ve always had it the hard way. Why should I change that now?” He said.

I could tell the men were getting impatient.

“Ok hard way it is then,” the tallest man said and gestured for his companions to charge.

A total of five men charged at our way and I couldn’t believe I was going to die like this. Suddenly Joon or whatever his name was ran towards the men and started throwing punches in their direction. I was amazed, that guy could fight. I stood there speechless. Suddenly one of the man came charging in my direction with what looked like a pocket knife. My eyes widened in horror, I wanted to run but my legs didn’t seem to listen. Frozen like a statue I closed my eyes and braced myself. I mentally did a countdown in my head for when that knife was going to cut my flesh…

….5

4….

3….

2….

1….

The sound of blood dripping echoed in my ears but I felt no pain. I opened my eyes to see just how bad my wound was only to find a figure standing in front of me.

“You’re going to pay for that,” Joon said and kicked the man in the stomach.

He cringed and fell to the floor. Joon turned around and I saw that his arm was cut.

“Are you ok?” he asked.

“I-I’m fine,” I said.

Joon’s POV

Damn, these guys were good. I managed to dodge their blows and starting attacking. One by one the men fell to the floor unconscious, suddenly one of them got up and rushed to the girl. I looked towards her way and saw that she was scared motionless. I darted past the guy and blocked his attack.

Pain shot through my left arm and I managed to kick the guy in the stomach. He fell to the floor in pain and I turned around to face the girl. The expression of horror showed on her face. I asked if she was ok.

“I-I’m fine,” she could barely say anything else.

She must’ve seen the cut on my arm because she lifted it up to examine the wound.

Aclaire’s POV

Thank god the cut on his arm wasn’t deep. I looked at the street sign and noticed it was pretty close to my apartment. This person practically saved my life, he didn’t seem to be the bad guy here.

After some deep breaths to calm myself from the shock I managed to say, “My apartment is nearby, let’s get your armed fixed,”

He looked at me blankly as if he didn’t understand what I just said.

“Why are you helping me?” he managed to ask after a while.

“I don’t even know myself. Well do you want to come or not, you know these men are going to regain consciousness any minute now,” I said.

He nodded and followed me to my apartment. 

*****

Ok so that was the first chapter. What do you think?? 

Thankyou for reading!!! Please comment and subscribe XD