Coffee shop of  H a p p i n e s s

Pairing: Jaejoong + OC |  Free pairing

Genre: Romance, Angst

Rating: All ages

Word Count: 1327

One year ago, we met at the bright, sunny coffee shop at the end of my street. I was sitting at a table in the corner of the shop, next to a large window that looked into the busy lives of the pedestrians that strolled past it.

The twinkling of bells indicated your arrival inside the quiet, near empty shop. I looked up and watched you order your signature Americano, iced, no sugar. I watched you fumble with your wallet and laughed to myself as you dropped it. I walked over and handed it to you, smiling.

“Thank you!” You said brightly.

I watched you struggle with the bills in your wallet, before reaching over and handing the cashier my card. You immediately reached out, stopping me.

“I insist,” I said.

You nodded hesitantly and let me pay.

“In exchange, would you give me some company?” I asked.

You nodded once more. I waited patiently beside you, watching the barista flutter around busily, making your drink. Then, we sat down at the isolated corner, you sipping your coffee slowly.

We had talked about a lot of things. Do you still remember? We argued about the benefits of coffee with no sugar, the pros and cons of genetic engineered produce, and even which brand of computers were better. The conversation had been effortless and light-hearted. Your happy presence led my mind away from the dark abyss, the one that had bounded me with thick cables, suffocating me, and tearing my freedom apart bit by bit.

You asked me what I did. I told you I was an artist, a painter to be exact.

You asked me what I painted. I told you I painted feelings.

You asked me what love looked like. I told you I didn’t know.

You looked confused, but you nodded.

The next day, you were at the coffee shop again. I waved you over and you came, obligingly. This time, we talked about the greatest writers of all time. Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson. Do you still remember? We discussed the many tragedies of Shakespeare.

You asked me how I felt about Romeo and Juliet. I told you I felt nothing.

You asked me how I felt about the protagonists’ death. I told you I felt disappointed that the story had ended.

You asked me how I felt about this tragedy. I told you it wasn’t a tragedy, because they were still together at the end

The next day, you appeared again. Day after day, we met at the coffee shop. It was always a quick two, three hour conversation about the most scattered topics. We did not know anything about each other, with the exception of our names and our jobs. We did not exchange any other personal information, nor did we ever set the topic to our personal lives.

This soon became a daily routine for me. I would sit at the coffee shop, at the same seat, waiting for your appearance. You would always come in, order an Americano, and sit with me. Soon, we did not need conversation to entertain us. There were times where we just merely sat in comfortable silence, gazing out the window people-watching, our hands outstretched, our fingertips meeting with feather light touches.

I began to live for those afternoons. They were my very life-line, something that kept me anchored to this world.

One day, you did not appear. I waited for you. You weren’t there.

The next day, I came again. You never arrived.

The third day, I still returned. You still did not appear.

Slowly, your presence began to fade away. The colorful world you had so intricately weaved for me began to slip out of my desperate grasp. My life was returning to the monochrome silent film it had been. The film where I was just a bystander.

The memories of the two of us vanished one by one, like ink slowly disappearing on an old, yellowed photograph.

A year passed. How it passed, I do not know. I remember vaguely the me painting away, staring vacantly at my paintbrush dancing across the canvas, painting scenes that I know much too well. The colors I used ranged from white, to grey, to black, to grey, to white.

I never returned to the coffee shop where we met. It sat, unforgotten but untouched, at the end of my street, twinkling freely, constantly mocking me of my confines. It became the only part of my world with light, with color. I refused to let my dark existence to plague it and rob it of its radiance. I wanted to keep it as the only bright, sunny memory of my life.

The time I spent with you, at the coffee shop at the end of my street.

One day, I received a phone call. It was from the owner of the coffee shop. How she had obtained my phone number, I do not know.

She told me she had a letter from you. I told her I didn’t care.

She told me it was important. I found myself sitting at the same corner, same table, staring at your unfamiliar, yet familiar handwriting, letting your words wash over me in suffocating ripples.

Do you remember the letter? It was a goodbye letter. You told me that you were leaving me. You told me that you were leaving this world. You told me that I had made your last days happy. Made them worthwhile.

I looked at the date of the letter. It was from a year ago, the day where I waited for you at the coffee shop. The day where you did not come.

The owner of the coffee shop told me that you given it to her, instructing her to pass it on to me after one year of your absence. She said it with sympathy, patting me softly on the shoulder, before setting down a drink in front of me.

Americano, iced, no sugar.

As I let the bitter taste of the coffee attack my taste buds, I thought about the irony of the matter.

One year ago, my life had been a dark sea of depression, with me struggling futilely to hang on to a single sliver of hope.

One year ago, I had decided to give up, to let go of that floating log, and to simply let the whirlpool drag me to the depths of the ocean.

One year ago, you swam towards me, opening my eyes to see the light, forcing me to take another breath, to keep my heart beating.

One year ago, you dragged me out of the deep, endless void, tying me securely to this world.

You were the gravity holding me down, not letting me fall under again.

And yet…

You left.

For the first time in a year, tears fell from my eyes. After the first tear dripped from my chin, a steady stream ensued, pattering a cacophonous rhythm on the table. The tears painted color back into my world, dispersing the black and white, dispersing the emptiness, and filling it with life.

The light from the coffee shop slowly began to spread.

The world was no longer dark.

You had asked me what I was. I told you I was a painter.

You had asked me what I painted. I told you I painted feelings.

You had asked me what love looked like. I told you I didn’t know.

Now, I know.

At the end of a small street, there is a small coffee shop.

In a corner of the small coffee shop, there is a small table.

On the wall facing the small table, there is a big painting.

The big painting showed an angel, standing in a field of yellow sunflowers, its back facing the world. Its arms and wings were outstretched, as if it were about to embrace the paradise before it.

That is you. That is hope.

That is love.

________________

A/N: Let me explain this story a little. The first time I thought of this plot was when I was writing another fanfic of mine, called My Heaven, My Paradise. It was a DBSK fanfic that was Jaejoong, Changmin, and my OC, Hyun Ae. centric. However, I never really finished it, and I didn't want to post it because I found the grammar and writing style pretty bad.

What happened was that my school holds a short-story contest for our Idea Magazine every year. There's a winner for short-stories, for poetry, and for drawings, and by some miraculous luck, I managed to snag first place for the short-story writing contest. And this was the story I submitted. I stayed up pretty late writing it, initially intending it to sound something like Onew and Jessica's One Year Later, but it ended up like this, so... yeah...

I actually changed a lot of it before posting it here, because when I re-read it, I found the writing pretty damned terrible. I added a lot of parts to it, just to make it flow better.

I labeled this story as Jaejoong + OC, even though no names are ever mentioned in this story, because he was in my mind the whole time I was writing this.

But guys, one important question. Does the speaker sound like a girl or a guy?

And get this. This may seem trivial, but I found it so... coincidential. After writing this part of the story for My Heaven, My Paradise and for the Idea Magazine, I watched Jaejoong's Heaven's Postman. And remember, I wrote this first. When I watched it, I flipped when the girl ordered a Caramel Macchiato for herself and an Americano for Jaejoong. Because those were the exact two drinks I used for My Heaven, My Paradise, mostly because I wanted to show the difference between the two characters. Caramel Macchiato is actually my favorite drink, and it's really sweet, so I thought Americano would be the perfect opposite for it. And then there were certains scenes, like the meadow, that completely mirrored the "painting" in this story. So. Yeah. IDK WHY I JUST TOLD YOU GUYS THAT.

IGNORE IT ALL.

Good bye.

I needa do my chem hw.

This is one long AN.