It’s still early in the morning. The cafe won’t open until the clock hit sharply at ten but at eight thirty , Manager Song is already in front of the cafe. Fumbling with her keys before she put the correct keys inside the key hole. However, the door is not locked. 

“Don’t tell me he spent the night here.” She enters the cafe and straightly goes into her small office situated just beside Luhan’s. She puts her things before walking towards her boss room. 

knock knock

When nobody answered, she slightly opens the door and peek inside. Upon seeing her boss lying on the three seat couch at the corner of his room, Manager Song -Song Qian sighed. The paperwork is scattered on the rectangular sized coffee table in front of the couch while few bottles of empty soju is on the table as well. 

This is not the first time she saw her boss behaved like that. In fact, she already lost count on how many times she caught him sleeping like a dead person on the couch. It’s always the same scene, paperwork and soju bottles. She always wonders on how he never runs out of soju because it’s quite hard to find soju in Beijing. 

Closing the door, she grabs the apron that she always hanged by the door and walks towards the cafe kitchen. 

Ailee is nervous. Today is the day she starts working there after she got a call from a lady that introduced herself as Manager Song. Apparently, the boss willing to hires her thus she get the job. Sure she had done variety of part-time work in order to support her expenses after she ran from the orphanage. She has worked as a waiter at the street stall, worked as newspaper girl, send milk to each house around the neighbourhood. But none of them are official as this. 

“Good morning” She greets while opens the door. The coffee smell has greeted her from the moment she steps into the cafe and soft music is playing at the background. Manager Song turns around and smile upon seeing her. “Good morning Ailee. Come here.” She smiles and makes her way towards her. 

Manager Song grabs a new apron in the cabinet and toss it to her. “You can wear any clothes you can but this apron only leaves your body once working time ends.” She nodded, slightly feel relieved on not buying new clothes. She couldn’t spend like she is in Seoul. In here, if she ran out of money, nobody is going to help her. 

“Good morning.” She gasped when a new male voice greets her. Turning around, her eyes met with a pair of doe eyes but the thing that keeps on making her stares into that pair of eyes is it full of sadness. The male clears his throat when her staring is making him uncomfortable. 

“New worker isn’t it?” Luhan asked. Ailee slightly nodded. I have seen this guy before. Manager Song handed Luhan the apron that has his name stitched on it. “Luhan.” Ailee mumbles. Luhan glances at her apron, “By next week you will get a new apron that has your name too.” 

With that, he left them both. Ailee turns to Manager Song, “Who is that?” 

“Luhan, the owner of this cafe. Age 29, a divorcee.”

Ailee reads the menu on the wall slowly. Although she is chinese, but somehow along the years, korean has become her first language, English then Chinese. So, to be able to understand perfectly what is her co-workers are talking about and to read the instructions on the counter is quite a difficult task for her. So, during break, she went to the nearest bookstore and bought a thick blank notebook and few coloured pens and highlighters. 

On the first day of working, she already get to know her co-workers. There are three of them, two guys and Manager Song. She got to know that the waiter who served him during her first time is ZiTao and the second one is Yang. ZiTao is two years older than her while Yang is the same age as her. 

“Have you finished washing the dishes?” Manager Song asks from the counter. Since she is new, she didn’t have the chance to take over the counter yet. Most of her work is to clean the table, washing the utensils and take out the trash. Tiring, but she knows why she was handed that kind of her work. She needs to brush up her chinese skills first. 

“Yes. I finished it five minutes ago.” She talks in her broken mandarin. “Okay, here is the key.” Manager Song handed her the key, “Make sure you locks the door before you left.” She turns around, grabs her briefcase, “Oh, make sure you switched off all the lights except in Luhan room okay.” 

“Okay.” 

“Good night. You have worked hard today.” 

“You too Manager Song. Good night.”

“Add a pinch of what on top?” Ailee mumbles with the chinese characters. Her forehead has many lines on it and the notebook is full with scribbles and her handwriting. 

“Himdeulro” She sighed and starts to massage her neck. 

“Cinnamon powder.” Suddenly a voice startled her, making she jumps and almost her balance the tall chair. She whips her head and saw Luhan, standing by his office door while crossing his arms. “What are you doing here?” She glanced at the clock on the wall, “It’s two freaking in the morning.”

Luhan smirk, “Doesn’t I supposed to ask that question? What are you doing in my cafe, two freaking in the morning? I thought your schedule end hours ago.” 

Just when she is about to reply, she just realised both of them are talking in korean. “Chakkaman.” She points one finger at him, “You know how to speak korean?” Luhan takes a step forward her and bend down her finger slightly, “It’s rude to point at people.” She then takes down her finger. “Sorry.” 

“Seriously, why are you still here?” Luhan asked. 

“I’m trying to copy this menu and translate it to korean.” 

Luhan takes a peek at the A5 sized note book on her hand, it is full with scribbles, lots of her handwriting on it. He also saw she tried to draw the decoration on the coffee that ZiTao excellence with. 

“You are not trying to steal the recipe right?” he steps forward and snatched the notebook from her grip. Ailee is startled. She is half scared and half anticipated on what Luhan is going to do with her. 

“Of course not. I’m going to learn all of the recipe and become a barista too.” Luhan is flipping through the pages and she even saw he smirk occasionally. Probably reading her remarks on certain pages. 

“Good. One month from now, you will have your own personal test with me. Let’s see how much you have learn after one month.” He glances at the wooden clock by the coffee machine, “At this time. two fifteen in the morning.”

He tossed the notebook to her and turns around. “Remember kid. One month from now.” Ailee is looking at him in horror and before Luhan leaves the cafe, he waves his hand without turning back. 

"I'm dead."