Soah would gladly admit she knew nothing of life when she was young. Even though she believed she worked hard, she probably could have gotten better grades. Had she gone to college and finished her year, maybe by now she wouldn’t be working in a grocery shop. Maybe she’d be at the head of a big industry. Maybe she’d be working in communications, or administration. Maybe she’d be a scientist. A firefighter. An astronaut, even. But, reality was that Soah was a cashier. Sometimes reality and dreams differed...

It seems lots of people hated Mondays. It was because that day signified the end of the weekend and the start of the new work week. To Soah it didn’t really mattered because almost every day was work day, including the weekend, sometimes. And if she really thought about it, she disliked Wednesdays the most. First, those days were often ignored as they were the middle of the week, but Soah disliked the middle of everything, really. Second, just the name, with all those unpronounced letters, like the day was trying to show the other days he was superior. The day she felt bad for, though, were Thursdays. Harsh pronunciation and the second “T” day, always bound to be compared to Tuesdays, their nicer sounding cousins…

“I hope you are thinking productive thoughts,” Kris said as he walked by on his way outside.

“Always…” Soah lied without blinking. She observed Kris changed the daily specials on the outside chalkboard. Cabbages were on sale today, how exciting. There was even a drawing of one next to the price. Squinting to see better, Soah noticed that it in fact was not a cabbage drawing at all, or any other vegetables for the matter; it was a smiley face. She could already understand the manager’s intentions: sales made people smile. It would have been okay had the drawing not been utterly horrible.

“Don’t tell him,” mentioned Suho with a smile, following her train of thought from her expression and her line of sight. “Kris is very proud of his artistic side and his pride would be crushed if you said it was bad.”

“I mean, art provoke emotions and his drawings definitely provoke my emotions so it is whatever he wants it to be.” Soah chuckled softly.

“Maybe you should do it, though. You don’t seem to be extremely busy and I’m sure you have a better writing hand than he does.”

Suho handed her a chalk and gently nudged her toward the door. With a slight hesitation, Soah walked to where Kris was standing. She looked back to her register to see that Suho had replaced her and was looking in their direction with an encouraging smile.

“Uh…Suho sent me,” she told Kris awkwardly.

He glanced at the chalk in her hand and pointed at an empty blackboard.

“So…” she started slowly, sitting down in front of the board. “What else is to be advertised this week?”

Kris gave her a puzzled look. She was sitting on the cold hard stone of the sidewalk like it didn’t matter, holding her chalk and spinning it between her fingers.

“You mean you aren’t here to redo the board I did?”

Soah blinked. “Why would I do that? Isn’t it fine the way it is?”

Kris nodded and told her what was on sale before going back inside the store and leaving her to think. Soah lifted her hand and just left it there. It had been a while since the last time she had drawn something or even wrote something as calligraphy. She wasn’t sure she would manage, after all, this was meant to be seen by everyone. What if after all that happened she just couldn’t draw anymore and she produced something ugly? She placed the chalk on the board and it immediately turned into a small squiggly line. She frowned; her hand was shaking.

Soah took a deep breath and glanced at the counter. Through the big windows at the front, she could see her two bosses. Suho was looking at her a bit worried and Kris was raising a brow but his expression was unreadable. Oh, if there was one thing she didn’t want it was to make people worry about her or pity her, especially not Suho who was just always so nice to her…

She remembered Minho’s words about her art and Tiffany’s when they shared their dreams together, and she started to draw, emptying her mind of everything else.

Quickly, the squiggly line was covered and Soah found with amazement that her hand and her eyes hadn’t forgotten and were still able to work in perfect synchronization. It took her half an hour, far longer than anyone else would have taken to display vegetables on sales, but Soah was proud of her work. It was Kris’ hand on her shoulder that drew her of her sort of trance.

“You did good, Soah,” he said. “Your work deserves to be featured next to mine.”

Soah gave a beaming smile and looked back at the board, unaware of the effect she just had on Kris. The text was clear and readable and accompanied with little drawings of food cascading downward to a grocery caddy. All of that was framed by an intricate pattern of lines in a true Art Nouveau style that Soah particularly appreciated.

Satisfied, she got up and quickly dusted off her pants now covered in white chalk powder. Soah went back inside the store and high-fived Suho as a sign she was here to relay him from the register.

“Thank you,” she told him as he was leaving. “That may have been a kick in the that I didn’t want to have to deal with but it definitely was a kick I needed.”

He smiled, seemingly understanding what she meant.

“It was my pleasure, really,” Suho stated. “If possible, I would like you to do all the boards in the future.”

“I would love to.”

“Also, I’ll always be there to give you that extra kick…” He blushed when he realized what he had just said. “Wait! That sounds bad. That’s not what I mean…”

Soah laughed. “It’s okay, I know you are too nice to kick anyone.”

For a second, Suho stopped and looked as if he was going to say something but changed his mind. He just stood there looking away from her. Soah tilted her head, brows knitted, wondering if he was alright.

Finally, he turned to her, gave her a very serious look and asked her: “It’s not a bad thing, being too nice, right?”

He looked quite worried so Soah didn’t dare make a joke or take it too lightly. Instead, her voiced dropped to a more serious tone and she looked him straight in the eyes.

“It’s not a bad thing at all,” she reassured him. “It’s a really good thing because I enjoy your company and I know I can trust you. You are a good person.”

He looked happy with the way she answered and left her at the counter to do some phone calls in his office.

Left alone, Soah was left feeling a bit jittery. She had truly missed drawing. It had been almost two years since she stopped and she remembered trying but being unable to create a drawing. Her pencil would approach the paper and Soah would be left staring at a blank page for ages. She doubted her drought was over, however, writing on a board was much less creative involvement. She didn’t have to pull at things in her brain that she preferred safely stored away forever. She didn’t have to create something from scratch, just embellish a mere grocery list. Maybe, though, that would be her cure. She was eager to do it again.

“Hey, nice board,” commented Chen as he came to get tape from a drawer of Soah’s counter. “I always thought you had at least one talent…”

He winked at his joke and Soah giggled, having nothing to retort to that. This drew Baekhyun’s attention as he approached them and casually leaned on the counter.

“Artistic talent, uh? I would have never guessed. The way you dress kinda threw me off-track.”

Even Baekhyun’s snappy comment got no replied from Soah.

“Yeah, you sure had us all fooled into thinking you had no taste” Chen added. But seeing as she wasn’t reacting, he changed his joking tone to a more serious one. “Are you okay, you look kinda dazed… Did you buy special brownies from Sehun? Cause if you did, next time I hope you think of your good buddy here.”

“No… I’m fine guys, really. I’m just happy today.”

Baekhyun stick his finger in his ear and proceeded to rub it. “Have I heard right? Soah is happy while working. Oh, what a day!”

And both guys left to do their own task, laughing together.

Soah was smiling to herself. She had done something great and maybe, just maybe, she could see a future for herself.

“Hey, can you move faster, I have somewhere to be,” a voice spoke and snapped her out of her reverie.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a man empty the content of a shopping basket onto her counter in a messy pile. She sighed and started scanning the items while the man pulled out his phone and started checking his mail. Rectification: She didn’t have a future for she was working in this forsaken place. Soah let a low guttural growl of frustration; even then, the man paid her no attention clearly thinking his time was more important than hers. Stupide Monday people, though.

When Chen walked by later, Soah earlier grin wasn’t on her face and she just looked bored and annoyed.

“Ah! There is the Soah we all know and love!”

“Shut up Chen…”

“Oooh! Even grumpier! And I was coming to ask you who you were gonna choose, but I guess I’ll keep that for another day.”

Soah blinked and a crease appeared at her forehead as she looked at her friend in total incomprehension.

“Oh Soah… One day you’ll know…” And Chen walked away, laughing to himself.