Yooo ^^ Thank you guys for the 10 subs in a day :D It means a lot ._.
So, here's introducing our first character, Lee Jinhee. You all can forget about her personality in GANJ!, cuz this is her role here :P
And for the first time in my life, I made character posters xD Here's Jinhee's, right above.

J I N H E E

“I’m leaving! I’ll be home by six!” Lee Jinhee yells at the low tea table, her eyes shut tight. Yelling always feels good, like she has a lot of brothers and sisters, a mother busy cooking in the kitchen and a father busy scouring the morning newspaper for the day’s market trends.

But of course, the house is empty. Nevertheless, she loved to yell the same sentence every morning before she left for work.

Grabbing the house keys by the makeshift coat stand, she pulls on her coat, tightens the scarf around her neck and locks the door behind her. Sticking her hands in her coat pockets, she walks down the road, breathing the crisp winter air. It doesn't bother her that the cold bites into her skin because she likes it. It had snowed heavily last night and all around her people are shoveling the meter thick heap, trying to make pathways for daily human life to go by. Christmas lights are strung on all two hundred streetlamps that flank the sides of the snowy street. Fresh green Christmas trees are being hung with baubles of varying colors and the ever-present Christmas star on top. There is a hustle and bustle of busy festive season work all around her and she likes this.

“Ouch!” What she doesn't like, however, is being thrown headfirst into a heap of snow. Ruffled and scarf undone, she gets up to glare at whoever has sent her flying.

“I’m sorry!” A kid apologizes, his worn out gloved hands covered in snow pressing into the white ground, helping him get up. “I was- we weren’t- I’m sorry I didn’t mean to-“

“Ehhh, it’s fine already,” Jinhee sighs, brushing some particles of snow from her coat. “I’m okay, go.” She tries to give the kid a smile, but cannot and ends up scaring him with a deadly-looking grimace instead. She mentally slaps herself – she just couldn’t be normal around kids.

“Onwards, faithful twenty year old tea-shop waitress,” She mutters to herself and not wasting any more time watching the colorful scenes around her unfold, makes her way to her workplace.

The Oven, a bakery right beside the monstrous 80-something floors tall InfoCenter, is owned by a Frenchman whose name nobody knows. All anyone knows is that he visits once every two months, all the way from France, disguised as a customer – then again, no customer would waltz into the doors of The Oven dressed as a swan, not even in Christmas season – orders two croissants and a cappuccino, actually pays for it, and disappears to god knows where for the next sixty days. Last year she’d gotten a job as a waitress, and she’d been working quite efficiently ever since. She is only twenty, and she doesn't like to study.

“Good morning Jinhee!” Patricia squeals from the coffee machine as Jinhee pushes open the spotlessly clean glass doors with a tinkle. “We’re going to have so many customers today so- aaahh!” There is an even louder squeal as an audible ‘slurrshhh’ is heard. Jinhee sighs, Patricia must have spilled all the milk again.

Pulling on her apron, Jinhee observs her friend’s face as she swats on the countertop with a tissue. Patricia is not Patricia, in fact her name is actually Kim Minsung, but having hated that name ever since her childhood friend had stuck two fake horns in her hair and nicknamed her ‘Minsung the Bull’, she calls herself Patricia. That name doesn't suit her in the least though, in Jinhee’s opinion as her friend has very distinctive Korean features. But nobody says anything about that because Patricia could really turn into a bull. Nobody says anything about that either.

“So, anybody come in yet?” Jinhee rolls up her sleeves as she helps Patricia mop up the floor and the latter shakes her head. “No. Ah, wait, one customer did come in though and ordered a latte. I couldn’t make out if it was a she or a he, but the person did have three golden teeth.”

Jinhee freezes. Three golden teeth.

Patricia drabbles on as is her usual habit. “Ah, but though that was weird, I think having golden teeth is pretty useful. I mean, it’ll never decay. And you have a lot of wealth right in your mouth you know?”

A drop of sweat rolls down her neck. Three golden teeth. What did he want?

“But looks-wise, it looks ugly. You basically look like a Pirate from a movie, and I don’t find how that will ever be attractive. Well, not to me. But hey, if you end up getting a role in a Pirate movie, I guess that’s cool right?”

Is he after it again?

“But I guess landing a role in any movie is cool. But it has to be a good movie, like a Hollywood production where everything’s just screaming ‘perfect!’ not some cheap, dirt-road movie which has stupid dialogues. Hey, what kind of movie do you think I could do?”

After me?

“Jinhee?” A hand waves in front of Jinhee’s face and she snaps back into focus. For a minute the room seems to tilt shift, but she shuts them tight and opens them again. Everything is fine.
 

“Are you okay?” Patricia’s big blue contact lens eyes stare back at her, concern laced in them. Jinhee quickly nods. “Yep. Just… spaced out for a second. Are we done here?”

“Yeah it’s all clean.” The other girl stares hard into Jinhee’s eyes once more before turning away with the mop held in her arms like a precarious treasure. “Hey, look, we have our second customer.” She walks away to greet them and take their order as Jinhee rubbs her temples and leans her head against the cool tiled wall. She looks at the marble floor reflecting the dim lighting right above her head.

The only reason she’d gotten the vacancy at The Oven was because she knew how to speak English. The Oven is no ordinary bakery, it is very expensive, very posh and not simply because. The little bakery has a very high reputation for selling the best bread, best croissants, best coffee, best apple Danish, best whatever else you could find there. Scores of tourists drop in to have a taste of one of the most famed bakeries in Seoul. Not only that, but because it is sheltered right under the gigantic shadow of the InfoCenter right next to it, plenty of employees and officials from every which department of the many numerous offices, speaking every which language would pick up their lunch or tea or visit after work hours. She was lucky to get the job too, the pay-cheque is a sizeable amount.

The place has an air of professionalism, even if it is just a bakery. There is a strict uniform, and strict code of conduct and you couldn’t let any customer leave without receiving a satisfied beam from them. Any deviation from these rules would put you under the scanner – but under whose scanner, and who was watching, nobody knows.

“Jinhee! Stop spacing out already!” Patricia hisses in her ear, once again snapping Jinhee back into focus. “We have more customers you idiot. Focus!” Getting a light slap on the back, Jinhee tries to ignore the budding headache and forces her feet to move. Customers started pouring in even though it was as early as 9am, and she had to do her best today too.

>>----------------<<

“Oh man, I’m beat!” Patricia yawns loudly at 9pm in the evening as she stretches her arms over her head. “I admire people who have to do waaaay harder work than this, they really deserve to get more than what we’re paid. I could just jump into a stack of hay now and sleep for three hundred years.”

“Yeah, sure. You, and a stack of hay. What happened to that hi-fi millionaire life you always dream of?” Jinhee chuckles, as she plops down on an empty white chair and rotates her shoulders. Patricia huffs.

“Shut up about that already. You’ll regret making fun of my dream when I sail in a yacht one day.” A tissue plane comes swooping in Jinhee’s way and she catches it, laughing.

“Okay, okay, sorry Miss Princess.” She chuckles again, smoothening it and placing it back into the tissue stand. It is late, and the customers are dwindling, there is hardly anybody inside.

“So, what are you doing during the weekend?” Weekends are not their shifts. There are two guys who work the weekend shifts instead. Jinhee waves her hand dismissively as she sips on her cappuccino. “Eh, lie around. Watch TV. Watch… anime.”

Patricia stares at her with a disdainful expression. “What… you still watch that? Jeez, you’re twenty already, grow up.” Jinhee scowls immediately.

“Who says you can’t watch anime when you’re twenty?” She demands. “Who says I have to grow up anyways?”

“Oh come on, you may be a kid at heart and in your head and I know that. But nobody who doesn’t know you will ever guess, and you know why?” Patricia smirks, twirling a straw expertly between two fingers.

“Why?” Jinhee asks, still scowling.

“Because when you’re outside, you have this expression that looks like ‘I request you to please go yourself’. You look so serious and thoughtful. But well,” She sighs, trying to stifle her laughter. “I guess kids are kids. You’ll always be one.” And then she bursts into laughter and Jinhee catches her infectious bout of laughter and doubles up too.

“Wha- I never knew I looked like that! Well, thanks,” Jinhee said and wipes a tiny tear from the corner of her eye. “But anime’s so cool, you can’t deny that.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever. Hey, listen,” Patricia’s eyes sparkles as she leans toward Jinhee with a grin. “Since you’re not doing anything on Saturday, you should come with me.” The grin grows wider.

“Um… why?” Jinhee stares at her doubtfully.

“Because… it’ll be fun.”

“Yeah I’m not buying that. Why, what’ve you planned this time? Last time I came with you, we nearly went to jail because you accidentally pushed those three kids into the water pool at the amusement park. They didn't know to swim.”

“That was ages ago, stop bringing that up.”

“That was last Sunday.”

“Okay! Fine! But I promise, we’re not getting into any trouble this time, just listen!” The blue eyed, blonde haired airhead grins further. “I got VIP tickets to front row seats to Yeung’s concert on Saturday!”

“Okay. Who is that?”

“Stop kidding!”

“Fine, Patricia, but I’m not interested in pop singers you know…”

“Just come with me. And Yeung isn’t pop. She’s everything.”

“I think I’ll watch Death Note instead.”

“You’ve watched that five times.”

“I never get tired. You should watch it too, you’re the only human who hasn’t watched Death Note.”

“I think I’ll maintain the record. Anyway, you’re coming.”

“No.”

“Yep, you’re coming.”

>>----------------<<

Lee Jinhee trudges upwards, her breath coming out in puffs as she walks back home. It is nine thirty and her street is dark, the only sources of light being three street lamps that are lit. The Christmas lights hasn't been lit yet. Her house stands at the top of a slightly upward sloping street, the one she trudges up now.

Her street, in contrast to the streets on which The Oven stood is not sophisticated or posh at all. In fact it is one of those streets among the many in inner Seoul where drunk men play cards and bash each other up. But usually that is only after 12am, and there aren't any such games played anywhere near her house. In either case, it is a street where a normal middle class family, who couldn’t own a house in a much more decent neighborhood, would reside. And she falls into that category, except that in her case, she is the sole member of the family.

The woman who lives next to her and owned five scruffy children was surprised when Jinhee told her she was working at The Oven. Word quickly spread around the small neighborhood like wildfire, much to Jinhee’s dislike. She hated when other people passed on news about her life like a beach ball, back and forth. She’d regretted saying it afterwards, but her spick and span black and white uniform did attract curiosity and attention. Many of the people living in the street have simple jobs – government clerks, office clerks, wives who would run shops in the marketplace.

She pulls out the keys, humming to herself a tune which she didn’t know, and promptly drops them. Cursing under her breath – Jinhee didn’t curse much, only when nature seemed to hate the things she did, which is pretty much always -  she crouches down to pick them up. She can't see the glint of the stainless steel even in the dim light and she fumbles around. But then she sees a glint. And it is not of keys.

It is the glint of three golden teeth.

>>----------------<<