-Walk with me-

Co-Worker #4

            It hasn’t been a week yet and the new employee had already quit on his fourth day. Summer has only started a month ago and Suji has been watching one co-worker leave after the other weekly. Frankly whatever patience she had for meeting new people was gone. She knew that she’d be an idiot to expect anything from any of the new employees. They all just run away after a couple days of work; though she could hardly blame them, their manager was awful and a complete slave driver. Suji only stayed because she doesn’t have a choice but to work if she wanted to go to university in two months time. She managed to get into a decent university in Seoul but she won’t be able to afford it if she didn’t take up a full-time job over the holidays. It wasn’t an easy or preferable job, but the hourly wages were good and Suji wasn’t in a position to be picky.

            The FamilyMart Suji worked at was next to a popular park where their target customers ranged from children, young adults to tourists. The store was managed by Sanghoon, a 30 something year old man that has worked in the store from the day he graduated from high school. He wasn’t too bad most of the time when he hid away in his cubby office at the back but he was terrible to newcomers and tend to make the employees’ lives hell by giving them one job after another. 

            On the day of Co-worker #4’s arrival, Suji was put in charge of the store momentarily while Sanghoon made preparations. It wasn’t so difficult as Suji just had to man the register; Sanghoon made sure that the poor night-shift employee had stocked up all the items the night before so that there would be no complications in the morning. Co-worker #4 arrived five minutes early and Suji was only able to tell him apart from the regular customers because he stood around for a good minute before he approached her to ask where the manager was. At first she thought he was just another customer coming in to get something. He sure looked like a normal guy on his summer break. She watched him go warily and didn’t look away until a customer arrived. Co-worker #4 was definitely not what she was expecting. All her past co-workers were high school students in a pinch for some quick cash and when Suji first met them it was very obvious that they were her younger peers.

            Eventually Sanghoon appeared with the new employee dressed in the uniform. Suji raised an eyebrow when she saw that amazingly enough he was able to work the multi-coloured shirt and the tacky apron. There weren’t a lot of people that can pull off such an ugly outfit (her manager definitely didn’t cut it), in fact this was the only time she thought that their uniform wasn’t god awfully ugly. Co-worker #4 watched her closely as they walked over, Suji stared back at him with an unintentional frown.

            “Taehyung, this is Suji, she’s been working here for a month already,” Sanghoon introduced. “Suji, this is Taehyung.”

            Sanghoon went on to go over the rules and regulations again for Taehyung and instructed Suji to keep an eye on him. Not long after, the man returned into his office and left the two on their own. Like before, Taehyung stood around for a bit before he took his place at the second register beside her. As it was still early, there was still time before the hectic lunchtime rush they usually got. Suji shifted slowly on the spot and turned to face her new co-worker; he was taller than her so she had to crane her neck up slightly. To her surprise, he was looking straight back at her.

            “Aren’t w