Lee Jinki


I had come to “Cute Cups” only because there had been nothing else close by. But, actually, it had been a good thing there hadn't been. Let me get a little clearer on that though.


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It was the worst day of my life up until now.
Not only that I had lost the job I had left my previous life for, but I was now standing at the side of the road with my suit soaking wet, hair damp and shoes in my hands. When I had stormed out of the University I had somehow managed to trip and land in a muddy puddle, which caused everyone around me to burst out laughing. I had run off as fast as I could, only to have someone bump into me and causing me to drop my two hundred dollar suitcase my Mother got me for my birthday a few months ago. When I was about to pick it up again I had been forced to watch it get run over by a car.

Eventually it started raining and I decided to stop somewhere in order to get cleaned up. My mood was down so it took a lot of me to enter the only coffee shop that was open right now – a small corner shop a few meters away, painted in a cute baby blue color with the name “Cute Cups” printed on the sign above the door.

As soon as I opened the door I realized I had made a mistake. The shop was empty except for two guys sitting at a round table at the left. One of them had bright, blonde hair that covered his forehead, the other one seemed to be rather small and had hazel hair. Both of them looked up once I entered, the blonde boy's eyes widening. He jumped up immediately and hastily tied an apron around his thin hips.
“Hi!” he almost shouted and ran over to me, a small notebook suddenly in his hand. “Welcome to Cute Cups, where the cups and the shop are equally as cute! May I show you your table?”
I didn't say anything to that and just stared at him in surprise – what kind of ty introduction was that?
“Uhm …” when he just kept on blinking at me with his huge, round eyes, I kind of forgot what I wanted to say. The way I looked didn't seem to bother him one bit and, eventually, I just nodded and let him take me to a table close to the hazel-hair-guy – there wasn't much room to sit anywhere else.
“What would you like to drink?” he asked as soon as I had sat down. “Oh, wait, you don't have the menu! Do you want to – no, hold on.” he blushed furiously and ran off to the counter in the front, probably to get me a menu.

While he was looking through the small cupboards I used the opportunity to take a look around. The whole shop was painted in the same baby blue from the outside, but there was a lot of dust in all the corners and I swore I could see some spiders here and there. The tables, chairs and signs on the walls were just as dusty as the corners and the carpet in front of the shop, so I figured that this boy must not have had many customers lately.

“Here you go!” I turned my attention to him when he came back over, a rather old looking piece of paper in his hands. “Cute Cups's menu.” he put it down in front of me and whipped out his notebook and a tiny pencil. “Take your time!”
I just nodded, feeling irritated, and looked through it. “Uhm …” I raised a brow. “I'll take … the Sweetie Pie and … the Cute Cup, please?”
The widest of all smiles appeared on his face when I ordered the cake and coffee and he ran off just as quickly as he had appeared. As I watched him go I could see how fragile the whole of his body was and started wondering how he managed to run a whole shop all on his own – although … maybe there weren't many customers coming in?

“Hey.” I blinked and turned to look to the side. “Fell into a puddle, did you?” the hazel-hair-guy was looking at me with a smirk.
“… yeah.” I replied simply and tried to show him that I thought this conversation was done for with that. He didn't seem to get it though.
“How'd that happen?”

“I … don't wanna be rude, but that's kind of none of your business.” I raised both my brows at him and tried hard to tear my eyes off of him and the boy at the counter who was now working to get my cake and coffee done.
“Sure, sure, I get that. A lot.” his smirk turned into a small pout and he shrugged. It was interesting to watch his masculine face turn from harsh to friendly, cute and back again. “The name's Jonghyun, by the way. Kim Jonghyun.” he held out his hand to me.
“Uhm, nice to meet you. Lee Jinki.” I took his hand with hesitation and shook it, then pulled my hand back to myself and crossed my arms in front of my wet clothed chest.
“Nice to meet you, too.” a grin spread on his face now. “Him,” he pointed over at the boy at the counter, “is my best friend. His name is Lee Taemin. He runs this shop. Doing a fantastic job, really.”

“I can imagine.” I gave him a friendly smile. “He seems … well … nice.” when I tried to turn away from him for him to leave me alone he still didn't get the hint and just kept on talking about that boy and the coffee shop and so on – it was horrible.
“Listen, Kim Jonghyun,” I interrupted him and was just about to tell him to shut up when that Lee Taemin boy returned. He smiled at me real widely and put down the plate and cup in front of me before bowing to me and sitting next to his friend again. They were speaking quietly and only glancing at me from time to time, wide smiles on their faces – I didn't even want to know.

I just ate the tiny piece of cake and drank the coffee – it was both delicious, to be honest – and pulled my wallet out of my pocket. However, just when I was about to pull out my money in order to pay, Jonghyun turned to me and started talking again.
“Are you a teacher or something?”

“… I'm something.” I sighed heavily. Without even knowing he had hit a soft spot. “Definitely something.”

“So what are you?” he rested his cheek on his palm and looked at me with quite curious eyes. Taemin, who was sitting next to him, was just playing with his hair and seemed nervous, his chubby cheeks were pink.
“I used to be an elementary school teacher.” I said and avoided looking at either of them. “But … yeah, not anymore. I'm unemployed.” I shrugged at that. “Doesn't matter though. Not like I have anyone to look after.”

“Really?” Taemin suddenly asked. When I looked at him this time he blushed a bit and quickly looked away again. “Sorry …” he mumbled and twirled one of his hair strains around his index finger.
“… it's okay.” I said in a low voice and leaned back in the rusty chair, ignoring how it made a few uncomfortable noises. “My wife divorced me and my daughter doesn't really want to see me lately. It's difficult to explain.” I got lost in my thoughts for a moment before frowning and getting up once I realized that I was opening up to strangers. “Like I said, it doesn't matter.” I grabbed my wallet and pulled out a twenty dollar note. “Keep the change.” I put it on the table and grabbed my wallet. Before I turned around in order to leave I gave Taemin one last look and found it weird how my heart skipped a beat.



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What I didn't know back then … I would go and see that coffee shop many more times.





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