This was an Irko Week 2.0 prompt. For more info, check out terrafan4242 at deviantArt.
Smile
Smiles. That was the main difference between the two. No matter which server brought the tea, it was always delightful and well brewed. The quality of the pastries depended very much on which local bakery had been tasked with production that day, rather than the hands that delivered them to hungry customers. And the little shop's decor was always just a shade above squalor, as good as it gets in the Lower Ring, no matter what kind of people are around.
The difference was in the waiters. If the older one brought the order, it would always be accompanied by the brightest, widest smile in all of Ba Sing Se. If the younger one came carrying the tray, his scowl would be fierce enough to frost over the steaming tea.
Yet the two claimed to be related.
Each customer's reaction was different. Some of the younger customers preferred the angry nephew; he was good-looking, where he wasn't horribly disfigured, and he didn't waste their time with pointless niceties that could do nothing to end the war or balance the city's corrupt social structure. Most of the older customers delighted in the jovial uncle, because as good as his tea tasted, it was pleasant company they most craved at this point in their lives. Both demographics found it bewildering that the two men seemed to mostly get along, despite indulging in qualities that should by all rights drive the other away.
One day, a customer worked up the guts to ask her server about this. The answer came after a moment of thought.
"I'm holding on to his smiles, for when he wants them back. In exchange, he does all my frowning for me, so I don't have to. He's such a considerate nephew."
The customer couldn't deny that logic.
END
