111. Coffee Shop Money
Lee Somin
The morning was perfectly long. Solitude, yes.
The weather stayed sunny and Somin kept looking from her window, sipping strong black tea.
This tastes a bit like chocolate with caramel.
A flower-shaped tea cup held a ruby beverage.
What a gorgeous color.
A small gift from Junu. He randomly gave a small light blue square of vacuumed tea leaves to her bag with a tagged message, "Give a chance to this one."
Knowing Somin wasn't much of a tea enthusiast, the boy attached a drawn tutorial.
How sweet of him.
Who knew tea could have this distinctive taste?
So far Somin only ever drank earl gray tea if offered, preferably extremely sweetened with honey and lemon at times overflowing with milk. More often it looked more like only tea-scented milk.
"I'm such a barbarian," Somin said to Junu as she drank it.
"Hey Somin-ssi, don't sweat it, as long as it makes you happy and the tea is tasty, it's alright," Junu replied while carefully holding his precious antique teacup.
Somin spent the last two years as a coffee shop part-timer to earn the ever-so-needed money so she knew how to make the beverage a thousand ways. Loving the roasted heavy smell of it always made her choose coffee instead of tea. Somehow, she started to add sugar even though she knew it was better to have quality beans and learn to love their natural taste. Life got harder and energy scarce so sugar had to suffice.
...
"Somin-ah why on earth did you start to work there, it's so humiliating," Cholsu said.
When she giddily confined with him, proud as ever, knowing their dates had become more expensive as the well-paid sculptor wanted to live the culturally demanding life. They walked to the very anticipated exhibition of Cholsu's teacher.
"I love coffee and I thought maybe it'll help with my introversion." She really made an effort to step up from her comfort zone.
Taking orders and talking to people was demanding and foremost exhausting. But the fixed shifts gave her a sense of schedule and she wanted to try to work at least once a week.
Dr. Jansen was very proud of her striving for progress in her deteriorating mental health.
"Ms. Lee, don't worry, try to see yourself there differently..." her calm and comforting therapist advised, "...the customers don't know you, so you can be whoever you want to be, there are no preconceived notions about you, grab the opportunity and take it as a game."
I'll play a game, it's a movie where I'm somebody else.
She would never admit it to Cholsu, but the change of surroundings helped her with focusing on art more.
I don't have to work all the time, right? But she still did pull all-nighters and work even more.
"It's embarrassing." Cholsu gave her a scolding look. "To hell with your asocial problems, you should have looked up part-time jobs in the field," he coldly stated.
"But here they accepted me immediately..." She was proud of herself motherless. "...and I heard it's really hard to find work in the field." She felt guilty.
Having much worse anxiety with the thought of part-timing at some advertising agency than preparing coffee for the people on a go. Not to mention she already had a few really bad encounters while trying to freelance, so it was pretty much a no-go. What was worse than people complaining about the lack of bubbles in their milk foam? Probably somebody else telling you that your art is the shittiest thing one ever laid eyes on, so please fucking amend it accordingly.
Somin shivered with that thought, no point ever disclosing these experiments with him.
"We talked about it so many times! You should strive for something bigger in art. Don't be so pedestrian!" the boy was annoyed with her tireless arguing and lack of drive.
"I wouldn't have time for proper school work," she tried.
Knowing a few stories of seniors who struggle to do both, but the part-time agency slowly demanded more time than school, the hustle there was merciless to the student's needs.
I still want to maintain enough time to paint. Somin hoped.
"Bullshit. Look what I did, huh?" he barked at her.
"I can't be like you," Somin whined, blinking away tears.
I fucked up again. You see, why do you have to be such a loser, Somin?
"No..." He averted his stare. "... with this attitude you can't," he finished and stepped inside the gallery door.
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🎨Illustrations of each chapter are available on my Wattpad acc, AO3 acc -klubickoArt🎨
