There was the feeling of a storm brewing. A storm of human dimensions and of titanic proportions. Everything hushed. Even the motes in the air stopped in anticipation of what was coming. Even the girls forgot to breathe in anticipation.
Even JooHyun was waiting, even though she already knew the Tempest coming. However, she was watching the others, not the kitchen door. There was a near sadistic gleam to her eye. The only thing that robbed that look of malice was the knowledge of how hard they were about to be hit. There was more sympathy than sadism.
The sympathy was from her remembering the first time that she met this pest. And she was a pest. She knew how wound up she made people and reveled in the chaos. Like JooHyun, there was no malice in creating the chaotic doom that was about to descend on the restaurant, but it was funny.
That was her excuse for most of the things that she did, situations that she created, and hearts she broke by standing still and breathing: It’s funny. She was something of a slightly less self-aware version of Taeyeon. However, even Taeyeon would respect the level of ‘jokes’ that frequently appeared around her.
No matter what humor spawned for the ?ther around her, she always would include as many other people. Whether they wanted to be added or not. Most appreciated it, but not all. The people who have known her for years have either come to accept it or know that there are times when it’s safest to just avoid her. Even some of the people driven away would, occasionally, look back in fondness at the antics. And then shudder.
Then there are the freaks out there, like Katie, which would look at it as a challenge. No one knew it yet, but the two young women would engage in a war of pranking that would be legendary. The scared and wounded would take decades to recover. The odd thing was that no one seemed to mind. They didn’t quite produce PTSD, but it was close enough to keep several psychiatrists happily employed.
The door to the kitchen opened. All eyes gravitated to the doors, only to be disappointed by the small, homely man with a dish cart who saw everyone looking at him.
He started cleaning off a table and said to the room at rge: “What?”
The man smiled to himself as he was used to this every time She worked. Since he didn’t get to do it often, he enjoyed teasing all of the customers. Unlike most of the characters in this particur py, there was defiantly some malice in the gleam inside his eyes. But his is another story.
The next time the door started opening, all eyes turned away from the man clearing the table – much to everyone’s appreciation. The homely man knew what he looked like, he also knew whom they were looking for. And it was not him. Even so, he could not begrudge everyone wanting to look at the waitress and not him. Just like everyone else, he was smitten with her. His main advantage over everyone else is he works with her, so gets to talk to her almost the whole night. He was more than a little smug because of that.
He’s even made a tidy sum of ‘tips’ from people wanting to use him to introduce them to her. He always says that he will try, but it’s up to her to say ‘Yes’ and meet them or not. He splits the earnings with her 50/50 and having a bit extra a month for beer money is nice. "Scam" is such a dirty word after all. Besides, they approach him, not vice versa.
The door opened and shut a few more times in rapid succession, each time to the amusement of the employees and the disgust of the customers. There was a pool next to the door on who was going to get upset first amongst the customers. There was this bet every week as there were regur customers. There were employees given nicknames for some of the regurs. Most of the nicknames given were obvious. Red Tie. Comb Over. Pocket Protector. Fanny Pack Man. Pimples. Jailbait (this customer was 25 but looked 12.) Too Much Cologne. Drooler. Cleavage. And other, less pleasant, nicknames.
The one who was forbidden to get into the betting pool was the subject herself. The reason why was that the House found out that they were all getting scammed by her. That was by being able to influence whom she taunted into a frenzy the most. She was literally ughing all the way to the bank when they found out that she was scamming them for betting on her. No one actually got mad at her because she started the trend of taking her ill-gotten gains and taking everyone for beers after work from her ‘winning’. No matter how badly someone wanted, you could not actually get mad at her. Or stay mad once she managed to get you angry.
The kitchen door opened again, this time, the object of everyone’s attention made herself known.
A tall woman, dressed in red appeared. Long, silky bck, tied up into a loose high ponytail adorned her head. That tail was as thick as a rge man’s wrist. The hair cascaded down like a waterfall suspended in a moment of time. Hairdressers wept at the thought of being able to work with her to make art.
Large, wide, deep chocote eyes peered at the crowd as they looked at her. Her eyebrows matched her hair, perfectly framing her eyes. Her shes alone were dark and properly emphasized her eyes into a magnetic gaze. She had applied just enough smoky eye shadow to allow for a slight cat-eye effect.
She had a small, pert, and perfect nose.
She had a wide mouth and full lips that looked like she was made specifically to smile. The power of her electric grin was the source of many fantasies. Neat, even, and very white teeth were the source of the color that was emphasized by the blood-red lipstick. Currently, the extra-bright grin was turned up to eleven. The ptes she was carrying were being kept hot by the force of that smile alone.
She had a figure that was all curvy in the most strategic pces.
Simply put, she was perfect. And if you asked anyone present, they’d agree with that.
She set the ptes down to the appropriate customers, smiled at them, and turned around.
She sauntered like a drunk cat over to Seulgi and crew.
“Are you ready to pce your order, JooHyun-unni,” asked Soo-young.
