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His hands were slightly worn from the mop in his hands, cleaning up yet another spill from a guest who had been careless to knock over their drink. Their third drink, from a guest who definitely could not hold their liquor. He glanced at the clock, it was almost 20:00, it wasn’t close to close time but if you had been working since 12:00, 20:00 felt close enough to 0:00. If he can survive these last hours of hell he can go home and rest. Finally..
He sighed, coughing slightly as the smoke from the barbeque grills around him filled the room. Eyes tearing up slightly, the waiter quickly retreated to the back, pulling the mop and bucket behind him before he went into a coughing fit in front of the customers. That’d be a bad look— he’d most certainly get an earful from his boss and he would never want that.
Suddenly a coworker, one of the newer members of the team who had no choice but to keep this job for a lack of money despite the fact she was not suited to the harshness of customer service jobs, ran up to him. “Assistant Manager-nim… there’s some odd guests… I’m too scared to handle their table, could you do it?” she pleaded.
He sighed, running his hand through his hair, while she was new she was still rather earnest. If she was asking for help, it was really serious. “What was odd about them? If it’s as bad as you make it sound… shouldn’t you have refused service to them?”
The girl shuffled her feet, fidgeting with her hands nervously.. “Ah… I’m sorry. I would have but something about the pair of them seemed ominous. Well, um. Yeah… Honestly I thought that I maybe should’ve called the police… but not on them! For them…”
The response was frankly baffling, she definitely should’ve refused service to this pair. But they were already sitting at a table, and were probably already looking through the menu. He sighed, ’What trouble did you get us into this time?’ he wanted to say, but because he’s a gracious assistant manager and senior he refrained.
“I wanted to refuse them… I really did… but,” she bit her lip, hesitating, “it was like there was a voice in the universe telling me not to… that it was important for the plot—”
The worker quickly interrupted his coworker, “Would you like to take the rest of the night off? It sounds like you’re not feeling too well… could the heat be getting to you?” what she had uttered had sounded absolutely ridiculous. He felt genuinely concerned for her mental stability.
“No! I’m fine, really, truly!”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely!”
“Okay… but please drink some cold water and rest for a bit,” he sighed, pinching the space between his brows in exasperation. “I can handle the guests, what table are they at?”
“Oh! That’s another thing that was odd about them… Well, first of all they chose their own seats… One of them was a rather normal looking office worker, but when they passed by Table 4 he started freaking out and insisted on leaving. The other… guest… took them to Table 7,” she reported.
“Huh, that’s the table in the back corner…” It’s as if they have something to hide… he shook off his thoughts, he shouldn’t judge the customers before he met them. He handed a cold plastic water bottle to his junior before heading out again, checking the direction of Table 7.
The first person he noticed was the man with the short brown hair and immediately blanched. His pupils were a glowing blazing blue that was most definitely unnatural. What the hell— No! Most importantly this guy’s entire head was bleeding! Yes it looked dry by now but the blood flaked on his face was disturbing and extremely terrifying! He tried to avert his gaze to his companion and only saw that the office worker had dead eyes, so dull that he almost didn’t notice the faded red in his pupils, almost. There’s no way either of these eye colors were natural… This man felt like a walking dead man, disturbing him a great amount.
The quick movements of the brown haired man’s hands caught his eye— hold on— did this guy have a whole scar across his neck? What? There was no way this guy wasn’t cosplaying someone— but who? He wracked his head, he hadn’t heard of any popular characters recently who had such a gruesome design… and surely people would only be brave enough to cosplay a popular media in public…
The demeanors of the pair were completely different. The office worker’s shoulders sagged, his head hung forward, at first he had thought it was because he was hunched over the menu but when he had finished gesturing what he wanted to his partner he straightened up a bit. Just the littlest bit.
The waiter was getting a bit worried about approaching this table, just watching them from afar was enough to disturb him, he quickly made his way to the aisle they were seated at. The man with blue eyes waved him over, he must have noticed the way the worker was staring at them.
Out of natural instinct, he analyzed the floor and tables around him as he approached Table 7, were those little blood drops on the floor? Sure they had raw meat but it wasn’t that raw… his eyes followed the trail to the legs under Table 7. One of the knees of the scar-neck man had a gash that was bleeding out slowly.
Surely this was a biohazard? This man came in with his old looking bicycle that he just noticed was leaning against the wall next to them (it was hard to see in the angle he was previously at) bleeding out and thought to bring his living corpse of a friend— who didn’t even look like he wanted to be here?!
He already had a headache from the smoke, he felt the migraine from this pair coming on soon. He was quick to take down the orders of the eye-injury neck scar man. He paused, before ordering two of the same thing. The waiter noticed how the blue-pupiled man glanced over at the office worker to gauge a reaction from him, but he simply stared ahead— as dead eyed as ever. Ah no— something was odd about this guy… rather than meeting his eyes, or the eyes of his companion he was staring at his neck. He could kind of understand him, well he mostly understood that dead look in his eyes. The waiter had the same expression himself after particularly tough weeks, but it seemed like this man had stayed this way for months... easily years...
Right… something was definitely disturbing about the neck scar, but surely that wasn’t all? What about the very recent very gruesome eye injury? It was taking all of the worker’s willpower to keep his calm and make sure he was giving them the utmost customer service.
He quickly left, the heel of his foot accidentally hitting the wheel of the bike and causing it to rattle, but the sound of it didn’t seem to startle either of them. One too focused on the other, the other too focused on… nothing.
The kitchen was quick to prepare their orders, and he was quick to set the plates of meat before the two. The office worker checked his watch, as if he was tracking the amount of time it had taken for the food to arrive. It ticked the waiter off a little, everyone was trying their best here! And the two of them being customers was already disruptive. He tried not to listen in on their conversation, it was rather one-sided anyway but he couldn’t help but pick up on a few details… he talked as if he were a secret agent for the government— seriously, this guy was demented. He was so wrapped up in playing his character, no wonder his companion looked so dead— he had to deal with this?
He internally sighed as he set down a bottle of soju and two shot glasses, the final part of their order. The “agent” seemed insistent that they wouldn’t need any more rounds of anything, that this was enough. Well.. alright. He’d try to keep an eye on the table anyway to clear their dishes.
A large party of people chattered excitedly as they entered… Was it someone’s birthday today?! He quickly took his tray back to the kitchen making sure to tend to the party.
He became so occupied with settling the group down, making sure they wouldn’t grumble too much when he said they didn’t have a table for them at the moment because such a large group required a reservation that he had completely forgotten about the odd pair.
By the time everything had settled with the party and they were enjoying a couple rounds of food, he remembered to check up on them. He had completely forgotten to grab their plates! His eyes narrowed, there were at least two more bottles of alcohol on their table that he knew their restaurant did not sell. What is with people and bringing their own alcohol?!
It was obvious it was the “agent” who brought the unknown alcohol, as he was eagerly pouring shot after shot into his companion’s glass who just drank it without question. He felt bad for him. At least there was finally a little color to his face, but only a faint red dust. Otherwise, he looked entirely unaffected by the alcohol.
The “agent” seemed to be telling him something, his gaze lowered as if his voice had softened, perhaps from the alcohol? The waiter prayed that he wouldn’t fall asleep right here, honestly he probably should’ve called the hospital already, how that man hadn’t already dropped dead was a miracle to him.
He watched as the “agent’s” hand reached out, cradling the face of the office worker in front of him who only stared at him with the same blank expression. He was getting increasingly concerned and disturbed… this behavior was kinda…
The agent then moved his hand to grab the hand of the office worker, the way his gaze darkened and his eyes held this agonized look. The water almost felt bad for him. But then he took the office worker’s hand and pressed it against his injured eye— like a freak.
The office worker shows the first reaction he’s had the entire night— jerking his hand away with a fright, but the hand of the agent clenches, holding the office worker’s hand tighter. The waiter hadn’t realized he was close enough to see the whites of his knuckles showing, causing the office worker’s fingers to dig into the almost closed wound on the agent’s eye.
The agent whispered a few words, the concern and the fervent care in his eyes, burning with conviction didn’t match the sketchiness of his actions.
“Nothing happened to me,” the office worker said in a light tone, his face still stone. The agent lets the office worker’s hand go, leaning back in his seat with somewhat of an agonized look on his face.
“The Kim Soleum I used to know was an exceptional liar.” What kind of name was that?
He paused. “The Kim Soleum I used to know would have convinced me that he was fine, and then I would have never been able to find him outside the same building again. That Kim Soleum wouldn’t give me this broken look with the confidence that he looks happy.”
This guy sounded like he was in love with this Kim Soleum guy— maybe the waiter did feel a bit of sympathy for him… No! He had to shake it off like he has every time. These horrible customers, coming in— causing a scene. Bleeding all over the place and leaving dirty tire tracks from his bike on the floor.
Being suspiciously intimate with a corpse of a man, bringing his own alcohol, not even sparing any of the workers a glance or having any common courtesy for these poor part-time workers— many of whom are just students. Not giving any sort of consideration to them— no thought of “Hey! Maybe I should treat my wounds before I go eat out in public!” Absolutely no consideration at all!
The worker already had to close down their aisle to prevent the biohazard from spreading— and for some odd plot reason he couldn’t kick these guys out—! Heck, that wasn’t even the worst part— the author hadn’t even bothered to give him a name! Or a face! He only existed to suffer, a third wheel to this homosexual tomfoolery.
Kim Soleum, somehow still being able to stand the “agent” before him, reached for another glass of alcohol. It was maybe soju, maybe not. The worker still didn’t know and at this point he didn’t care.
“It didn’t work, did it? Whatever you planned to do to me.” This “agent” guy was starting to sound real suspicious. He grew silent— didn’t he know that silence was basically admitting guilt? Did he have to call the police on this guy rather than for this guy? His junior probably thought he had gotten beat up but clearly he got beat up for a reason!
He decided this was probably the perfect opportunity to clear the plates from their table. The two remained silent as he stacked the bowls in his hands and walked away, eyeing the last bowl of meat that neither of them had touched... Were they going to cook that or? Were they aware that there was a fee if you didn’t finish your food? He was at the edge of the aisle when he heard the agent’s voice reply once more. Did they even notice he came by?!
“It didn’t. You still don’t see me,”. Was this guy one of those emo guys who go “You will never understand me…” Did he think that getting his friend…? Boyfriend? Situationship? Drunk would make him understand him? This… This.. terrible person…
“I’m not going to. I’m not him.” He didn’t want to think about the implications of this sentence.
“You say that like he’s a different person.”
“Yes, he was a person.” Now the waiter wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but it really sounded like the “agent” was projecting his dead boyfriend on the office worker or something… he crode internally.
“What do you mean?” the “agent’s” voice rose, “What do you mean he was a person?” Damn the waiter didn’t even need to eavesdrop anymore— the whole restaurant could hear him.
He wasn’t facing Table 7, but he could see the other guests as he made his way to the counter to set the dirty dishes. Thankfully the large party was chattering too loud so that most people had heard them over the shouting, but there were still a few customers that turned their heads.
He set the empty bowls on the counter, turning around to check on the pair. Kim Soleum was speedwalking away from the table, the “agent” standing up at the table shouting after him. The office worker made a turn— wait that wasn’t the way to the exit— his jaw dropped when the office worker forced one of the windows open and started climbing out.
“Kim Soleum! What do you mean?” the office worker landed safely outside the window, speeding away with purpose.
The “agent” ran after him, dragging the bike behind him in an angle unnatural for a bike to move— making the drag of the bike behind him much worse than was necessary.
If people didn’t notice the shouting before, they had definitely noticed their escape.
The waiter crouched down, making sure he couldn’t be seen by any guests before quietly screaming into his knees— his hands clutching at his hair in clusters he knew would definitely mess it up but he couldn’t bring himself to care at this point.
At least they were gone now. It’d be okay.
A wooden stick thumped against his leg— it was his junior, with the mop. “I’m sorry… I can’t stand blood…”
“You work at a Korean BBQ restaurant! You see blood every day! You insisted on staying so just clean it up,” he held himself back from yelling, his eyes wavering under the tears, pleading.
“...Fine,”
At least she felt some remorse for the hell she put him through.