Chapter Text
“So tall…”
The winter break before Jace’s first year of high school he got a job at a small coffee shop in the city’s central shopping district. It was a nice place with a good atmosphere, and, more importantly, was willing to accommodate his schedule when school started up again.
“Do you think they model?"
He didn’t take the job to make friends or anything, just needed extra cash for treating Vasco for birthdays and stuff. Yet, somehow, even he couldn’t help his dumbfounded stare at the other new guy, er… girl.
“She’s pretty and all, but holy crap. She’s gotta be at least 180 cm… no, 185…”
Jace had seen foreigners before, not many, but some. Though he’d never seen one like this before.
She had a good 15 cm on Jace, making him feel like an elementary-schooler as he was forced to stand next to her during their introductions. Despite her impressive height, it did nothing to hinder her beauty. In fact, it only seemed to enhance the untouchable atmosphere around her. Her pale blonde hair was pulled out of her face by a simply pony tail (as per company policy), showing off her deep blue eyes and slender features.
She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t frowning either. It was a strange non-emotion that made it difficult to discern what she was thinking.
Was it bad that he thought it was weird she was working here? He didn’t mean it in a bad way, but it was unusual for foreigners to get hired in a place like this. Usually they needed more professional jobs when they applied for work visas…
“I’m Em Seol,” the girl bowed politely in greeting. “I’m seventeen years old, and I’ll be going to J-high when the semester begins.”
“You’re in high school?” Jace blurted before he could stop himself.
At once, everyone’s eyes turned to him, some snickering at his awkward question. He couldn’t help but blush in embarrassment. Oops, so much for making a good impression.
But how was he to know she was still in high school? She was so tall and mature… she just didn’t feel like your typical high schooler, never mind freshman.
Em, too, looked at him, but her expression didn’t seem offended or even bothered by his question.
“Yeah,” she said. “High school.”
The shop’s manager smiled amusedly at them before giving Em a pointed look. “Please smile more when introducing yourself. It’s good habit for when you greet the customers.”
Em simply blinked and nodded her head. Satisfied, the manager moved his attention to Jace.
Jace smiled, bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m Jace Park, seventeen, and I’m also going to J-high this year. I hope to get along with everyone while I’m here.”
With that, the manager moved on with the meeting to go over any goals and new promotions. At the end of it, he made a point in asking the more experienced staff to look out for their new juniors while they got used to everything.
The rest of Jace’s day mostly consisted of following one of the store seniors around with Em while carefully watching how to prepare each drink. Their cafe offered many varieties of coffee, juice, teas, and smoothies, although the most popular drinks tended to be simple iced lattes or americano. They were showed how to properly prepare espresso, where to find extra stock when they ran out, and safety training. It was only after thoroughly going over everything that they were finally allowed to prepare a drink themselves.
At first Jace had been worried he would mess up, but thankfully their senior had been so encouraging during training that he was able to prepare the iced latte without much trouble. He handed out the drink to the guest with a polite smile.
Then, it was Em’s turn. She was surprisingly focused when she worked, her eyes concentrated solely on what she was doing and nothing else. Putting the lid on the hot latte, she made to give it to the customer only to pause midway.
All at once, her body relaxed, and it was only then Jace realized how unwelcoming and cold her demeanour had been before. Resting, her face was apathetic at best or at worst pissed off. It was about as expressive as a marble statue.
But then, as if a switch had been flipped, she suddenly smiled.
Jace choked, and he was pretty sure their senior was having a heart attack by the way he was clutching his chest.
“For you,” Em said to the customer, her smile so radiant Jay had to squint to properly see it.
She handed the drink to the customer, a poor wide-eyed girl who was flushed head to toe at Em’s heart stopping smile. With trembling hand, the girl reached for the cup only for to falter at the last second as it slipped from her grasp. Em’s hand shot out as quick as a whip and grabbed it before it could spill all over the flustering girl.
“Careful,” she said, still smiling that same damning smile of hers as she handed it back. “It’s hot.”
The girl wheezed something incomprehensible in reply, probably a thank you or something, and snatched the drink from Em before high tailing it the hell out of there as fast as humanly possible.
“Please come again.” Em waved to the closing door.
When it shut, Em’s expression slowly relaxed back into her previous unbothered one as if nothing had even happened.
The entire cafe was silent. The customers, the baristas, the waitresses. Everyone. Only the steady electric hum of the machines filled the air as room slowly shook out of its stupor, faces flushed and hearts racing.
Jace’s ears were ringing as the manager stumbled over, gingerly placing a hand on Em’s shoulder. The action looked was a bit awkward since she was taller than him, but nonetheless his eyes were serious as he told her, “Less. Less smile. At least 30% less smile. Please. I don’t want to die young, thank you.”
Things were a bit quieter after that, but it was clear no one was going to forget about the incident anytime soon by the way everyone waited with bated breath every time Em made to hand out a drink. Thankfully, there were no repeats, although —even muted— Em’s smiles were still potent enough to turn people red in an instant.
Thus concluded Jace’s first day of work.
Grabbing his things from the locker room, he checked his phone only to smile when he saw a text from Vasco saying he was waiting outside.
A locker open next to him and when Jace looked up he saw Em. She didn’t seem to be paying him much attention to him as she pulled a jacket over her uniform before swinging a backpack over her shoulder.
“H-hey,” Jace greeted a bit unsurely. If he was being honest he wasn’t really all that experienced in talking to girls, never mind one as intimidating and pretty as Em, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to try. They were going to the same school after all.
Em looked up at his voice, and Jace couldn’t help the flustered flush on his face when her eyes met his. Even when she wasn’t smiling she was just… she was intense; he was sure the weight of her stare was as heavy as one of Vasco’s iron plates.
Jace took a deep breath for confidence, clutching his bag strap tightly in his hands, but his voice was still slightly strained when he asked, “You said you’re going to J-high, right? What department are you going to be in?”
He figured it would be hair, or fashion or something, but of all the things he expected her to say, the last thing was—
“Architecture.”
Jace blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. He shoved a finger in his ear to see if it was clogged. It wasn’t. “Sorry? What was that? For a moment there I thought you said you were taking architecture.”
“Yeah, I did.”
An awkward silence filled the air as Jace tried to reboot his brain, trying to imagine Em in a jumpsuit doing manual labor. It wasn’t that she looked too delicate for it or anything, (in fact Jace was almost certain that she consistently worked out judging by her arms) but there was no helping the dissociation he felt about the almost preternatural, alien beauty that was Em and the infamous beef-fest that was the architecture department.
Jace furrowed his brows in confusion. “You do know that the architecture department is pretty much all guys, right?”
“So?” Em said, confused. As if it wasn’t already obvious that it was dangerous for a girl like her to be alone in a room full of men.
“Are your sure you’re going to be okay?” Jace’s eyes were wide. Wasn’t she intimidated or scared? “You’re going to be the only girl.”
Em’s mouth curled into the slightest amused smile. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Jace remained unconvinced. Still, he didn’t want to push since it wasn’t really any of his business and he don’t know her that well. “Well, we’ll probably be in the same class anyways, so if you need help or anything don’t hesitate to ask.”
Em raised a brow at his offer, amusement still apparent on her face, and Jace couldn’t help but feel he was missing out on some inside joke. “Will do,” was all she said.
Together, they walked out of the cafe as Jace dutifully ignored the envious expressions of their coworkers and customers. Their eyes pierced into his back like heated daggers.
What’s a cretin like you doing next to a goddess like her? Their eyes screamed. And to that, even Jace didn’t have an answer.
It had felt natural for him to follow her out of the store, not unlike a leaf who unthinkingly followed the whims of the wind. It wasn’t the kind of thing you questioned, it just sort of happened.
“Jace! Jaaaace! Jace, over here!”
Not far from the door, Jace spotted Vasco’s familiar bulky build waving at him from a nearby bench. In his other hand was a crumbled, empty box of milk with a chewed up straw. Another, untouched box of milk was sitting on the bench next to him.
Naturally, it was very clear for everyone around who Vasco was yelling at (he wasn’t sure his friend would understand subtle even if it punched him in the face). Em turned to look at Jace with a raised brow.
Someone you know? She asked without words
“Ah, that’s Vasco.” Jace suddenly felt very shy, as if he were a boy bringing his girlfriend home to meet his parents for the first time. It felt important that they got along. Though who was the parent and who was the girlfriend in the situation was anyone's guess. “He’s a good guy, we’ve been best friends since forever. ”
Em only smiled at him, a soft expression that was at odds with her unapproachable demeanour. Jace had to force himself to look away, choosing to focus on his still waving friend.
Didn’t he ever get tired? That was an awful lot of waving.
Oh, who was he kidding. This was Vasco he was talking about. The guy was as excitable as a sixth grader on a sugar high.
“Well, I should be going now,” Em suddenly said, moving to leave as her expression fell back into its usual resting blankness. “See you later.”
“Ya, see you,” Jace replied without thinking. A beat later his mind caught up with him. “Wait, what? Your leaving already?”
Em raised a brow. “I have things to do, you know.”
Oh, right. Jace could feel his ears heat up in embarrassment. She was probably really busy and had other friends to meet up with and stuff. Who was he to keep her?
“Oh, uh, right! I guess I’ll see you later then…” He looked down at his shoes bashfully.
Em hummed and turned to walk away, throwing a hand over her shoulder in a lazy farewell.
Just as she left, Vasco ran up to Jace with large tears raining down his face. He gripped Jace’s shoulders tightly and looked him in the eyes with eyes full of pride.
“Jace…” he whispered brokenly. “You actually talked to a girl. You’re so lucky… even though we made that promise to become wizards together all those years ago, I will support you.”
Jace choked.
“What are you talking about?! Wizards?! I just met her today!”
-
Jace ended up seeing quite a bit of Em after that. More than half his shifts were scheduled with her, a byproduct of their shared availability, which gave him more than enough to learn more about her.
Like how she didn’t own a cellphone.
Em was a very pretty girl, anyone could see it, so it was only really a matter of time until someone tried to get her number. He only had to wait until their very next shift until one of the waiters, some older guy Jace was pretty sure was a college dropout, gathered up the courage to approach her.
The waiter, Tom something, cornered her before her shift, blocking her way to the back to try and smooth talk his way into her number. He was handsome enough, Jace supposed; with carefully styled, light brown hair, and sleeves rolled up to expose smooth, toned forearms. He obviously took great pride in his appearance and worked hard to maintain it.
Too bad he was almost 13 centimeteres shorter than Em and ended up looking like a child standing next to her.
Though that didn’t deter Tom, as he boldly took out his phone in front of the crowd of people to very loudly and very publicly ask for her number.
“Sorry,” Em responded with a shrugged, “I don’t own a cellphone.”
“What?!” The guy was floored, as was everyone else in the store. Who on earth didn’t have a cellphone in this day and age? Even homeless people had them!
“Never needed one,” she explained, “I just use my pager.”
Coming from anyone else it would have sounded like a blatant lie, and yet, when Em pulled up the bottom of her sweater to expose her hip, there it was. A little black pager clipped to the waist of her pants.
Jace didn’t even know those were still a thing. Tom didn’t seem to either for that matter, as he just stood there with a blank, confused look on his face, giving Em the perfect opportunity to slide past him to escape.
She hadn’t even had the grace to look embarrassed about it, just shamelessly showed off the ancient piece of technology as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Naturally, this lead to even more rumours about her.
Was she afraid of being tracked? Was she poor? Were her parents strict? Everyone was too afraid to ask, but too curious to let it go, so they were always talking about it until it seemed that every time Jace went into work there was a new conspiracy floating around about her.
The latest one was that she was a Russian princess in witness protection program.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” He asked the next time he saw her.
They were sharing yet another shift together, Jace and Em, and were assigned to clean off used tables. As the new guys, they were often told to do theses kinds of less desirable chores, like doing the dishes or taking out the trash.
Of course, it was usually always Jace who was told to take out the trash, but that was besides the point.
“Huh?” Em looked up from where she had been piling cups onto a tray. “Did you say something?”
As always, she was the epitome of effortless beauty, but today she seemed a little out of it. Her golden hair was pulled pack into a messy bun with a few pieces that had fallen out throughout their shift into her face. Every so often she would push the hairs behind her ear only for them to immediately fall out again. She seemed tired, like she hadn’t slept in days and had the dark circles to prove it.
And as always, when her heavy, endless blue eyes met Jace’s, it was Jace who looked away first.
“I asked if it bothered you,” Jace repeated, awkwardly wiping his table over again even though it was already clean. “You know, the rumours and stuff…”
She had to have noticed them by now, would have to be an idiot not to. Even now their coworkers were staring at her as they worked, as if they would miss some important clue to her mysterious backstory if they looked away even for a moment.
Jace motioned to them with his head, and it wasn't until Em followed his gaze to them that their coworkers realized they'd been caught in the act. They froze for a moment, like a herd of deer caught in headlights, before tripping over themselves to appear as if they hadn’t just been creepily staring at her for over an hour.
One of them had been so flustered he accidentally spilled a boiling americano on himself and had to go home early.
“Oh, that,” Em said, looking away from the mess she indirectly caused like she didn't see it. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” She shrugged. “At this point it’s pretty much just background noise.”
Jace didn’t really know what to say to that.
Well, to be fair they weren’t making fun of her, they were just curious. It was only human nature to take an interest in people like her, right? The kind of person who lived in a world so different from your own. It made Em hard to approach, especially at work (not that Jace ever really saw her outside of it), so people didn’t really know much about her.
And the less they knew the more they talked. It was an endless cycle.
“Uh, Jason, right?”
Jace winced. “It’s Jace, actually.”
“Right. It was Jace… Actually, don’t you think it’s kind of strange so many people here have Western names even though we’re in Korea?” Em furrowed her brows in serious consideration. “Is it a trend or something?
It was something Jace had never considered before, but personally he didn’t think it was all that strange… Some people just had traditionally Korean names while some people didn’t. It was just the way things were.
Fortunately for Jace, Em didn’t seem to be looking for an answer before continuing. “Anyways, Jace, what I meant to say is I only have so much energy to deal with other people, and it’s not a lot. If I worried about what others were saying about me all the time I'm pretty sure I’d end up in a coma or something.”
Jace couldn’t help it, he snorted.
Ah, somehow talking to Em didn’t seem so scary anymore.