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He leans in - very close, it’s not normal to lean in this close - and asks where his glass went.
He doesn’t look like he’s going to tip otherwise, so Hyuna just gets on her hands and knees and pokes the chewed straws on the tiles around until her back starts feeling a little wrong, like she popped a bone too fast. Nope, she says.
The blonde guy looks at the straws some more before handing her a bill from some small european country. Weirdo. No one even likes the cups.
They’re actually halves of the shakers Hyunwoo got from their foster dad. Washed them and turned them out and now they have twice the number of cups because the metal makes anything taste horrible. It’s fun to bring the smaller halves out for the occasional dog. It’s really only sometimes their owners get blueberry-salted-caramel -shakes-with-two-pumps-of-hazel-but-not-too-much-it-ruins-the-colour-and-for-god’s-sake-don’t-let-him-actually-eat-it.
Dogs can’t actually eat caramel, the jogger in shorts that said JUICY on the ass informed them at the counter as her pint-sized pup barfed all over the floor; they get all dopey and sick and then their teeth drop out. It’s the sort of thing Hyunwoo tells her when she’s washing the dishes and runs out of soap, so he gives her prime advice; to swirl the sudsy water around the bottle. It’s hilariously cheap and comes with a built-in handle that has three shallow pits for your fingers instead of four.
“Stick your pinky out”, Hyunwoo says, so she sticks her pinky out. People who swallowed soap at four know more about it than people who swallowed soap at five.
-
Hyunwoo likes to go to the supermarket right after they close up, instead of waking up at four next morning and fighting with old ladies for the last can at the reduce-to-clear shelf like a normal, decent storeowner.
There are no possible benefits in going to the supermarket after they close up, except for maybe the skinny, whole chickens that are left. They taste alright unless you take the skin off with your teeth, which she always does. Then the chicken feels like pulp no matter how much water you drink.
Hyunwoo says, “Hey, what else do you want?”
She picks up a heavy, cool something from the cart and shakes it slightly. Tinned peaches, Hyuna reads, why do we need tinned peaches?
“Well,” Hyunwoo starts “They’re going at half-price.“
Okay, Hyuna says, very slowly, why do we need cheap tinned peaches?
“Well, and, uh, you liked them when we were younger. You’d ditch me after school and go to the wet market, and when you came back you’d be holding these cans of fruits. They looked like the tinned kind, you know…
Hyuna stares, and stares, and finally she laughs and punches her brother so hard he’ll be clutching that arm for ages. Someone in the Organics aisle definitely turns to look at them. You idiot, she says, those weren’t even peaches. They were pineapples.
”It’s close enough. Put it back, here, we gotta jet.” Hyunwoo says a little peevishly. He wheels the cart over to self-checkout and dumps the bags on the miniscule surface. Scan all the tags and scoop everything up and they’re off.
They race through the parking lot with a minimal amount of whooping because they’re both adults, and then it’s across narrow streets and past countless barbershops with the striped pole hanging off their sign; Then they’re back at the diner, ducking below the awning to scramble up the dingy staircase two, three steps at a time. Hyunwoo unlocks the door.
That’s not fair, Hyuna sniffs. You grew taller. Longer legs.
Hyunwoo drops his bags on the linoleum and digs out the chicken to chuck in the freezer. “Goodnight, noona.” He says.
Hyuna watches him, still on the doorstep. The naked bulb hanging in the stairwell is the only lighting she has to go by, which doesn’t do Hyunwoo any favours. If his face was facing the light, maybe she’d be scared by how deeply set his eyes would become, the frame of his face. But it’s just his back now, a little broader than she remembers. He still looks young. She supposes that means she looks young too, kind of.
Hyuna goes in and says, goodnight.
-
Someone is waiting outside when she goes down and fiddles with the big chain Hyunwoo put across the glass doors. The lock only clicks open when you jimmy it a bit, rough it up.
”Hey!” the someone says, tucking streaked hair behind their ears. “You need help?”
Yes, Hyuna says.
Mizi grins, because she wasn’t raised in polite company, and pulls her ridiculously fuzzy coat around her shoulders. “I’ll help you if you come with me later. Like, during lunch break or something.”
Hyuna gives the lock a sad little tug. She says, this is my restaurant. That’s literally my lock.
“Yeah, you can’t unlock your lock. But me, I’m a real whiz with locks! Sua showed me once and I got it, like, immediately.”
Alright, Hyuna says. She knows Mizi would wear plaid sooner than she’d learn lockpicking, or whatever Sua is teaching her in their penthouse. If Hyunwoo was back from his shower he’d call her an idiot.
”Sweet! I’ll wait at the bus stop for you!” Mizi’s already walking off. She took the ninety-five bus here, most likely, and it’s one of those NightRider buses that only run from eleven the previous night to about five or six in the morning. God knows why when her girlfriend probably has the money to rent a limo and drive her everywhere. Crazy kid.
Hyuna sighs and roots around in her pockets for a stick of gum. She thinks for a bit about going up and grabbing a lighter, the pack of cheap chinese cigarettes. It’d warm her up. Hyunwoo gets them because most men don’t want to buy the slim types. There’s always a ton left. At the end of the month, right before the new stock comes in, the owner stands at the door and just about hands them out to anyone willing to shell out ten, fifteen dollars.
But, well, it’s September and not that cold yet. They need the pack to last for a few more weeks. Hyuna tucks her fingers into sleeves, trying and failing to blow a bubble with the regular gum. She used to be able to do it with any gum, even some soft mints. Hyunwoo would bring her tin boxes of them and make her teach him. Eventually she traded gum for long, thin cigarettes and made wallets out of the old mint boxes. Eventually Hyunwoo grew up and he knew more and stopped asking.
-
“Idiot,” Hyunwoo says, back from his shower. “you have to ease it open.” He kicks the door, crocs almost sliding off. The clogs have rubber dinos on them. Huh.
Nice crocs, Hyuna says. It’s a little tricky to talk around the tough wad in her mouth, but it’s something she’s perfected after years of looking all cool and edgy standing around chewing five day old gum someone stuck on the lift button. Hyunwoo stops to look at his feet. He’s also wearing orange Garfield socks. The commitment is admirable. Then he glares at her and goes back to rattling the handle.
“I’ll lock you out,” Hyunwoo says “and quit stealing my gum.”
It’s the tutti-frutti type, says Hyuna, you hate the tutti-frutti type. By now, Hyunwoo’s got the door open - three minutes, flat - and is hunting around for the rubber door-stopper. He always kicks it somewhere when he goes outside.
”It says fruit salad. You have to, like, melt it together till it’s slushy for it to be tutti-frutti.” Hyunwoo slots the stopper into the gap between the door and the sidewalk, plus the awful foam thing he bought at dollar tree that sort of hooks onto the edge.
Hyuna tosses the gum into a bin as they go in; watching to make sure it doesn’t stick onto the lid. Maybe she should get one of those - swing lids. She’d have to get it past Hyunwoo; everything they buy for the diner has to meet some sort of industrial vibe he wants them to have, but she’s good at making it seem like they’ll collapse if they don’t get that - hey! - that sign that says a burger without cheese is like a hug without a squeeze. Absolutely revolutionary. Every other restaurant on this street has a sign like that. You want us to close down, is that what you want? Anything can be industrial when the cheapest thing on your menu costs seventy cents and a blowjob.
-
The first guy that comes in has a huge, throbbing shiner. He gets a Better Than Your Grandma’s Pancake and a vanilla shake to go. Morning, Hyuna says, how’s the eye?
The guy looks hazily at her; he’s got this sort of rheumy gaze that floats and floats and never stops. Helium-balloon eyes. If one of them wasn’t practically swollen shut, anyways. He looks at her, then shifts a little to look past her where the pancakes are sizzling. Hyuna digs around for a disposable cup and the tub of ice cream.
Didn’t you come in last night, Hyuna says. She’s trying very hard not to laugh as she dumps the ice cream into the blender. The Guy Who Came In Last Night. It could be a serial on channel twenty-one. That, and the black eye. It’s really quite funny, especially since he was fine just yesterday.
She says, you asked me where your cup went, remember? The guy inclines his head very slightly. He looks scared, like one of those tiny birds you find on the sidewalk. It's the industrialist vibe. Maybe they should tone down on the industrialist vibe, get rid of a few things here and there. She should get Hyunwoo to dress up as friendly, inflatable Santa in December and go around with pamphlets that say: Please come to our restaurant. We have no money for heating. Free pictures with our mascot xoxo. There must be something telltale on her face, because Hyunwoo drives an elbow into her side. She hands the guy a paper bag with syrup smeared on the bottom.
He takes it very gingerly, pinching the edge between his thumb and ring finger. Reaches for his wallet with his free hand. Hyunwoo mouths, Ask him if he’s from Europe. It’s like this sometimes, he tells her what to say.
“Are you from Europe?” Hyuna says, after a beat. “We don’t normally take Euros. It’s hard to exchange them.”
The guy pauses. He slides his wallet back into his jacket and takes his phone out. It’s one of those pretentious flip phones that scream I’m stuck in the twentieth century but I’m still better than all of you. And they’re a pain to use, Hyuna knows. Mizi had one for a few months before she broke down on the metro because she missed some sort of Ticketmaster queue. Thing. The point is, they look dumb and have all the benefits of a modern phone sucked right out of their tiny screens.
“Do you take paywave,” The guy says, fumbling a little with the ridiculously finicky buttons of his phone. He hasn’t been using it for very long; you can barely see the oilstains on the plastic. There’s little clear stickers on the back, one of those cute Japanese franchises - chickawa. Chickawi. Chikawi. Chikiwi. Kiwi. Shit. “I’m sure I can - hang on.”
It becomes very clear that he can’t after a while. She doubts the phone can even stay connected to their wifi. The guy gives up, just taking out his wallet again and pulling out his money. “Sorry,” he says, “something’s off with my app. Need to update it or something.”
Hyunwoo makes a prissy little tsk sound when she takes the bills, shoving them under his still-full orange soda bottle from, what, a week ago? Two weeks, probably. The guy ignores him, turning to take his milkshake and leave. Hyunwoo makes a face at his back as he walks out.
“Weirdo. Did you see his phone?” Hyunwoo says, immediately after the door closes. “And the stickers of the fat bunny. I’ve been seeing that everywhere.” He’s moving as he talks, scraping batter off the pan. Running the mixing bowl under cold water. He has flexible wrists; it’s the sort of thing you need to look closely at. You can’t listen to him talk because most of the time it’s absolutely irrelevant: blah blah blah youngsters these days blah blah blah horrible taste. You take that and stuff it away and you’re left with his fingers, the jut of his knuckles. Long fingers. Fluid hands. He’s never tired. Hands like those aren’t really made for the kitchen. She’s the same, more or less. Itching for a fight, something, anything. She was the one who taught him guitar, and then - well, everything else. Anything he wanted to know.
Hyunwoo says, “Are you even listening.” He stops to blow his nose on his sleeve and still manages to sound imperious. “I was saying, that franchise is so ugly. You couldn’t pay me to buy those - those, I swear I just said it -”
You’re working yourself up, Hyuna says, you’ll have a high blood pressure and die young. Then I’ll close this dumpster down and buy a house in Barcelona and never come back.
Hyunwoo blows his nose again, louder this time. He’s pretending not to hear. “I said, those Chikiwi things. Monstrous.”
-
Business is slow enough that they can close the diner half an hour earlier than usual. Hyunwoo goes off to the CVS a couple streets over to get something for his nose and comes back with a little baggie in tow. Hyuna’s eating walnuts by the sink. She can’t see the bus stop very well from where she’s standing, but Mizi’s hair is easy to pick out.
Don’t jostle me, she says. Hyunwoo - very obviously jostling her - fills his cup right from the tap and pops a pill in to dissolve. It’s the kind that makes plain water taste like a sports drink. He leans over to grab a spoon - still jostling her. Hyuna pours the rest of the walnuts into her mouth and tosses the pack. She says, I’m going to the bus stop.
Hyunwoo waves her away. Too busy drinking his pseudo sports drink. It hasn’t registered to him that he’ll have to handle the customers from after lunch break to maybe three or four on his own.
A car skids past her when steps onto the street. Hyuna says something biting and immediately forgets what she said because that’s hardly a car; it’s a whole limousine. There’s probably a chauffeur in there with white gloves and a bow-tie. Holy shit, she says, and forgets that too because someone is waving at her from the shotgun seat. Looks almost like - Mizi
”Get in!” Mizi says. She rolls the front window down and sticks her head out. “Aren’t you cold? The door’s already unlocked!”
Hyuna weighs her options, which are very close to non-existent. Christ, when has she even seen a limo before? She gets in.
There’s another girl in the back row, right beside her seat. She smiles politely when Hyuna sits down.
Hi, Hyuna says, you must be Sua.
It doesn’t really take a lot of critical thinking. The girl’s in a white summer blouse. Cinched hems, with little diamond cut-outs that go up the sides. Must be a rich people thing to wear clothes out of season. She also has this silky looking ribbon looped around her neck. Hyuna’s not that deep in poverty; she knows money when she sees it. She’s seeing a lot of it right now. The limo helps.
Sua smiles a little more and folds her hands neatly. “Hello.” she says, and sounds like she has a ton more to say but won’t, so she just stops there. They both look at the floor for a bit, the unassuming carpet. Sua has 8-eye Dr Martens on, laced all the way up. Chunky soles, the kind the official website will list as empowering. Mizi is trying to talk to the chauffeur, but Hyuna can’t really hear because of the partition between the front row and the back ones.
“Um,” Sua says “Mizi says you’ve played for bands before.”
Yep, Hyuna says. She pops the p a little.
”Would you want to play again? Just for a couple months, you don’t have to stick with us for too long.” Sua is watching Mizi laughing at something through the glass somewhat listlessly. She crosses a leg over the other. “Mizi really likes you, you know.”
Hey, Hyuna says, don’t give me the shovel talk. I’m not the one who’s dating her.
Sua presses her lips together so they form this thin line. She looks up at the moonroof like she’s trying not to laugh too.
”Okay,” Sua says, “so that’s a no?”
That’s a maybe, Hyuna says. She feels very mysterious right now. She also feels stupidly hot. The limo must be completely, absolutely airtight, or something. Or it has absurdly good heating. Maybe both.
“Great!” Sua says, with a bit too much intonation. “Anyways, we’re here.” The car is easing around.
They’ve pulled up in front of a small, boring mall; brick and measly little shutters that kind of double up as sunshades. Hyuna can see the boxy ac units on the roof from how far away they’re parked. Huge parking lot. She never got used to those.
The chauffeur gets out first, opens Mizi’s door, waits for her to climb out and walks around the back to open the back doors. Thanks, Hyuna says. She looks at his puffy white gloves as he slams the door shut. Sua goes to take Mizi’s hand.
”I found this place that has a couple studios they rent out. It’s called, like, the music parlour? Right there.” Mizi says, squinting from the glare. Or maybe it’s because she doesn’t have her glasses. “You see that guy with the green hair outside?”
Yeah, Hyuna says, I see him. She does not, in fact, see anyone. Sua raises an eyebrow.
”Mizi, sweetheart.” Sua says “That’s a bush.”
-
“Dude, you keep looking at my hair.” Till says, after a few minutes of messing around on the keyboard. He doesn’t really look like a keyboardist. Too restless.
Oh, Hyuna says, sorry. Where did you get it done?
Till looks at her for a very, very long time. Then, he says “New York.“
Cool, Hyuna says. She goes back to tuning the bass guitar in her lap. Every time she twists a peg it makes this horrible sound and sort of grinds to a stop. Then she twists it again and it outright screams. It’s like Animal Farm.
“Are you sure you’re doing that right?” Till’s boytoy asks. Well, it’s his guitar. He looks like if a stereotype of a bassist had a baby with every other stereotype of a bassist. Also, he’s got a stupid shirt that says BORN TO SWIM, OCEAN IS A FUCK, KILL ’EM ALL 1989, in that order. She must be very obvious, because Ivan looks down at his shirt.
”This was a dare, alright.” He says. Then, “Just so you know, I don’t actually know how to play bass.”
Hm, Hyuna says. She kind of misses Mizi and her girlfriend already, though they’re just around the corner. The studio Mizi booked has a L shape that gives them enough room for a squarish raised platform at one end, a drum kit on its own little mat and another electronic drumset in the smaller alcove. The longer wing has tall windows with buttery grids of glass and an arched transom over the top. It’s ridiculously nice for such a small space.
“So,” Ivan ventures, “are we starting soon?”
Mizi pokes her head around the wall to look at the door. “Not yet. We’ve got one more person. Heads up, he’s kind of pissy. And arrogant. And, ugh, you’ll know when he gets here.”
Singers tend to be like that, she says. Mizi somehow looks even angrier, so Hyuna does some very quick, on-her-feet thinking and concludes that Sua must sing too.
“That’s so not true,” Mizi says, sucking in a big breath like a wind-up toy, but the door opens before she can continue. The guy standing outside has an impressive - is that a black eye?
Hey! Hyuna says, it’s you. The guy looks at her and blinks. He’s changed since his morning pancake run; a turtleneck and a short-sleeved silk top. There’s a glossy case strapped to his back. You can tell he’s one of those awfully repressed musical geniuses that spend decades composing and die of heartbreak.
Mizi stands up quickly, a little too quickly and says, “This is Luka. He’s our, ah, singer. For now.” The face she makes at the end looks more like she wants to chop him up into very small pieces, sauté them and serve everything up. Till cocks his head.
“Who did that to you?” He says. The guy - Luka - shrugs and slings the strap of his case over a shoulder to put it down. He takes the only chair in the room, a sad little bar stool that swivels, tucking his feet onto the metal ring at the base. Sua frowns, but Mizi nudges her.
“Right! Right, right. Let’s warmup first.” Mizi says, a little jittery. Her eyes are flitting from face to face. “Alright, so I figured we could do like, icebreakers. You all know me, I’m Mizi. I used to dance, and right now I’m figuring out how to play guitar. This is Sua, she’s going to be helping us manage and schedule and stuff. At least, if we make it to the point where we’re going to have things to schedule. Those two over there are Ivan and Till. Till has experience with backstage tech and lighting, but he also does guitar! And Ivan can help us pro- Oh! Sorry, he doesn’t have any, um, experience. That’s completely fine. We’re all learning, right? Okay, and this is Hyuna. She’s actually done gigs for bands before. She’ll - hopefully - play the drums. And our singer, I already introduced him when he came in.”
Mizi finally stops to catch her breath. Hyuna glances at the clock; it’s almost two. She’s going to get it from Hyunwoo when she gets back. He won’t believe what Mizi wants to do. She doesn’t even know what Mizi wants to - alright, so maybe she’s lying about that.
It’s not even a good lie. Of course she knows what Mizi wants to do; she’s known it from the moment she turned up outside. People have a certain look about them when they think you have no idea what they’re planning, when they think they’re halfway to getting everything they’ve wanted. They get wide-eyed and a little jumpy. Sometimes you talk to them and they aren’t even there. It could be a diner counter, a table, it doesn’t matter. You could be right next to them and you’d never know; there’s a tiny pair of shears that goes snip and all the wool gets raked off. Or pulled from their eyes, however you phrase it. It cuts out all the fluff. Everything is suddenly desaturated, drained of meaning. They look at their mom, their dad, their brother and go, Hey, who’re you? Then they go to the doctor, and the doctor gives them little sealed packs of fluoxetine and paroxetine and they say, What the hell are these things for. And the doctor looks at them and he says, You know what you should do? You should start a band. Do what you want.
“Hyuna,” Mizi says, “did you hear us? Are you in? The band, I mean.”
Hyuna puts her hand up, knuckles digging into her eyes. Her head is starting to hurt. Yeah, she says, sure. I’m in.
-
Hyunwoo’s already locked up by the time she returns. She goes up and finds the front door to their apartment locked as well. His crocs aren’t on the doormat.
Hyunwoo, she says, you slob. Did you wear your shoes inside? Waits for a bit. Then, I know you can hear me.
Hyuna can make out shuffling on the other side of the door. She leans against the wood, ear to the slit beside the frame. She’s thinking about going all the way down, around the block, then up the emergency stairs to the other door in their storeroom when Hyunwoo yanks the door open.
“Wow, welcome back.” He says, all uppity about it. Hyuna looks down to find his feet bare. Must have stashed them somewhere. Maybe she’ll find the crocs upside-down behind the sofa two weeks later.
She goes in, toeing her shoes off. Hyunwoo follows her all the way to the kitchen. He opens his mouth and his jaw just hangs there, like a clamfish.
What? Hyuna says. Hyunwoo closes his mouth. He stays there for a bit; eventually Hyuna cuffs him and walks to the stove to turn the hob on. He left the pot in the sink, so she just gives it a perfunctory rinse and fills it with water. Tosses in some expired soup dumplings and spring onion they keep around. It’s already chopped, which saves her close to no time at all. But it’s - nice. It was nice of Hyunwoo to do that.
Hyunwoo pads across the kitchen to stand beside her, shoulders almost brushing. Almost, because he’s still shooting up. She’s scared that one day she’ll come home and have to crane her neck to talk to him. It’s stupid, they’re the same age. They were delivered five minutes apart, and when the nurse put them side by side she wouldn’t stop crying. She knows this because Hyunwoo knows this. How; she doesn’t know. She was born first.
“It’s boiling over.” Hyunwoo says, naturally astute. Hyuna grabs one of those cartoonish clip gloves they have that look like castanets and lifts the pot onto the counter, then ladles the dumplings into a bowl. She starts eating right by the stove with a maybe-dirty spoon, hip digging into the edge. Hyunwoo goes to the storeroom to fetch stools, but he takes so long she’s most of the way done when he comes back.
“I don’t know what happened,” He says, “they’re all cracked.”
Hyuna bites into her last dumpling. Her teeth kind of hurt. She says, Just sit on a bucket.
Hyunwoo sighs and goes off to get the only bucket they have, a faded red one they’ve been using as a laundry basket. She washes the bowl, her spoon, the pot. It’s already dark outside; when she looks out the window she can see her reflection. She almost doesn’t hear Hyunwoo trodding back, bucket in hand. He says, “I think this cracked too.”
Well, she says, scrubbing at a stubborn stain, bummer. Sit on the floor. Hyunwoo grumbles and mumbles, eventually retreating to his room to watch Love Island. New season, or whatever. It doesn’t matter.
She finishes the dishes and sets them on the rack to dry; then she walks to the doorway and flicks the switch off. The lights go out.