It’s By Instinct

The bell chimed, and the door closed with a click. Gaeul looked up by instinct, not consciously nor intentionally. It just happened. 

She stopped what she was doing, hand still holding onto the cloth, in the middle of cleaning the spill she accidentally made on the counter while making her last order. It still smelled like coffee mixed with milk. 

Her eyes flickered towards the door. 

A man stepped in. 

Not—

That made her blink. The thought came by impulse, something that flickered quickly through her mind. She looked back down at her hands holding the cloth, continuing to clean the counter. 

“Welcome,” she said softly, like how she always did since she opened the shop. 

It was nothing.

//

The next day was the same. 

Bell chimed, the door opened and closed with a click. Footsteps. Duller, hesitant, unfamiliar.

Different faces. Different requests. Different smiles. Different voices. 

Not hers. 

Gaeul didn’t want to think about it. There was no point, no reason to worry herself over something like that. Because it wasn’t important. It didn’t affect her. 

She moved at her usual pace, doing the same thing she always did every day. Wipe down the shelves, organize the books, reorder stocks that were running low, mop the aisles, taking coffee orders, making more coffee, cleaning tables, computing the sales by closing time, and then close up shop.

It was what she always did. It was her routine. It was predictable. Something that wouldn’t disappoint her. Because this was something she could control. 

//

It was only on that particular day where she caught herself acting differently.

The bell chimed, the door didn’t close yet, and she quickly looked up, staring at the door that had no one there. It didn’t welcome anyone, it was closing, the tail end of someone leaving. She couldn’t stop herself, but she already did it, already staring at the emptiness.

Gaeul couldn’t take it back this time.

The grip she had on her pen tightened. She looked back down on the document in her hand, she went through lines, reviewing the same sentences over and over, unable to focus. She read through it twice, three more times, forcing herself to register each word. 

Her jaw clenched. 

She felt stupid. 

“So…” Yujin’s voice trailed and Gaeul did everything in her not to roll her eyes or smack her with the book in her hands before—”Wonyoung hasn’t shown up for almost a week, huh?”

Gaeul didn’t react. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want Yujin to call her out on it, so she kept her composure. There was nothing to say about that. 

“Did something happen?” The question came quickly, giving Gaeul immediate whiplash, but the most she could do was tighten the grip she had on the cloth.

“Nothing happened,” she replied curtly, turning away to clean somewhere else, somewhere Yujin wouldn’t be able to notice anything. 

Yujin hummed, the kind that sounded like she wasn’t convinced, and it always made Gaeul wish she could hit her because it always had meaning to it. “I saw you staring at the door the other day, I know you’re wondering where she is as well.”

Gaeul was still for a second, before she started sorting through the books again. “It doesn’t mean anything. Why does everything I do have to do with her?”

She didn’t mean to sound like a bitch, but sometimes the way Yujin said it so casually irritated her. She had no idea what it felt like. 

“We’re you getting used to it?”

That question made her stop moving, made her stare into nothing while her mind and heart were doing all sorts of horrible things. She clicked her teeth, as if the sound was enough to drive them away. “I wasn’t.”

Her answer was short and simple. Because she meant it. She kept telling herself that she meant it. There were no emotions to her words, nothing that was going to break through the cracks of her walls, nothing that could break them so easily. 

She placed the cloth away, making sure her movements were calm. She walked over to the other side of the counter, knowing very well that Yujin was watching her. Waiting for her to react. But she refused to. Instead she grabbed the book that she left near the till, checking for details, creases, folds, blemishes. 

But her mind was running wild, with voices that were loud enough to drive her to the wall. She could feel her heart beating against her chest, wishing she could beg it to stop, but she knew she couldn’t. 

“It’s okay to be honest,” Yujin said again, careful this time. 

Gaeul took another deep breath. It was the only way for her not to snap at her friend again. So she did it again. Once she managed a slow and steady exhale, she nodded her head. “I know,” she muttered, not turning to face her friend. “It’s fine. It’s nothing important.”

Silence filled their space again.

Yujin finally yielded and didn’t speak anymore. 

Which was fine. Better, even. 

Gaeul felt a tinge of guilt inside of her because she knew that Yujin was just concerned for her. But she knew for a fact that acknowledging it would make things real. 

So she refused to. 

Yujin didn’t push either.

Gaeul just hoped that her denial wasn’t the thing that made everything obvious. 

The bell chimed again. 

Gaeul looked up quickly. Again. 

It was someone else. She smiled at Gaeul, and she smiled back. A regular that came at odd times. The woman walked towards the back, ready to take a book from the shelves and bring it to the tables so she could read it. 

Her gaze landed towards the table Wonyoung always sat at. 

It was empty. And if it wasn’t empty, it wasn’t filled with her. 

Yujin’s words played in her head again.