Chapter 34

After drinking the Americano, Ishia lay down on the seat and fell asleep. She was so busy that if she didn’t catch even a short nap, she wouldn’t have enough time to sleep properly. There was a reason why famous celebrities slept in their cars. If she didn’t take even a short nap, she couldn’t possibly keep going. Moving between broadcasting stations and locations, she had to take fragmented naps just to keep her body going.

“Ishia, wake up! We’ve arrived at the studio.”

The manager woke Ishia up.

Ishia opened her eyes. She could feel her condition had improved significantly. In fact, it felt even more refreshing than waking up after a full night’s sleep on the weekend.

“Uh…”

She woke up so easily. Normally, even if she slept in the car, the fatigue wouldn’t go away, but today was different. Someone once said that if you sleep after taking propofol, you wake up feeling incredibly refreshed, and Ishia felt something similar. Of course, Ishia wasn’t taking propofol.

Entering the studio, Ishia did the photoshoot with an insane level of energy.

“Very good!”

“You seem so full of life today, Ishia!”

“Cut!”

The photoshoot went smoothly without any hiccups. It wasn’t like the director was rushing through it either. Normally, it would have taken much longer to finish the shoot…

“No matter how I think about it, this is weird.”

There was no reason for her condition to be this good. It wasn’t like she had taken some kind of drug, but her energy today was beyond imagination. She couldn’t remember the last time she had done a shoot with such great energy in the past year.

As Ishia pondered deeply about why this had happened to her, she started eliminating variables one by one to find the cause. After eliminating everything, the only thing left was the Americano she had drunk before sleeping.

Everything else had been the same as usual, so nothing else stood out.

“Oppa, where was that café we went to earlier?”

“Wait… I don’t really remember either…”

The manager was looking through his phone for the payment confirmation. Since it was a café they had stopped by briefly on the way, it didn’t leave much of an impression. After struggling to find the message, the manager finally told Ishia.

“It’s a place called Happy Café.”

“Send me the location on KakaoTalk.”

“Got it.”

Ishia received the exact location from the manager. Since it was already late at night, she planned to visit again tomorrow. But was this café really the reason she felt so good?

She couldn’t forget the high she felt today. When was the last time her body felt this lively? Perhaps it was because of the accumulated fatigue from overwork, but after experiencing such a feather-light body, she didn’t want to go back.

It wasn’t like Ishia wasn’t taking care of herself. She regularly went to the dermatologist to maintain her skin, and after finishing her schedule, she never forgot to go to a massage parlor to relieve her body’s fatigue.

But even with all that care, her schedule was so packed that she couldn’t avoid overworking herself. She wanted to ask her manager to reduce her schedule, but Ishia didn’t have the power to do so. Such was the plight of an entertainer tied to an agency.

In this industry, if the agency tells you to roll, you roll. Only veteran entertainers who had built their reputation over the years could stand up to their agencies. Of course, she had heard it was even worse in the past. Back then, agency bosses were practically gangsters.

Nowadays, it was said to be much better, but even so, the schedule was overwhelming for Ishia.

—

“Ha-yul! Three Americanos!”

“Yes!”

“Ha-yul! One cappuccino!”

“Coming!”

I was busy making coffee. I was running around making the drinks the sisters were calling out. Since the boss said it was better if I made the coffee, most of the drinks were made by me.

Well, could you even call it making coffee? Or was it just mixing? It was hard to say. The machine did everything from start to finish. All I did was grind the coffee beans and pour the extract into a cup. My role was just to put it in a cup.

“Phew…”

I took a short breath. The sisters told me that the amount of coffee sold during my shift was enormous. Even now, the place was packed.

One of the reasons people come to a café is to chat, right? That’s why the atmosphere of a café is so important. A café with a dull, unwelcoming atmosphere couldn’t succeed. Sitting at a table and enjoying coffee and food is the basic premise of a modern café.

But now it was different. People ordering coffee knew better than anyone that there were no seats available. So most of them just ordered takeout without any attachment to sitting in the café. Of course, takeout wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, from the café owner’s perspective, it was better. It was much better to have people order coffee and leave immediately than to have people sit for hours, chatting and occupying seats.

That’s why café owners hated the so-called “study café” crowd. Ordering one coffee and occupying a seat for 6 or 7 hours was the norm, and some even brought their laptops to charge at the café’s outlets. They didn’t want to pay their own electricity bills, so they used the café’s.

On top of that, they even told people around them to be quiet because they were studying. A café was a place for people to chat, not to study. There were plenty of places to study.

You could go to a reading room or one of those trendy study cafés. I couldn’t understand why people chose to study here. It’s not like studying in a café gave you some kind of efficiency buff.

Fortunately, our café wasn’t attacked by the study crowd. The boss had blocked the outlets, and the few remaining study-goers disappeared as soon as I started working.

The reason was that after I started working here, the number of customers increased dramatically. The noise level was so high that the study crowd couldn’t possibly concentrate. So, they stopped coming to our café. The boss’s face became much brighter. No more demons in the guise of customers.

But for me, the workload increased. Thankfully, since I only made coffee drinks, I didn’t have to do dishes or take orders, so it wasn’t like I was doing everything. If I had to do that too, I would have had to run away from this café. My body wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

Maybe it was because I had become a woman, but my stamina was definitely worse than when I was a man. And the abnormally large chest didn’t help. Even with a bra, the weight pulled my body forward. I realized why women with large chests often had turtle necks or hunched shoulders.

“Ha-yul! Ha-yeon is here!”

At that moment, A-rin called out to me. I stopped making coffee and looked towards the entrance. Ha-yeon was waving at me. I awkwardly smiled and waved back. I didn’t really want Ha-yeon to see me working. Working at a café meant dealing with all kinds of difficult customers.

Of course, the boss would defend me, but the difficult customers didn’t just disappear. They didn’t come every day, but…

“Mommyyyyy…”

Ha-yeon was looking for me. The boss smiled and said to me.

“Ha-yul, take Ha-yeon for a bit. I’ll handle things here.”

“Okay…”

I took off my apron and went to Ha-yeon. She grinned at me and said.

“I missed you, Mommy…”

I smiled back at her.

“I missed you too, Ha-yeon!”

I picked her up and took her to the staff break room. Since I had bought her a phone, she had plenty to do even if she was alone. Before the phone, leaving her alone was a bit of a problem. Buying her the phone was a good decision.

“Wait for 30 minutes, okay? Mommy will finish work and come back.”

“Okay… Be careful, Mommy!”

“Got it!”

I left Ha-yeon and went back to work.