'When I was younger, my dad always used to say, "Life is an art form."' The ambient sounds of grillers going off in the background accompanied the occasional chatter bouncing off the walls of the room.
'At first, I didn't really understand it.' Gyuri stands in front of the deep fryer, basket in hand as she's adorned with the store's uniform'. He'd say, "Each action you do leaves behind a stroke on your canvas."' She lifts the basket slowly from the cauldron of molten oil, revealing a batch of perfect deep-fried golden-brown chicken. Her hands let go of the basket, causing it to fall back into the oil.
'I never believed in art.' Gyuri holds a metal bowl filled with seasonings and sauces, dumping the chicken into it. 'But he believed in me.'
"Order 87!" Gyuri called out from the small window that allowed the kitchen to see the main counter. The space was claustrophobic. Small in width, minuscule in length. Her arm could extend the entire width of the kitchen, practically allowing her to clean dishes and fry chicken simultaneously. The flickering light above her head swung with an unnerving rhythm, adding onto the already dilapidated vibe.
"How people perceive your canvas is out of your control, but how you perceive your own canvas at the end of the day is ultimately up to you." Gyuri's dad flips through pages of his newspaper, oblivious to the pile up of customers at the counter.
"Ugh." Gyuri's face showed visible disgust as her dad freeloaded off of her hard work. His feet on the table was just as good as putting it on her face. "Are you just going to sit there all day?" Gyuri pointed a pair of oil-soaked tongs at her father.
"The disrespect!" Her dad flipped the newspaper down, revealing his furrowed eyebrows. "And I'll have you know you're getting a handsome salary, better than what those other Chimaek restaurants will offer." He says sarcastically, knowing full well that she in fact does not get a salary.
"Gyuri!" A familiar voice greeted Gyuri. Almost immediately, her dark, gloomy expression turned into that of rainbows and all things nice. Poking her head through the ordering window, she sees the human embodiment of a ray of sunshine standing at the doorway, Seonu. Dressed in the Chunghee uniform, she carries her bag and her purse on alternate shoulders, allowing her jet-black hair to lie elegantly.
"Is it already 6:30?" Gyuri glances at the clock on the wall, gleefully looking past the line of customers angrily waiting for someone to take their order. "I guess I have to go to school!" Gyuri grins as she looks at her father.
"Hey! Wait!" He stumbles over his words, dropping the newspaper onto his lap. "But there's still customers!" He points at the crowd of now-angry customers.
"You're the owner. Earn your handsome salary." She says with spite, taking her cap off and picking her bag up slowly with her hand from the kitchen floor. "I'll swing by after school; tell Chickie I'll take the evening shift." She takes off the apron, revealing her school uniform beneath.
"Tsk." Her father can't help but smile.
"Have you been taking extra shifts?" Seonu asks Gyuri as she sits on the back of a two-seater bike.
"Yeah." Both of them stop at a traffic light. "The last part-timer quit. I can't start to imagine why." Cars whizzed past them at lightning speed. It seems like they weren't the only ones in a rush.
The whole city moves in chaotic unison as people from all walks of life go about their day. Salarymen speeding in cars to joggers running their dogs, these individual strokes paint the perfect picture of modern-day Seoul.
"Isn't it hard? Trying to keep up with your studies and work at the same time?" Seonu lays her head on Gyuri's shoulder, wrapping her arms around her waist. "If you ever need an extra pair of hands, I'll be here, okay?"
"Don't worry about it." Gyuri stares intently at the traffic light, looking past the deluge of cars that stood between them and being late. "If it ever gets too much for me, I know when to take a break."
"Okay, Gyuri..." Seonu says in reluctance.
A bright flash of green appears on the traffic light, signaling the safe passage of pedestrians. Gyuri leans forward and begins furiously paddling, cutting through the road like a hot knife through butter.
However, just as fast as the green flash had appeared, a pair of headlights made itself extremely apparent to the pair. A fully blacked-out car was barreling down the road towards the two ladies, making it known that at no point was it going to stop. As Gyuri stares the threat in the face, a flash of memories zips past her brain, causing her to freeze in the moment.
Her life flashes before her eyes as she's sat in the backseat of a car. Through the front window she sees the world turn upside down. Trees spung from above as she seemingly tumbled towards the sky.
"Gyuri!" Seonu knocks the top of Gyuri's head, snapping her back to reality. Almost instinctively, she paddles even harder and goes full speed to the other end of the road, narrowly avoiding the speeding car.
However, she had been too focused on going fast that it was too late for her to realize that she was paddling straight towards a concrete pillar. In an attempt to slow down, she had grasped the brakes on her handlebars with such force that her hands had reawakened a long-forgotten pain.
CRASH!
Her attempts to brake were futile, causing the pair to crash into the concrete pillar and sending Seonu flying into the air, eventually landing on a pile of garbage on the curb. Gyuri, however, was not as lucky. She landed on her hands and scraped them against the hard concrete floor. A giant red gash lined the length of her forearm. Gyuri exhales in pain as she sits on the floor, assessing her wound.
However, it wasn't the cut on her arms that she was focused on. It was her hands.
Almost to the rhythm of her heartbeat, she seems to have a pulsating ache from the very tip of her fingers to the skin on her palm. Both of her hands felt as though there were needles in every orifice. It was a pain that she was familiar with, evident by the faded residues of surgical scars on every inch of her hands.
"Gyuri?" Seonu stood over Gyuri, looking down at her, examining her own hands. "Are you okay?"
Gyuri simply stares at her hands, a memento of a past memory that she had long repressed.