Bite Me, Royce Taslim

16

MAN, I REALLY NEED TO STOP HANGING OUT IN ALLEYS.

I’m seated on the plastic bucket in the alley behind Seoul Hot, hiding from Mrs. Yoon because my leg started to cramp up during dinnertime and I needed a break after being on my feet for little more than two hours. Turns out I was too ambitious about getting back to work. The other servers, Meriam, Zi Wei, and Samuel were understanding, but I could sense their frustration bubbling underneath. It’s not fair, but life’s not fair. I’ll just pass them more of my tips.

“Alamak, it’s Seoul hot out here,” says Jeremiah, a bald man in his forties and one of the nicer chefs working at Seoul Hot. I had asked him for his muscle rub ointment fifteen minutes ago and he was checking on me during his break. “Get it? Seoul Hot. Ha-ha-ha.”

“I don’t know why you and I are friendly,” I grumble.

Jeremiah cackles, then composes himself. “It’s because I let you take home the leftover food.”

I stick out my tongue. “It a hundred percent is the only reason, fam.”

He chuckles, then fishes a cigarette from his apron pocket, which is very probably a health code violation. “Just admit you like me already, kid.”

Meriam pokes her head out of the kitchen and squints at our direction. “Agnes, Mrs. Yoon is looking for you.”

I groan and cross my eyes. My right leg is tingly and not in a happy way.

“She says there’s a client out there asking for you, specifically.”

“Oh no, is it the table with the woman who sent back the special Malaysian dakgalbi for being too spicy when she specifically requested ‘deathly spicy,’ despite my gentle reminders that there would be no refunds under the Seoul Hot dining policy?”

“Nah, Mrs. Yoon personally kicked that table out five minutes ago. There was a small, er, shouting match.” Mrs. Yoon is known for not holding back with customers, yet her food is so good that despite a less-than-impressive Google rating, the restaurant is always Seoul full with regulars.

Good God. I need to get out of here.

Meriam shrugs. “I don’t know, but she was looking for you with, let’s say, some sense of urgency. Big spending table in your sector.”

Jeremiah makes a shooing noise, motioning me through the door, and I sigh and make my way to where Mrs. Yoon is waiting by the service door.

“Agnes!” Mrs. Yoon says. She pronounces my name as Ack-NUS. Having moved from Busan to Kuala Lumpur two decades ago to marry a Malaysian man, she speaks Manglish with a strong Korean accent. “Haiyah, I look everywhere for you now only you here! Someone asking for you, say you must serve them. Big order. Table eleven. Be nice.”

“Okay,” I say, half hopping, half running out.

The restaurant’s signature blend of fat, spice, and smoke hits me in the face after being outdoors, and I briefly wonder how much I must smell after marinating in this for the last two hours, and it is only 8 p.m.

“Table eleven, table eleven,” I mutter, disoriented after having been away for over two months (the restaurant has two stories and twenty-three tables—thankfully, I’ve only been asked to wait on tables on the ground floor). I turn a corner to table 11 and the sight slaps me in the face.

“Agnes!”

It is Royce Taslim, in the flesh.

No. No. No. No. No. No.

I can’t move. What is Royce Taslim doing in my restaurant? At this hour, dressed like he walked off a Teen Vogue editorial?

Then I recall that I had told him where I worked over CounterFlash.

No. No. No. No. No. No.

“Agnes?” Royce says, smiling far too widely for a smoky joint like this.

I am frozen. I don’t want to go over. I don’t want to go over in my meat-smelling clothes, with my wild red eyes, my oily face and hair. I don’t want to. And I physically cannot.

“Agnes! Eh, what you doing just standing there? Serve!” Mrs. Yoon hisses as she rushes past me to the till. I return to my senses and compose myself, pasting a fake professional smile on my face as I gingerly make my way to his table.

“Hey, Taslim,” I say. “I want to ask what are you doing here, but I did this. I told you where I’d be so you can torture me.”

“Ha, you’re a funny one,” Royce says, blushing.

“No offense, but why are you here?” I say, cutting right to the chase.

“Well, it’s, um, y’know…” He stumbles over his words. “I wanted to see—I mean, I had a sudden craving for Korean food, and I thought, um, hey, why not eat at my friend’s joint?”

My friend.The words don’t really hit the way they should because I’m swimming in a stew of conflicting emotions, the clearest one being embarrassment. Yes. I’m embarrassed he’s seeing me, dishev-eled and smelling of BBQ sauce, here during my shift, looking as immaculate as he does in his olive-gray chambray shirt and carefully styled hair. And he’s not alone.

I regard the person seated next to him, a poker-faced buff man in a tight black T-shirt who’s in his late thirties. A new bodyguard. I suppose he had them on rotation.

“This is Mohan,” Royce says. “He’s my guest for tonight. Mohan, this is the friend I was telling you about. Agnes Chan.”

Mohan gives me a steely once-over. He doesn’t look impressed.

“Hi, Mohan.”

“Hi. Could I have a refill of my tea, please?”

“Certainly, and what about you, Taslim?” I turn my attention to Royce, and as I do, a sharp pain shoots up my leg. I wince.

“Everything okay?” Royce asks with concern, coming over to where I stand in a flash and just stopping shy of touching me.

“Just my leg,” I say, holding tight to the chair in front of me, a film of sweat already coating my upper lip. Urgh, I hate showing weakness in front of him. “Don’t worry about it. Sit back down, please, or Mrs. Yoon will think you’re not happy.”

Royce doesn’t move, his face creases in concern. “You should tell your boss you need to get off this shift.”

“And lose my job?” I snap. Did he not get that I wasn’t here on holiday?

“How much longer is your shift?” he asks, frowning.

“Around two hours,” I say, wincing as I tried to put my weight on both feet.

“I’ve got an idea,” Royce says. “Hold on.” He turns to Mohan. “Order another round of pork cheek and some more of the mixed veg, okay? In fact, order whatever. Soju? You have my permission to drink.”

“But, sir, we’ve already eaten–”

“It’s okay, whatever we can’t finish, we’ll take home, because I’m going to be here for another two hours.”

“Why?” we both ask at the same time in the same tone of incredulousness.

He rolls up his sleeves. “Because I’m helping you with the rest of your shift.”

~

I must be dreaming. I must have hit my head on the way in from the alley, because Royce Taslim has started waiting tables under the heart eyes of Samuel and Meriam, after brokering me to help out at the till under supervision of the reluctant but somewhat charmed Mrs. Yoon, who distinctly said, “Jalsaenggyeosseoyo,” when she saw Royce, and since I have watched at least a thousand hours of K-drama, I understood the compliment, even though she said it like she was calling Royce “plague bringer” or similar.

Incredible, I think as Royce ports a tray of sliced marbled meat with a dark navy Seoul Hot T-shirt, solicitous and picture-perfect. She’s letting me handle the money. Okay, granted, she’s standing right behind me, huffing and muttering when I hit the wrong buttons on the screen, but still. She’s letting me touch actual cash (I mean, on the rare occasion someone hands me cash instead of paying with their cards or other online methods of payment)—she’s never even let Joyce Lim, the longest serving waitstaff here run the till, ever. It’s always been her or her son, Luke Chandran.

Royce passes by with a tray of beers, and my heart does a little swoosh. Of appreciation. The nonsexual kind!

The rest of the hours pass by quickly, and Royce leaves at 10:15 p.m. on the dot, because he has parents who text him if he’s even one minute late past his normal curfew of eleven, and I could see Mohan doing the antsy dance at their table. When Mrs. Yoon tries to pay him as well—a sign that she is really enamored with him, because I genuinely thought she was going to split the two hours of wages between us—Royce takes the money solicitously, thanking her, and when her back was turned, he counts out and drops half of the notes in the TIP jar, instead of all as I’d expected.

“I hope you don’t mind if I keep half of it; it’s my first paycheck,” he says apologetically, and my palms grow slick for reasons unclear to me. It happens again when he insists on his driver dropping me off, even as I claimed that I was uncomfortable showing him where I lived, a pithy comment about him being a potential stalker, so he tells the driver to drop me wherever I want after he’s disembarked, and then he gives me his hand so that I can be supported as we get into his four-wheel drive. It happens again when he brushes my hand accidentally-on-purpose as he jumps out of the SUV in front of his house, and he turns to me and meets me with a gaze that’s soft and open, and a moment opens between us, like a CounterFlash portal, before he says good night.

The back of the car smells like sweat and restaurant, and the vaguely creamy, citrusy aftershave Royce wears. I close my eyes and sniff the air, taking it all in like a total creeper.

It’s just because he’s been so nice to you. That’s it, my mind screams.

I sniff again, for reasons that do not follow the official party line I’ve been telling myself all this time, since the moment I first saw Royce Taslim walking toward me to shake my hand in hideous neon-green tights.

Then I slump onto the seat with a heady sigh.

Good God, I have officially lost my mind.

~

Royce:You up?

Me:Nah

Royce:Liar

Me:Hey, thanks

Royce:For what

Me:Everything you did today

Me:Maybe it’s something you would have done for anyone because you’re nice

Royce:Not just anyone

Royce:I have my own selfish reasons

I stop myself from typing, Whatever it is, it meant a lot to me. His coming to my workplace had thrown me in the beginning, but then he’d been so no-nonsense about the whole affair and about helping me out, that it made me wonder if I’d been overthinking things. Anyway, tonight it had shifted something for me, although I wasn’t sure what, yet.

Me:Let’s CF tmw 8pm?

Royce:

Me:

Royce:

Royce:

My palms get slick again and I have to lie down.