Automatically his eyes were drawn to empty shelves, pulled down to the dirty, littered floor. His hands twitched. The mess enveloped his mind but Yeung-Sung still tried to pay attention as Simon meandered through each of the four aisles. The researcher offered his opinions on pricing, location and where he could get decent stationary. Yeung-Sung, however, followed his own path.

He started left of the entrance -where the tills would have been- cleaning a line through the top of the counters, turning his fingertip grey with dust. Behind that, a shelved off-license section still held a few dull bottles. They were green and brown and seemed to be well aware that no one would ever want them. Then, walking past a square seating area he envisioned the tables full of familiar faces, long dead customers from his past. The mirage caused him to stumble, and almost fall over a rotary stand. It didn’t hurt, but the thing rattled hypnotically like the jingling beads of a doorway. Yeung-Sung tried to steady it. He held it upright as wrappers unstuck themselves from the stand and floated down like aluminium leaves. It settled, finally, and Yeung-Sung shivered and shook, trying stop the dusty air from catching on him. The store felt so foreign, yet its past felt like his own and so his mind wandered off, imprinting memories of being a grocer before ‘the crash’, plastering them about the store.

He must have still been too tired, he thought, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He went to turn and look for Simon when he heard him yell,

“Back here is the stockroom. Come ‘ere so I can show you how to setup the lock.”

Then, just as Yeung-Sung took the first step, he noticed a little seed rolling by his feet.

It was a fresh sprout of cabbage, of all things! He bent over and picked it up, wondering how such a thing could have got there. The little thing belonged here as much as he did. Feeling that kinship, he pocketed it. As it slid down his leg, against the screen of his phone, Yeung-Sung felt somehow better. The tiny bit of green had made his day, helped him remember that there were reasons why he became a greengrocer. He stopped worrying, fretting about the dust and filth and thought perhaps, he could learn to enjoy this new life. After all, now he finally had his own store.

My own store.

“Right, Pak. So this is the code for the stockroom door” Simon told him. He hovered his hands over the numbers half a dozen times before he noticed that Yeung-Sung still wasn’t paying attention. He put his hands onto his rounded hips and became stern.

“Jeez, get a grip son.”

“It’s lovely,” Yeung-Sung said at last. It started to become real for him; his situation. He looked inside and rather than seeing the stockroom as a dilapidated mess, he instead saw freedom. The freedom to run things the way he wanted to, the power to make sure things were done right. Striding with a light step into the stockroom he exhaled deeply -and burst into a fit of coughing because of all the dust. This store may be his, but it was far from his standards, or any type of standard for that matter.

Stunned, Simon kept his amusement down to only a small giggle. “I hope you remembered the code, Pak. I’m tempted to lock you in here, just to teach you to listen,” he joked.

Smiling, Yeung Seung said, “I am thankful for this, you know, Simon”. He gave him an acute bow. “I’m surprised. I- I thought you were lying to me before, back in the car, to be honest.”

“Ouch. Did it seem that way?” Simon scratched his head.

“But you did this for me -found this place, and, and the stock- overnight. Already. I can’t believe you did it so fast”.

Yeung-Sung straightened his posture, stepped up to him and thrust out his hand. “Thank you. Genuinely, thank you.” Simon swiped at the gesture and they were caught in a vigorous handshake, most of the energy emanating from Simon and his goofy never-ending grin. “Ha! I knew you’d come around…and they said my human relations was bad, tsk!”

Trying hard to ignore the buffoon, Yeung-Sung instincts were picking up yet more parts of the store that were in disrepair and, although admittedly with a hint of a laugh, he sighed.

“This is still too much for one person to organise in one day. Are you sure you won’t stay a while longer?” he asked.

“Don’t worry,” Simon replied, beaming, “I’ve already found a volunteer to come.” He glanced at his phone and put it back into a different pocket all in one motion. “Yep. She’s on the way.”

“Did she message you or do you just -eh, know that?”

Simon chuckled, with his eyes wandering away from direct contact. Yet he gave no answer. He began idly tapping his foot.

“So we have a few minutes, then?” Yeung-Sung asked. “I’m going to have a look around the back.”

Heading inside the long-abandoned stockroom, Yeung-Sung began internalizing the steps needed to bring it back to a usable state. Beyond a good clean, new lighting would have to be installed and some of the scaffolding of the warehouse-sized shelves were obviously about to snap if they weren’t already caved in. If what Simon said was true, GLI shouldn’t have any problem with that. However, he noted, the stockroom was surprisingly large for a simple garage stop. So that’s why the roof was so awkwardly big. From the entrance Yeung-Sung wouldn’t have guessed just how much space there was on the back end of this building. What was stockpiled here, I wonder?

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He had forgotten that he was right in the middle of North Korea. Then he remembered it, and once he opened his mind he couldn’t stop remembering. Staggering, he leaned against one of the stockroom’s support beams. His mind’s eye was soldered over the trauma of the past few days -and the past few years. He grabbed at the rusted metal to steady himself. When he was taken (‘recruited as a volunteer’), from his old store, he had thrown out any ideas of returning to work in a store again. The change was all too sudden, and a change back to a place -the stockroom- that was so frustratingly familiar, it was too much. Half of him craved routine, took safety from it, and the other half screamed at him to run, fast and far away and escape.

But am I wrong to suspect something? Reaching into his trouser pocket he felt the phone he had been given. A game as a substitute to economy? It was still absurd, far too bafflingly stupid of an idea for Yeung-Sung to consider, let alone fully give in to. He pushed himself up, launching himself to a walk towards the boxes of stock on the other side of the room.

Then, he remembered his little seed beside the phone. He grasped and held it before him like some precious insect. His heart was pumping wildly, and it felt to him that the seed responded in some way. He didn’t see it, but he felt it glowing in his palm. It was a weird subversion of his senses and in itself made no sense -but the feeling remained.

Yet, it also hardly made sense that such a thing breathed life in this desolate environment. If it could push through and survive in here, then so could he. He held the sticky thing to his chest and tried to believe that maybe things could be better. Even still, he was unsure.

Simon coughed as he approached. Yeung-Sung bounced up and thrust the seed back where no one could see, then threw his hands over his head out of habit.

“You’re some lad, Pak. And very jumpy I might add,” Simon said. He gestured for him to lower his hands. “Calm down.”

Suddenly a crashing sound came over them, licking their ears.

“Hello”, came a voice during the silence that followed. Feminine, and quite clearly not British. And quite possibly Korean. Yeung-Sung ran out of the stockroom towards it. Simon plodded along behind him, not quite as disturbed as he was.

“The door got stuck”, went the voice again. “Are you in here? Simon?”

The crunch of glass and the shuffling through it filled the store.

“Are you alright?” Yeung-Sung shouted out towards the entrance.

“What happened?” Simon wondered aloud.

The two turned the corner of the last aisle and found the broken frame of the automatic door shattered all around the entrance, and a middle-aged Korean woman in the middle of it. She didn’t seem too bothered by the hazard or the several scrapes about her arms, as she swished a broom around and gathered up shards of glass into piles, shimmying across the floor as she moved, humming softly to herself.

She looked up and smiled before putting her focus back onto the task and said, “Sorry about the noise. It didn’t open,” she frowned,” though obviously it did before. I thought that if I pushed it then it might. I didn’t expect the whole door to fall down like that.” She hopped over a side of the frame. “Not all of it”.

“Wow,” exclaimed Simon. Going right past her, he examined the damage from the outside, looking thoroughly impressed.

“Your arm,” Yeung-Seung said with concern. The woman shrugged.

“I’d say she’s alright,” Simon said, stepping back into the store. “Though I can’t say the same about the structural integrity of this building it would seem,” he added off-handedly. He took out his phone and began to tap out what was probably a to-do list for the store.

“You’re okay, though? Maybe I can finish that,” Yeung went to take the broom from her, but she glided away, shaking her head.

Simon made another note.

Rather than standing there awkwardly, Yeung-Sung lifted up part of the frame so that it would be easier to gather all of the pieces in between. He received a nod of appreciation. Though, as she worked, he couldn’t help but notice that there was a certain knowing smirk about her, like she knew him or -that he knew her.

Yes. He had seen her before. He’d seen her face on numerous posters, countless ads before the ‘crash’. The past few years had carved their way into her expression and took out much of its innocence but her hair was still the same as it ever was. Her marble-yellow earrings wiggled unnaturally as if they sensed his shock. It was unmistakably her: Woo-Yi. What was someone so famous doing here? Before he got accused of staring, Yeung-Sung looked away, to Simon.

“Right, so I’m off,” Simon said, he gave Yeung-Sung a casual pat on the shoulder and nodded to the newcomer. “This is Jeung Woo-Yi. She’ll be helping you with the day to day operations of the store. Woo-Yi; Pak Yeung-Sung.”

Pivoting, he waved goodbye and strode through the crumbling doorway saying, “If you need anything let me know.”

Yeung-Sung dashed after him, though he also needed to get away from the retired (Is she retired?) popstar. “Wait”.

Simon turned his head but continued walking.

“How – how are we going to sell the produce? What do I charge? I still don’t understand-“

Simo stopped him. “Pak, you’re not open yet. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

He went serious. “Just set up as much as you can and we’ll meet up tomorrow to discuss further plans. Okay?” Turning one last time to Woo-Yi, Simon waved and walked off with his hands fumbling around in his signature bottomless pockets, the jingling of them fading as he left.

Yeung-Sung swallowed and watched Simon leave as he was too afraid to turn around.

The sounds of churning glass died down. “I think that’s all of it,” Woo-Yi said, wiping her brow. “Well, since you’re kind of my boss now, what do you think?” She pouted her lips, taunting him. “Did I do a good job?”

Yeung-Sung swivelled around. Woo-Yi was right in front of him, the bangs of her hair level with his shoulders.

“Yeah. Looks good to me,” he managed to get out before his jaw clamped up.

Woo-Yi raised her eyebrows at him. “Oh, come on.” Taking her broom, she folded her hands over it and rested her head on top, cheek first. “Yeung-Sung, you know who I am,” she teased. In Korean.