Road to Utopia - NCT

16 - Kicked Out

A few days later, it was my shift for the restaurant. Mark was still my co-worker and Sungchan helped during lunch hour. It was my first shift since I joined NCT and my second shift overall and yet I still remembered the basics of my job (something I struggled with in every other job).

Taeyong was in his office most of the day and only came out to get something from the kitchen. Once or twice, he came out to see how busy the restaurant was or to check the cash register, but other than that he left us to it.

It was about an hour before closing when everything started going wrong.

We were finishing rush hour and I was trying to clear plates up. Unfortunately, I managed to crash into Hendery on his way out and paint his shirt with the leftover meatballs and spaghetti. He said it was fine but the grimace on his face and multiple strings of Mandarin curses told me otherwise. Then, Taeyong scolded me for giving the wrong change (which I never excelled in).

The next one could be considered karma - if I actually knew what happened before.

The extremely rude man from my first shift who tried to get me fired burst through the door waving a bunch of sheets in the air. Another man also accompanied him, but in a more dignified manner. "I demand to speak with your manager!"

"Sir, please calm down, I-" Mark tried to deal with him, but he was having none of it. At this point, all I could remember about him was that I covered him with noodles.

The rude customer just pushed past him calling for Taeyong, which eventually worked. He came out of the room looking like he hadn't slept for days.

"You're the manager?" He sneered.

"I am. What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, I came into this restaurant about two weeks ago and was soiled in noodles by him!" He pointed at me. "How is he still working here?!"

"I'm aware of that and Jisung is a capable worker. So, what is the reason for your visit?" Taeyong asked calmly.

The guy slammed down his papers on the closest table to Taeyong and smirked. "I filed a complaint to the Health Inspectors, and they said this place isn't legally sanitary enough to run. And this place isn't even legal to run; the permit expired last year. Therefore, since you are not safe to run, here is a notice of closure."

The other man placed down another paper and his ID. "I inspected this place last week and the amount of grease behind the grill as well as incorrect fridge and freezer temperatures. This place is a breeding ground for food poisoning. I'm sorry but I'm going to have to shut you down and revoke all licenses and you can no longer work in the catering industry."

"What? But Taeyong's kitchens are decent! We clean them thoroughly every night!" Mark protested.

The Health Inspector just shrugged in response. "Sorry, I can only judge by what I've seen, and it wasn't pretty." He placed another piece of paper down; the surprises just don't stop. "And I've contacted your landlord for this place. You have a week to move out and the restaurant closes tomorrow onwards."

The Inspector left swiftly, leaving all closure notices with us. The insanely rude guy kept grinning. "It's amazing what connections and money can do." He left us after that.

Silence.

"Taeyong, I'm so sorry-" I started but he held his hand up to stop me going any further.

"It's not the first time. Angry bastards think money still rules the world. We'll find another place."

"But you can't own another restaurant or even work in one!"

"Well, neither can Doyoung or Johnny. We still have 20 others who can. I think it's Jaehyun's or Kun's turn now." He shrugged. "Well, time to tell the others we're moving again. I'm thinking outskirts of Seoul." He made his way back to his office, most likely opening the secret door to the base.

I turned to the others. "So, this happens often?"

"I've only worked here so no clue." Sungchan left us and started cleaning the tables.

"Johnny owned a noodle shop like 4 years ago in Gangnam, but the landlord set fire to the place and blamed it on us." Mark recounted as he helped Sungchan stack chairs onto tables. I decided to also help them out.

"Huh?"

"I'm pretty sure he was a pyromaniac so I'm glad we moved. And then Doyoung wanted some Chinese buffet place but the place we were at had another Chinese place down the street."

"So they sabotaged your business and you had to close?"

He nodded. "They put a cockroach in our food, caused a whole scene and left multiple bad reviews that Health Inspectors just told us to shut down."

"Damn..." Sungchan and I exclaimed.

"Ah...don't worry about it! We get to see Soo Man again and get a cooler HQ!"

"Who?" Soo...Man? A man named Soo? Huh?

"In simple terms, he's our sugar daddy."

END

My GCSE Catering knowledge is actually being used omg (except most of that is wrong).

But if any of you are curious, correct fridge temperatures should be less than 5 degrees Celsius and freezers between -18 to -24 degrees Celsius (but that's for the UK, not sure about anywhere else).

And we had to call health inspectors "environmental health officers/ EHO's" in exams and that sucked. In general, never take catering, I should've stuck to computers.