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“So, which one would you like?” Jaehee asked, expectant.
Chaeyoung poured over the menu one last time. She was pondering two options: one was called “Classic English Teatime” and had all of the Pastries you’d expect: biscuits and scones with strawberry jam. The other was called the “Afternoon at Bristol” which had the same with some fruit tarts.
“Are you feeling like scones or tarts?” She asked.
“Tarts.” Jaehee only thought for half a second before answering.
That’s what they ordered, along with some classic black tea. The girl that took their order was young, with plump cheeks and wide blue eyes. Chaeyoung was the one to order after a silent staring discussion which Jaehee pulled herself out of, to Chaeyoung’s utter disdain. True, she had the most understandable English (a strange mix of American with a slight Dutch accent), but Jaehee had the vocabulary. She’d been the one to use it almost daily for work.
“I don’t know when was the last time I had tea,” Jaehee said a couple moments after the girl had left.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink tea,” Chaeyoung said, which made her raise her eyebrows.
“You have. I drink it every time Jihyun offers it.” Though, she couldn’t blame Chaeyoung for never noticing. She was, after all, a coffee person through and through and always had been. Out of the two, Chaeyoung was the more adventurous one with her drinks, actually preferring green tea or chai lattes unless she was trying to get something done, where she’d order coffee. For Jaehee, on the other hand, coffee was the default drink of choice for every and all occasions, she drank it almost religiously. It was a dependency of sorts, she recognized that, but in her defense it was quite literally her job to blend and brew and taste.
They could’ve gone to a coffee shop today, but they were in London, and the thing in London was tea. So, tea shop it was, for a change. Jaehee actually quite liked the decision. It forced her, for once, to stop thinking about work. Cafés were their main date spots because they simply enjoyed them, but as café owners themselves, she thought of the Daffodil every time. Compared their roasts and menus, their decor and ambience, to theirs, and got idea after idea about how she could better the place, even wrote some down on her notes. Every time she did that, Chaeyoung would give her that lovingly berating look. Their dates were for unwinding, for being a couple for once and not simply business partners.
Tea parlors provided that change, that disconnect. You still had the ambience, but Jaehee wouldn’t be driven to think about things she shouldn’t be thinking about at the moment. And it felt good to simply exist: listen to the conversations of the groups around them, hear the clinking of cups, the soft classical music, Chaeyoung smiling as she typed something on her phone, a ray of sun hitting her head and lighting it on fire.
“What’s in the chatroom?” Jaehee asked, taking a sip of her water and leaning forward.
Chaeyoung was still smiling when she put her phone down to look at her, eyes puffed. “Nothing, just Jiyeon saying Jumin would be extremely at home here between the Englishmen and their huge cigars and snobby know-it-all attitudes and Saeyoung being like ‘ew English people’”
“Wasn’t it French people that he despised?”
“I think they’re interchangeable.”
“I honestly didn’t understand what his disdain was for the French until we went to Paris,” Jaehee said. “My God, they can be bitter. The faces they made when you spoke anything other than French…” Paris had been an overall good leg of their trip. Gorgeous, incredible food which Jaehee went kinda insane over, and she was able to listen to Chaeyoung go on about art and its intricacies for hours, and just be a romantic. But that episode when she tried to find the bathroom in the Opera and had to ask a guard who did not speak English… now that was unpleasant.
England was, thankfully, nicer. Everything was clearly delineated and structured (and she thankfully understood the language). It was an elegant and clear-cut place, she felt at peace, and it felt as if people made an effort to be cheery. It wasn’t the laissez-faire loudness of Italy that had struck her, but something more directed. Even now, the conversations around her (it was quite packed, she figured Saturday teatime was quite the occasion) were full and drawn out, high pitch and laughter and speech that sounded a little bit like song. She suddenly wondered what Amsterdam would be like, which they’d visit in three days.
“Please tell me they’re not like that in the Netherlands…” she said.
Chaeyoung shook her head. “They’re… quite alright, actually. They don’t mind tourists. They just mind their business.”
Jaehee nodded. “Still, I suppose we won’t have much language trouble since you’re here.”
“I do wanna hear you use your dutch though,” she said, the ghost of a shit-eating grin on her face.
Jaehee gaped. “Chaeyoung, I know ten words,” she said. Her grin broke. “Unless you want me to deeply embarrass myself, that is…”
“You know how to order food…”
“Yeah, and that’s basically it,” she said.
“Do that, then.”
She was silent for a second. “Perhaps I will,” she said.
Maybe she lied. She wasn’t sure if she would have the guts to try and say a phrase of dutch at any moment, especially when Chaeyoung was fluent in it. But the look on her partner’s face made it worth it, the solemn smile, the eyes that look down and back at her. Perhaps she would, after all. It would make her happy.
Their tea and pastries arrived in the most adorable three-tiered display which just deserved to have a bunch of pictures taken. The tea was loose and had to be packed and then brewed in hot water. It did not take long. The cups were fine china sculpted in intricate patterns with painted flowers. Chaeyoung speculated it to be from at least the 1800s. It made Jaehee be a little bit more careful when stirring her cup.
The sugar came in tiny squares, which Chaeyoung found funny. Jaehee got the urge to eat one, but didn’t, and instead put three in her teacup.
“I feel so elegant now,” Chaeyoung said as she sweetened her tea. “Like royalty or something.”
Jaehee laughed. She admitted Chaeyoung did look quite elegant, with her ruffled satin top, lipgloss, and hair pushed away from her face. Something about her appearance just went perfectly with vintage, as if she came straight out of a period piece. Jaehee felt elegant herself as well, with the daintily jeweled headband she was wearing. “I’d assume the Royal Family’s teatime is even more elegant than this…”
“Oh, definitely. They must have servants do all of this for them.” She straightened her spine and said in a pretty fair imitation of an English accent: “Your Highness, would you like the goat milk lemon tarts or the scones with Brazilian strawberry jam?”
“Brazilian strawberries…”
“They’re bigger and juicier than the European ones.”
“Are they now?” The strawberries on their tarts looked small, but indeed juicy.
“Very much so,” Chaeyoung said, raising her brows.
Jaehee snorted. She decided to help herself to one of the tarts. They cut through smoothly. “Taste test,” she said, taking a bite. It melted in her mouth. “I like the texture. Sweet. The strawberry adds a bit of tanginess but is also very sweet.”
Chaeyoung took a bit of her tart. She nodded after a second. “I’d add a little bit more salt to that crust, perhaps…”
Jaehee was about to say that she wouldn’t, that she likes the all-around sweetness, until she noticed a little crumb in the corner of Chaeyoung’s lip. It was by instinct that she reached over to clean it, commanding her to stay still. For a second, she forgot they were in public. But then she found herself not caring.
Chaeyoung did stay still, very still, for a couple of instants. Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes were unreadable, but something made Jaehee not want to pull away. And then, right when she’s about to, Chaeyoung kisses her. Just one small peck on the lips, a split second of union, but it leaves Jaehee as red as the strawberries.
She was not expecting her to do that. She’s as surprised as she is embarrassed as she is amused. It takes all her strength not to break into laughter. They never kiss in public. Even after so long, it’s not something Jaehee feels very comfortable doing, and neither does Chaeyoung. But now, she wanted to do it again. Chaeyoung was smiling a shy little smile like she’d just kissed her crush in a school hallway and Jaehee so badly wanted to kiss her again.
“You’re a daring one, aren’t you?” She took a sip of her tea and licked her lips.
Chaeyoung mirrored her action. “And what am I supposed to do, when you were looking at me like that?”
Fair point, Jaehee thinks. She will play this little game. She eats the last bit of the tart, watches as Chaeyoung’s breath hitches a little. Oh, the way she’ll devour the hell out of this woman’s lips on the street, or the subway, or the cab, or wherever they go after this. This isn’t over.