Koi No Yokan 2017

Back in 2013, over four years ago, I posted this on my blog, linking to an article about words in other languages which express particular concepts, but don't have an equivalent succinct word in English. One which really stuck out to me back then was the Japanese Koi No Yokan - the feeling that, when you first meet someone, you're going to fall in love with them. When I was 17 and first saw this, I had never been in love. I'm 21 now and I'd say that, yes, I have been in love, but it was probably first-boyfriend-kind-of-love, rather than this-is-my-future-husband-kind-of-love. Be warned, this is going to be a rather long blog post because I have a beautiful story to tell.


Let me set the scene.


It was Friday 1st September 2017, and I was on a 7am-3pm shift at my job at McDonald's (which, incidentally, I had my last day at yesterday). It was a beautiful sunny day and I was in a good mood because I'd had a couple of cups of coffee and was working with my favourite coworkers. At about 7.40am, I took a man's order on the till. He ordered a sausage and egg muffin meal with a latte, but I was kind of distracted because I had quite a few responsibilities that morning, like packing up deliveries and helping with drive through orders. 


As I put this guy's order together on a tray, I was chatting to the window cleaner that my manager employed to come in twice a week and make sure all the windows looked spotless. He's been cleaning our windows for over four years, so I've been seeing him every week since I was 17. He's seen me as a fresh-faced sixth form student, he's seen me get fat and then slim again, he's been asking me for updates all about life at university for the whole of my degree. On this morning, he was asking what my plan was now that I've graduated, and I told him that I wasn't really sure, that I was going to work at McDonald's until a grad job came up. I gave the customer his tray of food but, again, I was pretty distracted - both by the window cleaner, and also with other people to serve and tasks to complete.


About five minutes later, I was asked to run around the dining area to make sure that all the tables were clear and to give the surfaces a clean. I was popping some rubbish in the bin when aforementioned man came over to give me his tray. I thanked him, and he went to sit back down to finish his coffee. The table next to him was covered in dirt, so I went over to spray it and wipe it. 


"So, what did you study then?" I heard. I think my head snapped up pretty quickly and I stared at him, probably looking quite blank.


"Sorry, I overheard you talking to the guy at the counter," he explained, with a bit of a sheepish smile. He was actually quite cute looking, with glasses and short curly hair. I don't remember what he was wearing but he had kind of a rugby player's body build and a really friendly face.


From then, we got chatting. It sounds really cheesy but it just felt really natural and I remember laughing a lot, smiling the whole time. We talked about work, and how he adores his job as a Spanish teacher, and he asked me about my degree and all my life plans. I think we spoke for five or ten minutes which flew by and, before I knew it, my manager was eyeballing me, signalling for me to stop talking to cute customers and get back to some real work. We said goodbye, he popped his coffee cup in the bin, and left.


When I got back behind the counter, some of my work friends joked about how I shouldn't be chatting up customers, about how I just wanted an excuse to skive. I didn't really know how to say that I thought something really special had just happened (without sounding like a total idiot!) so I just laughed along with them. When I got out of work, I sent a voice note on the WhatsApp group chat I had with my two best friends, talking about meeting this guy. I also mentioned it to a couple of other friends when they asked me how my day had gone. Coincidentally, my then-boyfriend broke up with me three days after I met this mystery customer. In truth, we'd been not quite right for a while, after having broken up earlier in the year and getting back together a few months later. It felt like quite good timing, really, even though I'd never seen this customer before (he definitely wasn't a regular) and didn't expect to see him again.


Fast forward three weeks and six days to Thursday 28th September. In this time, I'd become a single lady, had been offered and then accepted a graduate job, and was working my penultimate shift at McDonald's. My duty for that morning on my shift was beverages, which I enjoyed because I got to make (and drink) lots of coffees around the corner and be out-of-sight from customers. Around 7.55am, the orders started flooding in and I could see that the girls working on the in-store orders were starting to struggle. I had just finished making three lattes and popped them into one of the cardboard carriers. It was busy, so I helped my coworkers finish the order, taking the coffees around the corner.


"Three lattes," I called out, looking up from the receipt to find the man from almost a month ago standing right in front of me. We both cracked massive smiles, even if it did take me two seconds to remember where I knew his face from. 


"Hey! How are you?" I asked, barely containing my delight.


"You're still working here then?" he replied, sounding almost teasing.


"It's okay, I've found a new job. I'm getting out of here!" I think I was probably grinning like a complete idiot at this point, but it was okay because he was too. "Tomorrow's my last day."


I asked how he was finding the new school term, being back at work, how he'd been. I don't remember what we spoke about, but I know it was for quite a few minutes and I was feeling a bit giddy, having an internal battle with myself about whether or not to ask for his number. In the end, he beat me to it.


"Would you maybe want to go for a drink sometime?" he asked with a massive smile on his face. I responded pretty much instantly which I'm a little bit embarrassed about now, because nothing could hide my eagerness. He handed me his phone and I popped in my number, double checking it because I wasn't about to let this kind of second chance from the universe slide away from me.


He glanced at my name badge (never have I been more glad of having to wear a name badge at work). "So... you're Kate," he said with a smile, typing my name into his phone. He told me his name was Chris, a name which I love actually, and said he'd text me later. We both suddenly became aware that it was very busy and that I should probably get back to work, having displayed ultra professionalism in giving out my number over the counter.


"I'll see you soon," he said, picking up his coffees, and I watched him leave the store for the second time - but this time knowing I'd see him again.


I went back round the corner to my drinks station with a massive grin on my face, where I filled the work girls in on what had happened, and my male manager congratulated me on scoring a customer. I found myself daydreaming all day about my mystery McDonald's man, except I could now call him Chris, and was desperate to check my phone every second of every hour.


He ended up WhatsApping me about about 5pm that evening, and we've been chatting since then (a whole two days, wow). He's funny, charming, very interested, and now I even know his last name. We're both quite busy but - at the time of writing this - I believe we're going for drinks next week. I'm not worried that it's going to be awkward because the two times that I've met him have both been really relaxed and easy, and we're both quite extroverted. I just hope he turns out to be as lovely as he comes across on first (and second!) impressions.


I'm still in a bit of shock, to be honest, because this is the kind of stuff that happens in films. The kind of scenario where I'd be thinking "well, yeah, but this wouldn't happen in real life". This is a guy who I met for ten minutes, and where I felt something strong enough that I was compelled to tell my friends about this random encounter, this stranger. I can't quite believe that he came back on my penultimate shift at McDonald's, that his was the order that I happened to take out to the counter, that he remembered me.


In the couple of days that we've been chatting, he's said that he actually told his colleagues about meeting me after the first time, so it looks like I wasn't alone in feeling the need to shout this from the rooftops - in much the same way as I am now! I wanted to write this all down, and - yes it's only been two days since it happened - remember it, because I feel like this might be the start of something really good. Alternatively, it might become nothing at all but I'm still going to read this post back and remember that one of my daytime, daydream, cute guy fantasies came true. That in itself is pretty special.


I'm not saying it's love - it's absolutely not love after a total of about 15 minutes of conversation - but it's a bit of Koi No Yokan... the sense that something amazing might be just around the corner.