It was one of those days you just hated as a waitress. It was hot outside, causing a lot of people to have taken place at the terrace, asking for a drink or for some food. People were either loving the warming sun outside or enjoying the cool airconditioner inside. Either way, the whole coffee shop was full of people who wanted a drink, preferrably as soon as possible by a cute waitress.
Im Nayeon knew all about it. Even after having worked here for two years at least, she still didn't understand why people for God's sake wanted to go to a damned coffee shop if it was 35 degrees outside? To her, the pleasure that coffee brought could only be fully enjoyed in the middle of the winter, after you come home from a long walk that would leave your fingers numb. The coffee'd melt your insides and return the feeling to your frozen limps. How could people enjoy coffee well if the temperature was this high? Sure, they sold iced coffee as well and other beverages, but to Nayeon, it wasn't the same as Jihyo's well prepared damping hot coffee. Nothing was better than that.
But she didn't complain, oh no. She was a shiftrunner, for God's sake, she needed to act professional and keep smiling. Give a good example for the younger employees. Only recently they had hired three new high schoolers, Dahyun, Chaeyoung and Tzuyu. All were only just learning the craft and sometimes had a lot of trouble getting through busy days like these. Nayeon was used to them now, but she had never liked them. There was not a good thing about it. Yeah, the money, the tips they got, but that didn't make up for the dozen whiny customers asking fore more ice in their iced tea.

Suddenly, she felt two arms around her waist from behind. Another body — a taller body — was pressed up against hers. Nayeon let out a surprised gasp. Oh well, when she said there wasn't a good thing about it... There was always Jeongyeon.
"Good morning, ma'am," the younger girl whispered in her year. Nayeon turned around in her arms and pretended to hit her. Jeongyeon ducked and protected her face with her hands. Nayeon rolled her eyes.
"Don't do that around customers," she said, while letting her eyes quickly go over the restaurant to look if someone had seen them. Jeongyeon and her cheesy games.
The brunette stood up straight again, grinning.
"Didn't you love back hugs, unnie?" she asked innocentely. Nayeon lifted her head again to give her a stern look, and Jeongyeon flinched. Nayeon rolled her eyes, mostly because she had been adressed as 'unnie'. It had been a while since Jeongyeon had called her that way and really meant it. Nowadays the brunette only called her that to because she was 'old'.
"Not from you," she responded. Nayeon stack out her tongue and Jeongyeon pretended to be hurt by pouting. A chuckle left the other girl's lips as she admired Jeongyeon's natural cuteness.

Jeongyeon and Nayeon had met exactly one year ago. Back then Jeongyeon had applied for a job in their kitchen. Besides coffee, the coffee shop also provided freshly baked goods, like cupcakes, waffles and cookies. On a good day, there were also selfmade candies. Nayeon had already been a waitress, but not a shiftrunner yet.
Their first meeting had been uncomfertable and stiff, a simple handshake. In fact, Nayeon at first hadn't even liked Jeongyeon. The whole staff had seemed to be so smitten with the new girl; Momo wasn't able to be swatted away from her side anymore. Their boss, Jihyo, had also expressed her fondness with the ever-brightly brunette, complimenting her on her ever so bright behaviour. Sana and Mina often went home with her to catch up after work. Nayeon was the only one who hadn't liked her at first. She had never been fond of people who were as energetic as Jeongyeon was.
But over time, she had started to appreciate the other girl. She might be loud as hell, but she was caring too. She made sure everybody's skirt was covering enough skin and always called Sana out on it — whose skirt, probably intentionally, seemed to creep up until a point where it was almost inappropriate. She was friendly, and gave everyone leftovers or pieces of her failed bakings. Jeongyeon was always the one leaving the restaurant the last and was the first one to show up in the morning. Even Nayeon had to admit that she was a person one couldn't just ignore and had to admire.
Jeongyeon had showed interest in her since the beginning, even when Nayeon acted rather coldly. She was always trying to be friendly, perhaps a little more than with the other staff members, now that Nayeon thought of it. They had started to hang out more, but never with their collegues. Jeongyeon seemed to seperate her from the rest, always asking her to see a movie or play video games at her place when the others didn't seem to be able to come or just weren't invited. At first, it had been a little awkward, but Nayeon found herself liking it more and more. She noticed that she preferred Jeongyeon to be hers and only hers. She didn't want the other collegues to come because she wanted to feel special. Sometimes it seemed that Jeongyeon only treated her that way, but then Momo came along and Jeongyeon acted just as clingy with Momo as she was with her. Their one-on-one meet-ups made Nayeon forget all of that.
It was on one of those little play dates where their first kiss had happened. They hadn't even drank alcohol or whatever. It had just been a quiet night watching the drama they had started together; Descendants of the Sun. They had laid on the couch together, enjoying each other's presence. Nayeon couldn't exactly remember how they had gotten on the subject of boyfriends and girlfriends, but the tension had risen. Only lateron Nayeon had realised that she had liked Jeongyeon all that time already, which was probably the reason why she hadn't broke off the kiss when Jeongyeon closed in. All that time she had thought that she wasn't special; but after the kiss, she realized she had been wrong all that time.

It had been a thrilling experience. Nayeon had never kissed a girl before, nor had really thought about the concept uality. It all started to make sense though. Why she hadn't been in a relationship for many years, because she 'couldn't find the right guy'. Turned out that her Prince Charming had to be a Princess Charming to make it work. And it worked.
Jeongyeon and Nayeon started to date. Secretely, yes, but it didn't take them a long time to come out for it. Nayeon was open minded and was quickly done with hiding once she had discovered that she liked girls. It had taken Jeongyeon a longer time to come out of the closet, but she had already been openly biual when she started working at the coffee shop. The other staff had reacted positively, even Nayeon's homophobic mother reacted better than she had been able to expect.
They're still in a relationship right now. And even though Nayeon loved Jeongyeon with all her heart; it was rather bothering to get so distracted by her girlfriend during work. Now that Jeongyeon was a waitress too, it was hard enough to concentrate already. Even though they overall agreed that Nayeon was the fashionista, she couldn't help but to admire how good Jeongyeon's buttocks looked in tight dark blue jeans and how well her figures came out when she wore her white blouse.

"Earth to Nayeon! That lady over there wants to pay!"
Dahyun's voice woke her up from her thoughts. She blinked a few times fastly and looked over at the rookie waitress. She had her hair neatly in a ponytail, leaving the coloured strands of hair a little less visible. Nayeon thought it was a bit unprofessional, but she had to remind herself that the girl was still 18. She had also wanted to dye her hair crazy colours when she was 18. And not to forget, it looked really nice.
"Oh, yes, of course," she muttered, before walking off. Her cheeks had flushed a little bit. Even though she and Jeongyeon were open about their relationship, it was still a bit emberassing to be caught staring at your girlfriend's .
She quickly walked over to the lady and took care of the money. Afterwards, she helped the woman next to her, who wanted to order another iced coffee and a cupcake. Nayeon wrote it down and got inside to hand it over to Jihyo and Momo. The two baristas ran through the bar like their life depended on it, walking over to the coffee machine to set some coffee only to walk back to the other side to tap off some iced coffee. There were open jars of small marshmellows, sugar packages and little spoons, caramel sauce spilled over the working tables and coffee stains everywhere. It was chaos. But then again, they had never had such a day in a while.
Jihyo took the note from Nayeon's hand and hung it up next to the other notes she had brought in the last quarter.
"Chaeyoung, one cupcake please!" Jihyo yelled to small opening in the wall into the kitchen. Her voice was so loud that some people nearby looked up to see what's up. Chaeyoung's head popped up and she muttered a quick 'yes'.
"Nayeon, the order for table 50 is almost ready, just wait a second," Momo said, while she took two coffee cups and placed them on a tray. She took the cacao powder and sprenkled some over the cups, before she ran off again to get spoons and whatever there was still missing. Nayeon never paid that much attention to the preparation; that was mostly Jihyo's job.
She leaned against the counter, watching how Momo and Jihyo made the coffee, how Chaeyoung was decorating the cupcakes in the kitchen. That girl had some talent when it came to decorating, Nayeon thought, at the moment she felt two slender arms wrap around her waist, again. With a small yelp she let her noteblock fall on the ground. She heard a smirk. Jeongyeon.
She turned around and placed her hands angrily on her hips, trying to act as if she wasn't actually very flustered with Jeongyeon's affection. Her girlfriend just grinned widely and pretended to know nothing. Nayeon huffed and pushed her away, but Jeongyeon came right back at her, this time throwing her arms around Nayeon's neck and pulling her closer. Her breath got caught in when they were only inches apart. Jeongyeon knew better than to kiss her in public, but she sture made it really tempting.
"Can you stop doing that?" Jihyo asked annoyedly, while she was preparing a large plate of cupcakes. She didn't even look up, but Nayeon noticed their boss was quite irritated. Jeongyeon rolled her eyes and let her arms fall by her side again.
"As if it was so serious. I just hugged her," she said. Nayeon clicked dissaprovingly with her tongue, giving the brunette a warning look. You didn't want to cross Jihyo if she was mad.
Their boss looked up and pushed a strand of dark red hair behind her ear.
"No, indeed, but I know what you did in your break yesterday, and I'm not pleased about that," she shot back. "So I no longer want you and Nayeon to take breaks together."
Nayeon's eyes widened in horror when she heard Jihyo's words. Her cheeks turned a dark shade of red. Jeongyeon, on the other hand, waved with her hand to show how little Jihyo's comment impact made on her. Nayeon opened to say something, but couldn't get anything out that mattered, except a small moan.
"It was one time!" she said maladroit. Jihyo muttered something, which sounded a lot like a curseword, and turned back to her cupcakes.
"Who wants to have on the toilet anyway? Where's the romance in that?" she mumbled. "Anyway, my decision has been made. You and Sana will now take breaks together and Jeongyeon and Momo. I don't want my employees ing during work time."
Jeongyeon and Momo high fived each other.
"It was one time!" Nayeon repeated, this time a little louder. She covered her face with her hands and sighed deeply. She felt a familiar had on her shoulder. Nayeon didn't shake it off, but she was still mad. Jeongyeon defenitely didn't earn the trophee of 'best girlfriend' right now.
"It was one time, but it was sure good," she heard her girlfriend say. A hard slap against her arm was the result, an annoyed look of Jihyo. At the moment Nayeon wanted to start bickering with Jeongyeon, Momo cleared .
"Your tray's ready, Nayeon. Table 50," Momo said. Nayeon shot Jeongyeon a we're-not-done-yet-look and took the tray on her right hand. She started walking towards the table. Jeongyeon got the plate of cupcakes for table 48 from Jihyo, walking after Nayeon. Nayeon smiled at the costumers of table 50 when she arrived.
"A caramel iced coffee?" she asked. One of the girls raised her hand, and Nayeon placed it in front of her. She also gave out the two other coffee's, the waffle and two cupcakes. Afterwards, she quickly asked if they still needed something. All of them shook their heads, and Nayeon walked off again. She noticed how Jeongyeon had waited for her to walk back to the bar, since she had already delivered the plate with cupcakes. Nayeon shot her a little smile and joined her girlfriend on the way back, already a little less mad.

"Yah, oppa! Can I get another refill?" 
Nayeon looked up, startled by the sudden hard voice and looked around. A customer — a woman late in her teens — had risen from her seat, lifting her emtpy coffee cup in the air. She looked into her direction, but not directly into Nayeon's eyes. She followed the woman's gaze and noticed she was actually looking at Jeongyeon instead. Oppa? Nayeon noticed how her girlfriend shifted uncomfertably; she had heard it too. The always cheeky smile had fadedvoff her face and it had gotten a serious expression; a hurted look appeared in her eyes. Annoyance started to rise in Nayeon's chest, and she held out her arm to stop Jeongyeon from walking over to the rude customer to give her a refill, as she commanded. She was going to deal with this.
Nayeon put up a tight smile as she walked over towards the woman. Now that one of the employees was at her table, she sat down again, almost smitten. The other girl at the table had hidden her face out of embarassement. Nayeon bowed a bit foreward so she wouldn't have to talk loudly.
"Excuse me, ma'am, but my collegue is a girl and if you want a refill, I propose you treat her as one," she said. Her nice tone had completely dissapeared from her voice, so did the brightness in her eyes. She looked at the woman coldly, almost hatefully, her voice had dropped low and a little bit threatening. The woman blinked a few times with her eyes and Nayeon wasn't sure if she was surprised about Nayeon's posture or the fact that Jeongyeon was actually a girl. Then, her eyebrows frowned together and she stubbornly placed her empty cup in front of Nayeon. A grin appeared on her face. She laughed, even.
"She sure looks like an oppa then," she smirked. Nayeon's eyes widened when she heard the rudeness — or stupidity — of the woman. She cleared roughly, trying to look for the right cursewords to throw at her.
"She's not an-" she started, but her words got cut of by Jeongyeon, who pushed her roughly aside. Nayeon let out an angry 'Hey!'.
"It's fine," the brunette mumbled to her, giving her an oddly timid look, almost pleading her to stop. Nayeon crossed her arms in front if her chest and looked at her girlfriend with a passive stubborn look. Oh, how much she wanted to explain to that woman that Jeongyeon was a girl, her girl and she wouldn't even care about being polite anymore. It had happened before that Jeongyeon was called an oppa and Nayeon could get so protective and mad about something like that. She couldn't understand why people thought it was funny to call her that, while she obviously was a girl. She had never seen her as a boy, even though her clothing style wasn't exactly too feminine too. She had always been a girl and will always be a girl and she really hated the people who made her feel like her identity wasn't valid. She understood why Jeongyeon wanted to handle it herself, but she was also mad at her for that. She brushed it off like it was nothing, even though Nayeon knew it hurted her a lot, and pretending you were fine didn't fool her alert gaze. She wanted to take some sort of revenge for her, because she didn't do anything about it. She always joked it off, saying she could indeed dress somewhat more feminine towards the customers who had insulted her. Nayeon couldn't agree on that, but there was little she could do when Jeongyeon started pleading with those big brown puppy eyes.

So she huffed once more, spun around on her heels and stormed back. She didn't even respond at Momo who told her another tray was ready for table 43 and directly walked towards the employees room. It was a small room backstage, behind the kitchen where the staff could put their bags and other stuff and take their breaks. Nayeon got here too when she wanted to escape the restaurant a little bit. Sometimes it got too much. When she got too stressed or too angry, the took five minutes for herself, and calmed down. But at the moment, five minutes were probably not enough.
After a few moments, the door opened. Nayeon looked up — worried that it'd be Jihyo — and saw Jeongyeon's head peek through. She sighed and shook her head for a moment. The brunette stepped in, almost guilty, and immediately walked over Nayeon. She seemed unsure what to do. Nayeon sensed she wanted to hug, but she defenitely didn't feel like it. She was angry with her, angry with that woman and angry with herself that she didn't do anything to protect Jeongyeon. And she wasn't scared to tell her so.
"This is the third time, Jeongyeon," she scolded. She saw the other girl look down, ashamed. Nayeon went on nevertheless, not in the mood to spare her right now.
"You let her walk over you like that, you almost gave her her right!"
"She's a customer," Jeongyeon mumbled. Nayeon let out an annoyed moan.
"So? it! It was rude and hurtful that she called you a boy. It was mean and she abused her power, knowing we as waitresses should always be nice and kind to customers like her!" Nayeon raged, using her hands furiously to idicate how much she meant it and how angry she was. Jeongyeon looked away, almost rolling her eyes.
"What am I supposed to do then? Call her out on it like you did? We'd get in trouble with Jihyo," she said."She's a client anyway and that she made a joke about my hair is something I can endure."
"It wasn't just your hair and you knew it, Jeongyeon," Nayeon said. "I saw your face. She hurt you!"
Jeongyeon looked away again and sighed, not being able to think of a good argument to prove Nayeon wrong. The comment had hurted but Jeongyeon wasn't the person to act all sad because of that. She had shrugged it off, apologized to the woman and filled her cup again. Afterwards, she just cleared her mind, forcing herself not to think of it anymore. It was cute the way Nayeon stood up for her, but she also felt like she was not pleasing her enough for standing up herself too.
"So? I can handle it," she mumbled softly. Nayeon growned.
"So?" she imitated childish in a voice that was way too high for hers. "So you need to ing stand up for yourself! I won't let her call you a damned boy. You just shrugged it off like it wasn't hurtful! If no one is going to say something to that woman, she'll call you 'oppa' the next time she comes here again, thinking it's acceptable because she got her cup refilled anyway! I hate it that she's just able to do that."
Nayeon breated loudly, was almost panting after her little speech. Jeongyeon was speechless, mostly because she already knew how her girlfriend felt and she shared her emotions, but just couldn't get herself to act upon then. It wasn't as easy for her as it was for Nayeon. The blackhead was tense and had gritted her teeth upon each other. Her angry gaze had softened a little, had almost grown sad.
"It hurts you.." she repeated again, her voice smaller this time. It was soft, a little bit squeeky. Because it hadn't just hurt Jeongyeon, but Nayeon had also felt her heart ache when the comment was made. She was hurted knowing that Jeongyeon was hurted too. And she hated it that her girlfriend was hurt and she couldn't do anything about it. She wanted to protect her, to avenge her, to make her feel okay again.
Nayeon looked down, not being able to look at the brunette anymore without breaking down in tears. She blinked a few times fast, trying to blink them away. After a few deep breaths, the urge to cry started to fade, but she knew that if she went on with talking, she'd sure burst out in tears.
Jeongyeon caught her hand in hers and slowly carassed the back with her thumb. Nayeon kept looking down and took deep breaths to steady herself. She was a little bit shaky.
Eventually, the brunette took her into a hug. Hugs with Jeongyeon were the best. She was the perfect height; Nayeon could lay her head upon her shoulder without having to reach down or look up. Her arms fit perfectly around her waist. Nayeon closed her eyes and buried her face deeper in the crook of Jeongyeon's neck. She breathed in the deep, wood-ish scent of her parfume and pressed her body even closer. Jeongyeon placed her hand upon her lower back.
"I can't stand it that she hurted you," Nayeon whispered.
"I know..." Jeongyeon whispered, while rubbing her back. "I know, jagi~." 
Nayeon exhaled slowly. Her body relaxed already a little bit, but she still couldn't lay herself down by the fact that Jeongyeon had been hurt and she wasn't able to do something. Okay, maybe she was a bit over reacting and incredibly protective, but she wanted her girlfriend to be happy. She couldn't stand it that some woman just had the authority to call her 'oppa' like that and get away with it. Nayeon knew Jeongyeon could handle a nasty comment and she believed her when she told her it didn't matter much, but that doesn't make up for it. Even if it only hurts a little bit, Nayeon wouldn't agree to just let it slide like that. She bit her lip and hugged the brunette a little tighter. Jeongyeon pressed a kiss upon her head.

"You mean well, Nayeon-unnie, but you get a little extreme sometimes," Jeongyeon added jokily after a couple of minutes. "Are you okay again?"
Nayeon sniffed and shrugged, letting Jeongyeon go. She looked up and pouted.
"It shouldn't be about me!" she said. Jeongyeon grinned — she was glad to see that grin again — and shrugged for a moment.
"I'm not the one crying," she laughed. Nayeon quickly whiped off her somewhat wettened eyes and gave her a punch. Jeongyeon just let her punch her, though did rub her arm afterwards, and chuckled.
"I wasn't crying!" Nayeon complained. Jeongyeon wiggled her eyebrows and pulled her closer by her waist. Nayeon placed her hands upon her chest to block her a bit, but it was all in vain; she was already willingly stepping closer. Jeongyeon gave her a peck on her cheek, but didn't bow back. She stayed close and moved to Nayeon's ear.
"It was really cute the way you stood up for me like that," she whispered. Her warm breath tickled Nayeon's skin. Goosbumps ran over her body, starting in her neck. Her breath got caught in . Eventually she was able to let it out shakily. She pushed Jeongyeon back a bit, pouting again. The other girl looked at her smugly, knowing what she was doing to her girlfriend. Nayeon draped her arms over Jeongyeon's shoulders, let her fingers curl around the base of her hair.
"Shut up, you," Nayeon sighed, before pulling her closer and issing her. Jeongyeon willingly bowed foreward and kissed her back, letting her hands rest on Nayeon's hips.
Their lips had only touched for a few seconds when the door to the employee room smashed open.
"You two can come out now. Jihyo has set the woman who insulted Jeongyeon here out of the restaurant,"Sana's voice sounded. The two looked up quickly. The kiss ended too soon, to Nayeon's liking, but she had to admit that this wasn't the right time to get it on. The restaurant was crowded with people and now that Nayoen and Jeongyeon had hidden themselves in the employees room for ten minutes already, they had two important waitresses missing. Sana couldn't handle it alone. Dahyun and Tzuyu were probably panicking now.
Jeongyeon grabbed Nayeon's hand and gave it a slight pinch. The blackhead looked up and smiled towards the taller girl.
"Let's go then," she said. Sana rolled her eyes and signed they should follow her.

As expected, the bar was full of filled trays that needed to be brought immediately to tables. Jihyo gave them an angry look when the three waitresses came back.
"Jeongyeon, Sana, the left tray to table 15 please and the other to 40. Hurry, the coffee is getting cold, you rascals," she said annoyedly. Jeongyeon gave Nayeon one least look, before grabbing the tray and walking off quickly. Nayeon wanted to get the third tray, which Momo had just finished filling. She had already lifted it upon her hand when Jihyo shook her head.
"No, Nayeon, you stay here for a moment," she said. Nayeon blinked confusedly, but let the tray slide of her hand again, back onto the bar. She cocked her head a little to the left, like a lost puppy. Jihyo didn't look up from her work, and neither seemed to mind that Momo was here too and probably listening along.
"I appreciate it that you take care of Jeongyeon like that, but please, Nayeon, just call me the next time. I'm the manager, I can set her out. You don't need to harass her first for that. I set her out, because Tzuyu came to tell me what had happened. I don't appreciate it that customers talk to my employees like that. We need to treat them with respect but they should be respectful towards us too. So next time you tend to loose your temper for your girlfriend, come to me and I'll handle it," Jihyo said strictly, still not looking in her direction. She just went on with preparing trays.
Nayeon couldn't help but to smile though. Jihyo was often busy and sometimes a bit cranky because of that, but she was an amazing manager. She had helped her countless of times and today was one of those times. Jihyo really had a big heart when it came down to it. It even seemed a bit motherly sometimes.
"Thank you," she said smiling. Jihyo's ever so busy hands stopped for a moment, and she looked up. A big smile appeared on hers too. She didn't need to say anything for Nayeon to understand her. Jihyo let out a short sigh, before she finally pushed a tray full of iced coffees in her direction.
"Now get your lazy to work, this one needs to go to table 6," she said. Nayeon chuckled and took the tray on her hand.
"Yes, ma'am," she said, before walking off.

For the rest of the day, there was always a faint smile upon her face.