“... Enjoy your drinks and have a nice day” The words don't come out right, she can tell her voice sounds strained as the trio over the counter giggle at her flustered state.

Biting her tongue so she doesn't lose her cool Seulgi tries to make her smile more genuine but it's hard when her idiot friends have been regularly visiting her workplace and being nothing but annoying and teasing for the past month. She only has another month of work left before her short term contract runs out and she'll have enough money to purchase the guitar of her dreams.

Somehow the blonde managed to flirt with coerce the manager of the shop into keeping the guitar on the side for her so when she has the money she can buy it straight away. Just thinking about the reason for her work is enough for her to deal with the stupidity of her friends.

After holding her smile for a few seconds until her supposed friends leave she deflates and slumps on to the counter. She doesn’t move for a whole two minutes and then jumps and almost screams when she feels a sharp sting on her , she turns to see Irene holding a tea towel and grinning shamelessly.

“I hope you’re going to wash that” Seulgi mumbles out, walking past a giggling Irene and gently soothing her poor cheek, “... and stop hitting me at work.”

She decides to busy herself with rearranging the stock on the food counter as Irene follows her, sticking to her side like an annoying child, except no matter how moody Seulgi can feel she never thinks of Irene as annoying. “So I can hit you anytime outside of work?” she questions a little too excitedly for Seulgi’s liking.

“Whatever” the working blonde grumbles out, Irene’s giggles sound louder, “Why are you so moody today?” the older girl comes into her view and Seulgi doesn’t show any emotion even though she’s dying a little inside at the cute way Irene is blinking at her.

“I’m moody everyday.” she deadpans and once again makes a move to walk past her coworker. This time she isn’t followed as she moves to clean another area which she’s grateful for because Seulgi doesn’t think shes could’ve kept a straight face any longer - she found that when she showed any positive emotion to Irene she’d only fuel her excitement and she has no energy to be dealing with an excited Irene today.

There’s still no response so Seulgi chances a glance in the girl who’s still leaning against the counter looking a little dazed - it was a deadline week for most of the college so it wasn’t unusual to see students spacing out and even falling asleep in their study materials in some areas on campus. Seulgi feels so stupid just standing there looking at the other girl expectantly, none of them move until the voice of their supervisor broke the weird silence.

“Seulgi!”

A startled Seulgi jumps slightly towards the direction of the voice and an embarrassing little squeak escapes her, she doesn’t have to look at Irene again to know that she’s amused by her jumpiness. She wouldn’t have been so flustered if she hadn’t potentially been caught doing nothing but stare at her pretty co-worker.

Yuri laughs and places a hand on her shoulder, “Relax, I didn’t come out here to tell you two off for flirting on the job I just wanted to-”

“We weren’t flirting!” Seulgi defends a little too quickly. Damn it, her face heats up and she knows her ears have turned pink.

“Sure…” Yuri drawls out unbelievingly, “As I was saying I wanted to ask you Seulgi if you’d like to pick up an extra shift this weekend? I know for the past few works I’ve paired you up with Irene - thanks for helping that kid out by the way.” Seulgi frowns confused because does her boss not realise that Irene is literally right there?

The answer is yes because Yuri winks towards Irene before continuing whatever she was saying, “You two work very well together and that’s great, but you’ll be with another one of our workers this weekend, is that okay? Normally Jonghyun pulls that shift but he’s called in sick”

Deciding to ignore how weird her boss is the blonde worker agrees to the offer, “Sure.” She almost shrugs but decides it might make her seem a bit rude to her boss so she nods her head and offers an awkward tight lipped smile.

Finding her adorable Yuri laughs and pats her head gently, “I can tell Yura will enjoy working with you this weekend. Thanks again Seul! And Irene keep up the good work!”

Watching the women walk back towards her office she waits until she’s out of sight then Seulgi sighs out dramatically, there goes her plans to nap her stress away this weekend. She pouts whilst trying to arrange a time where she can nap before she goes out Saturday night, maybe she can be an hour late? Wendy will kill her but it’s better than falling asleep halfway through Game Night.

She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed that they’d be no Irene to work with this weekend, although money played a big part in her reason for work another source of motivation for the girl was the chance to talk to Irene at work. If she wasn’t so focused on the guitar she’d deflate more than she already has. She can plan a nap any other time but she hasn’t actually arranged to see Irene outside of work, they only text and have an occasional phone call if Irene is struggling to sleep.

“Do you think it’d be weird if I asked this Yura girl to bully me so I won’t miss you this weekend?” the words come out before she even has time to think about what she just said. 1. She just called her crush a bully. 2. She’s admitted she’ll miss Irene.

Irene paused her cleaning to give her a soft smile, “I’m not sure you’ll have to see.” the words and tone sound like how Irene would normally say it but something is off. Seulgi isn’t the best at reading people but she’s sure that there’s been a change in Irene’s mood.

Trying to play it cool Seulgi moves to clean the coffee maker, she feels tighten up a little, did Yuri’s comment make things awkward? Or did Seulgi defensive comment offend her? Irene is definitely not happy and she’s not used to seeing this side of her.

After her friends exit the shop with teasing grins and Wendy doing a weird heart dance as she walks out the shift goes by painfully slow. The two coworkers hardly interact which isn’t too unusual since they’re focusing on tending to customers and making sure the area is tidy but knowing that Irene isn’t very happy makes it harder for Seulgi to carry out her tasks.

When they say goodbye to their boss and leave the shop Seulgi breathes a sigh of relief, thankful to escape the tense atmosphere. “Are you going to the library again?” it’s the first time Irene’s looked at her properly since she spoke with Yuri.

Pouting and nodding her head