Eunae and Seulgi stared at each other. Seulgi realized the girl was probably unaware that everyone in the store knew about their past, and felt a little guilty. It was one thing to have her sordid history displayed for all of her coworkers to see and dissect, but it was another thing entirely for Eunae to be subjected to such scrutiny. She could see Eunae was still the shy, quiet girl she had meet all those years ago, when she had been dragged to an open mic night at a cafe between their schools. She remembered sitting there at the table, having successfully resisted all attempts by her friends to get up on the stage and sing.

“Don’t make her go; look, this place is full of conservatory students,” her friend advocated.

“Yeah, you’re right. Oh, missed your chance anyway. One of them’s already getting set up,” another pointed out.

Seulgi was relieved to see a girl walk onto the stage, amid applause from a large group of music school students over at the other end of the cafe. The girl was taller than Seulgi, though she supposed that wasn’t terribly impressive, and strikingly pretty.

She seemed rather shy as she meekly moved about the stage with a tight-lipped smile and flushed cheeks. She sat on the stool provided and adjusted the mic so she wouldn’t have to stoop to reach it. She pulled something out of her pocket - a cellphone? No, a little black box of some sort and she pressed a button. Seulgi could hear a faint, paced ticking noise. A metronome?

The girl turned it up and the cafe quieted. She began.

And oh, wow.

The last thing Seulgi had expected was that this girl was going to start rapping. As soon as the first line left , that meekness had transformed into power, confidence. Each stanza was evocative and broody, delivered in a low, biting tone perfectly suited to the lyrics - Seulgi was transfixed, and her friends noticed.

Goading from her friends, a shy conversation, and a long walk along the Fens between their schools had set them on the path towards a relationship, and more importantly, a friendship that Seulgi realized she missed quite a bit. She gave Eunae a small smile.

“Hey.”

Eunae timidly returned her smile. “Hey.”

“Are you ready for tonight?”

“I think so. It’s you and me, right?” Eunae asked, almost stumbling over ‘you and me’.

Seulgi tried her best to help smooth over any awkwardness. “Yup. So, how long have you been a barista for?” she asked, plowing ahead. “You seem pretty comfortable with everything.”

Eunae shook her head and made a small dismissive gesture. “Oh, no, I’m not great at it. I… I started once my internship ended, so just a few months ago.”

Seulgi was a little relieved; Eunae had basically just answered a lot of questions she hadn’t been sure how to ask. They were doing pretty alright for their first real conversation in almost two years. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be as difficult as she first supposed. Any continuance of their conversation, however, would have to wait, as Irene and Wendy reentered the back room.

And what a group the four of them made:

Irene was already wearing a small frown, and it deepened when she noticed Seulgi sitting at the desk.

Wendy was immediately nervous, seeing that Seulgi had clearly been back here for a while, and wondering if Eunae knew about Joy’s disastrous text.

Eunae smiled, pleasantly surprised to see Wendy, and completely oblivious to any tension from Irene.

Seulgi poked at the cake box, unable to meet anyone’s gaze.

Before they could sink into an awkward silence, however, Eunae suddenly pointed at Wendy’s sweater.

“Berklee!”

Wendy blinked at her and then tugged at her sweater so she could see which one she was wearing. “Oh, oh yeah.” She suddenly remembered Seulgi saying Eunae had also gone to her school.

“Did you go there?” Eunae asked with a surprised smile.

Wendy laughed a little. It seems Eunae had no clue about the text. She stole a glance at Seulgi, but Seulgi was watching her with an unreadable expression. “I-I’m still going there. For songwriting,” she shyly answered.

“Really? I went for production!” Eunae offered excitedly. Irene and Seulgi were glancing between the two other girls with increasing curiosity.

Irene cleared and Eunae seemed to suddenly remember there were two other people in the room, one of whom was her temporary boss, and the other being her ex-girlfriend. She flushed bright red and turned in place. “I-I need to go clock in. I’ll s-see you later…!”  And she scooted off into the cafe.

Irene and Seulgi turned to look at Wendy who was wearing a rather incriminating smile. It fell when she saw herself being stared at. “What?”

“Nothing,” Seulgi said, though she still had that appraising look. Irene remained silent.

“Wait, no! It’s not- I’m not…! You know what? I think I should go, too,” Wendy said in a rush, embarrassment coloring her cheeks as well. “Enjoy the cake...!” She followed after Eunae.

Irene glanced at Seulgi, wondering how the ‘Legendary Barista’ was reacting to this interesting development. To her surprise, Seulgi wore a faint smile with her head tilted slightly to one side. After a moment she shook her head and looked over at Irene.

“I should get on the floor, too,” she said, dropping her gaze quickly. She stood, but suddenly Irene came to stand in front of her.

“Seulgi, wait.”

Seulgi looked at her questioningly. From what she was gathering from Irene’s expression, it wasn’t going to be good.

“I need your help with something.”

Seulgi put her apron back on the desk and waited for more. Irene came up to her and knelt. She wordlessly tapped Seulgi’s knee until the barista scooted a bit so Irene could access the desk drawers. Standing with a stack of papers she had retrieved, she realized how little Seulgi had actually moved. Seulgi wasn’t purposefully trying to make things hard on Irene, but she was doing a good job of it anyway. With scant inches between them, Irene was assaulted by the memory of their kiss: how Seulgi’s lips had felt against hers, that idiotic confidence with which Seulgi had held her...

She smacked Seulgi’s arm with the papers to clear her thoughts.

“Ah-! What the…?” Seulgi cried, wincing at Irene’s sudden aggression.

“I just don’t want you getting any ideas,” she said gruffly, with one last look at Seulgi’s lips before she turned away to spread the papers out on the desk.

Seulgi put a hand on her arm where she had been hit, wondering which one of them exactly had been getting ideas.

“So then what did you want my help with?” she said, steering the subject back on course.

Irene didn’t look up at her. “The Drivethru store is down two people,” she explained. “Heechul and I decided to each give them a barista, and I wanted your advice on who we should consider.”

“Isn’t he already lending them someone?” Seulgi asked. She looked over Irene’s shoulder and saw carbon paper forms she suddenly recognized mixed in with employee evaluations.

“A transfer, Seulgi. This would be permanent.”

+++

Wendy saw Eunae already down by the bar, making drinks. She found herself lingering as she passed, watching her work. What had Irene and Seulgi been thinking? Oh, god, she thought. Just what had Seulgi been thinking? She had come here to clean up a mess, not create another one.

Eunae suddenly turned around to hand off a finished drink and almost dropped it as she noticed Wendy there staring at her.

“Oh-!”

“Careful-!” Wendy reached out and grabbed the drink which had almost slipped out of Eunae’s grip.

The taller barista gave a small, embarrassed laugh. “Thanks. Caramel macchiato?” she called around Wendy out to the cafe. A teenaged girl came up and grabbed the drink with a toneless ‘thanks’ and left. Wendy was about to leave as well when Eunae called her back.

“Wait! Did you want something?” she asked eagerly.

Wendy smiled brightly. “Sure.” How could she say no? She was about to tell the girl her order when Eunae held up a finger.

“Nope, sorry, I don’t do requests,” she said playfully before turning back around.

Wendy stood on her tiptoes and tried to watch what Eunae was making, curious about what kind of drink she’d end up with.

After another moment, Eunae came back with a medium-sized iced drink that didn’t look like anything Wendy recognized off their menu. The base of the drink was yellow with a tinge of green… lemonade and green tea? But there was two-inch layer of something pink on top that Wendy wasn’t sure about. Could it be passion tea?

“Tell me what you think.”

Wendy eyed her suspiciously and took a sip. There was definitely some lemonade in this. She took another long sip and then held the cup up so she could get a better look at it. The pink layer on top was beginning to bleed through the ice and mix with the rest of the drink.

“Wow this is great, what is it?” Wendy asked in surprise.

“It’s a ‘B.K. Sunrise’,” Eunae said a little proudly.

Now that Eunae had introduced the idea of it being a ‘sunrise’, Wendy thought the drink was rather aptly named. She bet it would taste great with some tequila.

“What’s the ‘B.K.’ stand for,” she asked. It definitely wasn’t something on the menu.

Eunae shrugged. “Moonbyul taught me how to make it a few days ago. She said it stood for ‘ByulKong’ or something like that.” She hadn’t questioned it.

“You’ll have to tell me what’s in it,” Wendy said, turning the cup around and indicating the row of customization boxes along one side. She handed it back to Eunae. “Write it out,” she instructed.

Eunae gave Wendy a curious look for a moment, a faint smile still playing on her lips. She slowly took the cup and got a pen out of her apron pocket and began writing. After she was finished, she surprised Wendy by slipping a sleeve onto the cup before handing it back to her.

“What-”

“Don’t look at it until after you’ve left,” Eunae said mysteriously. “The recipe’s a secret~” And with that she turned away and went back to work, leaving Wendy all alone at the handoff station.

With one last suspicious look at the borrowed barista, Wendy walked out of the store and towards her car. Unable to stave off her curiosity she slipped the sleeve off the cup to get a look at the recipe. She was certain it was a green tea with lemonade, but what was the pink on top? Surely not raspberry syrup…

But there was no recipe written beneath the sleeve, to her surprise.

Just a phone number.