There’s this girl that comes into her work everyday. Jungeun works at a coffee shop at the corner of her street as a barista. It’s a nice place with a pleasant ambiance and equally as pleasant customers, and it’s by far the best place she’s ever worked. There’s just this one girl that catches her eye who comes in every morning at exactly 7:23. Her name’s Jinsoul (she knows this because that’s what’s written on the cup she tops off every morning) and she orders a cup of black coffee every single time, no cream, no sugar, without fail. It shouldn’t be her concern, really, but it’s the face she makes at her first sip every single morning that draws her attention. It’s one of disgust and utter regret, but she goes on to gulp it down before leaving anyway.

She’s cute, though. Pretty, too, in a unique sort of way akin to her own features, though softer and gentler in the slopes and edges.

So, it’s on a particular day when she has to take over a shift for her coworker at an ungodly time of morning, unexpecting of the equally as early presence of the attractive woman when it finally slips through half-awake lips.

“What do you think you are, mature?”

“ . . . Excuse me?”

Jungeun knows she’s screwed up big time, though Jinsoul doesn’t sound angry or the least bit offended, just adorably confused. She gives off the air of someone who requires constant coddling, someone who needs to be protected and taken care of. She has to have a boyfriend. There’s no possibility that she doesn’t. She’s exactly the type of girl guys would throw themselves at. Especially in the oversized sweater and red scarf she’s donning that makes her look softer than she normally does. As if she needed to look any softer.

“I, uhm, I didn’t mean to say that. I - You just never seem to enjoy that - the coffee, I mean, and it sort of just -”

The girl giggles. “- It’s okay. You’re right. I don’t really like coffee,” she says, expression turning sheepish at the confession.

Jungeun’s glad the coffee shop isn’t too populated, no one to be witness of the blush spreading like wildfire across her cheeks.

“T-Then why . . . ?”

“I have trouble staying awake in class . . . I get in trouble for falling asleep a lot,” she says, looking at Jungeun through long lashes, “and my professor looks sad whenever she catches me, so I’d rather drink coffee!”

Jungeun’s struck dumb for a few seconds because who in this filthy world has such a pure response like that? But then the sound of an incoming customer snaps her out of her stupor and she’s sent rattling out a poorly stitched together sentence like a complete idiot.

“You know there are energy drinks for that?”

Jinsoul her head to the side with one of the softest smiles Jungeun has ever set eyes on, and she finds herself breathless at the sight.

“Yeah, but there’s something here that I can’t get at a convenience store.”

The words are said in a meaningful sort of way that Jungeun’s either too dumb or too shallow to really decipher right now, and then Jinsoul’s fingers are brushing just past hers before she’s walking off to her usual seat next to the wall length window.

Her hands are as soft as she expected them to be.

Jungeun begins to notice the look in the depths of cinnamon sprinkled eyes. The look is indecipherable as of now, written in a language that she has yet to discover, but it makes her feel things and that just makes it all the more difficult.

But then, a few weeks in, and Jinsoul seems to lose patience and Jungeun’s suddenly standing dumbly in front of her with the cafe’s key precariously dangling in her numb fingers (she hadn’t been able to make it in the morning because Yerim had just flown in from London and she had taken the night shift instead), desperately grasping for an understanding of the words that just slipped out between pretty lips.

“Will you go out with me?”

Jinsoul looks bashful, and Jungeun can see her hands trembling (though it could be because it was colder than it should be in November). And oh, I should say something, shouldn’t I?

But she doesn’t, and she’s not sure what brings her to do it, but suddenly she’s grabbing a hold of Jinsoul’s shaking hand and yanking her in for a kiss. She’s never been good with words, anyway. Jinsoul’s soft and malleable and so, so fragile and she practically molds into Jungeun’s sharper points and edges. It’s odd because really, Jinsoul’s pretty much skin and bone, and if anything, she should be just as rigid and pointed as Jungeun is. But she’s not, and her arm’s wrapping around a miniscule waist and the other is tangling in sweet scented hair and her head is just spinning and spinning and spinning.

“So, when you said you were going to ‘lock up’  I guess you meant it in the metaphorical sense.”

Jungeun gasps and tears herself off of Jinsoul like she’s a bucket of water she’d dunked her head in for too long. It’s the cafe’s owner, Jo Haseul, a small, gentle woman with a dark side to her that could freeze hell twice over.

“Oh, hey Seullie!”

The glare that had been aimed straight for Jungeun abruptly disappears and turns into something softer, like marshmallows. She should have known that Jinsoul would have the power to turn anyone and anything soft if she stared at it long enough.

“Jinsoul. Was my employee,” a glare, “bothering you?”

“No, no, it’s not like that, Seullie. I, um, I asked her out.”

Jungeun feels like she’s just been dumped into the arctic ocean with the withering glare that erupts like Superman’s lasers from Haseul’s eyes. The tiny woman takes a dangerous step towards her and Jungeun stumbles back a few paces with her hands outstretched as a sign of submission.

“Wait, I can - I can explain.”

But Haseul stops there. “If you hurt her, I will personally cook you in my oven and serve you to the dogs.”

Jungeun blinks at the abrupt change of event before her mind catches up. “H-Huh? Oh, of course. I wouldn’t dream of -”

But Haseul’s already turned her back on her, attention on Jinsoul instead and Jungeun decidedly falls silent.

“You know who to come to, right?”

“Seullie, Jungeun isn’t - ”

“Right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Good.”

Haseul gives her one last look, then spins on her heel and walks awa