As if Vivi's visit the day before, and Heejin and Hyunjin's pestering (not to mention Yeojin's once she got home; somehow Heejin and Hyunjin had gotten the ten year old's number and had begun to update her on all things Vivi related) hadn't shaken her up enough, Vivi's visit the next day just about blew Haseul's mind.

It was much later in the day, just a few minutes before Haseul's shift finished, when she and Heejin and Hyunjin were doing their last bit of cleaning and the people on the next shift were coming, when Vivi pushed the door open. Haseul just looked at her in pure and utter shock, but the smile on Vivi's pretty lips seemed to say that she'd come in on purpose, all for Haseul. But that couldn't be, right? 

"Hey!" Haseul said, a little too loud. 

"Hey," Vivi answered with a soft giggle. "Working again today?" 

Haseul chuckled. "Yup." 

The seventeen year old barely spared a glance at Heejin and Hyunjin who were, again, furiously whispering in the corner, and bounded behind the counter. "What can I getcha?" 

"Strawberry milkshake." 

Haseul cocked her head. "No food today?" 

"Nope. But that strawberry milkshake was so good yesterday that I needed another." 

Vivi had come not to take food home to her family...so maybe...maybe she came for Haseul? No way, Haseul reasoned in her head, she just wanted a milkshake. Of course. Just a milkshake. 

"Alrighty. I'll get that right out for you." 

Vivi started digging through her bag for cash but Haseul shook her head. 

"It's on the house." 

"Really?" Vivi asked, and Haseul knew that that smile was absolutely worth this risk. 

"Of course! Don't worry about it." Haseul would worry about it, in fact, she'd find a way to slip some of her own cash into the register. Allison was probably cool with this little friends and family discount but Haseul was one to go by the books and anyways, she felt guilty.

Well, it was kinda like she was treating Vivi to a milkshake. She just didn't know it. 

"How much longer do you have until your shift ends?" 

Haseul took a peek at the wall clock. "Just five minutes, actually." 

"Oh! How nice."

The girls momentarily fell into that sweet awkward silence once Haseul finished taking everything down. But suddenly, Haseul felt Heejin and Hyunjin harshly bump into her as they made their way to the back to gather their things. 

It wasn't a rude bump. Haseul knew exactly what it meant: they had been listening in to her and Vivi's conversation, and they want her to ask to hang out. 

They were friends, right? Maybe Haseul could do that. 

So, she took in a deep breath and looked up at Vivi. 

"Are you doing anything after this?" 

Vivi smiled expectantly and shook her head. "Nope!" 

"W-well...once I get off work, could I maybe walk you home?" 

Haseul hadn't quite had the courage to fully ask Vivi to hang out but this was a start, and by the way Vivi's smile bloomed even bigger, she was glad she did it. 

"I'd love that!" 

Haseul looked around uncomfortably for a moment before managing to return the smile. "A-alright! Um...I-I'll get ready! And get you your milkshake." 

"I can't wait." 

Holding back an obnoxious squeal Haseul darted into the back, giving Allison the strawberry milkshake order before grabbing her things as quickly as she could pick them up. 

"So?" Hyunjin asked as soon as she was there, the other two girls taking their stuff as well (albeit at a lower speed). 

"I'm gonna walk her home," Haseul explained with a proud grin. 

Heejin gave her a back pat. "Honestly, I'm proud of you." 

"We're proud of you," Hyunjin added. 

Haseul gave them a small smile. "Thank you thank you thank you!" 

"You're so excited; it's so cute," Hyunjin cooed. 

"Yeojin said you were whipped and she was absolutely right," Heejin added. 

"Hey!" Haseul whined. 

"But clearly she's just as whipped as you are. She came back the very next day to see you after discovering you worked here." 

"Hyunjin, don't do this. She just wanted a milkshake, alright?" 

"The milkshakes are good, but not that good," Hyunjin rebutted. "She came here for you." 

"I-I don't know about that..." 

"You could tell just by the way she looked at you!" Heejin cried, and Haseul immediately looked panicked, shushing the girls. Heejin and Hyunjin shared a look that Haseul purposefully ignored. 

Haseul made a face as she stamped her clock out sheet. 

"Stop trying to force me to get my hopes up," she spoke with almost no malice, only what was necessary. 

"Stop trying to force yourself to get your hopes down," Hyunjin answered. "You like her for a reason. I don't think your gut is a fool that falls for hets." 

Haseul just rolled her eyes, a smile poking at the corner of her lips, and gave her coworkers girlfriends an eyebrow raise that more effectively said goodbye. 

After finally getting all her things together in an organized fashion, putting away her apron, and darting into the bathroom for a quick touch up (there was only so much Haseul could do appearance wise; it's hard to look gorgeous after working a seven hour shift, but Haseul still let her hair down and reapplied lipstick nonetheless), she went back to the kitchen to grab Vivi's milkshake. 

The only person there was Allison, doing some dishes, with two milkshake cups set by the ice cream fridge. 

"Hey Allison?" The restaurant owner looked up from the large sink. "What's this other milkshake for? The customer only ordered one." 

"It's for you." When Haseul looked extremely confused, Allison continued. "If you're gonna walk Vivi home you don't want to make her feel weird by letting her drink alone, right?" 

"O-oh." Heejin and Hyunjin must have informed Allison about the...situation. 

"Have a good time," Allison spoke, giving Haseul a look that let her know she knew everything. 

"Not you too," Haseul mumbled, grabbing the shakes. 

Allison just chuckled and went back to her dishes, and with a final, incredibly awkward wave, Haseul went back out to the main room. 

Haseul quickly saw Vivi was distracted by her phone so before she noticed Haseul was there, the waittress slipped some of her tip money into the cash register for Vivi's drink before bounding up to the girl of her dreams. 

"Ready to go?" Haseul asked, holding out Vivi's strawberry shake. 

Vivi looked up from her phone and smiled and yes, Haseul knew Vivi did a lot of smiling but it still devastated her every ing time. 

"Yeah." Vivi slid in her chair and the two girls stood up, heading out of the door. 

"Which way?"

"This way." Vivi pointed down the sidewalk, away from the highway. 

Haseul smiled. "Me too!" 

"I wonder if we're neighbors..." Vivi mumbled, taking a sip of her shake. "Mmh! Delicious, as always." She leaned over to take a peek at Haseul's. "What flavor do you have?" 

"Chocolate and vanilla. Secret employee special." Haseul managed to spare a shy glance at her intrigued crush. 

"It looks good." 

"Wanna try?" Haseul instinctively asked. 

"Yes please. And have some of mine." 

The girls swapped drinks, as easy as that. But internally, Haseul freaked.

Oh my god. She was going to take a sip of Vivi's drink. From the same straw. Where those perfect petal pink lips touched. 

Briefly, Haseul managed to calm herself down. What was she, ten years old? 

Wait: Yeojin was ten. And even she would think Haseul was being ridiculous. 

So, what was she? Eight years old? 

So not wanting to seem like a weird baby Haseul took a sip of Vivi's strawberry milkshake, and man it was good. Better than any of the ones she had tried from Allison's 24 Hour before. Maybe, it was because it was Vivi's, because Vivi had tasted it already. 

"Wow...that is really good," Vivi spoke, breaking Haseul's slowly mounting pile of thoughts. "Maybe you'll have to give me an exception to try it, even though I'm not an employee. Could you do that for me?" 

"I could do anything for you," Haseul mumbled very quietly. 

Wait, what the ? Oh my god Haseul you idiot you idiot you probably seem insane! No, you definitely seem insane! You guys are friends who might, like, just a week or two ago oh my god-

"Huh?" 

Haseul breathed a sigh of relief. Vivi hadn't heard her. 

"O-Of course. O-of course I can get you one. J-just ask next time you're in the restaurant." 

"Mmh," Vivi answered. 

And then...silence. 

Sounds filled their walk home, the distant back and forth of the beach waves, wind chimes ringing quietly with the soft ocean breezes, the press of their feet on the sidewalk caked with sand, a child screaming with laughter far away, an old TV inside a house. 

But none of those sounds were Vivi and Haseul talking. 

Quickly, Haseul realized this was the first time they were alone: really alone, not in the restaurant with customer impatience and Heejin and Hyunjin and Allison's prying gazes, or at the beach with swimmers Vivi always kept her eye on and Yeojin a few feet away in the water. No, this time, it was just them. 

Haseul really had so much to say. But deep down, she was terrified. 

"Do you like watching movies?" Vivi quietly asked. It could have felt like an awkward conversation starter but when Vivi said it, the way she said it, it felt like she was genuinely curious. 

"Of course!" 

"Like which?" 

"My favorite movie is But I'm a Cheerleader," Haseul answered. Vivi turned to her pretty sharply and a lightbulb went off in Haseul's head. 

Maybe....Heejin and Hyunjin's ideas from yesterday weren't so bad. Maybe, it wouldn't be totally awkward to figure out if Vivi liked girls or not. 

"I..um...also like..." Haseul searched her brain for the famous lesbian movies she had seen. "I also like Carol! And Blue is the Warmest Color." 

"I...I like those too," Vivi answered, with a gaze that was more than just a normal conversational look. 

But wait...did that mean...did that mean she liked girls? Or just that she liked those movies? They were all good movies, so, it could be that she just happened to have seen and liked those movies, or she was just realizing Haseul was essentially just coming out to her and she was taking that it without doing the same...really, it could be anything. 

Haseul was already on this roll, though. She could keep going; it wouldn't be too much weirder. She could get a more solid explanation. 

"What about music?" Haseul asked nervously. 

"Uh..." 

"Well, um, I like Girl in Red." She spoke over Vivi, looking down at the sandy ground, trying to calm her steadily growing nerves. "And Hayley Kiyoko." Was Hayley Kiyoko still a thing? Haseul still liked her music. "And Teegan and Sara." Haseul knew, like, one Teegan and Sara song, but back when she was a baby gay and watching lesbian youtubers to try and figure out how to even fit in to this community she was now a part of, they all said Teegan and Sara were the girls all women loving women listened to. But that was what, like, three or four years ago, and those videos were already a little old then. Would Vivi even pick up on it? , she was just looking stupider and being more anxious and weird by the second. 

And suddenly, Vivi laughed. It wasn't mocking, it was laughing with her, not at her, and it immediately broke the building tension in Haseul's mind. 

"Haseul?" 

"Yeah?" 

"I like girls too." 

And after Haseul breathed the most massive sigh of relief she thought she ever had, she laughed too. 

"O-Oh...I-" 

"I'm...glad we're on the same page on that one," Vivi admitted. 

"Y-yeah." Haseul couldn't manage much more. She was still shaky from basically outing herself and Vivi outing herself too and just...everything. 

"Thanks for taking the fall on that one." 

Haseul had to think for a moment to realize what she meant, but when she understood her heart filled with warmth. 

"One of us had to do it," Haseul answered. They didn't need to say the words. Coming out was scary on all fronts, no matter who or where or what. 

She didn't speak the end of her sentence out loud: that if nobody did it, nothing would ever happen. No romance, ever. Not that Haseul would ever have a chance with a girl like Vivi anyways. God it was annoying to be a woman loving woman. 

"Oh! We're here already," Vivi spoke. The girls stopped, and Haseul smiled a little too wide: there was only one house in between her grandmother's and Vivi's. 

"Actually I'm just over here," Haseul answered, pointing to her own house. 

"Really? We'll have to visit each other more." 

"Yeah. We'll have to." 

Vivi and Haseul looked at each other, like usual, for a little too long before Vivi cleared . 

"I...should go...I, I guess..." There was that melancholy look on Vivi's face, like always when they parted ways, and now knowing Vivi liked girls, man did it have more weight to it. 

"Alright. Have a good evening." 

"You too!" Vivi called as she walked to her front door and slipped inside. Ever patiently, Haseul waited until Vivi was safe and sound in her own home before starting the short walk over to her place, whipping out her phone.

Guys!!!!!!

Vivi likes girls!!!! Haseul texted her group chat with Heejin and Hyunjin. 

Congrats! Heejin answered first. 

congrats on finally realizing. the rest of us knew days ago, Hyunjin added. 

Haseul glared at her phone momentarily, trying to transfer her annoyance to Hyunjin through the phone. But not even Hyunjin's pestering could wipe the massive grin off her lips. 

Oh man, she was going to get an earful from Yeojin tonight.