As a town with perpetually sunny weather (in summer at least), Egret Cove could not handle itself when the weather got cloudy during the supposedly sunniest months. 

It wasn't even that cold: Haseul had just worn a long sleeve top, a thin one even, and full length pants, and she was more than fine. The locals, however, were a complete mess: Haseul noticed the streets even emptier than usual, and a young adult taking out the trash had on just about three sweaters. Literally nobody was out. 

So, she wasn't all that surprised that when she walked into Allison's 24 Hour, the only people inside were Hyunjin and Heejin. The teen couple were both dressed in heavy sweaters, leaning on the table and looking half asleep and half awake. Looking through the back window, she couldn't see a single person at Our Beach. 

"Yo," Haseul said, tying on her apron (even though she didn't really have to) and making her way to her coworkers. 

"Yooooo," Heejin groaned back. Hyunjin's eyes fluttered shut and she leaned her head on Heejin's arm. Haseul quickly clocked in then made her way back to them, sitting on the third seat at that table.

"Late night?" Haseul asked. 

Heejin shook her head. "Nah. It's just...cloudy." 

"I know. Everyone's acting so...weird." 

"Cloudy days here are kinda treated like snow days in places with normal weather. Everyone just stays inside all day, makes hot cocoa and cinnamon spice tea, and watches movies. 

"I'm gonna be honest. It's really not that cold." 

"We know, we know," Heejin answered. "To be honest, it's kinda humiliating having an outsider call us on this." 

"We're not supposed to be here," Hyunjin moaned. "We're supposed to all be at home watching Ghibli movies." 

"So...does that mean it'll be slow today?"

Hyunjin gave her a deadpan look. 

"I'll be pleasantly surprised if three people come in," Heejin answered. 

Just then Allison burst out of the back, carrying three mugs in her hand. She set them down in front of the girls; Haseul peeped in and saw it was hot chocolate, steaming at the top, complete with mini marshmallows. 

"Ladies, I know it'll be slow today, but I'm gonna need you all to stay in case of a lunch rush, until about one o'clock, alright? Then you can all go home." 

"It's no problem Allison," Heejin answered with a genuine smile. 

"Would some breakfast make it better?" 

"Of course!" Hyunjin exclaimed, sitting upright for the first time since Haseul came in. 

Allison chuckled. "Alright...pancake breakfast special for Hyunjin, french toast for Heejin, and for Haseul?" 

Haseul had peeked through the menu last shift in case she got asked this question again. "Waffles!" she cheerfully answered. 

"Alright dearies, I'll make those right up for you." 

"Thank you!" the teenagers all called off to their boss as she went back to the kitchen. 

"So you're a waffle kind of girl?" Hyunjin asked once Allison left. 

Haseul nodded. "Yeah. They're definitely my favorite breakfast food...like, the kind you can only get in a restaurant." 

"I feel like with the three of us...we complete the circle of sweet breakfasts," Hyunjin said. 

Heejin nodded very seriously. "Agreed." 

Haseul chuckled a little and looked around. "Isn't there anything we could do?" 

Hyunjin shook her head and took a sip of her hot cocoa, smiling after. "Nah. Heejin and I start an hour before you so we did everything we could. We can just chill now." 

Haseul nodded and the three girls looked around awkwardly: it was only Haseul's second shift at the restaurant after all. 

"So...how old are you again?" Heejin asked.

"I'm sixteen, but I'll be seveteen in august." 

"So you're gonna be a...senior next year?" 

"Yup! How about you guys?" 

"We're both fifteen, but my birthday is in October and Hyunjin's is in November. So we'll be juniors this year," Heejin answered. 

"Ahh. What's it like going to school around here?" 

Heejin and Hyunjin let out a simoultaneous groan. "Well, high school just in general." 

"Oh, of course." 

"But it's worse because we have to go to high school in Bells Hills," Hyunjin added. 

"Bells Hills?" 

Heejin sighed. "The next town over. There's not enough kids in Egret Cove to have a high school here." 

"Oooh..." 

"Yeah. Bells Hills ," Hyunjin whined. 

"Is it a beach town too?" Haseul asked. 

Heejin nodded. "Yup. It's beaches are a bit nicer than the ones here. Other than Our Beach, of course. So the whole town has a little bit more money, and it shows." 

"You know how all the beach houses here look all...rustic?" Hyunjin asked, and Haseul nodded. "Well, like five years before we were born, pretty much all of Bells Hills collectively decided to tear down all their old beach houses and build these fancy...things. , they are so ugly too. I think it says a lot about the difference between our town and theirs." 

"So are all your classmates, like, rich kids?" 

"Yup. They think they're so great because they live in in' Bells Hills," Heejin responded. 

"Egret Cove people are just....different," Hyunjin added. 

Heejin hummed. "The Bells Hills kids look down on Egret Cove. Always saying it's time for an upgrade and that Bells Hills should just absorb Egret Cove..." 

"There's no way that would ever happen though," Hyunjin continued. "The old hippies would riot. As they should." 

Haseul smiled and chuckled at that. She'd never been to Bells Hills, but without a doubt she was on Heejin and Hyunjin's side of things. 

"How about you? What's your high school like?" Heejin asked. 

"You're from....Morrisville, right?" Hyunjin added. 

"Yup. Just...the suburbs. It's a pretty typical suburban high school. Morrisville High is the only high school in the area, but our town isn't that small. So there's a lot of people at my school. It's just...yeah. High school no matter what, I think." 

"Do you at least have a solid group of friends?" Hyunjin asked. 

Heejin nodded at her girlfriend. "Yeah...like most of the student body of Bells Hills High , but we have each other, and the rest of the kids from Egret Cove. I think I'd die without them." 

Haseul thought for a moment. Well, there was Jungeun and Jinsoul...but did she consider them her friends? And did they consider her their friend? 

"Well...I have a couple of acquaintances. But...not friends, really." 

"Wait, what?" Hyunjin cried. 

"That's just weird. You're ing cool. I can't imagine you not being popular or at least having a solid group of friends..." Heejin spoke. 

Haseul flushed and looked away. They were just being nice. No one would ever really mean that. 

"Aww, guys...it's okay. You don't have to say that." 

" no! We do have to say it!" Hyunjin said. 

"How...how could that have happened?" Heejin asked. 

Haseul sighed and looked down at the table. There was a reason for all the stuff she was going through now. But was it too soon to reveal all of that to Heejin and Hyunjin? They barely knew each other, after all. But the truth was, she already felt pretty close to them. And it wasn't like a deep secret, or anything she had done wrong. It was just memories, a few years old but still a bit painful. 

"Well...in middle school I got bullied pretty bad. I definitely did not have any friends then. So when high school came around, I didn't have any friends that carried over. My bullies decided to leave me alone once I got to high school, luckily. No apology of course, but it was better than nothing. But...it's been kind of hard to make friends since that." 

Hyunjin and Heejin both looked at her with so much sympathy and empathy Haseul thought she would cry, and she looked at the slightly sandy floor sharply. 

"That's...that's so horrible. Haseul I'm so sorry," Heejin said, and Haseul was sure it was genuine. 

"It's just so...damaging," Hyunjin continued. 

"If you don't want to talk about it anymore, that's totally fine. But we're also here to talk about it whenever you need," Heejin finished. 

"Really?" Haseul asked. This was the first time anyone had expressed something like this to her. Well, it was the first time Haseul had opened up to anyone about this issue. But for her to be met with support the first time she did made her smile, even at those horrible memories. 

"Of course!" Heejin cried. 

"If you don't mind me asking...what exactly was it all about? If you don't mind me asking, of course," Hyunjin asked. 

"Well..." Haseul started. "I guess you could say it was because I was the girl in my grade who was the slowest to...develop, physically and mentally. I still looked like a little girl, all the way through graduation. I still liked playing with toys, and I definitely did not like boys. So...I didn't have a lot in common with my classmates as we got older. I guess that made me seem different to them...like an easy target. I was a nerd, a dork, but not in the cool way. I didn't know the so called right way to dress or do my hair or listen to music or talk. I was ugly, and weird and they took notice. As bullies do." 

"I'm sure you weren't ugly or weird, at least weird in a bad way. I have a feeling they didn't all truly feel that way about you either. So I hope you don't feel that way yourself," Hyunjin spoke. 

Haseul sighed. "I used to...but I don't, really, anymore." That was sort of a lie. But this was turning into a pity party for herself, and she didn't want Hyunjin and Heejin to feel any worse about her.

"That's good, at least. Because you're not," Hyunjin firmly spoke. 

"I think middle school for everyone though. Maybe not worse than high school for some. It has been for me...but I think both of those sets of years just have to . For character development." 

"You didn't deserve it to that point though. Nobody does," Heejin answered. 

Haseul shrugged. "True, true." 

Hyunjin sighed. "Ahh...middle school." 

"How was it for you guys?" Haseul asked, just trying to get the attention off of herself. 

Heejin and Hyunjin shared a look. "People picked on us too. Not to the extent you were, we still had other friends and each other, of course..." Heejin explained.

"You guys went to middle school together?" 

Heejin and Hyunjin shared a laugh. "We've been together since birth. All the parents in Egret Cove know each other. Before preschool they take their kids in groups to the beach, then there's the preschool, and the elementary school...everyone just knows each other."  

"Is there a middle school in Egret Cove?" 

Hyunjin shook her head. "Nope. We've got an elementary school but that's it. We had to go on the bus to Egret Cove every day, since nobody could drive..." 

"I think that was the worst part," Heejin mumbled. 

"Once high school started, we were able to get rides from upperclassmen that lived in Egret Cove too," Hyunjin explained. "But not in middle school..." 

"The bus was just horrible. Most people got rides from their parents but the people who were on the bus just wanted to make our lives horrible. It was better at school with supervision, but the school bus had, like, no adults on it, and the bus driver just did not care about us." 

Haseul shuddered herself, remembering the horror of the mornings and afternoons on the school bus. It truly was one of the centers of all the bullying; by eighth grade her parents had to drive her to and from school. 

"I totally understand that." 

But what Haseul didn't understand was why. Heejin and Hyunjin were friendly, nice, and not to mention gorgeous. She couldn't imagine them being anything else. In middle school, Haseul had seemed like a perfect target. But she couldn't imagine Heejin and Hyunjin being one, unless the entire student body had been jealous of them, and picked on them rather than making them popular. 

"What was it in your case?" 

Heejin and Hyunjin shared another look. "It was the fact that we were together." 

"Oh," Haseul answered. She couldn't imagine having the courage to be totally out in middle school. She'd already been bullied enough as a closeted lesbian. 

"We basically popped out of the womb best friends. As we got older we just got closer, and closer, until by, like, fifth grade, it was us being a couple, not our barbies," Hyunjin explained. 

"It started off as one of those little kid relationships. But it kinda just...lasted? I dunno, it's weird. But it's been nice, even though it was rough in middle school," Heejin added. 

"We just...we didn't see the big deal about it. So when people in middle school tried to talk to us about boys, we just told them the truth. And...I guess that made us a target," Hyunjin finished. 

Haseul frowned as Allison returned from the kitchen, a smile on her lips as she set all of their plates of food down. 

"Oh thank god," Hyunjin said. "I need this now. We were talking about middle school; I need something to perk me back up." 

"Don't even think about those years," Allison answered firmly. Haseul could see it in her mind: her being Heejin and Hyunjin's supporter and confidant during those difficult times. "Eat your breakfast, and remember that you are so much more than those days and what those people thought of you. All of you," she spoke, turning to Haseul too. "Remember for me, alright girls." 

Hyunjin nodded seriously and Heejin grinned up at her. "Always." 

It was clear that both Hyunjin and Heejin took Allison's words, that philosophy to heart. Maybe, it was time Haseul did too.