It was a few shifts in, and Haseul was finally getting into the swing of things at Allison's 24 Hour. 

Her, Heejin, and Hyunjin had set up a sort of daily routine: during the busy hours, they designated who would take cash, who would be the main food runner, and who would help with food running as well as prepping milkshakes and helping customers that needed it. During the slower times, they decided which cleaning and restocking tasks belonged to which girl. 

All in all, Haseul would say it was the chillest job she'd had ever had, and probably the chillest job she'd ever have. Unlike her other places of business, there weren't a million and one different little things she had to think about. Plus there wasn't the worries of opening and closing shifts as there were no opening or closing shifts. 

There were two best parts: one of which was the food (Allison gave them all their employee meal as well as snacks during slow hours and sometimes even stuff to take home). The other best part was Heejin and Hyunjin: almost overnight, the couple had become her best friends. 

Probably, the second best part was the customers. Although Haseul had that bad customer experience on her first day, nothing like that had happened since. Instead, the patrons were very different: families out for lunch after the beach, older couples on breakfast dates, old friends eating together as part of a weekly tradition, groups of teens just hanging out and needing cheap food. Allison and Heejin and Hyunjin knew every one of them, and more often than she would have expected, Haseul found herself introducing herself, by name, and shaking hands. She'd only felt like an outsider for a minute; through short conversations she established herself as a pseudo-local, and the customers welcomed her with open arms. Whereas before, she'd felt like she wasn't part of the 'our' in Our Beach, now she felt like it was her right to go visit the beautiful shore. 

But of course, she had only been there a few days. There were things she still had to learn and get used to as an employee of Allison's 24 Hour. When she walked in that morning, going to the back to clock in, she learned of her next new skill. 

Allison approached Haseul and gave her a smile, rubbing her back. "Good morning dearie." 

"Good morning!" Haseul answered, happier to clock in at work than she'd ever thought she could be. Well, Allison's warm presence in the morning always made it easier. 

"Today I have a new task for you." 

"Uh?" 

Allison gave Haseul a gentle smile. "Today Heejin is going to teach you to use the cash register." 

"Oh, awesome," Haseul answered, and she meant it. It would be nice to do that job occasionally; sometimes doing food running on your feet all day got tiring after a while. 

"So when you get to the front, just go behind the counter. I think it's gonna be on the slow side so Hyunjin can handle food running." 

"Thanks Allison!" Haseul let the clock in machine punch in her time and she set her slip into the little plastic container. 

"My pleasure," Allison answered, and they went their separate ways. 

When Haseul came back to the front, awkwardly standing behind Heejin at the counter. Her coworker flipped around, her long, thick dark hair flipping prettily behind her, and smiled. 

"Morning Haseul!" 

"Hey Heejin." 

Hyunjin, in a break between running food order, came scampering over to them like a kitten. 

"G'morn, Has!"

"G'morn, Hyun." 

Both girls giggled loudly and Hyunjin reached over the counter to peck Heejin on the lips. 

"What are you doing over here anyways?" Hyunjin asked. 

"I'm teaching her the cash register." 

Hyunjin grimaced. "Good luck." 

"It can't be that bad, right?" 

"Well..." Heejin mumbled in her low voice. Hyunjin shrugged and went back to the counter to bring out more food to customers. 

Heejin checked to make sure there was a lull in customers before turning to Haseul. 

"I've ran a cash register before, you know. When I worked at Carl's Junior..."

Heejin chuckled. "Oh, no no no. This is nothing like that." 

She tugged Haseul in front of the cash register and Haseul realized...there was no computer. It looked so old fashioned, with just a little screen with numbers. Haseul had worked with those registers with screens before, but never with a kind like this. There wasn't even a place to swipe cards, instead there was a little attachment beside it for that purpose. 

"Oh," she spoke. 

Heejin laughed. "Oh is right. It's...actually not so bad, once you get used to it. When people use credit or debit cards it's pretty annoying. And it can be sorta janky. But luckily Allison always knows how to fix it, and most locals just use cash anyways." She pulled a dirty yet laminated slip of paper from underneath the register, displaying the menu. "This has all of the prices on it. So basically you just punch in however much it is with these numbers." Heejin demonstrated by punching in 5.00, the price for a plain stack of regular pancakes. "Then you press this T button, for tax. And then you press this big button down here!" And that opened the register, displaying all the cash.

"That doesn't seem too difficult." 

"In some ways, it isn't. I mean, once you've worked here a while you kinda start to memorize the prices of everything. Just...the major issue is debit and credit cards. Oh, and you see how the drawer just opened as soon as I pressed the button? I'd say about...twenty-five percent of the time that doesn't happen." 

Haseul grimced. "Oh...I see." 

"Yup." 

"And then I write it all down on the little notepad here and bring it to Allison." 

"Oh I see." Haseul paused. "Wait...what if someone wants to alter or add ingredients?" 

Heejin snorted. "People rarely change the set menu. But if they do...I'd say add it to the paper and bring it to Allison. But I don't know how much Allison would like that...unless they've got, like, a dietary restriction, you might wanna try and talk them out of it." 

Haseul laughed a little. "Okay, okay."

"I know, it's a little weird. Allison is like the chillest person in the world, except with her food. It's good, and everyone knows it. Unless you're, like, vegan, or can't do lactose or gluten, or have religious food restrictions...you should just trust Allison. Oh, and nothing on the menu is even remotely spicy. Trust me. We don't even have chili flakes in the kitchen. So if someone asks, tell them that. And if a customer says their food is too spicy...that's kind of their problem. But, you know, almost everyone's a regular. You won't get too much ." 

Haseul gave her a smile and looked over the counter again. "What about card payments?" 

"Ugh!" Heejin cried. But she hunkered down and explained the long, and frankly annoying process of dealing with card payments: from the order of inputs to the card reader and main cash register, to the way you had to bend the cards to even get the machine to register them. By the end, Haseul was thoroughly confused. 

"I...that might take me a while to get." 

Heejin grinned. "I understand. I won't leave you alone to deal with that." 

"Why wouldn't Allison just make it cash only?" 

Heejin sighed. "Because she's like that." 

Haseul laughed at that and looked over everything one more time. "The cash seems fine though." 

"Yeah that's no problem." 

Suddenly, Hyunjin walked over to the two girls and slumped on the counter. 

"Everything alright?" Heejin asked, petting her girlfriend's hair. 

"Big group," she panted. "But all food is brought up." 

Heejin and Hyunjin shared a smile that had Haseul seething with jealousy (and desperately thinking of Vivi) when the restaurant door swung open, a big group of middle school aged boys in flip flops and puka shell necklaces stepping in. 

"Ready to take your first orders?" 

Haseul grimaced. "I guess." 

~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours later, and Haseul was in the swing of things. She had mastered taking cash very quickly, enough that Heejin could leave her alone to take care of it while she helped Hyunjin run food (and stole kisses from her when the customers weren't looking). Haseul did still have to call Heejin back for card payments, but she thought it was good progress for her first day. 

Now, though, it was the slow hours. Almost no one was in the restaurant, not even a coffee drinker with a laptop (Haseul soon learned that Allison's 24 Hour did not, in fact, have wifi). So, all of the girls turned when they heard the doorbell ring. 

"Haseul!" A shrill, childish voice yelled. Haseul sighed and her eyes widened; it was Yeojin. The old man in the corner made a face at the ten year old before turning back to his paper. 

"What are you doing here?" Haseul asked.

Yeojin pouted and flopped down at a table. "I'm bored."

"So you decided to come bug me at work?" Haseul asked, taking a seat next to her. 

"What else was I supposed to do?" 

As Yeojin and Haseul bantered, Heejin and Hyunjin came from the back of the seating (technically the girls were supposed to take their breaks one at a time but Heejin and Hyunjin always went together, and Allison obviously didn't care). 

"Wait, is this your cousin?" Heejin asked Haseul. 

"Yup." 

Yeojin gave them each judgmental stares, looking them over before nodding in approval. "You guys seem pretty cool." 

Heejin and Hyunjin shared a warm chuckle. "I'm glad to hear it." 

"Aren't you gonna introduce us? Gosh, so impolite..." 

Haseul rolled her eyes dramatically. "Alright, Yeojin, these are my coworkers, Heejin and Hyunjin. And Heejin and Hyunjin, this is my cousin Yeojin." 

Yeojin stood up and looked each of them in the eye (quite a distance to look up because of her height), shaking each of their hands. 

"Oh! A strong grip," Hyunjin mumbled as they stopped. 

"How old are you?" Heejin asked. 

"Ten. I'm going into middle school last year," she answered as if that was the biggest accomplishment a person could have. "You two?" 

"We're fifteen. We're going to be juniors." 

"Oh...so Haseul's the hag of the bunch." 

"Hey!" Haseul whined as Heejin and Hyunjin laughed out loud. "Come on. Did you really just come here to bug me?" 

"Kind of. I also came to pick up pancakes for grandma." She pulled her frog backpack from the back of her chair onto her lap, pulling a pile of one dollar bills from it. 

Just then, Allison and her patchwork skirt emerged from the back. "Yeojin! Oh, how wonderful to see you." 

"Hi Allison," Yeojin sweetly answered, the two sharing a hug. Haseul looked from Heejin, to Hyunjin, to her cousin. It was obvious just how much Allison did for the young women of the Egret Cove community. 

"Are you here to pick up something to eat?" 

"Yup!" Yeojin gathered up some of the ones, not bothering to count, and handed them to Allison. "Five pancake stacks please! One with chocolate chips!" 

"Oh dearie. Don't worry about it." Allison stuffed the money back into Yeojin's tiny palm. "Haseul's been working so hard here that's she's definitely thoroughly paid for your food." 

"Thank you Allison!" Yeojin chanted as Allison ran her fingers through Yeojin's hair and went to the back to make the food. 

"I told you me getting a job would be a good idea," Haseul mumbled to her cousin with a smirk. 

"Yeah, yeah," Yeojin answered before sighing and flopping on the old wood table. "It's so empty here. Isn't it boring?" 

"It's only like this part of the day," Hyunjin explained. "Most of the time it's pretty busy." 

"Anyways, it's fun when you've got such cool coworkers," Heejin added. 

Yeojin looked knowingly between Heejin and Hyunjin. "Are you guys dating?" 

Heejin and Hyunjin shared an awkward chuckle. "Um...yeah?" Heejin answered. Clearly neither expected that question from the ten year old, but Haseul knew it was coming. She knew Yeojin far too well at this point. 

"That's cool. You guys just have lesbian energy. You know, Haseul's a lesbian too. So you all can relate about that." 

Haseul face palmed and sighed. Thank god she already came out to Heejin and Hyunjin. 

But the teen couple seemed pretty unphased, just giggling at the ten year old. 

"I guess we can," Heejin answered. "But we get along for other reasons as well." 

"Oh! Do you guys also simp for lifeguards?" 

"," Haseul whispered to herself, still facepalming. 

"Lifeguard?" Hyunjin said, her and Heejin giving her a look that made Haseul just know Heejin and Hyunjin would launch a full investigation on it. 

But Haseul was lucky enough that it was the moment Allison decided to give Yeojin her food. Yeojin politely thanked her and Allison went to the back, and Haseul stared at her cousin expectantly. 

"Aren't you gonna go home now?" 

"Uh, nope? I'm just wait around here for a few more hours." 

"Oh, you can stay!" Heejin cried. 

"Please stay with us Yeojin," Hyunjin added. 

"Alright, fine," Haseul finished. "You can stay. It's slow anyways." 

"You know I was gonna stay here no matter if you gave me permission or not, right?" 

Haseul sighed deeply and Heejin and Hyunjin laughed at her. "Right." 

And when that night, Haseul received a text in her group chat with Heejin and Hyunjin, from Hyunjin, that read:

yeojin is adorable and has a galaxy brain. heejin and i have decided she is our daughter and our little sister and also our cousin. 

Haseul couldn't say she was surprised. That was just Yeojin's power.