Seungwan stares at the cup of black coffee on her desk in annoyance. This is already the third day that she has bought it from the same café and the brown haired woman sits beside her is just curious.

"Son Seungwan, why did you buy this? You hate black coffee, don't you?"

Well, even if she has known Yerim for several years, she still doesn't know where to start this time.

Seungwan recently moved to Seoul with Yerim, plus she had her hair dyed blonde before they went to the town. They have been working together for a while. 

She met the brunette at university. They found they had a lot in common and their friendship could best be described as sisterly. After graduating from college, they joined the same interior design firm. 

Being interior designers could be stressful, so people usually quited their jobs after a few months then chose other paths, and it has led to a chronic shortage of skilled labor in the industry. Thus, counting the two of them, the number of members was only twelve. 

That day, Yerim made a minor mistake when she drew the layout, and only found it several hours before the deadline. Thus, she had to stay up late in the company to fix it.  

"I found I used the color I usually draw other objects to cover the icon of a pillar, so I didn't see it earlier and now, I have to draw the layout, the electric circuits and whatever of that area once again."

Seungwan and Yerim have been skilled designers and they usually finished their work fast. When the blonde drew layouts too fast, she could make the same mistake so she truly understood how frustrated the brunette felt. In addition, since Yerim took charge of that project solely, there was nothing seungwan could do for her.

However, they still had another project the next morning, so Yerim had to be able to think straight or at least awake. Thus, she asked Seungwan to buy her a coffee from her favorite café opposite their office since she already devoted all her energy to working. And that's why the blonde met the raven haired woman there. 

Joohyun loves coffee. This is her third year as a barista and she has been working in one of Seoul's popular cafés for almost a year — her work experience in Daegu helped her get a smooth start in Seoul.

And she notices there is a certain guest who only orders black coffee whenever she comes here. There are also some regular customers who love certain type of coffee or tea, for instance, americano or black tea so they usually order it. However, they also remember to take some bread or a piece of cake before leaving the coffee house. 

Thus, Joohyun thinks to herself while operating the point-of-sale system, the blonde haired woman just feels different in this regard.

Her shift is in the morning and day shift runs from 7.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. Morning is usually one of the busiest times in the café because people have to go to school or work during the week. Additionally, most cafés in Seoul open from 10 a.m. Therefore, a substantial number of people who are in their teens to thirties normally come here for their breakfast and Seungwan was her first customer that day.  

They opened at eight o'clock as usual. She was still dealing with a breakdown of an espresso machine while the woman with short hair entered the room quietly. She is used to coping with these breakdowns and usually finished checking all machines before they open the shop, but there was something troublesome with that one and it took her longer than usual to fix it. She was concentrating on her work so she didn't notice the blonde was already there.

"Black coffee, coffee…"

There were numerous types of coffee and other drinks on the menu, thus seungwan just couldn't find the one she wanted to order there.

"Sonnim, do you need some help?" 

The barista finally finished what she was doing and trotted to where Seungwan was. The moment Joohyun looked straight at Seungwan, the blonde almost forgot breathing.

"Ah, I, I want, I—" The raven haired woman only smiled at her and waited for her to finish her speech, "I want, a cup of hot black coffee. Thank you."

Joohyun nodded, "Anything else?"

Seungwan shook her head violently. 

"I got it." Joohyun gave her another smile, "We have fresh arabica coffee beans for black coffee. Today, our pick has a sweet flavor with notes of roasted almond."
 
Seungwan was not familiar with black coffee, but she knew Yerim was not picky about the flavors so she nodded.

"Please wait for a while, sonnim. I'll tell you when your order is ready."

As Seungwan waited, sunlight slowly shined through the huge windows in the far end of the room, making the view before her somewhat surreal. She suddenly remembered some conversations she had with Yerim. At that time, they were preparing for their midterm tests in a café near their university. She bought a cup of grapefruit honey black tea while Yerim ordered a cup of black coffee. They sat across from each other and Yerim was wearing a pair of round glasses. 

After thirty minutes, Seungwan couldn't keep her attention anymore, so she picked up Yerim's coffee while the other girl looked at her in confusion.

"Yah, Kim Yerim, it tastes like medicine. Don't you think so?" Seungwan frowned after taking a sip of the iced coffee.

"Yah, then give it back to me!" Yerim stretched out her right hand, only to see Seungwan grimace at her while lifting the cup.

"I don't want to do it."

"Are you still a kid, Son Seungwan!"

"It really tastes like hell!" Her voice got the attention of some other guests, but it still couldn't stop her from shouting.

"No, it tastes like heaven okay? Why are you so tasteless!" Yerim pouted and both of them started hitting the table with their pens. As a result, a lot more guests in the room turned their heads to stare at them. Then, they had to apologize while blushing.

Thinking of these, Seungwan smiled. She then raised her head since she wanted to take a look at the room. Actually, she was in a warehouse. In recent years, the conversion of disused warehouses or breweries into cafés seemed to have become a trend. As this house was two-storey high, it looked spacious.

She seated herself at a table opposite the counter because that was the best place to watch the raven haired woman be wrapped up in working. The counter was in the middle of the warehouse, so the lighting there was mainly relying on three overhead lights and the barista was being enveloped in artificial light. Their way of placing the counter was reasonable, she thought. The goods could not be exposed to sunshine, so there was no suitable place to store them other than there.
 
She then turned her attention to the windows at the far end of the house again. Apart from the entrance, the natural light in this room came from there. Thus, the place looked more like a section of a tunnel than a warehouse — there were no windows in its walls. 

Somehow, that area seemed really far away from her now. 

Would sitting there feel like reaching the end of a tunnel? 

Closing her eyes for a little while, Seungwan only felt she was satisfied about what she had now — a best friend who has been supporting her, parents who have adored her, plus a steady, well-paying though sometimes exhausting job. She knew she couldn't ask for more. 

However, from a certain time, part of her found she missed something, and she couldn't work it out. The only thing she was sure about now was she hasn't had the time to just sit on a random chair in a shop for so long. The courses in university had been quite demanding, thus she and Yerim always ended their hectic weeks dealing with field trips and assignments. 

They graduated in February and it was now early May. The atmosphere was warmer than outside, but Seungwan was not sure if it was because the warehouse was poorly ventilated or just an illusion brought by the lighting in a warm tone.

Then she glanced around. They used beige, caramel and wooden chairs to roughly divide open space into three sections. In those areas, tables and the chairs formed a rectangle and two squares — the rectangular area was right in front of the windows. There were also aisles around each area to ensure that customers could move around freely. 

The way they arranged the seating somewhat reminded her of Yerim's design style.

Just then she heard the raven haired woman's "Sonnim!", so she walked towards the wooden counter. There was a pool of light on the floor, but it was still difficult for sunshine to reach where the barista stood. Seungwan glanced at the sun before turning her attention to the other woman.   

"Here's your black coffee." Joohyun handed Seungwan the drink and the latter smiled brightly while saying "Thank you". The blonde was ready to leave the shop, but it seemed that the barista still wanted to say something, so she just stood there and waited patiently. 

Then, Joohyun said, "Sonnim, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, please go ahead."

"There are all kinds of coffee on the menu, but you ordered the simplest one. Can you tell me the reason?" One of Joohyun's jobs was introducing products, so she wanted to get some feedback from this customer, "Ah, but you're not obligated to answer this. I'm just…"

Curious, Joohyun thought. 

This coffee shop chain was famous for a seemingly infinite variety of coffees to choose from. Therefore, it was rare for her to meet someone like the blonde who only ordered black coffee.

"This is for my younger sister." Thinking about Yerim, Seungwan smiled softly, "She really loves it and now she needs some serotonin, so I'm here."

Seungwan didn't have any siblings, but she has treated Yerim as one of the family. Yerim is the eldest daughter in her family and the same age as Seungwan, however, the blonde sometimes still would say "Unnie will do this for you!" subconsciously (and actually Yerim did not object to this).

J