Chapter Text
Not a lot happened in Irene’s life. She was just a game developer by day, and a geek… all day, she supposed. She loved her job, especially since everyone around her raved about the same things and wouldn’t judge her for it— unlike in high school where everyone found it either strange or too good to be true for a girl to be into games, anime, and the like. Honestly, being able to land a job in the industry she’s always yearned for has been a dream come true, even if she only works for a small studio.
It was more than enough.
It was more than enough until their team leader, Moonbyul, had announced in the midst of their team rushing a huge project that the office’s A/C had broken down.
Even worse the A/C was centralized, which mean that the office would be as hot as hell during summer , of all seasons, and their PCs were left to die in the heat with them if they attempted to use them without air conditioning.
They may as well just say goodbye to their project.
Great. Just great.
However, their leader had kindly asked the café owner from across the street if their team could work in the café temporarily while the necessary repairs were being made at the office. The team of five were flabbergasted, wondering how on earth Moonbyul got their producer to even agree to this given the possible cost of doing such a thing.
That is until Moonbyul admitted that the owner of the café was none other than her wife, Solar. This gave them a discounted rate and a place to stay— as long as they didn’t cause trouble.
This was all fine with Irene until she had met eyes with probably the most gorgeous human she’d ever seen.
Irene had to blink again to make sure that she wasn’t just conjuring one of her anime waifus into 3D space.
The ethereal figure seemed very much real, and seemed to be looking at her as well. The brown, cat-like eyes reeled Irene in, and she was pretty sure she had died and ascended to heaven when those eyes upturned into adorable crescents.
She was an angel.
The developer was staring so much that she didn’t realize she was doing so until the angel suddenly disappeared, and a loud crash could be heard.
“Seul! Watch where you’re going!” Solar practically screeched as she helped the angel stand up. Dusting herself off, the angel muttered a string of apologies as she helped clean up the mess. The older woman retrieved the fallen items, and had disappeared into the kitchen to return them.
“Sorry, sorry… It’s just,” The angel, apparently called ‘Seul’ sighed loudly as her eyes met Irene’s once more. She didn’t even realize that the person she was talking to had left.
“Are you even real?” She asked, her gaze filled with awe as her jaw hung open. When Irene realized that the angel had been referring to her, the developer had immediately turned a deep shade of crimson.
“Oh no, not you too Seulbear!” Moonbyul suddenly gasped, sliding towards Irene. The team leader’s face was of pure shock. Seul looked dumbfounded.
“Wha..?”
“You see her too! It’s not just me!” Moonbyul exclaimed, and Seul’s eyes shot wide open.
“You see this bewitching woman here is none other than the Goddess Irene, The Goddess of Peace! If you don’t get on your knees this instant, you will forever be troubled, fighting an inner battle of—!” Before the team leader could even finish, Seul was suddenly in front of Irene, and was down on her knees.
Irene.exe had stopped responding.
That is, until a loud scream echoed, the three women startled back into their senses.
“Moon Byul Yi!” A very angry Solar stomped towards Moonbyul, pulling on the angel’s arms so that she could get up.
“Stop tricking Seulgi like that! It’s not funny,” Solar held Seulgi close, akin to a mother holding her child protective against harm. Seulgi played along and nodded, hiding her face in the embrace.
Irene couldn’t understand how an actual human being could be so adorable.
“Pfft, you have to admit it was a bit funny,” Moonbyul said with a grin, nudging Irene. “Right?”
The developer had completely come back to her senses.
“Team leader,” She started, her eyes dead serious, “We have a project due soon and we can’t waste anymore time, remember?” Irene said, adjusting her glasses as she did. The developer might’ve heard Seulgi mutter ‘cute,’ at that, but she wasn’t so sure.
“Oh alright, fine! But before you go back to work, lemme just introduce you guys since you’ll have to get used to seeing each other after all. I wouldn’t want my best dev to just stare at Seulbear instead of developing what could be the next game of the year, right?” Moonbyul teased, as Irene’s face had quickly turned red. Trying and failing to hide her blush, the developer heard a cute giggle.
And of course the cute giggle had to come from the angel.
Irene reddened even more, and tried to bury herself into her oversized sweater.
Solar and Moonbyul could only grin amusedly at the two.
“Anyway, Seulbear, this is Irene, the only person besides me keeping this team together,” At that, a loud “Hey!” could be heard not so far away.
“Kim Yerim,” Irene said plainly without looking back, and immediately the loud girl had quieted down. Moonbyul chuckled at that, and Solar continued the introduction.
“And Irene, this is Seulgi, my pure child. She only knows how to make drinks and pastries as sweet as herself, so if you want something bitter you’ll have to go to Sooyoung,” Solar smiled as she heard her employee shout “Don’t call me that!” from the back.
“Actually,” Seulgi suddenly started, detaching herself from Solar’s embrace. She stepped forward and extended her hand towards the developer with a bright smile on her face.
“I’m Seulgi, but you can call me yours.”
…
..
.
With that, Irene whirled around and headed back to where she left her laptop. Plopping down on the plush seat, she started to type mechanically.
From the short distance she had travelled, Irene could hear the trio conversing.
“Seulgi, I told you not to follow whatever Moonbyul teaches you!” Solar tried to quietly scream. “Look what you’ve done!” The older woman pulled on Moonbyul’s collar, practically choking her wife in the process.
“What, no! I didn’t—”
“Did I… scare her away?” An innocent voice asked. Irene wanted to slam her face into her keyboard for being such an idiot.
Irene was just weak for girls, especially very cute girls such as Seulgi. The developer didn’t even know girls like her existed in the real world until today.
Yup, she was today years old.
Definitely.
Absolutely.
Wait... Was there a bug in the system? That could be the only explanation.
“Oh honey no!” Solar suddenly screeched, jolting Irene back into the real world as the woman pulled Seulgi into a tight embrace.
“Irene’s just shy, okay? She’ll come around, just uh, be more gentle with her?” Moonbyul looked to the barista who nodded eagerly.
“Anyway,” The team leader cleared her throat and whirled around. “Devs, can I see the latest stable build?” She confidently said into the café. Irene could see that Moonbyul wanted to take advantage of the space while it was still closed to the public.
“It should be with Gaebal-ssi,” Irene said briefly as her eyes scanned through the code she had just written.
“Well, I uh,” Gaebal mumbled out. Moonbyul raised a brow.
“Well?”
“I-I accidentally overwrote the latest stable build and now its…um, buggy. T-there’s a lot of blockers, too...” The newbie tried to explain himself, hanging his head low. Irene sent a swift glare at his direction, sending chills down Gaebal’s spine.
“Then just modify the previous stable version,” Moonbyul said, her patience thinning.
“Control + Z!” Yeri yelled. Irene double checked the server before speaking up.
“It doesn’t work that way, Yerim. Team leader, the previous version will push us back too far,” Irene said and sighed before continuing.
“Then what do you plan to do?” Moonbyul questioned.
“I’ll fix the bugs,” The developer accepted her fate.
“You’re so cool, Irene-ssi! Thank you so much!” Gaebal bowed, his head slamming into the keyboard as he did. Irene simply continued to type rapidly.
“Great! I want to see that build up and running with the new features integrated by the end of this week, okay? Marshmell and Yeri, I need the character animations to be complete today,” Moonbyul said and started walking towards the exit. “I have a fight to pick with our producer, but I’ll be back,” The team leader said as she rolled up her sleeves and put on a pair of sunglasses.
“Fighting!” Marshmell raised her fist, watching Moonbyul leave the café.
Irene’s laptop continued to blare red lines at her face, her efforts fruitless.
She was going to have one hell of a week.
“Why is this café so open and bright... Ugh,” Yeri whined as she rested her head on top of her drawing tablet.
It was their second day to be at the café, but their first to actually be working there, as they were busy moving some of their equipment over previously. Of course they didn’t bring in their giant workstations as that wouldn’t fit, but they did have to bring the essentials. The essentials mostly being extension cords that snaked around the café. They were heavily taped to the ground, and Irene silently prayed that no one would trip over them. Moonbyul had agreed that their team would be taking up the two booths near the counter, as it provided them the most privacy and also the most plugs within the vicinity.
The artists, Marshmell and Yeri had to bring more equipment than the developers as they needed their drawing tablets, sketchbooks, references and camera to go with their laptops. Irene and Gaebal, the developers of the team only really needed their laptops…. and their sanity intact.
“Hey, at least we know what time it is!” Marshmell, the senior artist beamed back at Yeri the strange light-up hat atop her head bouncing as she nodded.
“We’re game developers, we are creatures of the night! I mean, just look at them!” The young artist gestured to Gaebal and Irene, who both looked like the sun was draining the life out of their skin.
“They’re both just pale! I mean, have you ever seen them go out?” Marshmell said as she looked on, watching the two developers type at an inhuman speed.
“But Irene unnie is literally #FFFFFF now!” Yeri commented, pointing directly at their senior developer.
“Oh, you’re right! Irene, you need a health potion and a break, stat!” Marshmell said, her right hand twirling her pen around as she slammed her free hand onto the table. Irene shook her head in response.
“It’s the bugs…” Gaebal glanced at his senior’s screen sadly, until Irene noticed the sudden change in his expression. She sighed internally, already expecting his next words.
“I’ll help you catch the bugs—”
“Work on developing the user interface, Gaebal-ssi,” Irene cut him off. As much as she appreciated the offer, it would do them no good to waste the whole day fixing bugs.
“Okay…” He seemed to have accepted his fate, focusing his gaze on the computer screen.
Not a moment later, a carrot cake and a drink was presented right in front of Irene. The developer hadn’t noticed the approaching footsteps nor the scent of the food earlier due to her concentration. She furrowed her brows and turned her gaze to the side.
“Hey… I don’t have any health potions on me, but I think this’ll do just fine, don’t you think?” Seulgi said with an angelic smile.
The developer, much like her buggy program returned null. She didn’t have a response to that.
At all.
Her brain was drawing a blank.
Irene continued to stare at Seulgi, the more adorable than average human tilting her head cutely. The developer could hear loud slapping and high pitched squeals from the side, but she was too stunned to do anything about whatever Kim Yerim was up to at the moment.
“Um, do you not like carrot cake or the latte? I could switch it out for something else, if you’d like,” The barista asked, biting her lip.
Irene had almost forgotten that it was her cue to respond.
“N-no, it’s fine. Thank you, um...yours?” She tried to answer coherently.
Across the room, the developer could see liquid soaring through the sky as Yeri choked and coughed from her peripheral. Marshmell seemed to be in tears. Gaebal was nowhere to be found.
Irene could also see that the tips of Seulgi’s ears were red.
Did she say something wrong?
Seulgi did say to call her—
“Y-you actually didn’t have to call me that, um, I-I was just joking,” The barista cleared her throat, and the developer’s eyes widened, finally realizing her mistake.
Damn, her brain was as buggy as her code.
“Well, uh, I hope you enjoy the food, Irene-ssi! D-don’t worry about the pay— it’s on me,” With that, Seulgi the literal angel had fled the scene with a dopey grin on her face.
“GGWP,” Yeri commented loudly, wickedly grinning and pointing finger guns at the senior developer.
“Woah, you got free food? If I didn’t know any better, it was like she was flirting with you. But she’s a girl too so, I guess she just wants to be friends,” Gaebal suddenly arrived, his figure replacing the angel’s.
Irene rubbed her temples.
“You don’t,” She muttered, sighing as she got back to work.
“Did you say something, Irene-ssi?” The newbie asked.
“User. Interface.” Irene’s keystrokes had become louder. Gaebal quickly shuffled to his seat.
“Yes ma’am,”