-3-

Amidst their promotion, they had been given a day off to celebrate their recent comeback that yielded much success. Taking their chances of being spotted, they went out to eat at their usual restaurant to eat beef stew with no make-up face. Solar had her reading glasses on while Moonbyul wore a cap and a mask to cover her face. The two maknae didn’t bother with disguises and walked confidently alongside the unnie-line.

When they arrived at the restaurant, they sat at their usual table and placed their order.

“Oh, you guys are here today.”

“Yes, auntie! We had the day off and we missed the food here,” they responded.

“Aigoo, enough flattering. I’ll get some kimchi pancakes for you ladies. It’s on the house,” the owner winked.

“Wah, you’re so cool!”

“Thank you, auntie! We’ll eat it well.”

When they dug into their food, they can’t help but let out contented expressions and their chopsticks can’t seem to rest on the plate as they kept eating non-stop. It was a warm hearty meal that they had been craving for and they were grateful for being given the chance to eat out despite their seemingly endless packed schedule. This was especially true for the maknae who came from the countryside that were missing their mothers’ cooking and Jeonju in general. 

They had purposely avoided the lunch rush hour by going to the restaurant at least three hours before but they had taken their sweet time eating that more and more people were coming to the restaurant for their lunch. Afraid that the people would recognize them – because the CEO wouldn’t be happy if he found out that the girls had been out with no make-up look – they quietly finished their meal and paid for it before exiting the restaurant slightly in a rush. 

“What will we be doing now?”

“Yongsun-unnie, any idea?”

“How about a round at the karaoke room?”

“Call!”

They rented a room in the karaoke bar for two hours and they played like crazy in the room with no care of the world. 

Moonbyul had gone first and picked Yoon Mirae’s “Baby Bye Bye” and rapped her heart out while the other three did adlibs here and there throughout the song and even danced to it. They took videos of each other being the crazy girls they were and jumped around like rabbits on sugar. 

The maknae-line did a duet of a love song and the atmosphere was heated up as they awkwardly look each other in the eyes, cringing as they sang the cheesy lines. When they couldn’t handle it, they broke their eye contact and nudged each other playfully. Moonbyul had her fingers curled up watching the two so she sat quietly at her seat and sipped some lemonade to relieve her parched throat. 

Solar chose a really up-beat song which required lots of high notes and she smiled as she belted the notes effortlessly and the three others cheered loudly. Luckily the room was soundproof because if it was any other room, they could be heard from the outside and would effectively disturb everyone. They had tons of fun so when the light beeped in the room to indicate that the two hours had been used up, they couldn’t believe it. Like schoolgirls caught skipping school, they went out one by one while smiling awkwardly at the owner and bid their goodbye. 

“It’s time we go back to the dorm. The day is getting dark,” Hwasa commented.

“Can we stop by at the convenience store? I’m a little hungry.”

“We’ll make dinner at home. Yongsun-unnie, stop eating snacks in between meals,” Moonbyul chided.

“Just this once!”

“I second that. Byulie-unnie, can we?”

“Not you too, Wheein-ah. Hwasa-ya, help me out.”

Wheein gave her best friend a puppy look and Hwasa can’t help but lose against her. Hwasa looked apologetically to Moonbyul so they ended up going to the convenience store and bought variety of snacks, including the ever-so-famous honey butter chips. 

[you can say that I got the idea from this: http://31.media.tumblr.com/928be386bb213...qbzdsu.jpg] 

 

Hwasa, in charge of cooking, automatically headed to the kitchen and wore her apron with Solar helping to tie it behind her. She had declared that the dinner would be mixed fried rice with egg rolls so she had the ingredients all laid out on the kitchen counter. Solar chopped the vegetables (spring onion, capsicum) and de-freeze the peas while Hwasa scooped the leftover rice from the rice cooker and put it into the frying pan, adding a little oil into it. Add in the chopped vegetables, salt, soy sauce and pepper and the fried rice is ready. Solar helped out by making the egg rolls.

Moonbyul and Wheein were in the living room-slash-Hwasa’s room, sitting on the sofa as they flipped through the TV channel to watch something interesting. When they couldn’t find anything they like, Moonbyul went to her shared room and chose a familiar movie that they enjoyed and told Wheein to put it aside for later. The smell of food hit their noses so they found themselves walking towards the dining room to set the table and sneakily ate some egg rolls. When they got caught by Solar, they pretended that they didn’t see her and avoided eye contact with the eldest unnie, who sighed at their action. 

“Bokkeumbap coming your way!”

“Wah, it looks delicious,” Wheein complimented as she splits her chopsticks.

“We will eat it well,” they chorused. 

Their meal was full of compliments, chatters and laughter. If they had been noisy in the restaurant earlier, they’re even noisier at home because there was no one who would be disturbed. They were having their own ‘mukbang’ show while they were eating, complete with the messy way of eating. 

“You’ve got some on your cheek,” Solar said as she used her hand to wipe away the stain.

“Thanks, Yongsun-unnie.”

Suddenly they were both hit by déjà vu.

“I’ve seen this scene before,” Hwasa pointed out.

Wheein was deep in thought as to where she might have seen it and the light bulb in her head lit up when she realized where she had seen a similar scene before.

Moonbyul laughed out loud at the sudden silence while Solar blushed as she remembered the greasy Yong-kong Byul-kong video they had posted on the fan cafe. They ought to re-film the video because of the greasiness but they didn’t have the time so they went on with it. Solar couldn’t bear to watch the video because she was the one who kept mentioning of how close they were and whatnot. 

“Okay, okay. Let’s finish our meal before it gets cold,” Hwasa decided to end the awkward moment. 

“Right, we’re going to watch a movie after this,” Wheein agreed. 

They continued in silence, only the sound of chopsticks against the plate could be heard and this was rare for them. They almost never eat in complete silence – the only times they did was when they were too tired and fall asleep in between bites – so it felt quite weird but they shrugged off the feeling and filled their stomach. 

“What movie are we watching, though?”

“Just the usual. It’ll do us good by keeping our head blank,” Moonbyul replied.

Solar nodded, “I’ll wash the dishes so pick your seat and I’ll join you guys later.”

“I’ll help you, unnie.”

Wheein cleared the table and carried the dirty dishes to the sink where Solar started to wash them. Moonbyul and Hwasa proceeded to the living room and put the DVD on the player, lowering the volume down to half. Hwasa chose to sit on the floor with her legs stretched in front of her, leaning against the sofa on which Moonbyul was seated. 

They had seen the same movie from way before their debut but they would occasionally re-watch it to clear their mind. At times, they would even recite the lines from the movie from their memories and became beagles if they got the lines 100% right. Today, they were drained so they didn’t say a word and let themselves relax. 

While Solar washed the dishes with soap, Wheein rinsed them and let them dry. They worked in sync with each other and sometimes their hand would accidentally touch. When it happened for the first time, they had flinched but they got used to it in no time and smiled to one another whenever they had contact. After they had finished, Wheein massaged Solar’s shoulders saying ‘You’ve worked hard.”

“You too. Let’s go and watch the movie.”

When they got to the living room, they saw that the two had fallen asleep. Since Moonbyul was sitting on the sofa, Hwasa’s head leaned perfectly on her thigh/knee and she’s even hugging Moonbyul’s right leg. The Wheein-Solar duo smiled warmly at the sight so they tiptoed around the living room and sat side by side to watch the still-playing movie together, muting the sound. 
 

Note: I think my writing is getting awkward because I don't do beagle-Mamamoo justice.