Yawning is said to be your body’s way of saying it’s running low on battery. However, it’s also like a silent shout for joy when you’ve woken up from a great sleep session.

In fact, that’s why Sooji was yawning as she groggily made her way into the kitchen the following morning, rubbing the sleep away from her eyes. Though she went to sleep later than usual because of the game her friends played last night, she was able to sleep in (thanks winter vacation). They had played a few rounds of game before they called it a night. The last game concluded with Jihoon winning because Jinyoung had flaked at the last second. A dumb grin of amusement played on her lips as she remembered the panicked look on Jinyoung’s face when the space between him and Jihoon became shorter. Raising her arms above her head, she stretched and turned into the kitchen; her sweatshirt ever so slightly revealing the milky skin of her tummy.

“Good morning,” Jinyoung’s voice greeted her as she entered the room.

Sooji’s eyes that were squeezed shut as she stretched flew open when she recognized who the voice belonged to. Dropping her arms to her side, she stopped just before the dining table and turned to face the older boy. Jinyoung was sitting at the table alone eating his breakfast of what looked to be porridge. She slipped her hand from out of her sweatshirt sleeve and waved before taking a seat across from him, “Good morning.”

“I didn’t get say this yesterday, but your hair looks nice,” Jinyoung said as Sooji slipped into a chair, “You should do it like that more often.”

Jinyoung chuckled slightly at the confused look that made its way onto Sooji’s face. Her eyes widened in surprise when she lifted a hand to her hair, realizing that she didn’t remove the braids Miyoung put in her hair. With a nervous laugh, she swatted at the crown of fly-aways atop her head, trying to explain to him how her head hit the pillow and she knocked out that night. Her rambling; however, went in one of Jinyoung’s ears and out the other; he was far too distracted with watching her remove the pins and elastic bands from her hair. Though he had lifted a spoon to his mouth to take another bite of his breakfast, it simply hovered in front of his mouth when Sooji’s black locks fell and draped across her shoulders. Unlike how she usually had it during the school year - straight and tied back – it was a wavy, naturally-messy, style. A bubbling feeling rose in Jinyoung’s stomach, but he quickly forgot about it when his eyes met Sooji’s.

“Err… do you know where Jihoon put all the cereal he stashed in his backpack?” Sooji quickly excused herself from the table as Jinyoung cleared his throat, returning his attention back to his bowl.

“The farthest cabinet from the sink,” Jinyoung answered. He mentally kicked himself for having made things awkward between them, not noticing the giddy grin that made its way on Sooji’s face.

Because Jihoon’s dad wasn’t much of a skier, he had split up from the five kids to explore the rest of what the resort had to offer, leaving them at the lift ticket booth. Jinyoung looked around him, surprised that no line had formed. They had arrived at the resort a little later in the morning because Jihoon slept in. One would think he would have been the first to get up because of his excitement to hit the slopes. Jihoon ran ahead of them to ring the bell at the booth, calling over a teenager that looked not much older than a third-year student.

“Sorry, kids. No lifts today,” The teller apologized as the rest of the group caught up, “The slopes are closed.”

“What do you mean the slopes are closed?” Jihoon asked in disbelief, puffing out his chest in a manly manner to assert dominance, “This is a ski resort, your slopes can’t be closed!”

The student flipped their dyed red hair out from their eyes, looking down the window at Jihoon, “Yes they can, pal. It’s been snowing like mad these last few days so they closed it to dig out the mountain. If you really wanna ski, come back tomorrow.”

Blinds came down to cover the window, indicating to them that the conversation was over. Jinyoung and the others stood there, blankly staring at the now closed booth. With the slopes closed, now what were they going to do? As the girls and Dongbin comforted a sulking Jihoon, Jinyoung walked around the booth to a rack of papers. On the rack were flyers of the various activities the resort offered. As far as he knew, they hadn’t planned on doing the indoor activities. Though, it seemed that’s what they were going to have to do in the meantime. Taking a map from the rack, he briefly studied it and checked which activities were nearest to them. Jinyoung stuck his head from the corner, and called them over, “Hey guys, we could do some of these instead if you want.”

“Anything is better than going back and suffering from cabin fever,” Jihoon perked up; that was the sound of his day not being over after all, “Didn’t they say there was a hot spring here?”

“That’s such an old people thing to do. Let’s do something we can all do together that isn’t boring,” Miyoung whined, walking up to stand next to Jinyoung. Behind her, Jihoon stuck his tongue out in her direction, earning him a light punch in the arm from Dongbin. She craned over Jinyoung’s arm, peering over at the map in his hands, “There’s a snow fort in the park. Maybe we could play some games there.”

After a unanimous vote, they decided to head to the park. In the middle of the compound stood a giant snow castle. The grounds were covered with other such snow structures like walls, huts, tunnels, ditches, and towers. Different colored flags marked each structure, probably for those who wanted to play Capture the Flag. Jinyoung noticed there weren’t many people in the snow fort park either. On the way there, he had also seen many families and their kids at the snowman park. There must have been a snowman building competition going on of some sorts. He also figured the crowds were drawn towards the larger indoor attractions like the Shopping Plaza and the water park.

“There’s only one other group here and I think they’re playing Capture the Flag,” Dongbin said, gesturing towards the other small group of friends. They were playing towards the far side of the park, using the blue, green, and red marked structures as capture points. Snowballs were flying across two towers as they tried to eliminate each other.

From beside him, Sooji raised her hand as if she were asking permission to speak, “Do you think they’d want to play with us? I think it would be more fun to play games with a large group of people.”

“We could try,” Miyoung agreed, “Besides, that means we could use the entirety of the park if we combined forces.”

Before they agreed on how they were going to approach the group and what they were going to say, Jihoon was already halfway there. He was waving his arms over his head to grab their attention, “Hey, guys! Hi! Sorry