Jiyong felt something sticky on his cheek. He rubbed it away and turned over, he wasn't ready to get up just yet. Seunghyun had forbidden him to go into work today, so he was going to use the rare opportunity to sleep in. He hugged the pillow and drifted off again.

“Ah!” he grabbed one of his cheeks. Something had pinched it. Mosquito bite? As the other cheek was attacked with even more force, he realized it was a tiny monster of another kind.

“Ouch!” he complained loudly, turning around to face the small beast.

“Hi hi.” Soonie grinned guiltily, excitement in her eyes.

“Why you little!” he grabbed her and lifted her up into the bed, launching a tickle attack to get back at her. She laughed so hard she started coughing. Oops. He helped her sit upright, her back softly until the cough subsided. She pointed at the door.

“Breakfast in bed!” Seunghyun's face was one big smile, holding a tray filled with what looked like a week's worth of baked goods. He carefully placed it in front of him. “Voilá! Bon appetite!” he said in a bad accent, acting like a high class French waiter. Soonie chuckled at the silly theatrics.

The wonderful smell of hot coffee filled his nostrils. He breathed it slowly in, feeling how it revitalized every part of his body. He lifted the cup, preparing to take a sip, the anticipation making him a little too aware of how addicted he was to this dark magic that was coffee. Soonie's eyes were glued to him, watching every move. He just wanted one sip before the day's battle began, just one.

The moment he felt the rim of the cup touch his lips, Soonie pulled on his arm, nearly making him spill hot coffee all over the bed. Luckily he managed to avoid a disaster, while she continued to pull and pull.

“What? You want a cookie?” he handed her one of the chocolate cookies that sat on a plate beside the coffee cup he desired so deeply. It was so close, yet so far away. Thrilled, she started munching on it, getting crumbs and saliva everywhere.

“Mmm, Tabi!” for a short second she let go of her cookie with one hand to wave Seunghyun over, wanting him to sit next to her. He complied dutifully, getting into bed with them. A fuzzy, warm ball of goofey feelings came into existence in Jiyong's gut, bouncing around happily, spreading warmth everywhere. It really felt like they were becoming a real family. He couldn't lie to himself, he didn't hate it.

“Soonie-ya, Tabi has no cookie.” Seunghyun said with a dramatic frown, teasing her, showing interest in her cookie. She looked at her half-eaten cookie, then at Seunghyun and then back at the cookie. She then reached over and stole the remaining cookie on Jiyong's tray and handed it quickly to Seunghyun, so she could get back to nibbling at her own cookie. Seunghyun let out a deep-voiced chuckle, not hiding the satisfaction of biting into the stolen cookie while Jiyong was left with none. He didn't really want it, the tray was filled with all kinds of other delicious looking things, but it wasn't about that. It was the fact that Soonie always chose Seunghyun over him that hurt. Perhaps more than it should, after all he was the grown up and she was the kid. Still, he couldn't just let it go.

“Now Ji-Ji has no cookie. U-HU!” he pretended to cry. Soonie's big baby eyes looked into his, furrowing her eyebrows. She was so pretty, it sometimes hit him like a truck in the middle of a highway, knocking the breath right out of him. She had somehow managed to burrow her way through all his defenses and was now curling up in the warm, mushy center of his heart, as if she was there to stay.

Still looking into his eyes with a compassionate expression, she inhaled the rest of her cookie in one fell swoop, her tiny mouth growing two sizes. Seeing where this was going, Seunghyun did the same, the end of the cookie disappearing behind his lips just before Soonie's chubby fingers could reach it. But Soonie's sticky hand just went right in after it, forcefully prying out a piece of the now wet and sloppy cookie, proudly presenting it to Jiyong. Seunghyun cracked up, nearly choking on the cookie half that was still in his mouth.

Jiyong looked at the sticky, fudgy crumbles in her chocolate covered hand, amazed at her tenacity, but not too excited about putting that thing in his mouth. He didn't see a way out without offending her though, so he closed his eyes, threw it in his mouth and quickly swallowed it, trying not to think about how creepy its texture was as it went down way too slowly, nor the millions of bacteria he was consuming. Yuck!

The mattress moved and suddenly he felt Seunghyun's lips hovering right outside his ear, his warm breath making his skin tingle. His heart started pounding so hard that he was worried it was going to explode. Forcefully, he controlled his breath so Seunghyun wouldn't notice how nervous he was making him.

“Indirect kisssssss.” Seunghyun whispered comically, before his booming laughter filled the room. A clueless Soonie started laughing too. Jiyong got goose bumps, the hair at the back of his neck standing on end. He felt as the butterflies overtook him and consumed him whole, like a swarm of locusts. It was just a cookie, he told himself. It didn't mean anything. So it was covered in Seunghyun's saliva, that meant nothing. It was gross, that was all, he tried to convince himself. It was no use. The butterflies just wouldn't let up, fluttering around excitedly as if there was something to celebrate. He threw a bread bun at Seunghyun's back as he exited the room, still laughing.

“Ready in half an hour!” he shouted as he disappeared out the door.

“Wait, what's in half an hour?” Jiyong shouted back, not aware of any plans they had today. He lifted the coffee cup, his hand shaking so fiercely that he spilled a bit on the tray. He drank it all up, finishing the entire thing in under a minute. He needed it. He could still feel the ghost of Seunghyun's breath on his ear. He tried to shake it off.

Soonie's head popped out, floating in mid air in the doorway. “PE-MU-MI DAY!!” she screeched at the top of her lungs, before bursting into another frenzied laughing fit. She disappeared, but he could hear both of them laughing excitedly in the living room.

Pemumi day? What kind of day was that?