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Eunji woke up to blinding lights shining upon her face; she hadn’t drawn the curtains since yesterday afternoon—which was when her latest break-up happened. She grunted and pulled the covers up until it encased her whole body completely.

Her phone, dying out of battery, rang thrice before it eventually went dead. Being the light-sleeper that she was, she could hardly fall back asleep.

The black rectangular alarm clock on her bedside had shown half past 11, late morning and early afternoon. She had no schedule until 9 this evening where she was about to pull one of her normal performance on the café in Hongdae.

It can’t really be called a ‘normal’ since she had just break up with her boyfriend which was the drummer of the assisting band. So, she’d have to sing for a couple of hours on the same stage as her ex who would probably be staring at her back the whole show. Nevertheless, she went through a lot of break-ups that her break-ups would be considered normal.

Moreover, she wasn’t the kind of person who considered relationship as a serious thing. Or was she?

Someone was behind her door, proven by the fact that her bell was chiming throughout the whole room. A grunt escaped once again before she put so much effort in getting off of bed. As she walked in the direction of her door, she grabbed a pair of jeans she took off last night before hopping onto bed right away when she got back.

“Wait,” she called out as she squeezed into the pants. Her fingers ran through her hair to tidy her bed-hair and then she pulled down her tank top and straightened it as it had wrinkled up.

“Hey, Eunji!” The person behind the door smiled when she opened it. Eunji rolled her eyes and made a mental note that said: Peepholes were made for a reason.

“Hey, Daehyun,” she replied. “What’s up?”

Daehyun was one of Eunji’s many exes, the first person in Seoul that she befriended and the first person in Seoul that she dated. They had the same surname, Jung, both were from the same city, Busan, and had passion in the same field, music. Two of the three were the reasons why their relationship didn’t make it.

“I’ve brought you breakfast.” Daehyun lifted up a paper bag filled with pastries and two cups of what seemed like coffee. It wasn’t the second or third time that he came with breakfast at her door, it was the umpteenth time, and she had lost count of his visit.

“Thanks,” Eunji said, “But I’m not hungry.” She was about to close the door when Daehyun swiftly put his foot on the threshold and kept the door opened. “Look, I appreciate all this,” she gestured at the breakfast he brought, “But you don’t have to do all this,” she gestured at it once again.

“Eunji . . . I’m just concerned about your health,” Daehyun argued. “You’re busy with college on weekdays and work on weekends and I know, for a fact, that you haven’t been eating properly.”

“Oh, shut up,” Eunji muttered under her breath.

“Just look—”

Eunji took the paper bag and the cup of coffee from Daehyun and said, “Thank you so much for the breakfast, Daehyun. I’m gonna need to shower now because I have an appointment with my friend.” She gave him a wide smile to convince him that she was okay and he should, ‘get the hell outta here.’

“You’re welcome.” Daehyun smiled back. “Eat well.”

“Yes.” Eunji nodded. “Thanks,” she said as she slowly shut the door. When the door was completely closed behind her, she placed the paper bag and the coffee cup on the counter in her small kitchen and grabbed her dead phone to charge it.

Her feet walked her back to the paper bag and she peeped inside. It was the usual: 4 plain scones and a blueberry muffin, she took the latter and nibble on it.

Usually, when Daehyun stopped by—only to be kicked out immediately—with breakfast for Eunji, she’d give it away to the janitor-ahjussi on her way out of the building. It was better than throwing it away, no?

She sat at the feet of her bed and turned the TV on, something to keep her up-to-date with the world outside. Celebrities dating news, nut-rage chaebol daughter sentencing, and stock prices were the highlight of what she watched; 3 unconnected things that gave her headache.

‘I should shower,’ she thought.

So she got up and entered the bathroom to take a nice mid-warm-mid-cold shower. It’s not just singers who do so, even normal people would also do this: Hum a melody or sing out loud. Eunji often do the former because she didn’t want to ruin her vocal chords by yelling out songs when she could have sung it in a normal way.

Out of consciousness, she was humming the melody to this song she used to listen to with Minhyuk while they waited for their gig at the staff room back in the café. She let out a swearing when she finally came to remember what the song she hummed to was.

It was so not her to think about her exes, but this time, she can’t help but think about Kang Minhyuk.

Her one arm was exposed to the cold air outside the shower while trying to reach out for the towel so she tried her best to grab it quickly. “Gosh, it’s f-ing cold,” she mumbled as she wrapped the lime green towel around her body. She should’ve gotten a bath-robe instead, shouldn’t she?

Her phone, now alive with battery, rang again. After draping another layer of towel around her shoulders, she went out of the bathroom to check who the caller was.

“Naeun? What’s wrong?”

Son Naeun was one of the waitresses in the café she usually performed in. Eunji always wondered why, with Naeun’s impeccable beauty, she ended up as a part-time waitress in a café when she could have modeled for cosmetic brands or something.