The house was quiet. Too quiet.

Jemma opened her eyes, her hand searching for her phone. It wasn’t there, she realised, and sat up in panic. She always kept her phone next to her bed, in case something was to happen. However the only thing she found on the night stand was the alarm clock, its red digits reading 10:45AM.

“,” she groaned, falling back into bed, the memories of the past few days flooding her mind. She remembered a certain little idol pest taking away her laptop and phone, and betting against her that she couldn’t live without it for three days. She remembered trying to persuade him to give it back all the way to the house, at the house, while settling into the house, at dinner, and again at breakfast, explaining that there were still arrangements to be made for the upcoming shoot, but he refused to budge. She remembered eventually giving up and spending the day sulking, counting the hours until she would be reunited with the devices again and she could submerge herself into her work. 

And despite the lack of technology – other than the radio clock on the bedside table and the large TV down in the living room – she felt relieved somehow. It was the first time she was offline in years, no connection to the outside world, no way of finding out whether her email was overflowing with urgent scheduling issues (it probably was), or whether the big bosses had spontaneously decided to fire her (they probably hadn’t). It was somehow freeing to not be under the constant pressure of always being available to everyone at any given second of the day, she realised with a sigh, getting out of bed and heading towards the adjoined bathroom. It was late – much later than Jemma was used to getting up – and she wondered what made her wake up. The steam rose around her as she rinsed out her long hair, noting that it had gotten much longer than she remembered it being and maybe she ought to cut it soon. 

Quickly drying her hair without bothering to put it up in the bun she always wore, she threw on a pair of jeans and a black top she hadn’t even realised she had packed, and padded down the stairs barefoot, trying to figure out what had awoken her. The house was seemingly empty, save for the faint noise coming from the opened kitchen door. She peeked inside, trying not to make a sound, in case there was a killer in the house – how else would those loud boys ever shut up unless they were all dead, Jemma silently chuckled to herself. To her relief, there was no murderer with an axe roaming around the kitchen.

Instead, Ryeowook was humming a cheerful tune, while busying himself at the stove. The smell of kimchi fried rice filled the spacious room, making Jemma’s stomach grumble. The noise made him turn around and he smiled. 

“Good morning, you’re up early,” he greeted, setting a plate of food on the table. She stepped into the room and sat down at the table, eyeing the food with suspicion, “Donghae and Eunhyuk went out swimming, and the rest are still sleeping,” he informed her, placing a large cup of black coffee before the manager.

She took a sip from the bitter liquid and exhaled, feeling the caffeine slowly take effect – though she knew caffeine took around 20 minutes to work, but it was the taste that made her wake up. Ryeowook turned off the stove and sat opposite of her, smiling.

“How are you coping without a phone so far?” he teased, taking a sip of coffee as well. He closed his eyes and leaned back, a small smile playing on his lips.

“I almost had another panic attack this morning, thank you very much,” she said, gulping down the coffee. Normally she wouldn’t be sitting there with the idol, chatting as if they were best buddies. However the need for caffeine and lack of anything to distract her upstairs made her want to come down, “You sure 72 hours aren’t over already?”

“Nope, you’ve got 8 more