It was hard for them to fell asleep last night. Not only because they were afraid of seeing four ghostly faces outside of their third-story apartment windows, but also because Hee-Jin was very anxious about all the items she just lost earlier that night.

“Your phone is already super old anyway, and you were planning on buying iPhone 6 right? Credit card? Just block it from your online banking account. You spent all your cash on that long island ice tea though… And you can always make a new copy of keys from mine… Hee-Jin it’s only a tube of chapstick LET IT GO.”

“But what about my passport???”

Sohee’s attempt of calming her down was halted when Hee-Jin raised the most pressing issue. Because out of all the things, she dreaded facing the passport making people the most. She was so not looking forward for those long lines…

“I did tell you to stop using your passport as your ID…” Sohee finally mumbled off her final shot at consoling Hee-Jin. What else could she do? She was panicked too. 

At the beginning they were vigilant, sometimes too much that it almost bordered to paranoid. As every minute creaks on the floorboard or clacks of dried twigs on their windows almost cause them to punch the call button on Sohee’s phone that was ready with 112 on speed dial.

Everytime someone wanted to leave the living room, which became the designated bedroom for the night, the other would trail soon after. Reasoning that they should never ever ever split up. But after a quarrel on how Sohee insisted to follow Hee-Jin when she was only going to grab her glasses from her bedside table, each of them finally admit that they were just scared of being all alone, even when the entirety of their apartment could be traversed in less than 15 wide steps.

But in the end, nothing happened. No bangs on the door, no fire cracker exploding against their windows, no mob of weird, cult-like young men waiting for them when they slowly peeked through peep hole, or even worse, no land lady hissing at them to keep it quiet. The only things left were two pairs of droopy-eyed girl who had to start their Thursday morning with less energy than they usually did. And they usually had none.

“I don’t wanna go to work.” Hee-Jin’s semi scream was muffled when she flopped lifelessly on her bed. For a second she stopped, but the invading thought of having to serve human beings on their measly need of daily dose of caffeine cause her to again flop about like fish out of the water.

“Like you can talk,” Sohee sighed as she sat down on the edge of her own bed right opposite to Hee-Jin’s, her red blanket covering her shoulders making her look like a grown up version of red riding hood, complete with dark bags under her eyes and a strong kick of nauseating hangover.

“At least you start at 3…” Hee-Jin finally pushed herself away from the pillow and slowly brought herself up to a sitting position. Their room was so cramped that their knees were almost touching when they both sat facing each other.

For a while Sohee was unresponsive, only her fingers were moving as they rapidly tapped some sort of message to an unknown recipient. After the satisfying ping indicated that it was sent, she finally looked up and gave Hee-Jin a cheeky smile, “I know right? Lucky me!”

That smile slowly turned into a pitying pout when Hee-Jin scoffed in annoyance and crossed her arms like a child almost throwing a tantrum.

“Aww come on, we still have an hour before your shift start. We can get some breakfast roll first?” Sohee tried to coax Hee-Jin out from her pissed state but the grin was back only when Sohee promised that she’ll stay around until her lunch break.

“Ok then, let’s go!” She jumped up in excitement and dashed to their shared bathroom. Of course, she didn’t forget to yell that Sohee was in charge of buying breakfast.

“But lunch is yours OK?!”

The bathroom door slamming behind her caused a high probability that Hee-Jin didn’t hear Sohee’s proposition. Even if she did, she’ll surely pretend that she didn’t. Her vengeful march towards banging on the bathroom door until Hee-Jin said yes was halted only when the screen of her phone lighted up and it buzzed against her legs. And just like that, her previous annoyance was thrown far out of the window, replaced by a smile filled with excitement even before she’d finished reading the message from her mysterious acquaintance.

 - - - - -

“Auntie! Two rolls pleasee. Yes, one with only cheese and bacon and the other one with everything. Onion? Yes, yes everything. Yes, mayonnaise too, everything!”

While Hee-Jin was busy ordering them two (or more… Who knows? She always talked about being ready for any unforeseen natural circumstance, more commonly known as her big appetite, so she might as well just get 3 more extra) breakfast rolls from their favourite snack stall, Sohee walked to the nearby milk shop to get them some strawberry yoghurt drink. But right at the moment when she contemplated if drinking yoghurt before eating cheese before drinking glasses of coffee while waiting for Hee-Jin’s lunch break would be a good idea for her gastro-intestinal activity, her eyes caught onto a bunch of people sitting together near the exit of a dumpling place.

A bunch of people wearing weird, unusual clothing that made them look like they just walked out from a tour around Australia’s outback. The monotonous tone of white and brown coloring on their collected look made Sohee think that earth hues were back in fashion.

But thoughts of current hot trends should wait for a short while because lord help her, those were the weird bonfire men. The question asking how they could be so near to their apartment was quickly shot down when she saw Hee-Jin’s purse lying on one’s lap. The red color of it stuck out so painfully like a freshly stubbed toe. Added to that the hello kitty plaque that absolutely didn’t match the men’s overall look of sullenness, every factor just add up to a ball of ‘DOES NOT MATCH’.

Sohee wasted no time in quickly turning her body around with her eyes wide and hand clamped around the two bottles of yoghurt so hard they threatened to burst under her force. She didn’t make a noise, not even a small gasp when her previous realization hit her, but the sound of fabrics rustling coming from behind her acted as an alarm much more blaring than her racing heart beat.

They’ve seen her.

‘. .’ The single phrase was repeated inside her mind as if it was reduced to nothing but a broken record and a few basic cognitive functioning such as: finding her way back to Hee-Jin and a little mathematical proficiency demonstrated when she gave the breakfast roll auntie a paper bill much too big for their purchase.

“Eh?! Wait no I’m still waiting for one more! Sohee!” Hee-Jin protested when her friend began to forcefully drag her away from the tiny kiosk. “Your change! You forget your change!”

The thought of losing money, which is usually enough to cause her to run back off from a moving bus… Actually was enough to cause her to turn around and snatch the coins from the hand of the weirded out auntie. Seemed she worth her life less than 2000 wons.

They ran the block huddled together like an awkward conjoined twin with their sides stuck to one another, only stopping once they jumped into Hee-Jin’s coffee shop and Sohee slamming the heavy back door closed.

“The men! They were sitting on… in… AROUND THE DUMPLING PLACE! And I think they’ve seen… saw me. I think they see me.”

Sohee’s babbles of less than grammatically coherent sentence caused Hee-Jin to be paralyzed in place.

“Did they follow you?” She questioned, just as soft and careful as how she put the two still steaming breakfast roll onto the café’s back office desk.

“I have no idea… I don’t think so? I mean if they did then they’d be here alr-.”

Sohee’s statement was cut by a sharp scream coming out from Hee-Jin. It was followed closely by her own when she realised why she screamed in the first place. Someone was trying on the door handle.

It slowly opened to reveal…


“What the hell is with all these commotions…”

A much too familiar face.

“Gosh dangit Minseok, you almost gave me a heart attack.” Hee-Jin sighed a really loud huff of relief before she walked over and gave her manager a firm punch on his arm.

The combination of being in a familiar place and the sight of their close friend’s face seemingly erased all paranoia from their mind. A light laughter was all it took for all terrors from last night to be forgotten. Oh how simple does a human mind work…

“Spending the night being forced to watch horror movies again?” Minseok winked to Sohee after he finished rubbing off the stinging pain from his skin caused by Hee-Jin’s potent blow. “Or did you guys find some hot dates and do something ‘else’ because those eye-bags don’t lie.”

Once again he howled out a loud pained scream (which was CLEARLY exaggerated) when Hee-Jin battered him down with a rain of punches. Sohee managed to give him a courtesy grin before she herself had to roll her eyes for his uncalled correlation.

“Oy! Stop it! I’m your manager, you’re never supposed to do that to me!” His annoyed hisses came to deaf ears when Hee-Jin whooshed past him to change into her work clothes at the toilet. With her gone, he looked at Sohee in a way where he asked her to side with him, at least this time. But he should’ve known better than to test the bond of female friendship because Sohee only shrugged as she showed herself to the espresso machine.

“I’ll have a double shot vanilla latte, is that okay?”

“As long as you pay for them, you little cheapskate.”

Sohee pretended not to listen to his warning, not even hindering the sharp jab of his elbow dead set on her vertebrae. Anything goes for free coffee in the morning.

“Yes oppa, Thankyou so much for taking care of me~”

It didn’t take long for Hee-Jin to walk out from the toilet while still struggling to tie the knot of her olive colored apron behind her back, the sight of two of her best friends quarrelling behind the steaming coffee machine brought a smile to her face. Although, that smile was quickly taken away when she found her precious, precious bag of breakfast roll gone from the office’s desk.

As she barged her way to Minseok while blaming him for eating up her breakfast without permission, Hee-Jin didn’t realise that the back door was slightly ajar…

- - - - -

“This thing looks so oily but… but… BUT IT’S SO DELICIOUS.” Chanyeol was busy praising the food on his hand that he didn’t realise the rest of his team was looking at him weirdly. “What? Don’t just look at it, eat!”

The other three wasn’t as sure. Just look at that pile of greasy cheese and dripping bacon rind… It’s not healthy, surely it couldn’t? Besides, number one cause of death in a new environment is foreign pathogens. One wrong move and they’re all done for, defeated by a new strain of flu. They have no way of getting their hands on their first aid kit anyway, as it perished with almost everything else when their star cruiser burned down to ashes and smoldering metal.

“Do you feel any reaction?” Kai began to probe him a few minutes after Chanyeol finished his fingers. “Itching on the throat? Nausea? Blurred vision? Phlegm build-up?”

He stared at his comrade weirdly, before his gaze turned into hunger and he extended his arm in an attempt to snatch Kai’s ration of the wheat-roll looking thing off his hands. “If you don’t want it, give it to me.”

“NO!” The ferocity of his refusal shocked even himself. Maybe… The enticing smell of that melting cheese was starting to be too hard to resist. “I mean… I think I’ll try it. Survival, am I right?”

Chanyeol preferred him to stay cautious, because that means more roll for him, but he knew the moment Kai bit down into that oozing mess of deliciousness, he’ll understand perfectly why he risked getting dysentery over something that worth less than a quarter of what a healthy ration should be.

Baekhyun tried to stop him, being still a bit paranoid over unknown critters that might hide behind the crispy dough, while Sehun was just barely containing his own drool.

Kai, though, sat there in silence as he felt the heaven opened up from within his mouth. A single tear rolled down from his eye as he slowly looked up to Chanyeol.

“It’s… beautiful.”

“See, I told you? Now you two!” He went ahead and firmly patted Baekhyun and Sehun’s back, voice bellowing in command. “Eat them! Or I will.”

Just as Sehun was about to take a big bite, the steel door behind him swung open and hit him square on the back. It almost caused him to drop what he thought would be the best thing he’d ever tasted in life, but Chanyeol’s quick response prevented it from meeting its fate with the dusty road.

“What the hell?!” Minseok yelled in shock when he saw four, dirty and miserable looking homeless youths hanging around his coffee shop. What he originally thought would be a simple trip to throw garbages turned into something more complicated. “Go! Go! Before I call the police on you lot! You dirty junkies…”

Sehun was just about to whip his lightsaber out of sheer annoyance when Kai stopped him with a calm nod.

“You didn’t see us.” His voice was relaxed, even though all he wanted was shove down the rest of the charred bits of cheese down his throat. But safety comes first. Always.

“I didn’t see you.” Minseok followed suit as he watched the group slowly stepping back in orderly manner.

“There was nobody here.”

“There was nobody here.”

Just as they were about to disappear around the corner, Chanyeol spotted a slightly familiar face. Although she had her hair down the night before, her unmistakable facial features caused him to almost yell out in recognition. Baekhyun, thankfully, managed to put his palm on top of his mouth before it was all too late.

“What’s wrong?” Hee-Jin asked while looking around the empty looking lot. “Who was it?”

“Nothing, there’s nobody here.” Minseok answered back in a slight daze. Albeit it was normal enough for Hee-Jin to not catch on to whatever weird mind trick the young padawan just did to him.

“Hmm… okay then sleepyhead, I’m ready to open the store.”

His confusion was quickly broken when he heard Hee-Jin’s playful name-calling. With a blink of an eye and a shake of his head, he followed her back into the store while slightly yelling, “YOU’RE a sleepyhead!”

At the side, Chanyeol and the gang overlooked the silly banter happening not too far from them.

“What should we do?” Baekhyun hushed.

“I don’t know, you think?!” Still slightly pissed from Baekhyun’s action of muffling his mouth from earlier, Chanyeol venomously hissed his answer back.

“Hey! Don’t blame me on being the only sane person around here?!” He yelled, looking specifically at Sehun who was wolfing down his share of sin-filled flour roll.

“We should wait.”

From the side, Kai spouted a rational solution. Seemingly he was down from the cheese high the roll just caused him earlier. Besides, finishing it made him feel like he existed in a higher realm of being. Felt like he could conquer the world, that was.

“We should wait until one of them approach us. I know they eventually will.”
 

A/N: Introducing... Made in Asia... BARISTA MINSEOK AYE

BTW breakfast roll is actually chinese's Jian Bing which is my favourite breakfast food ever. It's like egg crepe with veggies and crispy fried wonton skin rolled together into perfect deliciousness. But the one described in this story is a variety of that which was made with canai bread and filled with EVEN MORE sinful stuff such as cheese, egg, bacon, burger patties, or hotdogs. I forgot the name but I I'm pretty sure it's *something* bing.... I miss mainland China's food T^T