The smell of coffee woke Dara up from the dead the following day. She squinted against the bright light shining through the hospital windows. She crinkled her nose and sniffed like a little rabbit searching for a juicy piece of carrot. She spied a tall waxed paper cup on the other side of the table. Her figurative rabbit ears perked up and her thin arms automatically reached out for the bitter brew. But a piece of wet facial wipes rudely but gently blocked her vision and proceeded to wipe the morning glory off her eyes. She just as rudely slapped the hand that was obstructing her from her goal.

“Not so fast, coffee addict.” The owner of the golden tan arm told her off. She rolled her eyes at him and moved to scramble across the coffee table. Because he had relatively longer limbs he reached out and moved the tempting cup further away. She could only growl at him in annoyance. He smirked. He knew she was more or less incoherent without her first sip of coffee.

“You can have this cup after you read and sign this contract.” He nonchalantly told her while pushing a piece of paper in front of her along with a professional looking fountain pen.

She scrunched her face at the piece of paper, took a languishing look at the cup of coffee he placed beside him, sighed in defeat and proceeded to read the official looking document in front of her. She scowled at the words. The words seem to be sensible. It was another contract between the two of them. She remember vaguely adding a clause requiring that should one of them fail to do his or her part of the deal the offending party will have to grant the other party three sets of wishes.

She scanned through the words swiftly and it seemed to say that since she had failed to grant Jiyong his 24 hours then she is making a sworn statement that she is going to fulfill her end of the bargain and grant Jiyong another three wishes in recompense. It sort of made sense to her but she had the niggling feeling that something wasn’t right but then he opened the damn cup and a stronger waft of the tantalizing blend reached her senses.

He took a long sniff and said, “Lucky you. You can still drink coffee. They told me not to drink any dark fluids the other day but let me take a heavenly sniff while you sign the paper.” He dramatically inhaled the steam from the opened cup. She unconsciously reached out for it. He mercilessly moved it away from her and said heartlessly, “No signature, no coffee.”

She made an annoyed face at him, grabbed the fountain pen and hurriedly scrawled her signature down the line at the bottom of the page. She slammed the pen on the table and demanded for her reward. Jiyong smirked in victory at the sight of her signature. He calmly handed her the coffee, took the contract off the table and stood up to tuck it securely inside the file case that Top had earlier brought with him.

After a few sips of life-inducing caffeine Dara was finally awake enough to notice that Jiyong was no longer wearing