They were having some sort of contest, Jessica was sure. And if she had had three guesses for who had started it, she would have used all three on Im Yoona.

It all began with a merciless attack by Yoona and her flashing toy sword early that Monday morning. Well, according to their fuming manager, it was not exactly early, but Jessica had her own definitions when it came to timings. After being woken up so rudely, Jessica had a hard time simultaneously getting ready and chasing a guffawing alligator around the dorm.

Staying mad at Yoona was a difficult thing to do, that was something SNSD knew too well. In Jessica’s book, it belonged among the top 5 impossible human endeavours, right up there with waking up on time. There was something about the young prankster that made the victim secretly enjoy being teased. You wouldn’t catch Jessica admitting it dead or alive, but as month after month after month passed after their debut, each one of Yoona’s episodes of mayhem brought her a vague sense of relief. She was not sure why. She just had a feeling the day that Yoona stopped trying to make them laugh with her idiocy would be the day everything would change for SNSD in some irrevocable, fundamental way.

Yuri, though, it was easy to stay mad at her. So when she was woken up on Tuesday by a live bagpipe alarm, Jessica was determined to ignore Yuri for the rest of the day. She couldn’t believe it. An actual. Freaking. Bagpipe.

“Oh look, Sica. You look great in this frame. See?”

Flattery was always the first item on Yuri’s arsenal against receiving the cold shoulder. Pathetically predictable. Jessica would have huffed, but that would have counted as acknowledging Yuri’s presence.

“What should we have for lunch later? Let’s have some spaghetti! Deal? I’ll make you spaghetti. Deal?”

Jessica almost gave Yuri her attention out of pity. Someday, someone was going to have to break it to the girl that on the curse-blessing continuum, her cooking was pretty far from the ‘blessing’ end.

“Come on, don’t you wanna know how I got the bagpipe? All you gotta do is ask. You’re missing out on a good story here.”

It was a compelling reason. Too bad Jessica didn’t think she wanted to hear a bagpipe or about the bagpipe or the word ‘bagpipe’ ever again in her life.

“Please, Sica.” Yuri suddenly grabbed her shoulders dramatically and looked her dead in the eye as they sat next to each other on the car. “I didn't want to wake you up that way. I had no choice. I had to do it.”

Jessica only squinted her eyes in suspicion, her hypothesis on what was happening slowly taking shape.

Then came Wednesday morning with Sooyoung’s plate of freshly cut cucumber under her nose.

Thursday was Sunny’s cymbals.

Friday was Hyoyeon’s baby potato bombardment.

Saturday was the sheer volume Tiffany’s normal talking voice.

It was already shaping to be the worst week of Jessica’s life. But Sunday, oh Sunday, was the highlight. Of all people, she thought she could count on Seohyun not to mess with her. They didn’t even have a schedule that day for crying out loud. And yet, Seohyun came at the crack of dawn at 8:30 am blaring a little red squeeze-horn that was louder than it had any right to be.

“You too, Seohyun?” Jessica croaked from the greatest depth of personal betrayal.

“I’m sorry unnie. They said if I don’t do it, I’m ‘it’.”

“You’re what?”

Eyes set and unblinking, Seohyun almost whispered, “It.”

No one would tell her the details of their little wicked competition. Jessica only hoped it was ending soon. Taeyeon was the only one who had yet to give it a go. The leader didn’t seem like the type to put much heart into practical jokes, but if even Seohyun had bowed to the pressure, let’s just say Jessica wasn’t looking forward to Taeyeon’s performance - the grand finale.

She had gone to bed with an anxiety that caused her to startle awake with every little noise, which was as unusual as unusual went for Jung Sleepyhead Jessica. She vaguely registered her roommate leaving the crime scene beforehand and then heard Taeyeon’s soft footsteps entering shortly after.

“Sica yah,” the main vocalist singsonged, all too gently and sweetly considering her true intention of being here. Jessica braced herself for whatever obnoxious musical instrument or throwable vegetable that Taeyeon had come armed with.

“Sica yah,” the ominous refrain repeated, closer now. Jessica fought the urge to swallow. “I know the others kinda went overboard the last few days. It , doesn’t it? Me, I’d rather see you wake up smiling.”

Jessica let her guard down for just a second. Because Taeyeon was practically breathing in her ear now. And Taeyeon had a nice, smooth voice, and as a newbie radio DJ she had learned how to use it. And Taeyeon acted detached most of the time, but was occasionally, unexpectedly cheesy and could this be one of those precious moments?

One second of Jessica’s distraction was all Taeyeon needed.

Fluttering fingers attacked Jessica’s sensitive sides and then moved towards her armpits. The assaulted girl convulsed in reflex, the laughter that was coming out of a misleading reflection of the distress she was feeling.

Taeyeon was laughing too, dimples and all, her eyes twinkling in a way that Jessica hadn’t seen in a while. For once, she looked just the right age for this kind of childish behaviour. Too young to worry about anything real. Too young to be leading kids even younger than herself.

Jessica realised then what she would be reminded time and time again over the next years: staying mad at Taeyeon was a very difficult thing too.

“Stop! Please stop…” Jessica choked out between her pinched giggles. Her head was spinning now, from one thing or another.

Taeyeon complied, looking breathless herself as she grinned down at a disheveled Jessica.

“Do you get it?”

“Get what?” Jessica’s response shook with an after-shock chuckle.

“I’d rather see you wake up smiling. Get it?”

“Oh god. You think yourself some genius, don’t you Taeyeon?”

“Well, between the two of us, it’s kinda obvious that I’m the quick-witted one.”

The slap of Jessica’ pillow did nothing to wipe the self-satisfied grin off Taeyeon’s face. It was as if SM had purposefully hand-picked a bunch of annoying weirdos and stuffed them all into one group, adding Jessica so that they would have a victim to tease and adding Seohyun to make sure they didn’t accidentally get themselves killed along the way.

“Why aren’t you rushing off like the other girls did?” Jessica asked when Taeyeon just sat there quietly on the edge of her bed, fiddling with a loose thread on the blanket.

The shorter girl shrugged. “Why? Are you shooing me?”

“No. I mean, maybe. Yes. It’s not like I don’t like hanging out with you, but at 7 am I’d rather be maintaining my relationship with my one true love, sleep. It’s been a rough week for us, and we’d appreciate some time to catch up.”

Jessica didn’t expect the other girl to actually leave her alone or anything. She just said it to make Taeyeon laugh. But then Taeyeon laughed, and Taeyeon stood up too.

“You know what, your first schedule only begins at 12. You’ve got one more hour max to have your romantic date with sleep, before we head for the salon, okay? I’ll leave you two to it.”

That was the single best thing Jessica had heard all this sleep-deprived week. She felt like she might cry. Or those could have been tears from yawning too much. At this ungodly hour, Jessica did not have the clarity of mind to tell the difference.

“Sica yah, good morning,” Taeyeon said before disappearing out the door, the way someone would say ‘Good night.’

Jessica stared after her with bleary eyes. Things do have the tendency to look unreal, dreamy, before the mind fully wakes up. For what it was worth, Jessica fell back asleep after a while with a smile on her face.

It wasn’t until late that night, back at the dorm after a draggy group photoshoot, that Jessica found out what the contest had been all about.

“So can you tell me about your stupid competition now that it’s over? It is over, right? Taeyeon was the last one, wasn’t she?”

“Oh she was last all right,” Yoona chuckled, “She took, like, an hour. How was that even possible?”

“So you guys were timing. To see who woke me up the fastest.”

“Bingo, unnie! You’re not as slow as people make you out to be.”

“Hey, watch it.” Jessica pulled on the younger’s ear, like she sometimes did to Krystal.

“Ow! That was supposed to be a compliment!”

“I’m not done with you. Tell me, who initiated this ridiculous thing?”

“The mastermind prefers to remain anonymous.”

“Oh really?” Jessica arched her eyebrow at the prime suspect. “And would the mastermind care to disclose what y’all get for winning? Or losing, more likely. Seohyun seemed pretty genuinely shaken up, and nothing ever shakes Seohyun up.”

“Oooh that’s the best part. I mean, if the mastermind were here, I think she would say that’s the best part. Hear this, the loser is going to have to wake you up every day for the next three months! You can imagine how your roommate supported my - I mean, the mastermind’s - plan, since…”

Jessica’s brain computed the numbers. Three months. Three times thirty gives you ninety, minus maybe seven to ten days off. Eighty days.

“That…” That is a lot of days. “That makes no sense. Why should the one least capable of waking me up be put in charge of doing just that?”

“Hey, you don’t question the mastermind. You just follow her masterplan.”

One of the central pieces of the masterplan emerged then from her room and headed for the fridge. Taeyeon drank a lot of milk, and had a ready set of varying answers whenever questioned about it. For strong bones, better sleep, nice taste, old habit, trying to beat the expiry date, you name it. But they all knew she was trying to grow taller. They also knew it was not working in the slightest.

“You two not in bed yet?” The leader asked over the rim of her heavy mug, “We have a long day ahead, you know?”

“And you have a long three months ahead, unnie,” Yoona quipped.

To which the midget just shrugged, like the detached stoic she liked to appear to be ninety-nine percent of the time. But it was during the remaining one percent  that she had let Jessica sleep in, regardless of the consequences, wasn’t it? And it took only that one percent to overshadow the rest. Persona was persona, and a person was a person. Jessica knew this too well; the Ice Princess played different roles under the same name too.

All things considered, Jessica supposed the next three months wasn’t going to be so bad. It could have been the bagpipe.

A/N: Thanks for reading and for all the kind comments! So, I went to a boarding school back then and the bagpipe people practiced every weekend morning. I'd never hated a musical instrument with such a passion. To this day, I still think of weekend mornings where I have to wake up early as bagpipe mornings XD. And hey, Soshi comeback amirite? Listening to it all night, all night, all ni-i-i-i-ight!