[CONTENTID1]Blondes and Bookshops[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]"It's clear this whole night has gone to . We should stop before it gets any worse, right?"[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3] Yeseul yawned widely as she descended the stairs, bypassong Sehun and Kyungsoo's rooms on the first level to get to the kitchen on the ground floor. She could hear Chanyeol and Sumin, the only other people awake thus far, chatting away down the corridor when she reached the bottom stop and followed their voices through to the ktichen. 

Predictably, they were both eating muesli, yoghurt, and fruit. Chanyeol smiled widely at Yeseul when she entered the room, but didn't offer to fix her a bowl. He knew how she felt about muesli. Instead, she poured cornflakes and milk into a bowl and put on the kettle, settling in next to Sumin at the island. They'd only just got new stools, thanks to Kyungsoo's Mum, who apparently took one look around and decided that they needed quite a few new pieces of furniture. Though she was glad for it, Yeseul didn't understand how new furniture would help Kyungsoo with his spiralling uni career, which she hoped his Mum was at least aware of. 

"Did you sleep well?" Sumin asked, taking note of the dark circles under Yeseul's eyes. 

They were always there, so she didn't think that Sumin should be taking note of anything, but she would anyway. "Okay," she replied, eyes flicking up to Chanyeol. 

His back was to her, but he must have been listening because he glanced over his shoulder and smirked. He brought over a cup of tea and placed it on the island next to Yeseul's cereal a minute later. "Yeseul slept excellently." 

"Ahh, I see," Sumin grinned. 

"No, he's being an idiot" Yeseul interjected. "He gave me a massage and it knocked me right out." 

"You were so tight, Seul." 

She grimaced at the impish expression on his face. "Please shut up." 

"I mean, I really had to get in there," Chanyeol continued. "Work it out." 

"I'm going to hit you," she warned. 

"Hit on me?" 

"God's sake," she muttered, covering her face with her hands. "I really hate you sometimes." 

It was exactly the sort of conversation that used to get her riled up, until she was practically spitting at him to just ' off already' because she wanted nothing to do with him. This time around, all she felt was weary of his ridiculous comments, and a little bit embarrassed when Sumin laughed at Chanyeol waggling his eyebrows and smirking like a devil. Yeseul didn't get embarrassed, she got annoyed, so this was only more new territory for her. 

"But not right now," he said, crossing his forearms on the counter and leaning forward. She peeked between her fingers, then her hands slowly lowered to her lap. "Other times, I get it." 

It'd been over a week since their fight and subsequent reconciliation, but things were still shaky. Yeseul was back to staying over at him every few nights, and he slept in her bed more often than not, bringing her tea while she studied late and making sure she ate at regular intervals (even if it was a reminder text from work to ensure she had dinner), while Yeseul worked her way back to being fully comfortable with him again. 

She knew they needed to do something, get back to being themselves again, to being together and okay. Yeseul had an idea in mind, but she was having trouble finding the right day for it. With exams approaching in a few weeks and Chanyeol working every night while she was in class all day, they were already barely able to each other in the daylight hours, coming together when they went to sleep and going their separate ways just after breakfast. 

"How's next Saturday looking for you?" she asked Chanyeol. 

He'd been listening to Sumin go on about some superfood, Yeseul cutting in during a pause in the conversation, and switched his attention over to her. "Saturday?" he asked, the word coming out garbled because of the spoon that was still in his mouth. Yeseul raised her eyebrows, waiting. "Um, I'm working the brunch service, I think. I have the evening off, though." 

"Can I pick you up?" 

"You don't drive." 

"We don't need a car." 

"Okay, then," he agreed, shovelling muesli and blueberries into his mouth. After a moment, he looked back at her with narrowed eyes. "Hwang Yeseul, are you taking me on on a surprise date?" 

She rolled her eyes. "Considering I just told you I'm picking you up from work, what else could it be?" 

He beamed. "I can't wait." 

"Yeah, all right," she said, trying not to show the fuzzy feelings she got from seeing him smile. 

"I've got to say, I never expected you two to be this cute," Sumin mused. 

"Oh no," Yeseul groaned. "No, I refuse to be cute. Chanyeol. stop smirking at me like that or there won't be any ing surprise date." 

The smirk dropped immediately and Chanyeol shoved another spoonful of muesli into his mouth, and then it was Yeseul's turn to grin triumphantly. 

There was approximately a week-long lull before the awareness that exams were coming up set in and the apartment went into revison mode. This mostly consisted of Yeseul actually doing revision while Baekhyun faffed about because the fact that these were his final exams of university had hit him and he was too stressed to actually do anything. 

Yeseul was finally making progress on her most troublesome module on post-1750 literature. It wasn't so much the content, but the professor that Yeseul was having problems with. They were stuck in a state of disagreement which had persisted throughout the whole term, making her dread going to class because it was like the professor wanted to argue with her, given that he always chose her to speak at some point during the two-hour long lecture. Yeseul didn't mind a bit of back and forth, but she left the class exhausted most days, hating that she nearly got into shouting matches with somebody three times her age who refused to acknowledge that she might actually have a different opinion. 

But since she found out he wouldn't be grading their exams, she'd relaxed a little. Her TA actually listened to what the students had to say (many of which she argued with just as much, and even louder than she did with the professor, until Joonmyun told her to calm down and not threaten anybody, since it was the class they had together) and wouldn't fail her for saying something controversial or even just different from what they were told in the lecture. 

She realised she was making unnecessary angry red lines in her book with a pen just thinking about the class and inhaled deeply, craving a cigarette for a brief moment before she suddenly remembered something Chanyeol had said to her ages ago: "Next time you want a cigarette, think about why. Now ask yourself if it's worth it." 

Her passive aggressive idiot of a professor certainly wasn't. So she stayed where she was, reaching for the cup of tea sitting on her bedside table instead. 

While she worked on her study review, Yeseul fielded texts from Joonmyun on whether or not she'd come to his party at the weekend (she couldn't, because she and Chanyeol had their surprise date on Saturday), if they were both going to die in their exam (they weren't, because their professor wasn't grading it and they had a nice TA), and whether or not he should ask out some girl in their seminar (Yeseul had no idea who the girl was, since she didn't even know the names of half of the people in their class but had sent a single thumbs up emoji in response). Joonmyun didn't talk to her about his dating life, the only discussion they had on the subject since the whole 'lesbian mishap' was Joonmyun teasing her about Chanyeol. Yeseul just assumed he'd been getting with people all this time, but if she was wrong about his personality she wouldn't be surprised if she was totally off on his romantic tendencies as well. Given that he'd pursued her for several months despite being let down every time, and somehow managed to switch into being one of her good friends with only minor bumps along the way, Yeseul had absolutely no clue what to make of Joonmyun. In that way, she was relieved that they never talked about it. Until he sent her that text asking about Taehee somebody, that is. 

She was contemplating a response to his latest message when Baekhyun flew in through the open doorway (he'd run into the door twicee already this week, so she'd been keeping it open for safety purposes at Chanyeol's advisement) and sprawled across the end of her bed, nudging her foot with his elbow. 

"How's it going?" he asked. 

Yeseul looked up from her phone. "Are you referring to before or after you got here?" 

"Is your revision not going okay?" Baekhyun reached over and grabbed the notebook from the quilt next to her hip, skimming the pages. "This Lord Byron guy sounds like an ." 

"You're not entirely wrong," she sighed, snatching it back. "Why is it that I can't get an hour's work done without you coming in here or Joonmyun texting me about what stupid jeans to wear on his date?" 

"Joonmyun's going on a date?" 

"He has to ask her first," Yeseul said. "But from what he's been telling me, she'll probably say yes." 

Baekhyun slotted his hands behind his head. "Is she in your department? What's her name – maybe I know her." 

"Maybe you've ed her, you mean." 

"Well, yeah." 

"It's Taehee something." 

Baekhyun's eyes narrowed as he contemplated the name, then they widened. "Jung Taehee?" After checking her messages from Joonmyun, Yeseul nodded. "He definitely should. She's great." 

"Great as in nice or great as in ?" Yeseul inquired. 

"Both. We went out twice – last year, I think." 

"How is it you remember every single girl you've gone out with and yet you forget to pick up milk on your way home?" 

"It's a totally different kind of memory," Baekhyun informed her smartly. "My short term memory is , but I've got near perfect long term memory." 

"Right," she said. "Did you come in here for anything or were you just going to bother me with useless information about your memory?" 

Baekhyun stretched out on the foot of the bed. "Well, it's exams coming up, which means your birthday's also right around the corner." 

She looked over at him. "I told you, I don't want to do anything this year." 

"I know, I just thought we could–" 

"No, Baek. Besides, I'm working." 

At that, he bolted upright. "What? On your birthday? Yeseul, you hate that job. Why would you put yourself through a shift on your birthday?" 

"Because it guarantees that you won't be able to drag me out to some event I don't want to be a part of." 

He frowned. "I was only going to recomment we go to Gallery." 

"I don't want to do that either." 

"But we got drunk on your birthday last year before exams and it was brilliant! Perfect way to take the edge off the most stressful time of the year." 

"Well, you can still go out." 

"It won't be the same without you." 

"It's my birthday," she reminded him. "I get to do what I want." 

Baekhyun levelled his gaze. "And you want to work." 

"Yes." 

"I just don't understand it," he shook his head. 

Yeseul shrugged. "I'm not expecting you to." 

The conversation ended, with Baekhyun picking at Yeseul's wool blanket and humming tunelessly while Yeseul continued her revision. 

Last year, Yeseul's birthday had been brilliant, just like Baekhyun had said. They'd all gotten fabulously drunk and then crashed some party near Joonmyun's – it might have been Joonmyun's, but Yeseul didn't have clear memory of what had happened past midnight. It was such a good time that Yeseul had completely forgotten her stress over the exam she had to sit three days later. 

Though it sounded like fun to do something like that again, Yeseul couldn't bring herself to get in the mood for another wild night. Her exams meant more this year, and even if she had no idea what she wanted to do with her future, having grades wasn't going to help in the least. If anything, she wanted to save the wild night for after exams, when they were free to do as they pleased adn not worry about what would happen the next day. She contemplated suggesting it to Baekhyun, but when she looked up from her notes he'd already left. 

Yeseul had never been the Signiel before. She hardly even went into that neighbourhood, unless she'd been dragged there by Sumin, who needed a new dress for some gallery event. She forgot sometimes that the hotel and restaurant weren't really that far from where she lived, because the neighbourhood where the old building was located bordered the park across from her building, but the areas were so different it was easy to think it was on the far end of town. It was hardly the place Chanyeol would invite her to, and given that he rarely spoke about the restaurant in the first place – something about liking his personal life and work life to stay separate – Yeseul walked into the lobby of the luxury hotel feeling absolutely out of place. 

Everything was too fancy for her taste, with monochrome decor and the occasional accent piece, not as ostentatious as she'd expected but still obviously expensive. The entrace to the restaurant was off to the side, and there were people everywhere, since brunch had only just ended. The kitchen technically wasn't open through lunch, though the restaurant was and people could still get tea, coffee, and a few cakes and things they kept on hand, and then the kitchen reopened for the evening service at five. Not really knowing where to wait, Yeseul send Chanyeol a quick tex