Jisoo was the first one up. She fixed herself a pot of tea and took it to sit in the parlor and read while she waited for the others to wake up. She was not surprised to see Irene come out of Suyeon's room. As Irene came to join Jisoo in the parlor, Jisoo poured her a cup of tea.

"You look like you had a pleasant night," Jisoo said.

"I did, but not in the way that you're thinking," Irene replied. Noting the interrogatory quirk of Jisoo's eyebrow, she went on. "Even if I hadn't been too tired for that sort of thing - which I was - I don't think I would have." She took a sip of her tea. "Not that I don't find Suyeon attractive - I do - it's that. . ." She paused, trying to figure the best way to put this into words. "Suyeon and I stayed up quite late drinking tea and talking. As she knew that I was your sunbae, she had questions she wanted to ask me, to sort of double-check the things you had been telling her."

"And. . . have I done well?" Jisoo asked.

"I think you've done quite well," Irene said, "especially as you've never had any special training to be a schoolmistress. But there is one place you've fallen short. I've noticed that you sometimes have a. . . difficulty trying to imagine someone thinking in a different manner from yours." Before Jisoo could interrupt, she hurried on. "I've also noticed that you seem to be aware of this and to go out of your way to compensate for it, and generally you do quite well. But you're not quite there with Suyeon. She's coming into this world from a lower-class background - I'm not saying that as a judgment, but just a statement of fact - and along with that comes a lower-class morality. This includes following traditional social mores and having a rather rigid sense of right and wrong. Now Suyeon is intelligent enough that she has started to question these strictures on her own, so it's not like you were encountering a mind that is totally unprepared for the world that we find ourselves in, but it's still a delicate situation. I think you've done an excellent job, considering the situation you've found yourself in, but it seems in some areas you're in danger of taking her too far, too fast."

Jisoo pondered this for a while. "So, for example, last night. . ." She paused, hoping that Irene would explain things further.

"Last night," Irene said, "Suyeon was attracted to me, but if we had done anything, it would have been because you had told her it wasn't wrong, not because she actually deep down believed it wasn't wrong. It would have led to guilt and self-recrimination later, which could have caused problems."

"Oh my!" Jisoo said, her eyes wide. "So Suyeon has been judging me?"

Irene smiled, then reached out and took Jisoo's hand. "Not at all! Suyeon is quite taken with you, and sees in you a model she wants to emulate. I'm just saying that there are places where the morality that we were taught at the academy conflicts with the morality Suyeon was taught growing up. She believes in you, and so she wants to believe in your morality, but she's having some doubts."

Jisoo nodded. "So what do I do?"

Irene took a sip of her tea and looked out the window for a moment before answering. "Obviously you're going to have to continue to educate her in 'academy morality,' and the worldview that that entails. But you'll have to be careful about pushing her too far. Explain and model but - as much as possible - avoid ordering her to do things that conflict with her morality. I think if you leave her to initiate things you'll be quite astonished at how quickly she comes along. I think if you open doors before her and then stand aside, she'll go through of her own volition - maybe not as quickly as she would if you ordered her through, but without any self-recriminations or doubts that could put her in jeopardy during a future mission."

Jisoo nodded, taking this all in. "Thank you for your insights," she said before falling quiet for a moment. "I don't know if you're aware," she said, "so I want you to know: Besides loving you as a friend, I admire you as an agent. Many times you've provided me with insight and guidance and you've never steered me wrong. Thank you."

Irene blushed under the weight of Jisoo's praise. "It's kind of you to say so," she managed to say. "I really don't know what to say after that. I-" Irene was spared the need to figure out what to say next because she spotted Suyeon come into the parlor. "Good morning, Suyeon!" she called out.

"Good morning Miss Irene," Suyeon said with a bow. "Good morning Mrs. Kim."

"Good morning Suyeon," Jisoo responded. "How are you this morning?"

"Very well, ma'am - thank you for asking," Suyeon responded. "I came to tell you that breakfast is ready, if you're ready for it."

"I believe I am," Jisoo said, standing and following Suyeon into the dining room. "Suyeon, would you go check on Miss Jennie and Miss Joy and see if they're ready to wake up and join us for breakfast? Then come back and join us."

"Yes ma'am," Suyeon said, scurrying off in the direction of Jisoo's bedroom.

"Suyeon really is in quite an interesting position," Irene said after watching Suyeon leave.

"How so?" Jisoo asked.

"It's really a sort of ideal training for our world," Irene said. "On the one hand she is your servant, but she's also your pupil, and also your friend and - from what she told me last night -sometime bedpartner. She's expected to act one way when the party consists solely of people from 'our world,' and another way when outsiders are present. It's really quite excellent training for a future agent, though hampered by the fact that it probably couldn't produce agents in sufficient quantities."

"As well as the fact that some assignments - yours, for example - don't really lend themselves to training an apprentice," Jisoo said. Just then Jennie, Joy, and Suyeon came in and joined them.

"Suyeon, has Joy been giving you lessons in putting on makeup?" Jisoo asked.

"No ma'am," Suyeon responded. "Why do you ask?"

"You've got a trace of her lip paint on your lower lip," Jisoo said. "I'm not going to ask how it got there, but I am going to stress the necessity of being aware of such things."

"Yes ma'am," Suyeon said, hastily wiping her lip.

"Jisoo and I were just talking about Suyeon's training," Irene said as a way of changing the subject. "I think it's remarkable how much Suyeon has been able to learn in such a short amount of time."

"Do really think so?" Suyeon asked. "I feel like I've got so much more to learn."

"That feeling never goes away," Jennie said, "because there always is so much to learn."

Joy nodded in agreement. "Madame Young says that an agent who stops learning should be taken out of the field, because they'll be vulnerable to an opposing agent who doesn't stop learning."

"And while we're all learning," Jisoo said, "let's not let this excellent breakfast Suyeon has prepared get cold." She slid a pajeon onto her plate and gestured for the others to start eating.

There was silence for a couple of minutes as they all began to break their fasts. Irene was the first to break the silence. "So what do you have planned for today?"

"Joy and I have an appointment for tea today," Jisoo said, "to discuss her upcoming nuptials, but Jennie and Suyeon are free, and would likely be willing to provide you any aid you might require, or just to keep you company."

"Actually," Irene said, "I have need of your specialized knowledge of Busan - I need to get a message to our mutual friends, letting them know the status of my mission."

"Actually, Suyeon would