The pillow comes crashing down on Seungwan’s face, breaking the tranquility of her dream in a heartbeat. The Canadian woman is so used to the abrupt wake up call that she doesn’t even jump like she used to when Sooyoung started this habit up a few months ago. Instead of freaking out over the jarring motion, she calmly brushes the offending item off of her face and runs a hand through her hair. She turns over beneath the sheets to glare sleepily at her assailant.

“Hey. Rise and shine, Seungwan-ah,” Sooyoung says from across the room. Without her glasses on, Sooyoung is just an unfocused blur of red and black checkered pajama pants and a plain white shirt leaning against the doorframe. Her voice is overly sweet for seven o’clock in the morning, but Seungwan flashes a bleary, sleepy smile in her general direction nevertheless.

“Good morning,” she sighs in response. The Canadian woman reaches a hand out, blindly grasping for her glasses atop the bedside table. As she does so, she notices Seulgi’s empty, half-made bed. Seulgi’s usually the last one to get up on a day off. Something was up.

“Where’s Seulgi-ah gone?” Seungwan asks, slipping the glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Usually you have to pry her from her bedframe before she’ll get up.” She blinks the sleep away from her eyes, chasing it away with the slabs of sunlight pouring in from the windows. Sooyoung shrugs at the door frame noncommittally, playing with the mug in her hands. The steam from it rises and evaporates in the sun-drenched room like the shroud of a ghostly veil.

Seungwan watched her quietly, taking in the sight of Sooyoung’s bedridden state. Her hair, short and shoulder length, was swept across every which way and Sooyoung hadn’t even bothered to fix it. A dreamy smile pulled at Seungwan’s lips.

“The unnies and Yeri-ah went out for breakfast,” Sooyoung explained, looking down at her mug. “They didn’t want to wake you because you seemed like you needed some rest. I was invited because I was already up but I figured I’d better stay back. I’d feel bad if you woke up on your own, wondering where we’d all gone.”

Seungwan’s smile widens and her eyebrows flick up flirtatiously. She props herself up on an elbow and winks from behind the thick lenses of her glasses. “Nice of you.” There’s a hint of teasing in her voice and Sooyoung rolls her eyes at it, but Seungwan can still see her blushing.

“Get up so we can have breakfast, you cheeseball. Before I throw another pillow at you.” With that, the taller woman walks out of the room, the door clicking shut softly behind her.

The Canadian woman flops back down on her back, staring at the ceiling as the sounds of clanking pans starts up from the kitchen. She swings off of the bed, makes her way down the hallway, and slips into the kitchen. Sooyoung stands at the stovetop, staring down at a pan with a pad of butter slowly melting in the center.

An array of ingredients lay lined up beside her on the counter. There was an egg carton, a big blue and white bag of pancake mix, a packet of low-sodium bacon, a box of mushrooms, a large tomato, a plastic container of spinach, the works.

“What’s cooking?” Seungwan asks as she shuffles towards the coffee maker, rubbing at her eyes. In spite of getting two extra hours of sleep and getting smacked in the face with a pillow, she still felt beat. Probably had something to do with them being idols. She was used to the rundown feeling, yet still held a distaste for it. She grabs the coffee pot and shakes it once. Empty but for the tiniest amount of caffeine at the bottom.

“Coffee?” Seungwan offers, glancing in Sooyoung’s direction.

“Please.”

She moves over to the cupboard with the coffee filters and the coffee bean bags and plucks a filter out and her favorite dark roast out. Sooyoung watches her as she takes the cap off of the coffee grinder and fills it up with the beans. They pitter patter into the machine like the sound of tingling bells before being chewed up into a fine grain.

“I was thinking pancakes? Maybe with an omelette and bacon on the side?” Sooyoung ponders aloud once the machine stops its roar. She moves the pad of butter around with a wooden spatula. Seungwan taps the grounds into the coffee filter and sets the coffee maker brewing, listening and nodding along politely.

They both knew that Sooyoung always had her way when it came to her. The taller woman could throw a pillow at Seungwan without her getting angry, for Christ’s sake. Sooyoung had her wrapped around her little finger like a diamond engagement ring and both of them knew it. “We’ve still got half a bag of pancake mix left. I’m craving something Western today,” Sooyoung adds.

“That sou