Bright rays of the morning sunshine tickled Byulyi’s nose, waking her up at an hour, the sleepyhead thought, was way too early. After the development of yesterday’s events, she must have passed out immediately after closing the door to her room.  No time to even think about what she was going to do now that she was asked to join the team of gamblers. So, she figured, today was another great day to examine the whole dilemma critically.

Luckily she didn’t role out of bed too early, nor too late but right in time to catch up with Wheein as the younger girl got ready to leave the house. The two best friends got lucky enough to share a modest apartment right outskirt the educational area in Massachusetts. It wasn’t very spacious but a snug room for one girl each, a well-appointed kitchen and a small bathroom was enough for two people, who spent most of their days in lecture halls, anyway. 

Byulyi pulled out a chair from under the dining table, definitely not made for a family, and sat down resting her head on her hand. Wheein recognised her roommate must still be drained from the previous day. She noticed the older girl came home later than the usual and wondered when Byulyi was going to tell her just where she stooped around at the late hour. She didn’t want to ask directly, otherwise, Byulyi would address her inquisitiveness once again. After all, the older was her best friend, not her mother.  

Fortunately the blonde with the cute dimples prepared breakfast for two, meaning Byulyi still had a few hours more before she had to go back to putting in high effort into living. 

“Let’s go for food later, hm Byul? Text me when you’re free.”

Byulyi looked up at her friend, who was now lively spinning around in her chair and hummed as a sign of agreement.  She surely will need lunch after three theoretical periods of plain software construction. She wondered whether she was allowed to tell Wheein about what took place but decided, she’d let her in on the secret once Byulyi made up her mind.  

Once Wheein left their apartment for her part-time job at a cafe located on the campus, the left alone woman went back to her room to get dressed and ready for the day. Today she decided to go with a comfy look, that suited the crisp autumn weather. She wasn’t trying to dress to impress. Otherwise, last night would have been a great failure. Black high-waisted jeans, a blue flannel with a white shirt underneath, while her unstyled grey hair fell effortlessly over her shoulder. On her way to the front door, she grabbed half an empty water bottle from the kitchen counter and threw it into her backpack, which was lying beside her signature sneakers in the hallway. No matter how many times Wheein told her to finally throw those shoes away, Byulyi still kept them because they were “easy-to-maintain” and “long-lasting”.

Outside, the brisk air, gliding over Charles River, would blow into her sharp face lightly. The city looked like a festival of autumn colours with crisp leaves covering the pavements, like a blanket. High up from where Byulyi was currently walking along the river, birds traveled down to the southern countries. Although all this was pretty-looking from afar, Byulyi wanted to imagine leaving for Las Vegas, becoming good at the game and living a more eventful life. Hyejin, Tiffany, Tyler and Yongsun seemed genuinely happy. Yongsun. She told me it would be fun. The woman didn’t seem to be the type of person to lie easily either. Then again, she risked her life cheating at Blackjack in the world’s biggest casinos weekly, so maybe she wasn’t too trustworthy after all.  

Byulyi had studied all her life to be where she is now. Thanks to her gifted mind, studying came rather easy to her, maybe it was time to use this brain of her’s for something else. Something more fulfilling. Perhaps she should give it a go. The least she could do was try.

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In between laboratory work, Byulyi found the time to meet up with Wheein at a coffeehouse to tell her about her newly made future plans. Plus she also came