˜”*°•.˜”*°• 03 •°*”˜.•°*”˜
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The next morning, Yena emerges from her room and as always, makes her way to wake the older up, deciding to come earlier this time to avoid the model's complaints about lacking time to prepare. It does not come with a cost though since the earlier it is, the scarier the model gets. Adding that they've been playing all night as well so she'd be expecting crankiness at best. Lightly knocking on the door she turns the knob to open the door, peeking inside.

"Unnie it's time to.." Yena's words were cut off when she sees Sakura already awake, dressed and apparently ready to go. And is that humming she hears?

"You're awake" Yena states dumbly as if she's seeing an illusion, staring at her unnie who was currently busy fixing her hair in front of the mirror.

"Obviously" the older replies without looking back at Yena.

Still not believeing what she's seeing she continues her dumb remarks "But it's early? I'm not even ready yet" she replies checking the clock at the same time and looks at Sakura again. 

Sakura rolls her eyes but does not answer the younger's questions. It's too early and she doesn't have the energy to entertain the duck's denseness. Instead, she continues to look over her appearance at the mirror, applying lip tint on her lips and smacking them together. Feeling satisfied, Sakura stands up and turns to walk towards the astonished duck, who was still staring at her with mouth sightly ajar.

She reaches her hand under the younger's chin and closes it for her."We're leaving in 20mins hun chop chop" she says and pats the latter's shoulder as well she walks past her towards the door.

As the door closes behind her with a click, Yena blinks and appeared to be speechless. "DId she just mock me?"

◉●❀●◉

Sakura couldn't wait for Yena to finish any longer without her daily dose of morning caffeine so she tells her over the bathroom door that she'll be going ahead and will wait for her at the coffee shop. She's certainly happy that the two stalkers from yesterday hadn't made their appearance today. She reckons that they were pretty embarassed so she will not be seeing them for awhile, hopefully ever. It's scary that she's used to it but they were pretty harmless before. She remembers the slight fear of dealing with them without Yena which never happens since the younger manager is always there. She doesn't want to rely on other people, well aside from the duck so having Chaeyeon defend her like that was different. She didn't mind her help, in fact she liked it. There is something about the girl that intrigues her. She almost smiles as she remembers how Chaeyeon's expression changes from being annoyed at the two guys to embarassed in the span of minutes. She thought the girl was cute.

Stepping inside the establishment she notices the lesser or, in this case lack thereof, of customers compared to yesterday. She expected it to be quite packed since people tend to look for coffee first thing in the morning. She sees a woman behind the counter turn to her as the bells hanging on the door sways to her opening the door.

"Oh. You're back"

The woman greets her like a friend. The confused look she was wearing did not go unnoticed by the said woman as she urges her towards the counter. She hesitantly apporaches the counter in which the woman continues to smile at her "Weren't you the girl with Chaeyeon yesterday?"

Hearing the familiar name, she finally recognizes the older woman before her. Her face must've given away her realization when the woman's smile practically beams at her. "I'm Sunmi by the way" Sakura does not know what to reply as she looks around the shop. As if hearing Sakura's silent question, Sunmi smiles as she explains "I just opened the shop, since Eunbi is on leave I'm alone for today" 

Sakura appears confused and does not know what to do with what Sunmi said. 

Sunmi laughs "Oh sorry, I thought you may be wondering the absence of customers, even though it is early"

Sakura betrays only a slight raise of eyebrow but does not answer her. She is either impressed or frightened of the woman's intuitive skills. "She is definitely a witch, I'm sure of it"  

"You know, for someone who's a friend of Chaeyeon, you seem to be the most unlikely one I've ever met"

The comment makes Sakura feel insulted in someway. How can this woman say such a thing when she doesn't even know her. She definitely thinks that she and Chaeyeon can be friends and a great one at that "What are you implying?" snapping at her. 

Sunmi feels giddy for finally getting something out of the girl but she clealry thinks that the latter had misunderstood her comment, so she quickly tries to salvage the situation "Oh no, don't take it the wrong way! You two just seemed to be an unlikely pair since Chaeyeon talks a lot and you.. she pauses, well it took me awhile to actually hear you talk but I'am not saying it's a bad thing, rather it's quite the opposite!"

Sakura does not say anything again b an awkward air around them. Sunmi notices the tension and tries to cut through it. "So anyways, what would you like then?"

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With the two cups of coffee in each others' hand, Sakura makes her way inside the studio building, walking towards the front desk with Yena trailing behind with their stuff. Yena finds it weird that unlike yesterday, Sakura seemed too eager to go to work furthermore she notices her steps have a slight bounce to them. The total opposite from the Sakura of yesterday.

"Good morning Sakura ssi" greeted the same girl, Jo Yuri. Sakura nods in reply as the younger takes the phone to inform of their arrival. Yena could clearly see that the girl is blatantly ignoring her presence and decides to go with the girl's obvious disdain on her "Hey what about me? I'm here too kid." she moves beside Sakura leaning on the counter to look at Yuri. Yuri responds by glaring and says nothing.

"Yes, hello they're here sir, yes okay" Yuri puts down the phone and looks to Sakura. "You can go in now Sakura ssi" she smiles at the brunette, completely ignoring her companion. Yena rolls her eyes at her lame retaliation. "Really kid?"

The younger does not say anything as she gets back to her work. Watching the childish banter between the two, Sakura just shakes her head and proceeds to shove Yena towards the door. 

"Don't you think that kid is rude unnie?" complains Yena

Sakura just raises her eyebrows at her friend. "You're doing that thing again" Yena looks back at her, confused "What thing?"

Sighing, Sakura shakes her head at her friend's obliviousness. After being her friend for so long, Sakura knows every bit of habit Yena does. And what she is doing right now is one of them. Ever since knowing her, Sakura knows that Yena tends to tease someone she likes. She noticed this before when she met this Japanese girl in highschool. She believes her name was Juri. It was obvious the moment Yena saw her, when she started to call her an egg out of the blue. Shocking both Sakura and Juri herself.

Unsurprisingly, Juri did not like that one bit. Making Yena ask help from Sakura how to apologise in Japanese. Thankfully, Juri found Yena's broken Japanese cute and the two hit it off. Sadly though, Juri had to go back to Japan and the two inevitably broke up. Although both ended it in good terms and they are still in contact till this day. Seeing Yena act towards this Yuri girl is like deja vu all over again. Now that she thinks about it, their names almost seemed Identical aside from the first letter. She shakes her head at the near coincidence. Looking towards the huffing girl she's quite sure that her best friend will most likely come running to her again. So this time, she wants her to do it by herself "Figure it out yourself" she says as she walks ahead towards the studio leaving Yena behind.

"What did you mean unnie?" Yena calls for her before the older disappears behind the doors. She glances back at Yuri and was surprised the latter was already looking at her. But before she could utter a word, the girl already turns away and went back to doing her work. "Why is everyone against me today?" Yena sighs in defeat as she, too, makes her way to the studio.

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"Welcome back Sakura ssi!" The same man who greeted them yesterday approaches her. He checks behind her, looking for Yena. "Are you--" Sakura walks past him before he finishes the sentence. She walks straight ahead towards the staff who was busy setting up.

"Hey you"

The girl turns "Can I help you?"

Sakura opens to answer but before she could, Yena comes running towards her. "Unnie! How could you leave me like that?" But the older only glares in return, annoyed by her best friend's interruption. "Can you stop embarassing me for one second?" she says, turning back to the staff who was awkwardly standing there not knowing what to do. But once again,she couldn't finish when the boss approaches them with a grin.

"You're here Ms. Sakura" he says "And Ms. Yena, too" not forgetting this time to acknowledge her companion. He shoos the staff away. "Are those coffee for me perhaps?" he asks, noticing the two iced americano Sakura was holding.

"No" she says rather bluntly as she walks away towards her dressing room

"Sorry about that, she likes her caffeine" apologises Yena

But the boss dismisses her concerns. "Oh I don't mind, I like my women feisty" he smiles as he walks away.

Yena felt disgusted. Why do men always objectify women? Even if she wants to retaliate, she can't or they'll lose the job. Not to mention, Sakura would hang her alive for compromising them and showing them weakness. "Just gotta finish today and we'll be okay" she mutters to herself.

Sakura makes her way to her dressing room, making sure to look for the blond haired woman she can't wait to see along the way. She looks left and right eagerly holding the two cups but all she could see are the busy staff walking around. Dejected, she walks straight to her dressing room. She was about to step in, when she ovehears two girls talking as they walk behind her.

"Did he really fire her?" says one girl in white.

"Yeah. The boss was really in a bad mood yesterday" the other girl remarked

"Poor Chaeyeonie. She's really talented too!"

Hearing the familiar name. Sakura looks back and makes her way to the two girls. "Who got fired?" she asks without missing a beat. The two girls were taken aback by her sudden appearance but she ignores it as she asks them again. "Answer me"

One girl finally recovers as she tries to answer. "Chaeyeon did yesterday"

"Why?" she asks raising her voice. she doesn't like the feeling she feels in her gut as she waits for the girl to answer. The girl swallows as she tries to form words under Sakura's glare. "We don't know but maybe Chaewon does, they're close"

"Where can I find her?"

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Chaeyeon lays sprawled out like a starfish in her bed staring blankly at the loosing paint on her ceiling. She still couldn't believe she was fired. She did not think the boss would really do it. She know he is not fond of her but she thought he'd only reprimand her and not terminate her. Now that she thinks about it, she hadn't received her paycheck and from the boss's attitude yesterday, she doubts she'd get it now. She puts and arm over eyes as she thinks how she could pay her rent now. It's long overdue and the landlord is not especially the kindest man so she's hoping that he forgets to collect the rent today, at least before she could find another job. 

She looks towards the desk beside her bed on the right at her prized camera. It could probably sell enough for today's rent as well as groceries for a week. A face flashes as she gazes at the camera. She turns her head away as she shakes her head. "I'm sorry Minju ah, I promise I won't" she says to no one as she covers her eyes again while holding back her tears. 

Her musings were interrupted by rapid knocks on her door. She covers herself with her blanket as if it would help and lies still hoping the man would give up and leave.

"I know