Silence. There is just silence in the room, silence and a headache starting to form at the base of her neck. She can feel the dried line of saliva from and across her cheek.

Where am I?, her inner monologue sounds just as tired as she feels. This room doesn’t feel like this room in the next seconds, but she later comes to recognize it as her own. A little surprise can be read on her face as she sits up on her bed.

How the hell did I get here?

With a little guilt in the back of her mind about possibly drunk driving back home, she makes her way to the bathroom with heavy steps. A shower will maybe refresh her memories, yes. A shower and some cereal, she can almost taste it.

No thoughts cross her mind as she showers, she feels like a blank slate, as if information was loading before actually coming into her body. It all feels mechanical, out of survival. Maybe she’s exaggerating, but it’s been a while since she’s been this hangover.

Coming out of the shower she does feel refreshed and some excitement to live her day through. It does help that she doesn´t have to go to work next week, the dream vacation she has waited for, for almost a year, is coming up.

Lazy feet make their way into the kitchen, she´s so concentrated in her physical pain she almost steps on her cat’s water bowl. Should’ve put that away. She lectures herself. Her cat is home with her parents, she’d rather have people her cat knows take care of him, rather than strangers in a pet hotel. Also, her parents were, thankfully, very welcoming to the idea.

Arms move out of instinct in the kitchen, she loves to cook, she could find anything here with her eyes closed. A nice looking bowl of cereal materializes before her in a couple of minutes. This is her award for not dying yesterday on her way back home.

Once she reaches her sofa, there is no question what she’d be watching. She needed to not think, so any reality TV would do. Her streaming service knows her, so it recommends and especially fast paced and chaotic one. This will keep her mind off the memories that want to rush in and be dissected by her sober brain.

She can barely get some cereal in when her front door swings open and a cluster of bodies rush in through it.

 “Listen, little lady, this has gone far enough.”

“Just let us set you up. There is nothing wrong with that.”

“Exactly. You don’t have to make up someone. It’s a little extreme.”

The three of them corner the brunette on the sofa of the small living room. A spoon of cereal half eaten is in the air, midway to a mouth that fills the silent room with crunching noises.

“What?” the brunette puzzles as her three best friends surround her in positions she would describe as superhero poses. “What are you all blabbering about?”

They stare in seriousness at each other for a couple of more seconds before they all break in giggles over how much tension had built up.

In between laughs, the brunette puts her bowl and spoon down and pauses the reality TV show she was watching before she was interrupted by her hasty friends.

“Can´t a girl eat her cereal in peace?” she questions with an amazed smile as she sees the three women dressed up and in make-up, “It´s a ing Sunday, guys, it´s 8am. Jesus.” and laughs some more as they settle happily on the sofa with her.

“Oh, no, no. C’mon, you all have your own apartments.” she complains as two of them lie down and occupy her personal space and the other takes the bowl of cereal she was previously eating.

“And your own cereal! Wha-“, she tries to motion but the spoon is already in her redhead friend’s mouth. “Ah.”, she sighs and rests her back against the comfortable sofa.

“Seulgi.”, a short haired brunette refers to her as she lays her head on her left thigh, “This is an intervention, honey.”

Seulgi looks down with an arched eyebrow.

The youngest of them sits beside the brunette and throws an arm over her shoulders, “We went to Irene’s to see if she was ready for the trip.”

. She thinks, all the blocks she carefully prepared for today, put down by this little reunion. She has to come face to face with the decisions she made yesterday, while she was hammered.

Play it cool.

“And?” the brunette asks nonchalantly.

 Her heart begins to sink at the memory. She already knows what this is about, it’s all coming back to her. , , , .

“And…” the girl on her lap continues, “She told us you had been there two hours before…” waiting for Seulgi to figure it out on her own and come clean about the conversation.

The conversation. Right…

“Hey,” the raven haired softly speaks.

A ring had taken her out of the intense cleaning up trance she had fallen on. Yes, she was cleaning up on a Saturday night. Not that she didn’t get asked to hang out, she always did. But the trip was coming up, there will be enough fun happening next week, she thought. So she wanted to leave a clean apartment to come home to once she returns. Though it is a little disappointing she’s been interrupted, she already knows it can only be her friends at this hour of the night. They had been talking about seeing each other tonight to talk about what to pack, she expected them. What she didn’t expect was a sole person on the interphone. She laughed a little to herself as she instantly recognized a tipsy Seulgi, talking against the camera, before letting her in the building. The few minutes it took the elevator to reach the 19th floor, Irene used to put a decent shirt on and place away a few of the cleaning tools. Sure enough, a few minutes later, there’s and excited knock on her door and a voice that echoes in the hallway. “Hey! Irene!”

The raven checks her reflection quickly on the mirror beside the door, smoothing some of her hairs with one hand as the other reaches for the door handle.

“Hey,” Seulgi repeats excitedly as she balances forward with arms open.

Irene can smell the Soju in her friend’s breath as she plops down onto her body. Irene stands stiff to carry the dead weight the brunette lays on her, arms surrounding her neck in a big bear hug.

After the shy Hey at the sudden demonstration of affection, Irene can hear door handles clicking throughout the hallway. Her neighbors have always been too nosey, so she decides to drag the younger inside and closes the door behind them.

“Seulgi, hey, you’re gonna bring both of us down. C’mon.” she warns her friend as she starts to feel her knees shaking. A hiccup is her only response, and she has to stifle a laugh before she tries to bargain with the big baby latched on to her. “I’ll give you some snacks if you help me with a few steps to the couch. How does that sound?”

Another hiccup clicks through the apartment, Seulgi losing consciousness by the second. It’s so comfortable here, her inebriated self thinks.

“I’ll throw in some warm noodles.” Irene chimes, a certain cynicism showing from fully knowing this would work. She prides herself in knowing the people around better than they know themselves. And she was an expert on the Seulgi category.

In a beat, Seulgi comes back to life. Almost like a magic word had been whispered to bring her back to consciousness. With a smile gracing her face, she detaches quickly from Irene and stumbles rapidly to the kitchen island. Sitting herself neatly, looking like a child who could barely wait for class to start.

Irene sighs with a li