Seulgi spent quite a while editing the photos they had taken during their omelette class during her club activities after school. It was a shame that she didn’t have the necessary software installed on her computer back home, otherwise she could have gotten the work done a lot quicker since their club advisor had shown her how to use the software and making the photos look exactly how she envisioned them.

With the limited amount of time she could use in a day in the club room, Seulgi slowly worked on the photos and before she knew it, had spent all week on them. They turned out very well, if she said so herself. Even the art club advisor was impressed by her photography skills when she took a look at the photos. Once everything had been edited to Seulgi’s preference and approval had been given by her teacher, Seulgi went ahead and loaded up the printer with photo paper to do a test print.

“You did good, Seulgi. Go ahead and print out as many as you want. We don’t get to bring these bad boys out very often so you can go crazy with them.” Her teacher pointed at the photo papers and smiled. “We’re still developing the photography section of our club. You’re probably the first member who is this into photography.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Seulgi set to work. Having printed enough for her friends, she carefully packed them into individual packets and placed them all into a folder. Seulgi clutched the folder in her hand tightly and beamed as she made her way to their first Home Ec class of the week. Yoona nodded and gave Seulgi permission to hand them out before their class started and gave them some time to look at them while she checked out her own copy of the photos.

Seulgi was all smiles as she looked on at her friends who were happily chatting away while they checked out how their photos turned out. From the looks of it, everyone was satisfied with their spontaneous photoshoot in the little home ec room.

“Wow I guess that was a lot of cheese after all…” Seulgi could hear Irene murmur.

“Think of all the cows that went into making that one plate,” Amber commented with a mournful expression.

“That’s not how cheese works…” Wendy muttered.

“Did you develop these in one of those dark rooms?” Irene asked, coming to sit beside Seulgi with a little huff.

“N-no..” Seulgi managed to get herself together, she hadn’t expected Irene to approach her. “Our art club advisor helped me edit this a little and we printed them.”

“Was it hard?”

“Not really, it was actually quite easy once you know which buttons we should use.”

“How did they look before you edited them? Do you have your camera?”

Seulgi was reaching for her bag before she realized, Irene’s commanding tone brooking no opportunity for refusal. “U-uh, well, I mean they’re much better now than when I first took them-” Her movements slowed and she paused with her hand inside her backpack, hesitating. While she was picking out which photos to edit and print, she had come to a startling realization: most of the pictures she had taken were of Irene.

“Can I see?” Irene prompted.

“Irene? Back to your seat, please. I’d like to get class started,” Yoona interrupted, much to Seulgi’s relief.

As Irene skipped off to her seat between Wendy and Amber, Yoona glanced at her wristwatch and announced that they needed to start their class or they wouldn’t finish in time. A collective groan was heard when Yoona said they were not going to be cooking that day and was going to be learning the basics of a household budget.

“Numbers are so not my thing…” Yeri grumbled as she took out her notebook.

“Same...” Wendy sighed. “I’m better at cooking and baking.”

“We know.” Joy gave Wendy a wink, leaving the latter a little stumped.

The lesson went on without a hitch and was slightly dull compared to their chaotic cooking lessons. Even Yoona paused every now and then when she saw that they were getting restless from all the theory and numbers. She had them stand up at their seats to stretch for a few seconds before continuing with the lesson. Seulgi appreciated those little breaks a lot, her classmates, too, she was sure. Everyone seemed to be able to concentrate a little better after stretching.

Unlike Yeri and Wendy, Seulgi was doing quite alright with the numbers but was having a little bit of problem understanding the format of a budget - where the numbers were supposed to go, which columns to use. She squinted slightly at the board and felt a little piece of paper bounce off the side of her head.

“Yes?”

“Where are your glasses?” Amber whispered across the aisle, having seen Seulgi squint a lot in middle school.

Seulgi leaned towards Amber and whispered back, “Left them at home. My seats in the other classes aren’t this far away from the board so I don’t really need them.”

Amber shook her head and returned her attention to Yoona, trying to figure out where the lesson had gone to while they were talking.

What seemed like an eternity later, when in actual fact it was only about an hour since their class started, Yoona ended their lesson on budgets and passed a small stack of papers around.

“Okay, final announcement: We’re going on a fieldtrip!” Almost immediately after her announcement, the class erupted with cheers and questions of where they were going. Yoona had to calm them down before continuing because they were drowning out her voice. “It’s a short trip to one of the bakeries in town.” she paused and looked at Wendy, who seemed to have an idea what their teacher was going to say next. “We’re going to Wendy’s family bakery, Son Rise Bakery.”

“That’s your family’s bakery???”

“Yo, the buns there are so good!!”

“No wonder you bake so well! It’s practically in your blood!”

“Guys, please calm down. We don’t want to be too noisy and disrupt the neighbouring classes..” Yoona reminded, and her students did their best to control their excitement. “Now, the trip is going to be tomorrow and it will take about half a day.” Yoona paused for a split second when she saw Wendy’s hand shot up. “Your teachers have been notified.” Wendy slowly lowered her hand and nodded. “All you need to do now is to have your parents or guardians sign the permission slip and bring it back to me by the next class and we’re ready to go.”

“Ms. Yoona, how are we getting there?”

“We’re taking the school’s vans. Ms. Kim will be coming along to help me supervise you guys. For some reason she doesn’t think one adult will be enough.” Yoona rolled her eyes comically while her class chuckled at their relatively inexperienced teacher. Yoona herself wondered at Taeyeon’s insistence - how difficult could a handful of students be?

***

“A bakery?” Seulgi’s mother asked, wiping her hands on her apron as she paused in her cooking to take a look at the piece of paper Seulgi held out for her.

“Wendy’s bakery, one of my classmates. It’s ‘Son Rise Bakery’ downtown.”

“Oh!” Seulgi’s mother cooed. “It’s a small place, but they have good buns.” She looked around for a pen to sign the permission slip, and Seulgi handed her the one she had brought into the kitchen. “Do you need some money to buy yourself a snack?”

Seulgi’s face lit up - she wasn’t going to say no to a snack.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Alright, here’s the form. Remind me to give you some money on your way out tomorrow.”

Seulgi accepted the slip back with a bright smile and a ‘thanks’, but as her mom turned back to dinner, Seulgi found herself lingering in the doorway for another moment. She watched how natural her mother’s movements seemed, as focused as she was on the act of chopping, stirring, mixing, pouring - how did she manage it? Her mother worked too, just like her father, but still came home and made dinner for everyone night after night.

“Something else you need, honey?” Seulgi’s mom asked suddenly, stirring Seulgi out of her reverie.

“N-no,” Seulgi answered hurriedly.

Seulgi’s mother smiled to herself, never taking her eyes from the stove. “Would you like to chop these mushrooms for me?”

Seulgi beamed. It was time to show off some of the skills she learned in class!

Or so she thought.

***

“Where did this come from?” Joy asked the next day, holding up Seulgi’s left wrist and squinting at the bandaid taped securely to her index finger. “Was this here yesterday, Yeri?”

“Nope..” Yeri leaned closer to inspect. “It looks fresh.”

“What are you guys? CSI?” Seulgi tried to wiggle her hand free from Joy’s grip but her friend was just too strong and held on firmly. “I had an accident while helping my mom chop vegetables for dinner yesterday.”

Joy and Yeri gave her a sympathetic look before Yoona cleared . They were all gathered at the school’s staff parking lot early the next day to make it in time for the bakery’s opening hours. Everybody was on time and excited for their little trip, except Wendy who was given permission to wait for her classmates at the bakery instead.

A still sleepy Taeyeon made her way towards the little crowd in the otherwise empty parking lot, yawning as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She flinched when the hyped up kids greeted her and tried her best to greet them back.

“Why 6am of all times?”

“The bakery opens at eight. We need to be there earlier than that so that they can observe and help out with the prep.”

“Fair enough.” Taeyeon took a deep breath and patted her cheeks a few times before turning to face her students again. “Okay we have an exciting morning ahead of us. I know it might be a familiar place for all of us but I want all of you to be on your best behaviour and not give the owners a hard time.”

Yoona picked up where Taeyeon left off. “And please be careful when you are in the kitchen. We will also be working with bakers who have spent probably more than half their lives doing what they’re doing so let’s take this opportunity to learn as much as we can from them and then tomorrow, we’ll try and bake our own bread. How does that sound?” she finished, her question answered with cheers. Her students were being much too rowdy for teenagers who had to haul themselves out of bed almost an hour earlier than usual.

Taeyeon patted Yoona’s shoulder signalling that it was best that they departed and went to start the engine while the students packed themselves into the van. The kids seated themselves relatively quickly and were eager to depart but were left waiting and wondering why had neither of their teachers had gotten into the car.

Irene, who was seated right behind the driver’s seat, craned her neck to take a look outside and saw that Taeyeon and Yoona were in a heated battle of rock-paper-scissors, presumably to decide who would be driving that morning. Irene giggled when she heard Taeyeon asked for another round after losing.

“Best five out of seven!”

“No, we’re going to be late! I’m driving.” Yoona made a face at Taeyeon and hurried to the driver’s seat while Taeyeon trudged to ride shotgun.

Seulgi and Yoona both discovered on the ride to the bakery the reason why Taeyeon had insisted on being the additional chaperon for their first field trip. It was an absolute zoo in the van with everybody talking excitedly at the same time about the things they were expecting to see in the bakery and all the baked goodies they could try.

Yikes… it’s gonna be quite difficult to control this hyped up crew that’s for sure. Seulgi nodded to herself without realising that Irene was looking at her with an amused look.

“What do we want??!!” Amber hollered.

“BREAD!!” the others followed suit.

“How do we want it??”

“With butter!!”

“No way, jam is the best spread!”

“Guys, it’s obviously Nutella.”

“Daaamn it’s 7am. You really wanna have a go?!”

“Bring it on, Taylor Swift.”

“Guys… don’t make me turn this formation around...” Taeyeon turned around and silenced them in a single breath.

“She wouldn’t,” Yeri said.

“She would~” Yoona answered in a sing-song manner as she kept her eyes on the road.

“Mmhmm...” Taeyeon smirked at her students and sat back upright, happy for being able to control the small class. “Yep… still got it,” she mumbled, earning herself a playful shove from Yoona.

***

“Hey, look! Wendy’s outside waiting for us!” Joy pointed out when they were approaching their destination. Wendy had been waving excitedly at the van the moment she spotted Taeyeon and Yoona in the front seats and showed them where to park.

They practically tumbled out of the van when Yoona unlocked the doors. Seulgi, being the last person in the front row to get down, helped adjusted the seats to allow her friends in the back exit the van. When it was Irene’s turn, Seulgi decided to try her luck and held out her hand.

You never know when a person needs something to hold onto… was what Seulgi reasoned to herself as she took a deep breath when Irene emerged from the back of the van.

“Oh, thank you, Seulgi.” Irene greeted her with another one of those mega-watt smiles and held onto her hand as she hopped out of the vehicle like the bunny she was.

“What, no hand for me to hold?” Amber teased when it was her turn next and Seulgi went very, very red, much to Joy and Yeri’s amusement. Amber patted Seulgi’s back and trotted off to wait in line to greet Wendy’s parents.

Seulgi quickly shut the van’s door and went to stand with her friends and to wait for Ms. Yoona to start their field trip. It was odd being at the bakery on official business instead of just tagging along on one of her mom’s errands, deciding which buns and pastries to bring home. Seulgi wanted to do her best, as she always did. Besides, if they were to mess things up during this trip, she wasn’t sure if she could ever step into this bakery again without feeling guilty or embarrassed. The horror.

Wendy’s parents were warm and welcoming, offering the group some drinks and buns as soon as they stepped inside. It smelled heavenly; freshly baked baguettes in trays ready to be sold, miniature croissants waiting to be bagged and arranged onto the shelves, and not to mention cookies they could all smell, still baking in the ovens somewhere in the back room. It was a lovely place to be in. Seulgi heard somebody sighing in content and turned to peek, only to meet Irene’s eyes before the latter blushed slightly and quickly turned away.

After they were settled with their breakfast and introductions were made, they were given a brief tour of the bakery. The storefront needed no further introductions; everybody was more than familiar with the space. From what Seulgi could tell, Joy already had much of the layout memorised since she was a frequent customer. Most of their classmates were. They stared at the day’s offerings in the display case and pointed excitedly at some of the decorated cakes, but Wendy’s parents were already moving behind the counter to lead everyone into the back. Wendy placed herself behind the group and herded them on to make sure nobody got left behind.

Everyone was most excited to see what was beyond the door that lead to the back of the bakery - a mysterious place none of them had ever set foot in nor seen, except Wendy of course. Once Mr. and Mrs. Son opened the kitchen door, the girls barrelled passed them and took in the sight.

“Whoa… it’s like discovering a whole new universe,” Yeri blurted in awe.

“This might as well be a new universe.” Amber came up and placed a hand on Yeri’s shoulder. “Today… we conquer a new frontier,” she finished with a dramatic fist pump. Seulgi, who was looking at the two of them, wasted no time in fishing out her phone to capture the moment in hopes of being able to print it out another day.

“Ugh, I should’ve brought my camera…” she pouted and scrunched her nose in annoyance.

“Seulgi?” Taeyeon called her from the back of the room and motioned for her to go over. Seulgi blinked and quietly made her way to Taeyeon without disrupting the class.

“Yes?”

“Here, you can use this today.” Taeyeon held out a huge digital camera and Seulgi’s eyes widened. It was one of those big, expensive cameras pros used. She wouldn’t even dare look at them whenever she walked passed them in camera shops because their price tag was just too scary. “It’s my girlfriend’s baby so please be careful. Can you handle it?”

Seulgi took a deep breath and with a surprisingly steady hand, accepted the camera. “I will try my best to do this camera justice.”

“Atta girl.”

Holding onto the camera tightly, she carefully made her way back to her classmates.

“Ooh, you better be careful with that, Seulgi.”

“Huh?”

“It’s my sister’s precious camera. Ms. Kim practically begged her for permission to bring it today.”

“Oh...” Seulgi gulped. “Th-thanks for the heads up, Krystal.”

No pressure at all.

Unfortunately, Seulgi didn’t have nearly as much time as she wished with the professional camera. After a few candid clicks of the shutter, Ms. Yoona brought the wide-eyed group to attention. The class was divided into their usual teams again, much to Seulgi’s dismay. She was hoping for Ms. Yoona to mix things up a little bit today since they were not in their classroom. She looked at their task on hand - filling croissants with chocolate - and noted how their teacher seemed to have given their group the most basic task for the day while the other teams were out there doing some real baking.

“This is honestly the best day of my life!” one of their classmates squealed. Seulgi looked up from her croissants and saw that it was none other than Krystal, lover of all things bread. Her eyes had lit up the moment Ms. Yoona announced the trip the day before and she had been bouncing with excitement the entire morning.

“Yah! Calm down before you spill flour all over,” Krystal’s teammate warned, afraid of making a mess in the bakery.

“Yes, moooom.” Krystal gave her a cheeky smile and got back to work.

“Always such a mom huh, Victoria?” Amber agreed, teasing from across the kitchen.

“You kids give me no time to rest, let’s be real.” Victoria sighed and rolled up her sleeves, ready to knead the dough after Krystal and Luna had finish measuring the ingredients needed.

“And we love you for that~!”

“Thank you, Luna.” She smiled when she felt Luna lean on her a little, as though to give her a hug, though their hands were dirty.

Seulgi watched that team with envy as they got to help out with some actual baking while her team was just in charge of rolling little sticks and shavings of chocolate into the croissant dough that had already been prepared by Mrs. Son before they arrived. While she understood why they were given possibly the simplest tasks out of the lot, it still felt a bit sad. But to be fair, their team didn’t exactly have the best track record in the kitchen, compared to Victoria’s team that were basically the most solid team in their class.

Perhaps this was the chance for Seulgi’s team to prove they weren’t completely hopeless; all they had to do was measure and cut the dough into triangles, place the chocolate shavings inside, and roll them up. Seulgi was about to pick up the knife to cut the dough when Irene called out her.

“Are you alright using that knife?”

“Huh?”

Irene pointed at her finger and Seulgi understood. “Oh… this? It’s alright. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Are you sure? It would be bad if something happens again.”

“Don’t worry,” Seulgi assured her. “I’ll be alright. I’ll swap with Joy if I can’t handle it. How does that sound?” She didn’t like the way Irene continued to frown, eyeing the bandaid on her finger.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Irene shrugged after another moment, and turned her attention back to her team’s task on hand - preparing some muffin batter that would fill an entire table of muffin tins.

Seulgi looked down at her wound and the large knife she had grabbed - it really wasn’t that bad of a cut, was it? - turned around to see Joy and Yeri looking at her with much amusement. “Wh-what?”

“Nothing~”

“She seems awfully concerned, Seulgi~” Joy wiggled her eyebrows. “Is there something we’re missing?”

“A few brain cells, maybe…” Seulgi mumbled before chuckling to herself, leaving Joy and Yeri a little confused as they gave up and finally got to work.

Yeri and Joy were in some sort of unspoken contest to see who could roll the most croissants as they went through the triangular pieces of dough Seulgi cut out. They were done in no time at all, and Yoona came over to take a look. She saw that the croissants looked a bit… odd and puffy but declined to comment as she was not very familiar with the French pastry. She gave them a quick nod and went off to check on the other teams’ baking.

“Hmm… I suppose they’ll be fine,” Mrs. Son pondered while assessing their handiwork herself. “We’ll see how they turn out later, girls. Now, set them aside to proof and we’ll pop them into the ovens in a little bit.”

The three of them nodded enthusiastically and set the trays aside to let the dough rise to reach their final size before they were ready to be baked.

“Baking stuff sure takes a lot of time, Ms. Yoona,” Yeri commented offhandedly as she went to stand with their teacher, who was in a corner of the kitchen keeping an eye on everyone.

“Yup. We need to wait for the yeast to be activated so that the bread will be fluffier.” Yoona reached out to pat Yeri’s head. “It’s always worth the wait. Have patience. Home Ec is all about patience, ya know?”

“Oh?”

“You can’t expect to get things right the first time...”

“Oh… I think I get it now.” Patience was not one of Yeri’s virtues, and trial and error didn’t sit well with her, but all she could do was nod along and hope that Ms. Yoona would have some patience with their grades.

“Come on, squirt. Let’s go see if the others need our help.”

Things are going rather smoothly and the kids are well-behaved, Yoona thought, hoping she wasn’t jinxing herself. The teams were all trying their best to keep up with what was being taught by the staff while Taeyeon was taking pictures of them with her girlfriend’s expensive camera.

Now that Seulgi was free from her task, she was a bit envious as she watched Ms. Kim, but she wouldn’t dare touch the camera again with her flour-covered hands. Instead she decided to use this opportunity to go see how Irene’s team was faring.

Wendy was hunched over one of the bakery’s ovens, checking to see if the buns Victoria’s team made were done. When the oven’s light bulb lit for a few seconds, Wendy’s well trained eyes quickly scanned the buns’ colour and pronounced that they were ready to be taken out. Securing the oven mitts on her hands, she carefully slid out the tray from the oven’s racks and slowly backed it up.

Unbeknownst to her, two of her friends were standing right behind her, both sporting an odd expression, as though trying to figure something out.

“They sure have some good buns here…” Joy mumbled absentmindedly while eyeing Wendy’s behind.

“They sure do…” Irene nodded.

“Our buns are probably the best in town!” Wendy chimed in cheerfully as she stood upright, balancing the tray with one hand and shutting the oven’s door with the other like a pro.

“And we love that,” Joy commented.

“Bless,” Irene agreed.

***

When the oven dinged and Mrs. Son took out the croissant trays, she was not at all surprised that the chocolate had oozed out of the pastry and the entire tray was a big, gooey, chocolatey mess. Yoona inhaled sharply at the sight - she somehow knew that the croissants were not going to turn out well when she saw how over-stuffed they were before proofing, but this was a new level of disaster she hadn’t been prepared for.

Yoona looked at Mrs. Son, ready to apologise for her students’ mess when she waved dismissively at the young teacher.

“It’s alright, Yoona. Don’t worry about it.” Mrs. Son set the tray down and Seulgi, Joy and Yeri shuffled over to look at their handiwork, fearing the worst. “You guys can snack on this batch while we whip up a new one.”

“R-really?”

“Yes, really. Go ahead. Tell your friends it’s break time and come over to snack.” She smiled at them and left to go help her staff prepare a new batch of croissant dough.

“Wow, she’s so nice,” Yeri whispered to her teammates when Mrs. Son was out of earshot. Seulgi had to cut the croissants free from each other and their puddles of chocolate with the knife, and she handed one to each of her teammates.

“Guess we know where Wendy gets it from,” Joy mused around a mouthful of chocolate.

The situation was less dire over at Irene’s team when their muffins were ready, or perhaps a little too ready. Their colour was a bit too dark, but Wendy assured them that they were still good and could be sold.

“Amber! You wasted time with the chit chat. Look at those muffins!” Krystal laughed as she pointed at their muffins. Instead of watching the oven, Amber had spent the entire waiting time cleaning up and chit chatting around with their classmates and lost track of time.

“Sorry about the muffins, Wendy.”

“They’re actually okay! They’re not as brown as you think they are.” Wendy brought out some muffins their staff had made for comparison. “See? They’re actually quite close in colour.”

“Oh...” Amber felt better after looking at the ‘sample’ muffin because they really were quite similar. “Now I can sleep in peace tonight.”

“Hey, guys! Come snack on croissants!”

“Yaaass!”

It took some effort when it came to eating the croissants neatly because the bottom of the pastries were just covered entirely in chocolate. It was quite the challenge to finish one without getting any stains on their hands or faces, something Seulgi failed miserably at as chocolate dripped onto her apron and shoes while she munched away.

She froze when she felt something touch her cheek and turned to see a wide-eyed Irene holding out a tissue.

“You got some chocolate…”

“Oh, thank you…” She awkwardly took the tissue from Irene and started to clean her own face, not knowing that her chocolate covered hand was making an even bigger mess. She heard Joy and Yeri snickering and gave them a look. “What?”

“Somebody’s face is really red right now. Isn’t it, Joy?”

“It sure is…” Yeri nodded smugly.

“And also covered in more chocolate, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“It’s not!” Seulgi was about to retort further when they heard the camera shutter click.

Taeyeon had taken a picture of the four of them and was inspecting it through the camera’s digital display and whistled. “Wow Seulgi, your face is really red.”

“What?!” The four of them scrambled over to Taeyeon to take a look. Joy and Yeri both burst out laughing and high fived each other when they saw the photo, while Irene was chuckling at the sight. The commotion caught Amber’s attention who came straight over,.

“What you guys got there?”

“Seulgi, blushing for an undisclosed reason,” Joy said, indicating Irene with a not-so-subtle nod.

“Hah! And we are surprised!” Amber replied sarcastically, much to Seulgi’s dismay. Was she being that obvious?

After their break was over, Luna and Wendy were in charge of packing up the buns and muffins to get them ready for sale. Joy had volunteered to arrange them on the racks in the storefront once they were done.

“Okay...buns go here…” She mumbled to herself as she worked, placing the buns on their designated spots on the racks before moving to another spot in the store. “Muffins go here…”

“Look at you arranging them like a pro!” Wendy commented when she took a peek to see how Joy was managing, since her father who manning the counter had to tend to customers.

“I know my way around here,” Joy replied smugly and winked.

Wendy squinted in a mixture of mild disgust and suspicion, but before she could respond, her mother called from the back room, announcing that they were ready to start cleaning up. It was loud enough for Joy to hear so she quickly put away the rest of the muffins and shuffled towards the door, not forgetting to greet the customers she passed on her way to the back.

***

“That was quite the morning huh, Yoong?” Taeyeon asked as she drove them back to school.

“Huh? Oh yeah… it was quite the morning.”

Cleaning up had gone smoothly, save the fact that Amber almost knocked over a bag of flour while wiping the table top. Everyone worked well together to get things done quickly so that the bakery could resume their regularly scheduled programmes and they could head back to school just in time for their afternoon classes. Seulgi had looked particularly relieved towards the end. Taeyeon figured it must have been because she was feeling better after successfully cleaning up after their messy croissant incident.

“Tired already?”

“I can’t believe it, but yeah. I’m so tired.” Yoona sighed and leaned her head against the van’s window. “Thank goodness you are here with us. Driving back like this would have been a hazard.” She closed her eyes to rest for a moment. “I’m too old for this.”

“You are only 28!”

Yoona chuckled at Taeyeon’s retort, eyes still closed.

Taeyeon took a peek at the rear view mirror and saw that the entire class had knocked out in the back. It hadn’t even been five minutes since they began their journey back.

“Must be the sugar crash…I wonder if they’ll be able to stay awake in class later?” She asked no one in particular.