Day 3

[Mina's POV]

I woke up from the smell of slightly burnt pancakes. I opened my eyes and noticed it's not the ceiling of our room. I'm not in my bed, and I'm not covered with my own blanket. But the scent is familiar. I guess I accidentally dozed off last night in the couch. I grunted.

"Good morning, penguin." Chaeyoung walked towards me, balancing a tray filled with two plates of pancakes, bowl of strawberries, a syrup jar, and two steaming cups coffee in her hands.

She carefully placed it in the floor in front of the couch. I sat down and slid to the floor beside her.

She's also still in her tiger onesie. I smiled as she handed me a cup of coffee.

"One cup of Michaengricano." She coyly giggled and it also made me laugh. This cheesy girl.

"Gomawo, Chaeyoung-a." I took it with both hands and sipped a little. The coffee sliding through my palate felt like a warm hug. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to return last night. Mianhe. I didn't realize I fell asleep in the sofa." I glanced at the pillow and blanket at the sofa.

"Gwenchanha (It's okay.) I realized after an hour that I should check up on you and I saw you lying down here at the sofa. I grabbed a pillow and a blanket for you to use while you were napping." She said as she artfully put berries on top of our pancakes. "I sat beside you, drawing, while waiting for you to wake up. I didn't want to disturb you."

She drizzled some syrup on top of the pancakes. "After midnight I realized you weren't napping anymore."

She should've woken me up. "So you left me here to sleep alone?" I can't help but pout.

"Anieyo. I grabbed a bunch of pillows and blankets so I could sleep on the floor." She grinned. I felt guilty.

"I'm sorry, Chayeoung-a, you should've just slept in your bed."

She looked at me and I noticed that she blushed a little, "actually, I didn't sleep on the floor..." placing the perfectly cooked and decorated pancake in front of me. She made a smiley face with heart shaped eyes out of the berries, "you pulled me while I was tucking you in and hugged me. Sooo we both slept in the couch." I immediately felt my face turning red.

She was trying to hide her face behind the cup. She followed up, "Well, I didn't want to wake you up and I was too tired to walk all the way to the room so I figured we could just sleep."

"LIE." Somebody chimed in from the bathroom, Tzuyu came out followed by Dahyun.

"What the heck are you two doing in there?" Chaeyoung shouted.

"None of your business." Tzuyu just casually walked towards us.

"We just washed our faces." Dahyun followed awkwardly with her bright smile.

Tzuyu sat beside me, "you didn't hug her, unnie." She talked to me with a poker face, "she willingly slept beside you."

"YAH! Tzuyu! That's not true. She pulled me in! Dahyunie, you saw it, too. Didn't you?" Chaeyoung protested. Dahyun just nodded and didn't say anything.

"She might've tugged you while she was dreaming, but not that strong to actually drag you to sleep beside her. You even slowly slid under the blanket to make sure you won't wake her up. Right, unnie?" Tzuyu stared at Dahyun without changing her expression. Dahyun looked really conflicted.

"Chaeyoung-a, did you cook extra pancakes?" Dahyun turned to Chaeyoung.

"There are some in the kitchen."

Dahyun hurried to the kitchen to avoid further involvement with the conversation and Tzuyu casually followed. I took another sip from my coffee.

"Chaeyoung!" we heard Tzuyu from the kitchen

"YEAH?" Chaeyoung grunted

"These are all burnt!" Tzuyu came back with a stack of burnt and half-burnt pancakes.

"Make your own! Aish. Jinjja!"

Tzuyu just looked at the pancakes and shrugged, "we'll just cut pieces and see what we can salvage." She shook her head, muttering "such a waste of food." And returned back to the kitchen.

[Chaeyoung's POV]

I'll kill Tzuyu later... but she'll probably kill me first. Nevermind. I awkwardly smiled at Mina. She's delightfully eating her pancakes and I'm also enjoying watching her eat.

"Chaeyoung-a," I was startled with her sweet voice, "eat your pancakes. It's getting cold."

"A-y-yes. Mokja. (Let's eat)" I cut a chunk of the pancake and stuffed it in my mouth. The piece was too big and some of it got lodged in my throat. I coughed.

"Gwenchanah? (Are you alright?)" she tapped my back as I cough out pancake pieces. She handed me a glass of water and a box of tissue. Good job making a fool of yourself, Chaeyoung. Pabo-yah. I thought to myself.

She just smiled at me, still tapping my back "you're fine." How can someone be this beautiful just after waking up?

My eyes got fixated in her lips, there's syrup in the side of her lip. I'm noticing that my body seems to lean in towards her. I gulped mindlessly. What if I...

I looked away and pulled back a little. "Kamsahamnida, Mina-unnie."

I continued eating my pancakes, but now more carefully. There was an awkward silence until we both finished eating. We're both trying to avoid each other's eyes. She grabbed both our plates and cups.

"I'll wash the dishes." She said as placed the plates in the tray

"Anieyo! I'll wash them."

"Chaeyoung-a, you already cooked our breakfast and took care of me last night. Let me do this."

"But Minari..."

She looked at me with a serious face. She won't let me win this.

I sighed, "Arraseo..."

"You can stand beside me while I wash these if you like." She offered. I'll take any chance I could spend more time with her.

We walked towards the kitchen and saw that Tzuyu and Dahyun's plates are both in the sink, unwashed.

"Aish. Tzuy—"

"Gwenchanah. It's not a lot. I'll wash them." She put on the rubber gloves and started washing the plates. "So what's our plan for today?"

I paused. I haven't really planned anything for today. Ottoke.

"If it's okay with you," she started, "I want to go somewhere. There's a place I've always wanted to go ever since I came to Korea but never really had a chance to go to."

"Oh, okay. Where do we go?"

[Mina's POV]

We chose to take the bus because we both don't have our driver's licenses and we don't want to involve our managers.

"We'll arrive Cheongpyeong in a few minutes, then we'll just have to transfer to the next one to arrive to our destination." Chaeyoung whispered as she scans through her phone. Adjusting her face mask so she could talk more clearly.

The weather is nice today. Not too cold.

I reached for Chaeyoung's hand and leaned my head in her shoulder. She turned off her phone and squeezed my hand. Her hands are warm and soft.

"I wish you woke me up last night." I whispered. "It would have been more comfortable to sleep in the blanket fort you made instead of the couch."

She whispered back "I know. Mianhe (Sorry), Miguri."

"Gwenchanha. (It's okay) We still get to sleep beside each other." I placed my other hand on top of hers.

"Yeah, we did." She smiled coyly. I couldn't help but smile, too.

"But I didn't really notice that you slept beside me."

"I tried to move as little as possible. Stiff as a brick." She re-enacted her position sitting down and I giggled.

"That must've been hard."

"Not really, it's a special talent." she tried acting cool then laughed.

"Maybe we can borrow Jeongyeon and Momo's room again some other time..." I suggested, trying to .

She tensed up. "The room! Aigoo..." She looked ashen. "I forgot to clean up the room. I mean, I cleaned the dishes but the lights, the pillows. Aish. Jinjja. Jeongyeon unnie will kill me!"

"Calm down. We'll just buy tteokbokki and jokbal on our way home." I made a mental note so we won't forget. Jeongyeon could be really scary whenever there's a mess in the dorm.

"We might be receiving pictures of the mess in the group chat later. We have to brace ourselves." She looked worried and then laughed.

"Let's just deal with it later, arraseo?" she nodded and we leaned on each other.

"By the way, what were you drawing last night?" I asked, "you said you were drawing something while you were sitting beside me waiting for me to wake up."

"Ah. That one." She reached for her bag and took out one of her pocket sized sketch pads.

She flipped the pages and it was filled with colourful drawings and scribbles. With a quarter left in the pages, she stopped and showed me the drawing.

I took the notebook and stared at the pencil sketch. It was one of the most realistic drawings of Chaeyoung that I ever saw.

It was me. It's a sketch of me sleeping peacefully. I smiled and didn't say anything. We were sitting in comfortable silence.

We're just looking outside the window, enjoying the beautiful day. 

Everything's just perfect...

"So Bambam visited last night..." she suddenly blurted out. I held my breath for a second, then nodded.

"He's leaving for Thailand today so he visited to say good-bye. He'll be back in a week, I guess." I replied.

She straightened her back a little, "I see... well I think that's great." She took a deep breath. "That's just right after our tenth day."

Tenth day. Right. We got carried away with what we've been doing. I forgot that it's all just a 'simulation' or a practice for when we have our actual relationships. But is it really what it is?  I looked up and stared at her. I couldn't read her expression. She knows I'm staring but avoided my eyes.

Again, I felt conflicted.