Sighing deeply with her face buried in her pillow, Hayoon groaned as she mentally prepared herself to get out of bed. If she stayed in there any longer she would risk having her mum barging in at any moment, nagging at the girl about wasting her time in bed instead of being a productive member of the family, despite the fact that her sister would most likely still be lazying around in her own bed, blissfully ignorant of the outside world.

Pushing the covers off of her, Hayoon dragged her feet out of her room towards the bathroom to wash up, only to come face to face with her mum standing on the other side of her door, hand halfway in the air ready to open the door.

“Good you’re awake,” responded Mrs Go, seeing her younger daughter. “Go wash up, breakfast will be ready soon.”

Nodding silently, Hayoon locked herself in the bathroom, preparing herself for the day ahead. She had been back for two days and had been forced into mother-daughter bonding activities such as grocery shopping, house chores and preparing food for the lonesome elderly lady living across the road. The elderly lady had a bad fall last month, resulting in a minor concussion. Consequently, some people in the neighbourhood — Mrs Go included — decided to take turns to bring the old lady food and check up on her once in a while. All the aforementioned activities would not have been too bad, had Mrs Go not been in a constant vigilante state, leaving passive aggressive comments for Hayoon to hear. Like always, Hayoon ignored most of them, having learnt from an young age to block out her mother’s voice. Especially in recent years since Mrs Go had started experiencing menopause, making her temperament even more volatile.

Fortunately, Hayoon’s older sister Woori had flown back last night too for the summer, meaning at least there were two of them to handle their mother’s rage for the upcoming weeks. Woori had just returned from her business trip in Italy. Working for a luxury clothing brand, Woori found herself being sent off to various European countries to personally handle negotiations with factories of the goods they needed for their brand. Thus the older girl was now still recovering from the jet-lag in the comforts of her bed.

Breakfast was quiet, with little conversation. Mrs Go kept herself busy with the laundry, and Woori had yet to return to the world of the living, so it was just Hayoon and Mr Go sitting at the dining table. No words were exchanged between father and daughter, as Mr Go kept his attention on the morning news playing on the television and Hayoon concentrated on finishing her breakfast.

Placing her dirty plates in the sink and washing them quickly, Hayoon muttered a few words to her dad, before hiding in her room again, taking the chance to have a video call with Baekhyun and the others while Mrs Go was still occupied with some other house chore.

Settling comfortably by her window sill, Hayoon sought comfort from the morning sun while waiting for the others to pick up the video call.

“Sunshine!” Baekhyun’s cheerful voice echoed from her computer. “Glad to see you have not yet ripped your hair out from frustrations.”

“I’m sure it’s just a matter of time,” quipped Soojung who was sipping on iced coffee somewhere outside, looking like a starlet enjoying a paparazzi-free summer break.

“Maybe you’ll be ripping your hair out first Jung Soojung,” Baekhyun’s eyes glinting with excitement “According to our ranking from the workshop evaluation, I ranked higher, which means…”

Giving a dramatic pause while Soojung groaned into her hands, Baekhyun gave himself a small drumroll.

“We will be performing Shakespeare for the interdepartmental performance!” The male declared whilst sporting a wide smile.

Baekhyun however was unable to bathe in his small moment of victory for long, as a high pitched voice could be heard from Chanyeol’s side of the screen, interrupting their conversation.

“Oh is that Hayoon I see?”

A familiar pair of slanted eyebrows appeared, squeezing Chanyeol out of the frame. Hayoon squinted at her screen, trying to figure out who those eyebrows belonged to.

“Yah you giant, lower your damn phone.”

“Oh Jongdae!” exclaimed Hayoon in realisation. “What are you doing there?”

“I was invited to share some of my industry experience now that I’m working as lyricist and all,” replied the male who had trapped Chanyeol in a headlock in his attempt to lower the male to his height.

“Yah you troll, stopp abusing my boyfriend.” Soojung scolded from her side of the screen.

“That’s Jongdae sunbae for you youngsters,” snorted Jondae, slowly releasing Chanyeol from his grip.

“Sunshine never called you sunba