Sei lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She wanted to be asleep, but sleep wouldn't come. She rolled over at look at the clock - 2:27.

"Okay," she said to herself, "we've now officially transitioned from late at night to early morning. I'm going to go have a cup of tea." 

She got up and, moving quietly so as not to awaken her roommates, made her way to the kitchen. While waiting for the water to boil, she pondered what Lua had said to her about Lucy. It certainly did sound like Lucy wanted Sei to be her first kiss. And of course Lua didn't see any obstacle to this, because Sei and Suyeon had been so careful to hide their relationship.

Sei was startled out of her reverie by the whistling of the kettle. Moving quickly, before the noise had time to wake anybody up, she took the kettle off the stove and fixed herself a cup of tea. She went into the living room and sat staring out the window, drinking her tea and pondering the stiuation she found herself in. She was still sitting there, her half-drunk cup of tea having long since gotten cold, when the sun came up. She stood up and stretched. 

"Well," she said to herself, "I suppose it's a day." She put her teacup in the sink, then went to get dressed. Eventually, if this went on for long enough, they'd reach the point where they'd all sit around in their pajamas all day, but for now she tried to keep some degree of normalcy. Looking through the window and seeing the buds on the trees had brought home to Sei that it was spring. She selected a pink floral babydoll dress for the day.

Once she was dressed, she brushed her teeth and put on her makeup. "Lua can be #nomakeup," she thought, "but I'm not there yet." Looking at herself in the mirror, she decided to do something with her hair. After a few minutes of experimenting, she finally settled on pigtails. Feeling pleased with herself, she went to the kitchen to get breakfast and wait for the food delivery.

When she got to the kitchen, she found Elly there, drinking tea and eating a bowl of rice.

"Good morning unnnie," Sei said. "I didn't hear you wake up."

"I was trying to be extra-quiet so I didn't wake up Suyeon," Elly said. "She was tossing and turning all night. She finally fell asleep about an hour ago. Elly happened to look up then and notice what Sei was wearing. "What are you dressed up for?" she asked. "Got big plans for the day?"

Sei laughed. "No," she said, "I just wanted to feel good today and this is the outfit that I came up with."

"You look cute," Elly said with a smile.

"Thank you unnie." Sei blushed. She the kettle to fix herself a new cup of tea, then started peeling a tangerine while she waited. 

Elly finished her breakfast just as the kettle was coming to a boil. "See you later," she said. "I'm going to go watch a movie."

"Okay," Sei said as she poured water over her tea bag. "If I can get two other people interested, you want to play mahjong later today?"

Elly shook her head. "Not today. But I'm sure we'll have plenty of chances for mahjong before all this is over. I hope you find three people," she said as she turned and headed into the living room.

Rina came into the kitchen just as Elly was leaving. "Three people for what?" she asked.

"Mahjong," Sei said around a mouthful of tangerine.

"I'll play," Rina said, "so long as you don't mind that I'm not very good at it yet."

Sei took a sip of her tea. "That'll be fine," she said. "The only way you'll get better is by playing."

Rian served herself a bowl of rice from the rice cooker, then added some leftover vegetables from the previous night's dinner. She grabbed a pair of chopsticks, sat down and started eating. "Has the grocery delivery come yet?" she asked between bites.

Sei shook her head. "No yet. It'll probably be here any minute." As if summoned by Sei's words, there was a knock on the door. After giving a slow count of ten, Sei went out and brought in the bags of groceries. Rina watched with interest as she unpacked things.

"Any surprises today?" Rina asked.

"Not so far," Sei said, as she unpacked a bag of kiwis into a bowl. "We've got some really nice fruit, though. And sweet potatoes for dinner. And they found your shampoo!"

"Yay!" Rina jumped up and snatched the bottle of shampoo out of Sei's hand. "I've needed this so badly," she said, the bottle affectionately. "I was almost desperate enough to borrow some shampoo from somebody." Leaving her breakfast dishes on the table, she rushed off to shower.

Once she had finished unpacking the groceries and putting them away, Sei went back to her room and, for lack of anything better to do, started in on the personality test she'd half-finished the day before. Once she answered the last question, she counted up her score and turned the page to see what the test said about her. As she read the paragraph, her brow scrunched up in annoyance. "That's not right," she said. "I'm very conscientious, and I can keep a secret." She turned back to the previous page and started adjusting her answers until she got the result she wanted. As she finished, she looked up to see Lua watching her with amusement.

"You know those things are fake, don't you?" Lua asked with a grin.

"No," Sei protested, "they've got people who specialize in designing these tests so they're accurate. But of course you wouldn't believe in it - you're a blood type A."

Lua rolled her eyes. "You know I don't believe in the blood typing, or astrology, or any of those sorts of things."

"Of course not," Sei said. "You're a Libra!" She stuck her tongue out at Lua and went back to her magazine. 

Sei woke up - she had apparently fallen asleep while reading. She did some stretched to get rid of the crick in her neck from sleeping in a hunched over position. From outside her room, she heard the others moving around. Checking her clock, she saw that it was 10:30. "Maybe now I can find two other people for mahjong," she thought to herself.

When she walked into the living room, she almost tripped on an extension cord.

"Be careful, unnie!" Lucy said, as she re-arranged a desk lamp that had almost fallen off the end table. 

Sei saw that Lucy had assembed four different lamps on the end table and was working on getting them all plugged in.

"Oh, unnie, can I borrow your lamp?" Lucy asked, once she had the four lamps on the table arranged to her satisfaction.

"Uh. . . sure, I'll go get it." Sei was not at all clear on what Lucy needed another lamp for.

"No, need. I've got it!" Lucy said, as she dashed past Sei and grabbed light from her bedside table.

"What do you need all these lamps for?" Sei asked, as Lucy rushed past her back to the end table.

"You'll see in just a minute!" Lucy said. She the lamps, then a space heater that she had positioned under the end table. "Be right back!" And with that, Lucy hurried off into her room.

Sei looked around. No one else seemed to be paying any attention to the maknae's eccentric actions, so either they already knew or else they just didn't care. She did see that Suyeon and Yoojung were playing go stop again. She called across the room "Suyeon! After you finish that game, do you and Yoojung want to play mahjong with Rina and me?"

Suyeon looked across at Yoojung, who nodded, then called back "Sure. We'll be a few minutes."

"That's fine," Sei responded. "I'm watching to see what Lucy's up to.

Suyeon looked across at the congregation of desk lamps, shrugged, and went back to her game.

Just then Lucy came out of her room, wearing a swimsuit and carrying a towel and a tube of lotion. "I'm going to the beach today," she said to Sei as she passed. She unfolded the towel and laid it down in the bright spot created by the desk lamps, then reclined on it and reached up toward Sei with the tube of lotion. "Put some sunscreen on me so I don't burn?"

Sei was charmed by Lucy's imagination at work and only too happy to play along. "Sure!" she said, kneeling down next to Lucy. She took the tube of lotion, squirted some into her hand, then rubbed her hands together to warm it up. First she applied lotion to Lucy's face, neck, and upper chest, then to her arms. Then she had Lucy lie down and she started applying lotion to her legs. It occurred to her that outside of choreography, she'd never touched Suyeon's legs. The physical component of their relationship had been confined to kisses that were both too infrequent and too brief. Sei finished by applying lotion to Lucy's feet, which apparently tickled, and just as she finished, she heard Suyeon call for her. "Sei, we're ready for mahjong."

"Be there in just a second!" Sei called back. She laid the tube of lotion down next to Lucy. "See you later!"

Lucy sat up. "Thank you unnie," she said, flashing Sei a dazzling smile. "If you have time after your mahjong game, you can come hang out on the beach with me, if you want."

Sei smiled. "I might just do that," she said, "depending on how long the game goes on, and whether anyone's up for a second round." She looked over at the table where Rina, Yoojung, and Suyeon were getting set up, then back at Lucy. "You should learn to play mahjong," she suggested.

Lucy shook her head. "Ellie-unnie tried teaching it to me once, and I just couldn't get it."

"Maybe you just need it explained in a different way," Sei said. "If you're interested, I'd be happy to try." The more members who knew how to play mahjong, the greater her chances of being able to assemble a foursome at any time.

"I'll think about it," Lucy said. She laid back, put on her sunglasses, and basked in the light of the desk lamps and the heat of the space heater.

"Well, I've got to go - they're waiting on me," Sei said. "Enjoy your time at the beach!" She got up and moving carefully so as not to trip on the wires, made her way to the table, where Rina, Suyeon, and Yoojung were waiting for her.

"Did you ever find out what Lucy's up to?" Suyeon asked.

Sei nodded. "She's made herself a beach over there, with desk lamps to provide bright light and the heater to provide warmth."

Rina scoffed. "She's so immature." Rina was always quick to censure Lucy for anything even hinting at immaturity, for fear that any immaturity on Lucy's part would cause people to think she was immature as well, since they were roommates.

"I think it's clever," Sei said. "We're going to be stuck in here for who know how long. We'll need to come up with ways of keeping ourselves entertained."

Rina sniffed, not entirely convinced.

"Okay, let's get started," Suyeon said, hoping to head off an argument. She rolled the dice to see if she would go first, then passed the dice to Rina. After they had determined who would go first, they sat down, started building the walls, and the game got underway.

After about half an hour, they heard Lucy call from across the room "Sei-unnie! I'm about to flip over! Come put sunscreen on my back?"

Rina rolled her eyes.

"It won't take long," Sei said, as she got up from the table. She walked over to the edge of the room, where Lucy was lying on her stomach in the bright lights. She knelt down next to her and started applying lotion, starting at the back of her neck and working her way down. "Nothing makes you realize how long Lucy's leg's are as having to put lotion on them," Sei thought. When she was finished, she put the lotion down and said "Okay! All done!"

Lucy rolled partway over and smiled at her. "Thanks unnie!"

When Sei got back to the table, the atmosphere of the game had changed - apparently Suyeon and Rina had argued about Rina's reaction to Lucy's beach game.

"Okay, Sei's back," Yoojung said with forced cheerfulness. "Let's get the game going again."

After a few turns around the table, Rina and Suyeon seemed to lighten up, their earlier quarrel apparently forgotten.

As usual, no one was able to beat Suyeon - her mathematical genius seemed to transfer over to games - but Rina came really close. 

"I don't think we've got time for another game before dinner," Suyeon said, checking the time on her phone. She started to put the tiles back in their case.

"No, wait," Rina said, reaching out to stop Suyeon. "I want to play mahjong solitaire until dinner."

"Okay," Suyeon said, "but that means you'll have to pick up the tiles by yourself."

Rina nodded. "That's fine." She started mixing up the tiles and putting them into a solitaire layout.

Sei went over to the members by the TV. There was space in the couch next to Lua, so she sat there. "What's on?" she asked.

"Best Chicken," said Doyeon. "Remember Kim So-Hye from I.O.I? She starred in it!"

Sei looked at the screen. "I think I recognize her. Remember, I got eliminated long before I.O.I was formed, so I don't know everyone as well."

Lua checked the time on her phone. "Sei, come talk with me a second," she said. "You can watch this from the beginning another day, if you want. It's not like we're going anywhere."

Once Sei and Lua were in their room, Lua shut the door behind them, then led Sei over to sit on her bed, which was the furthest from the door. "Do you realize what's going on?" Lua asked.

"What's going on where?" Sei asked, waving her hands around to show how vague Lua's questions was. "With what? Who? Can you be a little more specific?" 

"With Lucy!" Lua whispered, grabbing Sei by the shoulder and pulling her down until their heads were almost touching. "You think it's a coincidence that she asked you to put lotion on her both times today? I was sitting right by her when she flipped over, and she called you out of a game of mahjong and risked pissing Rina off rather than ask me."

Sei sat, blinking, trying to figure out the significance of what Lua was telling her. 

"The girl is way into you," Lua said. "You've got to make a move on her. Preferably before dinner. Be brave! Go for it!"

"I can't do it before dinner," Sei protested. "I. . . I just. . . I've got to go talk to Suyeon." She got up and ran out of the bedroom.