Sei sat in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea and writing in her journal. Suyeon had finally gone to bed. Rina had finished her breakfast and gone to wake up Lua. Doyeon and Yoojung were sitting on the couch watching reruns of beach volleyball from the 2016 Olympics. The only members she hadn't seen were Lucy and Elly. Just then Lucy came into the kitchen.

"Good morning unnie!" Lucy said brightly as she picked up a tangerine and went to the fridge for a bottle of yogurt.

Sei finished the sentence she was writing, then closed her journal. "Good morning!" she said, turning to face Lucy. Noticing what Lucy had in her hands, she said "That looks like a healthy breakfast!"

Lucy smiled as she started peeling the tangerine. "It's because of the quarantine," she said. Seeing that Sei looked puzzle, she elaborated. "Normally, if I didn't eat the healthiest diet, it didn't matter, because I was getting lots and lots of exercise. Now I can't get so much exercise, so I've got to be careful what I eat. I don't want for the quarantine to end and then when Manager-nim sees us again to have her say 'Jeez, Lucy! You look like a blimp! Nothing but sweet potatoes for you, until you're down to your proper size."

Sei laughed at Lucy's impression of their manager. "She'd sound exactly like that! She-"

Just then Elly came out of her room. "Good morning everyone!" she called out. "Suyeon's asleep, so she asked me to answer this text from Manager-nim:  Are any of you feeling sick?"

"I'm sick of being in this apartment, but that's about it," Doyeon said with a laugh. 

"I'd say that's a no, then," Elly said with a laugh. "Any of the rest of you? What about Suyeon? Why's she sleeping so late? Does Manager-nim need to take her to a doctor?" 

"Oh, no," Sei called out. "She stayed up all night. She didn't get to sleep until after the food had come this morning."

"And she didn't seem sick when you got up?"

Sei shook her head. "Not sick at all."

'Okay," Elly said. "You'd better be right."

After Elly had gone back into her room and shut the door behind her, Lucy murmured "Yeah, she probably wished Suyeon would get sick, so that she'd get to be the leader."

Sei nodded in agreement and quietly said "I know. I just don't get it - being the leader wouldn't even give her that much power."

Lucy shook her head. "It's not about the amount of power. It's about having it or not. Don't you remember when we were - no, wait - you weren't a trainee with us!"

"No, I was at LOUDers when I was a trainee."

"So you wouldn't have seen it," Lucy said, gathering up all the piece of tangerine peel and wrapping them in a napkin. "When we were trainees, if there was any distinction to be had, however small, Elly would move heaven and earth to get it. For something as little as 'whoever knows the choreography the best by Friday afternoon gets to be first in line for dinner Friday night,' Elly would spend every spare minute practicing, to try to be sure that she was the one who got recognized."

"Why's she like that?" Sei asked.

Lucy shrugged. "Some people are just wired differently. And she never seems to have gotten the memo that she doesn't need to compete with us, because she's still competing. Why do you think she insisted we had to divide up the rooms based on age? That way, at least if she couldn't be the leader, she could be the leader's roommate."

Sei shook her head. "I just don't get it."

Lucy got up, threw away her tangerine peels, and recycled her yogurt bottle. "It's just how she is. You just have to learn to work around it."

Sei was looking at the kettle, trying to decide if she wanted another cup of tea. "Do you want to give mahjong a shot this morning?" she asked Lucy.

Lucy thought for a moment. "I promised Rina I'd do yoga with her later, but that's not for a couple of hours yet, so sure. Can you make me a cup of tea when you make yours?"

"Sure thing." Sei got another cup down from the cabinet. "I'm going to have blueberry green tea. Does that work for you?"

"Sure!" Lucy said, not even bothering to think about it. "I'll go get the mahjong set and we can get started."

Once Lucy got back with the mahjong set, Sei showed her how to start a game of mahjong, then they started a game. Since there were just two of them, and since Sei wanted Lucy to learn how to play as quickly as possible, they moved around the table, taking each player's turn. After a couple of hours of this, they'd played several games and Lucy understood the basics and was starting to be able to think strategically. Around this time Rina poked her head into the kitchen and asked "Lucy, are you ready to do yoga now?"

Lucy looked from Rina to Sei and then back again. "Already? Oh. . . uh. . ."

"Go ahead," Sei said, "you told Rina you'd do yoga with her, and after a couple of hours of mahjong, your brain's got to be getting sore. Go on, and I'll clean up here."

"Okay!" Lucy reached out and squeezed Sei's hand. "Thanks unnie!"

Sei sat at the table, gathering up the mahjong tiles to put them away. They whole time, she would swear she could still feel the warmth of Lucy's hand on hers

Late in the afternoon, Sei was sitting on the couch with Doyeon and Yoojung when Suyeon finally got up and came staggering out into the common room.

"Good morning!" Sei said.

"You feeling better after getting some sleep?" Yoojung asked.

"I am. Much better." If Doyeon or Yoojung noticed that Suyeon looked at Sei when she said this, neither of them said anything about it. Sei just nodded and let the conversation go on.

Suyeon sat down in one of the chairs. "What's for dinner? Whose turn is it to cook?" she asked.

"Lucy's cooking tonight," Yoojung said. "She's making kimchi spaghetti."

"Kimchi spaghetti?" Suyeon asked. She looked intrigued but at the same time vaguely repulsed by the idea.

'It's a recipe she found online. Spaghetti, topped with a sauce made with bacon, onions, mushrooms, kimchi, and gochujang," Sei said.

Suyeon took this in and tried to imagine what it would taste like. "It could be good," she said, "and if it's not, we've got plenty of instant noodles."

"I'm proud of Lucy for trying something new," Yoojung said. "We're going to need a lot of that if we're not going to go stir-crazy before quarantine is over."

"Speaking of trying new things," Sei said, "I taught Lucy how to play mahjong this morning, so we've got another person available for that."

"How'd you pull that off?" Suyeon asked, leaning forward excitedly. "I tried teaching her, but she said she just couldn't wrap her brain around the math."

"I didn't try teaching her the math," Sei said. "I just taught her the basic rules and we went from there straight to examples of play."

"And that worked?"

Sei nodded excitedly. "It took a couple of hours, but she's almost as good as Rina now."

Elly came out of her room just in time to hear the last of this. "Who's almost as good as Rina?" she asked.

Suyeon looked up at her. "Lucy. At playing mahjong."

Elly nodded. "That's good. The more people we have who can play, the more variety we'll have."

"In the next grocery delivery, I asked for a deck of western playing cards," Doyeon said, "so that will give us some more options of things to do."

Just then, Lucy passed through on her way to the kitchen.

"Hey Lucy!" Sei called out. "You need any help?"

Lucy stopped and looked over at her. "I don't think I'll need any help, but I wouldn't say no to some company."

Sei got up and followed Lucy into the kitchen. "See you later, unnies" she called back over her shoulder as she left the room.

Just before Sei drifted off to sleep, she heard Doyeon quietly calling her name. She rolled over and saw Doyeon leaning out into the space between their beds so she could talk to Sei without disturbing Yoojung or Lua.

"So," Doyeon said, once Sei had rolled over and scooted closer to her, "Lucy?"

Sei nodded.

"Did you talk to her about it yet?" Doyeon asked.

Sei shook her head. "I was going to talk to her while she was cooking, but she was going on about what she was doing with the food and I didn't want to distract her."

"Well, thanks for that," Doyeon said. "I was kind of hesitant at first, but kimchi spaghetti is delicious! But anyway, when are you going to talk to her?"

"Probably tomorrow," Sei said. "We're stuck in the apartment all the time; it shouldn't be difficult to get a chance to talk to her."

Doyeon nodded. "Well, just let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Yoojung had apparently heard the end of this conversation, because she flopped down on Sei's bed and leaned into the conversation. "What does Sei need help with?" she asked.

Sei said "nothing" at the same time that Doyeon said "Lucy." 

Yoojung looked from one of them to the other and back again. "Okay. . . so what does Sei think she doesn't need help with about Lucy?" she asked.

"Sei's interested in Lucy," Doyeon said, "and she's pretty sure Lucy feels the same way about her. Now she's just got to get up the guts to say."

Yoojung looked over at Sei. "You can do this! But tell you what, I'm happy to help."

"I really don't think I need help," Sei said. "It's just a matter of getting a few minutes alone with her. . ."

"It's got to be more than that," Yoojung said. "You had her alone for two hours today while you were teaching her mahjong, and then for another half hour while she was fixing dinner. Tell you what: I'll talk to Lucy tomorrow, kind of set the groundwork for you."

Yoojung got up and climbed back into her bed just as Sei was saying "Thank you, but that's really not necessary. I don't think. . ." Once Sei realized Yoojung was no longer listening to her, she turned back to Doyeon. "Can you stop her?" she asked.

Doyeon nodded, then shook her head. "I don't know. I'll try. You know what Yoojung's like once she's gotten an idea into her head."

"Please stop her, Doyeon!" Sei pleaded. "I really want this to go right!"

Doyeon looked across at Yoojung, then back at Sei. "I'll try. But if you really want to be sure, you need to talk to Lucy before she does."

"Oh great," Sei said to herself as she flopped back onto her pillow. Nothing like a little time pressure on top of already being nervous."