The blazing July sun stood proudly in the sky, diffusing its abundance of heat through the air. Inside the office buildings, employees and workers were avoiding direct exposure to the sunlight and huddling around the air conditioner for comfort.

Jiwoo was lucky, as her job simply required her to sit still in the sound studio. The lack of windows though had made the room awfully stuffy. The scene she was working on was not of much help against the heat either as it was from a Christmas themed film and the characters were cuddling under a heavy blanket in front of a fireplace while sipping on steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

In any other circumstance this would have been a relaxing and heart-warming sequence to work on. However in her current situation, Jiwoo felt herself sweating from looking at the steam coming out of the hot chocolate alone.

Slumping into her chair, she fiddled around with the levers and buttons on the control panel before clicking save and decided to take a break. Grabbing her trusted portable electric fan, she knocked on the studio next door, deciding to pay her colleagues a little visit. She instantly regretted her decision however once she opened the door because it felt like a furnace in there. Henry and Amber were covered in sweat and their clothes were damp while the air was humid and heavy from lack of ventilation.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d assume that you guys were doing some extreme sport in here,” Jiwoo whispered while upping the strength of her fan.

“We pretty much are,” Amber complained, falling onto the ground into a pile of sand before rolling over to the pile of marbles next to it to borrow its cool temperature.

“You guys are working on a chase scene?” Jiwoo questioned, eyeing the worn out soles of Amber’s shoes.

“Yep, and it’s killing us,” Henry whined while wrapping a wet towel around his neck. “Sunny needs to treat her employees better! Install a better air con or something. This is torture!”

“Where is she anyway?” Amber frowned. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

“She had a lunch meeting with a filmmaker or something,” Jiwoo answered.

“Great, so she’s out there in some fancy restaurant enjoying a chilled glass of mimosa while we are here pouring our blood, sweat and tears,” Henry grumbled while pouting.

・・・

Feeling the heat getting to him, Sehun stepped out of his flat again despite having just returned home from work. Having changed into a T-shirt and shorts, he was overcome with an extreme desire for ice lollies to fight off the summer heat and thus decided to pay a visit to the convenience store. Browsing through the freezer, he chose a selection of vanilla, green beans and red beans flavoured lollies to bring some back and share with the others as well.

Sehun whistled softly under his breath while holding the bag of ice lollies, feeling satisfied with his purchase. Coming out of the convenience store, he reached halt upon seeing Jiwoo’s familiar figure standing under the tree