I. Series of Misfortune

Well, Jung Minyang walks into the bathroom with her eyelids glued closed with sleep and can already tell what a hellish day it will be today: there's no toilet paper.

"Ryongs," Jung Minyang groggily calls for either one of her twin brothers, not caring which one answers. Just stepped out of bed, her dark brown hair is styled nicely with grease and the corners of her cracked lips are caked with sweet hardened saliva. For some reason, there is a giant hole on the stomach of her t-shirt that she's sure was not there in the morning when she wore it to sleep.

"You look beautiful this morning, sis," yawns Daeryong, looking equally as beautiful as Minyang with his blue peacock hair dancing wildly on the top of his head. He is pouring jam all over the toasts in the kitchen.

"Really. Looking at you is such a refreshing way to start the day." Somehow rolling his eyes and grabbing one of the toast at the same time, Soryong, the younger of the older twin brothers, scan the girl up and down before wrinkling his nose in disgust. "Did you get in a fight with your shirt?"

Well, well, the sarcastic duos are up early as usual. "There's no toilet paper." Minyang coolly disregards all her brothers' comments and grabs Soryong's orange juice before chugging it down.

"I know you don't leave the house, but please look in the mirror this month." Daeryong piles the mush of jam and bread into a mountain. Is he even going to eat that?

"I said there's no toilet paper."

"I'm heading to work now." The blue peacock head washes his hands off in the sink and hastily dries them on his white shirt before rushing past Minyang and out the kitchen.

"Oh, I should go too." Simply brushing the crumbs on his hands into his empty plate, Soryong scoots out of his chair and pushes it back in. "The shower head is broken, so you can't shower today... not like you actually shower anyways." The younger brother adds.

"What about the toilet paper?" She shouts after her brothers who disappeared around the corner of the kitchen. There's a creak of the front door opening, a loud clamp as they both slap their shoes down onto the tile floor and--finally--the closing of the front door.

Jung Minyang sighs. It's been like that a lot lately.

Daeryong and Soryong are both busy with work, and Minyang is busy with locking herself in the house and happily rolling around the house.

Still without toilet paper, the girl tugs off her now useless t-shirt and decides to call for her gods: the delivery boys.

There is an errand call center nearby, and their contact number is an unforgettable combination of numbers Jung Minyang always has at the back of her head.

Whatever you asked for, they delivered.

Dialing the number away without a second thought, she orders several rolls of toilet paper and bowls of ramen just in case she starts craving them later on like she usually does.

--

"Delivery." A large package arrives at the door steps of Jung Minyang's house under her name.

Oh boy. Oh boy. The toilet paper is here.

When she opens the door, the delivery man is already out of sight. Curious, she glances down the hallway and the silent stairway, making sure the toes of her bare feet do not leave the warmth of the apartment complex.

Minyang thought it was strange. He could not have had the time to exit the building already because she opened the front door only a couple of seconds after he rang the door bell. Yet, not even the footsteps of the mysterious delivery man can be heard at the moment.

Not to mention, she has not even paid the man for the errand.

Hm.

Well, it's free, and unless it's a timed bomb, Jung Minyoung isn't going to refuse something that has been just handed to her.

After locking the front door, she throws the bulky yet light package on the ground and pulls her jeans up to sit comfortably on the ground. Her long dark hair continuously falling over her face, she loosely tucks the  misbehaving strands behind her ears and starts searching for the ends of the yellow tape keeping the box together.

Jung Minyang lets out an empty scoff as the box opened, revealing a very traditional looking umbrella with dark red paper like cover with beautifully painted water lilies decorating one of the sides, the thin skeleton of the umbrella made of smooth red wood with small carvings of a young jay bird just below the handle.

If anybody else saw it, they might have glorified the artistic designs in awe. However, Minyang is not just anybody.

"What is this doing here?" Without a hint of hesitation, she throws the umbrella to her side, causing it to land about several feet away with a loud snap. Minyang flips the box upside to see if anything else would fall out. Nothing. Not even a peanut. "Where's the toilet paper?"

Minyang scratchs the back of her head. A mistake?

Getting up off her feet and pulling the crotch of her jeans back down, Minyang takes a glance at the empty cardboard box and sighs. At the same time, her empty stomach gives a low hollow moan.

"Oh." Patting her stomach like a boss, she staggers to the kitchen only to come face to face with the monster Daeryong had left behind. She grimaces, almost getting a strange feeling that the mush was staring at her and urging her to eat it.

After pushing the dish of jelly and bread slushie behind the rice cooker and out of sight, Minyang starts her scavange for food.

There is a bag of cookie in the pantry... with two halves of a small cookie. Minyang dumps it in and continues on her mission to fill her needy belly. The refrigerator holds a sack of oranges, but she was allergic to citron and all those acidity, so that's a no-no.

In the end, the monster of Daeryong's creation was the only option.

Jung Minyang walks back to the empty cardboard box and kicks it. Then, she picks up the abandoned umbrella which in actuality is a parasol. It still looks useless to her.

She might have been okay with a plain umbrella since it's free, but a paper umbrella with its wooden bones baring its splinters and fibers at her? What is she supposed to do with a half developed umbrella in the middle of a violently chilly December when hail came before snow and snow before rain?

Not to mention, she has not been outside under the sky for the past seven years.

While she's busy debating what to do with the umbrella, the shower head in the bathroom makes a strange gurgling noise.

Curious, Jung Minyang quickly finds her way to the bathroom. It's still making a weird noise. "Oh right, Soryong said the shower wasn't working."

She is about to turn and figure what to do with the red paper umbrella in her hand when suddenly the shower comes on, spraying the girl with cold water and surprising her.

Now, to be quite honest, Jung Minyang isn't the brightest of people. She raises the umbrella into the air--which she still hasn't figured is a parasol--and, in exasperation, starts poking at the shower head to get it to face another direction.

In the chaos of the moment, she slips on the wet tiled floor and--

Oh, she faints.