By the time the two lovers finally dragged themselves from their beds, the seven other girls already had breakfast set-up and waiting on the table.

Tiffany lifted an eyebrow.

She had always been the one to cook mostly at the dorm. Hyoyeon and Taeyeon would often pitch in to help, but she was pretty much the main chef in their dorm kitchen.

Tiffany peered curiously at the meal. It looked very haphazardly put together, with food from more than five different nationalities. The presentation could be compared to that of a three-year-old’s finger painting for art class, but…it all still looked pretty edible.

Looking up to see expectant faces trying to gauge her reaction, Tiffany smiled her true eye-smile. The girls couldn’t help but beam back at her. They didn’t see that smile often, but every time they did, they wished they had each grown about ten more pairs of eyes.

The better to see you with my dear…

‘An eye-smile a day, keeps the goddamn devil himself away.’

Hyoyeon had coined the phrase and the girls lived by that mantra with the religious devoutness of puritans on crack.

If Tiffany smiled her heart-stopping eye-smile at you that particular day, you’d have enough luck to ward off Satan, Ares, Set, and Thor combined together. That smile was worth a million. Picking up a penny was nothing on Tiffany’s breath-taking eye-smile. It seriously was no joke man…

Digging into the rather sketchy food placed in front of her, Tiffany was surprised to find it more than edible. The girls had outdone themselves today. Tiffany clapped her hands together resolutely.

“Come on! Dig in!” she cried gaily with another eye-smile.

Today was going to be a good day; everyone could just feel it in the air.

The girls grinned until their facial muscles cramped from overuse, clearly overjoyed that their resident thug approved of their home cooked breakfast. Without need for another prompt, all nine girls dug in, two more so than the others.

After a particularly invigorating and interesting breakfast, their manager drove all of them to the hospital, promising to pick them up when they called. The seven girls frolicked and pranced after the footsteps of Tiffany and Jessica like a litter of overexcited puppies, just about ready to pee all over the floor in their enthusiasm.

The two girls let their fellow members into Lexi’s room, stepping aside to allow their members to clamber hectically all over each other in their exhilaration to meet Lexi. Tiffany and Jessica just stood back and laughed at their member’s silly antics.

“She has to open my present FIRST!”

“Wae?! What makes you so damn special you overgrown giant!”

“Yah!”

“No! Mine first! Mine first!”

“Forget it shortie.”

“You can’t say that to me! I’m the leader!”

“Whatever…”

“Unnies…we shouldn’t shout…this is the hospital…we could bother the other patients.”

“Maybe we can be loud enough to wake Lexi!”

“Yea! YO LEXI! GURL IT’S TIME TO WAKEY WAKEY!”

“Omigosh Hyo! Stop it! You’re going to get us thrown out!”

Tiffany just snorted.

If after all this time, yelling at Lexi was all it took to wake the stubborn comatose child up, then she would have bashed herself over the head with a durian in a Homer Simpson ‘Doh!’ moment.

Jessica just laid her head on Tiffany’s shoulder, quietly observing the tenacious mechanical breathing of Lexi-belle amidst the crazy pandemonium.

Finally, the girls settled down into a circle around Lexi’s hospital bed. A hushed and rather awed silence came over them as they finally beheld the apple of Tiffany’s eye.

“She’s…so tiny…” Sooyoung mused, her voice soft and delicate, as if afraid she would break Lexi if she were any louder, which is stupid considering they were having an all out Hunger Games melee a few minutes before.

“She’s so…pale…”

“And so thin…”

“Lexi’s…she’s beautiful, Tiffany,” Taeyeon finally sighed, fully taking in the exquisiteness of the child in front of them.

The other girls nodded in agreement. Slowly, they approached her one by one.

“Hello…my name’s Seohyun. Lexi…I’m the maknae, the youngest of the group. I can’t wait till you wake up so I’m no longer the baby. I brought you some books. I promise to come by and read them to you when I have time. I hope you like them…my mom read them to me as a child and they’re my favorites.”

“Hey Lex. Name’s Hyoyeon, but your sister and everyone else calls me Hyo. I love to dance. I promise to teach you when you’re up and on your feet. I uh…I bought you an iPod shuffle, you can listen to music anytime you want now! Lord knows it can get boring in here…”

“Hiya! I’m Yuri! Well…umm…I brought gifts that you can’t quite use just yet. But I promise you’ll be able to put them to good use soon! Here’s a new bathing suit, a personalized kickboard with your name on it, some cute water wings, and a spanking new pair of goggles! I promise to take you out swimming when you’re all better! I did some research and found that swimming can be great to rehabilitating limbs that haven’t been used in a while, so it’ll be perfect for you! And uh…I was also going to bring my favorite Mickey stuffie cause I always sleep like a log when I have him with me, but…I want to meet you as soon as possible, so you’re not getting him till you wake up. But that’s my promise to you. The moment you wake up, he’s all yours.”

“Hi kiddo. I’m Sunny unnie. I was going to give you my Game Boy…but that’s really going to do you no favors. You’ll end up with weak eyes and completely stunted in growth like me cause you don’t go outside to exercise enough. So…I went and got you a jump rope, a basketball and a new bike. Now I know biking doesn’t necessarily encourage vertical growth, but I figure it’d be an enjoyable pastime and a good source of exercise. Plus, your sister seems to like it a lot; it would be no surprise if you did too. I promise I’ll go with you whenever you want, even if it won’t do anything for my forever vertically-challenged state. At least one of us won’t be branded a danshin for the rest of our lives right?”

“Hihi! I’m Sooyoung! But you can call me Soo or Youngie or Sooyoungie or…or…or just whatever you want! I’m a shikshin, which means I eat a lot, and at first I figured I would get you food, like a whole lotta food. Like all sorts of my favorite snacks! But…your sister’s kind of a health nut…so she probably wouldn’t appreciate me stuffing her baby sister full of junk. In the end I settled for a healthier option. I promise to save a third of the mon