Bonnie never thought of herself as a night owl, not until Nam Woohyun had sent her to bed at 7 o’clock that night. She felt like a child. In fact, she felt so much like a child that she was compelled to rebel against Papa Woohyun’s warning and decided to stay up all night instead. Besides, as of late, she had gotten in the bad habit of staying up late to finish her article just minutes before the deadline.

But now she had no deadline. Now she had nothing to do but wait for 3 AM to shine on her digital clock. She had ran some late-night errands already, including picking up the fruit basket that she had promised Woohyun in a nervous fit (but she would feel guilty if she didn’t follow-through with the promise). She had painted her fingernails, her toenails, and even a tiny mural on her wall (which she’d probably be later reprimanded for by her parents even though she is now a grown woman, but parents don’t seem to notice or care about that). Succumbing to boredom, she was laying in her bed counting the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling that she had put up when she was younger. “43…that’s a weird number. Is it a prime number?” She shook her head and sat up. “What am I doing?” Then a small smile crept unto her face. “I guess that I can do some ‘research.’ Myungsoo-ssi did say that he would send me the link for the fanfics.” But as soon as she opened her laptop, she realized something and slapped her face. “I never gave him my email address.” She sighed and stared at the screen for a few seconds. “But I guess that I could watch that drama that they based the bakery on,” she concluded searching the internet for the episodes.

Bonnie hadn’t watched a drama in a long time. She didn’t have the time. But now, she had more time than she knew what to do with. She had heard about the “Flower Boy” series of dramas, known for their gorgeous male leads and a innocent doe-eyed woman in the center of it all. To be honest, it wasn’t on the top of her ‘must see’ list (actually she wasn’t sure if the dramas even made the cut), but now, for the sake of research, she had to…okay so she finally wanted to and had the time to do so.

Immediately, she was into the story-line. The female lead was a stronger, quirkier protagonist than she had expected. She spoke her mind and always did what she thought was right. To Bonnie, she was admirable. But then there was the womanizing male lead, using slick words to entice women to do his bidding. A man so wrapped up in his little ‘love games’ that he couldn’t recognize when he had genuine feelings for someone. Bonnie hated him (she had too much of that type lately and could not stomach one more). Not only that but he was also significantly younger than the female lead. The match seemed improbable, even though the drama seemed to be heading in that direction. Bonnie however, wished the path of the plot would take an unexpected turn, landing the woman into the arms of the kind-hearted chef. A chef who gathered a band of misfit boys in an grand attempt to form a family, with him as the father and the female lead as the mother. This was the obvious choice, in Bonnie’s mind, the right choice.

Before pressing play for the next episode, Bonnie’s eyes quickly glanced upwards towards the clock. It was 2:50 AM. “Holy crap on a cracker!” she exclaimed, falling off her bed. She quickly looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing her large-framed glasses that she had gotten in high school and was still dressed in her green plaid pajamas. And her hair, well, she’d rather not look at the nest it became on top of her head. Bonnie then became a whirlwind, moving as quickly as she could and making herself look presentable before exiting out her door at 2:55…but then she had to immediately go back in to retrieve her recorder and fruit basket.

“She’s late,” Woohyun muttered, glancing upwards at the clock on the kitchen wall. He was carefully whisking eggs in a bowl. “I wonder if she’s even going to show,” he mused, looking back at his bowl. He still hadn’t been able to peg the food critic, and so he could not tell if she would actually keep her promise. But she hadn’t done anything for me to suspect that she would stand me up.

A soft rapt at the side door caught his attention. Woohyun carefully put down his bowl and walked over to the door. He opened it and was greeted with a mountain of fruits being into his face. “Oh! My fruit basket!” he happily exclaimed, accepting the gift from who he assumed (but hadn’t yet seen) was Bonnie. “You remembered, Tokki-ssi. I’m flattered.” Once he brought the basket to his side, Bonnie’s face was revealed, and she looked…different. Her reddish-brown hair was hastily thrown up in a bun on her head, with curly tendrils escaping it. Her eyes were puffy and stained dark, a sure sign that she had not slept (or hadn’t slept well). But what drew Woohyun’s attention were the curious brown flecks dancing across the bridge of her nose and onto her cheeks. Freckles.

“Um,” Bonnie mumbled nervously. “Can I come in?”

“Of course!” Woohyun answered, drawing her into the kitchen by the crook of her elbow. He now could see her face clearly in the kitchen’s light. The freckles becoming more prominent. “I didn’t know you had freckles, Tokki-ssi. They’re cute,” he complimented as he returned to whisking eggs.

Bonnie’s hands immediately flew to her cheeks. “Don’t say that,” she muttered in a barely audible whisper. Woohyun raised his eyebrow, curious as to why she would rebuff his compliment so. It wasn’t because it was her modesty or humbleness; it was said in disbelief, skeptically. She didn’t elaborate and instead took in a deep breath and sat in a stool at the countertop, right across from Woohyun. Pulling a tape recorder from her pocket, she placed the device on the table. Then she looked up at him with a stern look on her face. “Tell me about your process,” she commanded as she pressed play. She then lazily yawned and rested her head in her hands.

“Well, I…wait, should I talk directly into the device?” he asked. He brought his face closer to the device until it was hovering mere centimeters above it. “I start by…”

Bonnie put an index finger onto his forehead and pushed him back to his original position. “There’s no need to be so close. The recorder can pick up your voice from over there,” she said, slightly blushing and drew her coat closer to her body. Woohyun glanced down at the tape recorder again. It was placed right next to her chest. His head had been right next to her…

“Ah, sorry,” he quickly apologized, feeling his own cheeks growing hot at the realization. Bonnie didn’t seem to mind so much as she opened into a gaping yawn. She then gestured at him to continue. “Oh right, my process,” he began. “Well, normally the three of us, me, Myungsoo, and Dongwoo…do you need last names?”

Bonnie wearily gave him a thumbs up. “Got them last night.”

“Okay, so the three of us would make a menu the night before. Then I would have to wake up early to bake. Since I can’t taste this stuff, or I’d become sick, I have to rely on my other senses moreso. So it takes me twice as long as a normal baker to do the same job,” he explained.

“Your other senses?” Bonnie asked, wrinkling her nose.

Woohyun nodded. “Mostly smell, but by sight too you can tell if something is made properly or not. Then by touch, you can tell how the dough end up, whether it’d be dry or moist or crumbly. But most importantly, I have to make sure I measure out everything properly. I’m not to that point as a baker to know instinctively what is a good balance, what is enough or too much.”

Bonnie nodded. Like she correctly analyzed before, he did follow recipes, but not as blindly as she’d once thought. He tried to place in as many checks as he could. He was accurate. “Where do you get your ideas for the recipes?” she asked, watching him pour the eggs into a bowl full of various powders, and he carefully began to fold them in.

“Mostly from my aunt’s recipe book,” he answered not even looking up, concentrating fully at the task at hand, which also cause him to answer questions slowly. “But I tried to make my own, but as you can imagine, it’s kind of hard to do,” he said, looking up at Bonnie and delivering his practiced smile. Bonnie nodded, urging him to continue. “But I looked in books and magazines for ideas and even asked around the neighborhood.”

“Do you test them?” Bonnie asked, resting her head on the countertop, her eyelids slowly drooping.

“Whenever I have free time, and help,” he replied.

She nuzzled her cheek into her forearm as she looked up at him curiously. “Help?”

He put down the bowl and placed his hands on the countertop. He looked at Bonnie and cocked his head. “Tokki-ssi. Do you seriously think that I would serve things to my girlfriends without having them  taste-tested first?” She was speechless and fixed her eyes on the tape recorder sheepishly. “Aigoo! You have so little faith in me, Tokki-ssi. It hurts,” he half-joked.

She flicked the tape recorder in circles with her forefinger. "Who helps you?" she asked, still embarrassed to look him in the eye.

Woohyun's eyes darted towards the clock. "He'll be here in a few minutes...if he can actually wake up. The boy sleeps like a rock," he answered. He noticed that Bonnie was only half-listening to him as she nodded along (or nodded off), but her eyes were fixated on his hands as they carefully pulled the dough from the bowl and began to knead it onto the countertop. He too, turned his attention to his hands, wondering what was so fascinating about them.

In silence, he continued to measure, pour, mix, knead, and bake like he usually did every morning, thinking that the exhausted writer had dozed off while he was prepping. Although the kitchen was twice as quiet as it normally was (he would normally turn on the radio, but he didn't want to disturb Bonnie), he felt more comfortable this way. The presence of someone else  in his kitchen was better than the presence of noise, even if it was the nasty little food critic. He chuckled to himself at that thought. Was he really that lonely in the mornings?

"It's amazing," he heard Bonnie mumble under her breath and turned to her. She was still awake, watching him, and was embarrassed not meaning to have said that outloud. But the words slipped past her lips before her tired brain could register them. She had been watching Woohyun attentively this entire time. Analyzing him as he methodically and carefully went through all of the steps...with a concerned expression on his face. It wasn't the typical look of concentration that she'd been used to seeing grace the faces of chefs. No, it was an expression of geniune concern. This is how she imagined an amateur baker looking like if he was baking for a queen...or a boyfriend making something for his girlfriend for the first time. And it was at that realization, when those words slipped out. "It's amazing," he really does bake with his whole heart.

"Wah! Am I impressing you now? I'm amazing? Didn't take much to go from someone with no substance to amazing," he boasted, puffing his cheeks.

Bonnie scoffed, "It's amazing that I hadn't fallen asleep yet. I didn't sleep a wink last night." And with that, she let out a loud yawn.

Woohyun tsked and lightly slapped her head with the back of his hand. "You didn't listen to Papa Woohyun," he reprimanded. 

She batted away his hand and glared. "Stop calling yourself that! Yer not me Da!"

"Me...da?" Woohyun repeated with a of his head.

Bonnie shoved her hands in her pockets and turned away. "I mean, my dad. You're not my dad," she corrected herself quietly. Then she faced him again and smirked. "I can still keep up with you guys, with my hands tied behind my back." And with coffee in my system, Bonnie thought. She sat there wondering when Woohyun would offer some to her, but he probably didn't realize how much she was in need of it. Not with him being so well rested.

A large crashing sound like an elephant stomping up on cymbals came from upstairs. Woohyun smirked and looked at Bonnie. "Let's test that theory," he challenged.

"I'M LATE! I'M LATE! I'M SO SORRY, NAM-GOON! I OVERSLEPT!" Dongwoo yelled as he clambered down the stairs and into the kitchen. He came to a halt once he laid eyes on the writer. "Oh, good morning, Bonnie-ssi. Good to see you again," he greeted with a wave.

"Good morning, Dongwoo-ssi," Bonnie responded cheerfully. "What are you doing up so early?"

The answer came from Woohyun instead: "Tokki-ssi, meet my official food-tester!" 

Dongwoo walked over to his cousin's side and put his arm around him. "It's the least I could do because I can't bake or crunch numbers..."

"Or wake up on time," Woohyun added with a chuckle.

"I already said I was sorry," Dongwoo apologized sincerely, clutching onto his cousin's shoulders tighter.

Woohyun smiled widely until his eyes became crescent shaped. "It's okay. You know what to do," he commanded nodding towards the finished baked goods.

Dongwoo practically skipped over to the food, and Bonnie wondered how someone could be so energetic in the morning. I really need to get some coffee. Bonnie narrowed her eyes on Woohyun who was putting an other tray into the oven. When is he going to offer me some?! She turned back to Dongwoo who was now opening his jaw larger than she'd seen anybody do before (she thought that only hippos had flip-top mouths, but Dongwoo appeared to have one too). He caught her eye just as he was about to plunge his large teeth into a muffin. He closed his mouth, smile brightly, and offered her the muffin. "Where are my manners? Do you want one?" 

Bonnie reciprocated the smile and waved him off. "No, it's okay. I'm fine," she responded. Dongwoo shrugged and bit into the muffin. Then Woohyun caught her eye as he took an apple from the fruit basket and cocked an eyebrow at her. Bonnie cleared and looked away. "But it would be nice if I could get some..."

"Coffee!" Myungsoo announced as he walked in from the side door with several to-go cups of coffee in his hands. "Oh, Bonnie-ssi," he stopped and his eyes widened. "I didn't know that you were going to be here." Bonnie shifted awkwardly in her seat and staring longingly in the coffee cups in his hands. Myungsoo saw the desperate look in her eyes and smiled. "That's okay," he said as he took a cup from the tray and placed it in front of her. "You can have Yeol's second cup."

"Thank you!" Bonnie almost squealed as she cradled the cup in her hands.

"The boy needs to drink less coffee anyways," Dongwoo said as he dusted crumbs from his lips. "Didn't he develop an irregular heart beat recently?"

Myungsoo looked down at the coffee tray and frowned. "Yea, I should probably stop buying the extra cup...for his heart," his voice dropped.

Dongwoo walked over and crammed a muffin into his brother's open mouth. He patted his back while he spoke, "Eh, don't worry about it, Soo." 

Bonnie watched as Myungsoo struggled to swallow the muffin and as crumbs fell out of his mouth. Even then, when he was making the weirdest faces to take in the muffin in one bite, he still looked incredibly handsome. And then there was Dongwoo, who tenderly brushed the crumbs off his little's brother's mouth. If it weren't for their vastly different looks and different last names, Bonnie could have sworn they were actually brothers.

"Hyung, come over here," Woohyun called to Dongwoo, interrupting the tender moment. Bonnie shot him a disappointing glare, but he didn't seem to notice. "So what did you think about the new recipe?" Woohyun asked, resting an elbow on the counter as his other hand reached for a coffee cup.

Bonnie carefully snuck the tape recorder over to their direction, wanting to record how this dynamic worked. "Well," Dongwoo began. "It was kind of weird," he concluded rubbing the back of his neck. Woohyun hung his head. "I mean, a green tea muffin with orange zest sounded cool, but I think that it's a little too out there for our customers. I don't think we would sell many."

"Hyung is right," Myungsoo chimed in finally swallowing the last bits of the muffin. Woohyun turned to his other cousin with sad eyes. "It's not that it's bad," Myungsoo said defensively. "But our customers always seem to order the same thing."

"Maybe because they don't have more interesting options like this," Woohyun argued, picking up a greenish looking muffin.

Dongwoo took the muffin from his hands. "It's still kind of weird though...and green."

"It looks moldy, doesn't it?" Woohyun asked with a resigned sigh.

"I didn't want to say it," Dongwoo answered with a loud laugh. He then looked at the clock. "Soo, we better get changed. The Ahjummahs will be here soon," he stated as he got up and ran up the stairs. Myungsoo followed closely on his heels but stopped to give a comforting pat on a dejected Woohyun's back before he climbed up the stairs. 

Bonnie looked at Woohyun and bit her lip. She recalled the mediocre and bland tastes of the pastries and such she sampled when she first came to the bakery. They were plain, but also safe. However it didn't mean that Woohyun didn't try to be adventurous with his baking, but his logical cousins would stifle his creativity, claiming it was too risky of a move (which made sense because they were still a burgeoning company). Bonnie could also tell that Woohyun's ideas were rejected fairly often; he gave up so easily and didn't fight them so much, conceding his losing battle. But how could he tell how they tasted? He couldn't try them himself, or else his blood-sugar might spike and his body would grow sick. He had no choice but to trust his cousins' opinion. It is hard for him to be a baker.

"So, what did Dongwoo mean by 'the Ahjummahs will be here soon'?" Bonnie asked, desperate to get his mind off of his recent failure.

Woohyun did appear to perk up at this change of subject. He lifted himself from the counter and responded, "Our other fans. Ahjummah-fans in the mornings and our girlfriends in the afternoon." He leaned in closer and pressed the stop button on the recorder. Bonnie was about to object, but he cut her off, "This is off the record, but business-wise, the Ahjummahs are more important. They have more money to spend. The mornings is when we make the most of our money." When he finished, he pressed the play button again.

Bonnie nodded knowingly, even though she didn't quite understand why he felt compelled to have the statement be 'off the record.' Was it possible that he didn't want to talk about his customers as sources of money? But that's what they were, weren't they? Bonnie played with the tape recorder in her hands. "Ahjummah-fans, eh?" she commented. "You guys really do seem like idols." Woohyun nodded proudly causing her to giggle at his brashness. "So if I were a fan, would I be considered an Ahjummah-fan or a girlfriend?"

"Mmmm," Woohyun hummed as he thought, tapping his forefinger dramactically against his chin. "Neither, you're an anti," he concluded.

"Right," Bonnie embarrassingly admitted, biting the inside of her cheek, racked with a sudden wave of guilt. She was slowly beginning to see the harshness and the cruelity in her article. It was no wonder why Sungkyu had told her to do it again. It wasn't the startling exposee she had wanted it to be. It instead resembled more of a disgruntled letter to the editor from a reader who misunderstood the main point of the article they were complaining about. She was glad to have been given this second chance, to get things right. "I'm sorry," she finally said, her guilt bubbling to the surface.

Woohyun shook his head. "There's nothing to be sorry for...if we still get business that is," he joked, but he saw a worried expression dash across Bonnie's face. "Don't worry, Tokki-ssi. I'm pretty sure our girlfriends don't even read the newspaper."

"Are you really trying to comfort the person who questioned your integrity and wrote...very mean things about you?" Bonnie asked with a slight laugh.

Woohyun smiled with his odd smirk and nodded. "I'm a great person. I'm practically a saint," he said with a chuckle.

"Practically," Bonnie emphasized. She then took a sip from her cup, stalling until she could think of another question for him. Bonnie wanted desperately to change the topic, to assuage her guilt and stop giving the baker the opportunity to puff up his ego. But as luck would finally have it for her, a new topic presented itself.

The side door clicked open, and a boy with long hair touching his also long eyelashes stepped inside. His eyes were the size of a baby's fist, giving him an innocent look. "F***! It's cold outside!" he cursed as he shrugged off his coat and hung it on the coat rack. Bonnie's jaw dropped not expecting such a filthy word to be spoken by a boy who still looked like he was in his early teens. Woohyun chuckled at her suprised expression.

"Sungjong-ah! Watch your mouth. We have a guest," Woohyun admonished, nodding in the direction of Bonnie, who waved at the shivering lad.

Sungjong's face then morphed from a disgruntled expression to an angelic one. "Oh, noona! Sorry! Excuse me."

Woohyun pointed at Sungjong accusingly. "If anybody has a disingenious smile, it's definitely this guy! He's completely two faced!" he exclaimed.

Sungjong, still smiling, gritted his teeth making him resemble more of an animal bearing his fangs than the smiling angel he was a few moments before. "No," he retorted in a soft voice. "You're just bitter because of that stupid article. I told you not to worry about that, hyung. You're daebak," he ended by giving Woohyun a thumb's up.

Woohyun let out a short snort and turned to Bonnie. "Actually he told me that finally someone found out the truth, that I was an awful, lying son of a--" 

"I did not!" Sungjong interrupted forcefully and slapped Woohyun in the arm. Sungjong laughed it off as if he hit the baker softly, but Woohyun's expression said otherwise as he was wincing in pain. His skin where Sungjong had slapped it was growing red. "Woohyun-hyung is a very nice and caring man," the younger said to Bonnie. He then propped his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. "So who are you? His girlfriend of the week? Hyung's quite the player."

"Yah! Lee Sungjong! Don't lie," Woohyun ordered, baring his teeth. He turned to Bonnie, "He's just joking, right Sungjong-ah?" Sungjong emphatically nodded. "Anyways, Sungjong you already met Tokki-ssi. She's the author of that stupid article."

The innocent smile fell from Sungjong's face and his eyes unconsciously narrowed on Bonnie. This was the first hostile look Bonnie had encountered since entering the bakery, and she felt it was well-deserved for what she wrote. "Oh," he remarked. He paused for a few seconds still studying Bonnie curiously before speaking again, "I should help prepare the tables and stuff." And with that he got up and left the kitchen. Bonnie looked down at the recorder in her hands and sighed. Unlike the rest of the boys at the bakery, Sungjong wasn't so forgiving. And why should he be?

Bonnie felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw Woohyun giving her a tight-lipped smile. He could see the burden of guilt she was carrying, weighing heavily on here back and shoulders. He hated to admit it, but a small part enjoyed seeing her like this. Because if she felt guilty, then that meant she cares about them, about the shop. "Don't mind Sungjong," he comforted. "Even though he's the youngest, he's very protective of all of us."

Bonnie looked over her shoulder and could see Sungjong wiping the tables in the next room. He looked serious as he drug the cloth on the table. "Is he really the aegyo prince?" she asked, recalling the cutie player he performed cringingly adorably just a few days earlier.

"Oh yea, he's a cuite, alright," Woohyun admitted as he rolled out dough onto the countertop. "You just saw a side of him that he doesn't show most people. He's only like that around people he's close with." 

"You mean him being rude?" Bonnie retorted with a weak smile. She looked over her shoulder again and saw Sungjong glaring in her direction. She immediately turned back around and flinched. For some reason, the death glares coming from someone who looked like an angel made Bonnie feel even worse. Like she made God upset.

Woohyun nodded. "They say that you can only be cruel with the people you love. Sooo he must like you a lot." He heard Bonnie giggle softly under her breath. While Sungjong might not particularily like her now, Woohyun's words still held true for the bakery's youngest. In front of the customers and in public, he was cute and charming. But when it was just the five or six of them, Sungjong would hit, curse, and insult them. They were his outlet for his daily frustrations. But even though it seemed like Sungjong was mean to them, they seriously couldn't find a better maknae on the planet. He always did what they asked, no matter how demeaning, and he would die for them. And they would for him.

"Holy f***ing ! It's f***ing cold out there!" a screech disrupted the silence as a blur ran inside from the side door.

"Yeol-ah! Language!" Woohyun warned, not even lifting his gaze from the dough he was rolling.

"Huh? Why?" the tall man with his windblown hair giving him a handsomely wild look examined his surroundings suspiciously. When his gaze fell on Bonnie, he smiled widely exposing his gums and pointed, "Oh look, a lady!" Then something caught the corner of his eye, the coffee tray with one lone coffee cup resting inside. "And my coffee!" he squealed in delight as he dove towards the cup. "Hello, sweet cup of heavenly goodness and...wait! Only one?" he asked as he turned over the tray as if another cup would miraculously appear underneath it. He looked up at Woohyun with wide eyes. "Did I make Myungie mad? Why does he hate me?" The man looked as if his whole world was crumbling apart. He slumped onto the countertop, completely dejected, and turned his attention back towards Bonnie who was nervously playing with the coffee cup that Myungsoo had given to her moments earlier. "Oh you have it," he exclaimed, pointing at the label on the cup in her hands. "See look: Americano with two sugars. That's what I always get. Now you owe me one." He finished with expectant eyes. 

Bonnie was about to agree with the wild man's demands, but Woohyun stopped the voice in ."Yeol, you should get dressed. We'll open soon," he declared wiping the flour off his hands. Woohyun was so used his friend's whirldwind speech and brashness that he forgot that it wasn't normal until he saw the flustered look on Bonnie's face. It made him smile to see her squirm in the presence of the over-stimulatating Lee Sungyeol (well, it gave him pleasure to see a rise out of anybody, but especially this cordial food critic).

"! Is that the time?" the man freaked as he looked at the clock. His round eyes almost took over his face. He immediately jumped up from his seat, coffee glued to his hand, and rushed over to the rack where the black aprons hung.

Once the peculiar man was out of earshot, Bonnie leaned closer to the baker and asked in a hushed tone, “Who is that?”

“That’s Sungyeol,” he quickly responded. He turned to the writer, relishing in her blank expression. He could see the cogs in her mind turning as she was trying to figure out who he was. He stopped what he was doing and watched her as she wrinkled her nose in deep thought. It twitched several times like a bunny's.

“Sungyeol?” she repeated slowly, bringing a finger to her lips.

Sungyeol had heard that one and rushed over as he tied his apron. “You don’t remember me?" he asked in a pained voice. "That’s disappointing and rude. I remember you Bonnie-ssi.”

“Sungyeol?" she said again, her eyes scouring his face for the answer. Then the answer flashed into her mind like lightening. "Sungyeol! The smart prince, Sungyeol?” No, it couldn't be. This wild, loud, slightly immature boy couldn't possibly be the shy but good-natured outcast she had met earlier. Bonnie imagined the boy in front of her, wearing those thick frames and wiry hair, a pained smile permanently glued onto his face. It was him, much to her surprise.

“Ah no! I forgot about that," Sungyeol said, immediately recovering from the pain of not being remembered. "That was days ago. I’m going to be the rude chaebol prince today," he said proudly, patting his chest. "Girls love that. There’s one in every single drama. A little hot-and-cold treatment, and they’ll be begging for more. This is probably my best prince yet! I have to go get ready. Yah Lee Sungjong, give me some of your hair gel!” he yelled to the waiter in the next room.

Sungjong didn't even lift his head up from the table he was wiping down. “No, you’re going to use it all like last time.”

“Aish!" Sungyeol cursed as he charged towards the younger and pointed at him accusingly. "You have no respect for your hyungs.”

“I have tons of respect for my hyungs. I have no respect for you,” Sungjong cattily retorted, still ignoring the bull of a man barrelling down at him. Once the older approached him, he put Sungjong into a headlock, but Sungyeol didn't grip on him tight enough, as Sungjong easily slipped through his arms, dropped the rag, and ran across the room.

“Get back here!” Sungyeol shouted, chasing after him.

“Um…" Bonnie hummed as she watched Sungyeol catch up with Sungjong and tackle him onto the ground. "So this is what Sungyeol is really like?”

“Eung," Woohyun responded with a chuckle, watching his friends quarrel as they normally did everyday. He reckoned that Sungyeol owes Sungjong at least 20 things of hair gel by now. He looked at Bonnie whose eyes were glued to the two boys mimicking professional wrestlers. He took a seat next to her and spoke,"Tokki-ssi, remember what I said about the nicknames.”

“Your customers gave them to you,” she recalled.

“Sungyeol’s nickname was the choding prince. And as you can see, it suits him pretty well," Woohyun explained as Sungyeol was hurling insults suitable for a playground at Sungjong. "But he didn’t like it. He didn’t think it was manly. So he changed his image, and then he changed it again and again. At first he was trying to get a new image to stick, but now he sees it as practice.”

Bonnie finally tore her eyes away from the boys and faced Woohyun, “Practice for what?”

“He’s an actor," he replied, picking at the edges of the countertop. "He majored in it at the same university Sungkyu and I went too, and the three of us became friends. He was the star student there. We all thought that he was going to make it big. But after failing handful of auditions after graduation, he lost all confidence that he used to have and just stopped trying." His eyes flittered over to Sungyeol, who had triumphantly tore the hair gel away from the younger and began to slick back his hair, quickly adapting to the image of a chaebol as his gummy smile was replaced by a discontented expression. It was hard for the baker to imagine the same childish boy, crying in the same spot just a year earlier after failing the last audition he went on, vowing to give up acting once and for all. Liar. The first round of customers entered in through the doors right as Dongwoo the "Open" sign, and Myungsoo warmly greeted them and showed the older ladies to their seats. "We opened up the bakery shortly after that," Woohyun picked up with his story again. "But he misses acting, as you can see. He takes any opportunity he has to act. It makes him happy.”

“Doesn’t sound much like practice. It sounds more like a hobby,” Bonnie said, fiddling with the recorder again. Woohyun could see her eyelids slowly closing. She was trying hard to stay awake.

“I guess what I meant to say was that I hope it’s practice," Woohyun corrected himself. Then he leaned in closer to Bonnie, and her drooping eyelids snapped wide open. Woohyun smirked as he whispered, "Don’t tell him I said this to you. I don’t want him to get a big head, but Sungyeol has the potential to become a star. I really want him to get back out there and try again. His talent is wasted here.”

Bonnie studied Woohyun's face carefully as he pulled away from her. He was earnest. Sure, Woohyun often made arrogant comments and puffed up his own ego, but underneath all of the bravado was an earnest heart. Someone who really cared for the people around him. She looked back into the dining room and watched the rag-tag group of "Flower Boys" at work, treating the Ahjummahs like royaltly, talking with the customers as if they were their own mothers and aunts. Her eyes fell on Sungyeol, who although wore that snobbish expression on his face, had a cheery glimmer in his eye. “But he looks happy here. That should count for something,” Bonnie concluded.

“Yea, but he takes his roles a step to far sometimes," Woohyun said with a frown and his eyebrows furrowing in concern. "Like I said last night, Sungyeol’s mostly responsible for the bakery’s ‘special service,’ especially when he tried to be the fairy-tale prince and he went around calling everyone ‘princess,’ kissing them on the hand, and made them try on a glass slipper." He couldn't help but to chuckle at the recollection: Sungyeol dressed entirely in white with perfectly straight posture and exaggerated arm/hand movements, the girls fawning over the mysterious prince who would pull them from their seats to dance in the middle of the bakery. But his smile was replaced quickly with that worried expression again, recalling the reprucussions. "The customers liked it so much that the others felt obligated to act the same way.” Even his normally reserved cousin, Myungsoo, started to call the customers 'princess' (fitting his chic and charming image). But the response and the money was good, so it became a habit.

“Thus the ‘special service’ was born," Bonnie dramatically stated. She turned back to Sungyeol who now was angrily throwing fake money at the Ahjummahs, claiming that he didn't serve 'sniveling peasants' (to which all the old ladies squealed in delight and got on thier hands and knees to gather the fake money). Bonnie giggled as she watched the scene, seeing the pleased looks on the Ahjummahs' faces. They're playing make believe together. "Wow! The girls really do eat it up!”

“Trust me. He likes the attention that he’s receiving much more than the girls like the attention he’s giving to them." Woohyun said as he took a tray out of the oven and placed it on a cooling rack. "He’s addicted to it.”

Dongwoo rushes up to Woohyun, ing his golden head through the opening in the wall connecting the kitchen with the dining room. “Table 3 is requesting a special visit from the heart prince,” he said with a wink. His adopted cousin then returned back to his own tables he was serving.

“Who’s the heart prince?" Bonnie asked, blinking her eyes in thought. She turned towards Woohyun, who automatically turned away sheepishly. Her jaw dropped. "You?! I thought you were the king.”

“I lied," Woohyun plainly stated as he wiped his hands on his grungy apron, then took it off before he left the kitchen.  Bonnie put her head out of the opening as she watched the so-called 'heart prince' at work. And she was not disappointed. Before the baker even reached the table, she saw his steps grow lighter, more joyful, and he called out the the ladies in a cheerful tone. "Aigoo! How are my lovely girlfriends doing today?" The expressions in the ladies' faces morphed into ones of pure delight, looking as if they were getting younger as an innocent blush painted their faces when their 'boyfriend' approached. Woohyun stood by them and gave each of them a hug. "Did you miss me?" he asked, and the women nodded and cooed. He began to rub the shoulders of the eldest at the table (Bonnie reckoned that she had to be close to 80). "It’s getting cold out, so bundle up, okay? I don’t know what I would do if my girlfriends got sick,” he admonished them with a mischevious twinkle in his eye. The women agreed, and Woohyun turned to walk away, saying his goodbyes. Just as Bonnie was wondering if he was called the 'heart prince' for his kind heart, he faced the table again and threw imaginary heart after imaginary heart at the Ahjummahs. Then the other tables began to demand some of his 'affections,' and he gladly gave it to them.

 When all of the tables had their fill and Woohyun's arms could not throw one more heart, he started back towards the kitchen. He saw Bonnie leaning on the opening with an amused smile. Curious to see what would happen, he threw her a heart as well. Bonnie pretended to catch the heart; then she began to study the 'heart' in the palm of her hand, and with a shrug, she put it in her back pocket. “What are you going to do with that?” Woohyun asked with a chuckle.

“I’m going to save it for later," she replied nonchalantly, keeping her eyes on the baker as he reentered the kitchen. "So heart prince?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

 “Okay, so we’re all addicted.”

When the morning rush died down, Dongwoo turned off the "open" sign and declared the start of their lunch break. Mostly everyone was raiding the refridgerator in the kitchen as they usually do, but one of the boys were missing, Myungsoo. Sungyeol surveyed the kitchen, but his best friend was no where in sight. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the handsome waiter/owner/accountant kneeling in front of a booth eating a sandwich. This being out of the ordinary, even for his fourth-dimensional friend, Sungyeol took it under himself to invesitigate the matter. “Myungsoo, what are you looking at?" he asked as approached the booth. Myungsoo put a finger to his lips, telling him to be silent, and pointed to a lump laying in the booth. Under a pile of coats (including Sungyeol's own coat and what he assumed to be everyone else's), Bonnie was sleeping and snoring away. Sungyeol kneeled next to his friend. "Aw! Look at Tokki-ssi sleeping. She doesn’t look like such a mean little critic now.”

“Why is she here?” Sungjong, who apparently followed Sungyeol to the booth, asked.

“She’s writing another article about us,” Dongwoo answered, who was only a few steps behind the maknae.

Sungyeol grabbed the back of his neck as he threw back his head and groaned. “Another one? What’s she going to do in this one? She already called us shallow and players. Is she going to make us out to be pimps now or—“

“Sh! Not so loud," Dongwoo warned, covering Sungyeol's big mouth with his hand. "You’re going to wake her up.” Dongwoo forcefully pulled Sungyeol away from the booth, not trusting the other to control himself.

“If you thought that she was mean in the article, imagine what it would be like if you woke her up,” Sungjong huffed as he rested his hands on Myungsoo's shoulders, leaning over to get a better look at the food critic.

“She’s actually pretty nice," Myungsoo finally spoke after swallowing the final bites of his sandwich. "We had dinner with her last night.”

Sungyeol escaped from Dongwoo's grasp and stood up. “Nice or not. I want revenge," he dramatically declared, ending with an evil chuckle. He s his hands into his pocket and takes out a sharpie. He uncaps it and begins to walk towards Bonnie with a devious smile painting his face.

But before he could take another step forward, Sungjong through his arm out, stopping him. “No," he said forcefully. He took the sharpie way from the other, who frowned. Sungjong then dug into his own pocket and pulled out a marker of his own. "Use this one. It’s washable.”

Sungyeol took the marker from Sungjong and pouted, “You take the fun out of everything.”

Now Dongwoo was standing in front of Sungyeol and the blank canvas that was Bonnie's face. “Guys, I don’t think we should be doing this," Dongwoo whispered glancing over his shoulder at the stirring writer.

“I’ll let you draw on her first, hyung," Sungyeol bargained, waving the marker in front of the other's face, trying to tempt them.

Dongwoo looked at the marker and then to Bonnie and then back to the marker again as he tore it away from Sungyeol's hands. “Well…okay. It’s washable, right?” 

Bonnie opened her eyes expecting to see the white ceiling of her bedroom, peppered with glow in the dark stars, but she woke up to find herself in complete darkness and finding herself underneath a pile of coats. She slowly raised herself into a sitting position as she tried to remember where she was, and the coats slowly slipped from her face, allowing her to see where she was. Once she realized it, she laughed. She was still at that handsome-excuse-for-a-bakery and had apparently passed out in a booth. There used to be a time when she could stay up for 2 whole days with a wink of sleep. Now she could barely last 24 hours. Getting older . 

She picked at the 5 coats on her lap as she surveyed her surroundings. She looked out the window and saw that the sky was painted in orange and pink hues. It being winter, she assumed that it meant it was late afternoon. Her palm met with her forehead, and she groaned in disbelief. Bonnie had slept straight through the afternoon rush, the onslaught of the 'girlfriends.' How could she possible sleep through a stampede of giggling school girls, and not to mention, the loud staff members of the bakery itself? She must've slept like the dead, and she felt like the walking dead with a fuzzy head and achy limbs.

She stood up and scooted out of the both. Due to her awkward position in the booth, her legs had falled asleep. And so now she was forced to awkwardly drag her feet across the dining room into the kitchen. Great, now she was walking like a zombie.

Once she reached the kitchen's swinging door, Bonnie cautiously put her head through, not knowing what or who she might find. "Woohyun-ssi?" her voice was just a bunch of raspy whispers at this point.

"Aigoo! Tokki-ssi, did you finally wake up?" Woohyun asked with his head in the fridge. "I was wondering when you were going to. The customers kept asking who the homeless lady was." He pulled his head out from the inside and closed the door. He turned to face Bonnie, and once he laid eyes on her the tupperware (he had just gotten from the fridge) fell from his hands and he burst into side-splitting laughter, opening his mouth wider than he had ever done in Bonnie's presence. But when he finally closed his mouth (partially), Bonnie saw something that she didn't even know that she'd been wanting to see: a real, natural smile on Woohyun's face, and not the practiced smile that she had come to know. She liked this one better.

Bonnie looked around her and saw nothing to induce such laughter or joy, so she could only assume that he was laughing at her, she who just woke up and was doing her best impression as a zombie. And while she could find the humor in that, she didn't think it was funny enough to elicit such a gregarious laugh from the baker. But even inspite of that, she found herself laughing just as loudly along with him. "What's so funny?" she asked as Woohyun collapsed onto the floor, now rolling around. "I look like a zombie, don't I?"

Woohyun waved his hand, shooing off that notion. "No," he responded between gasps. "It's your face." He said slowly getting up, the laughter slowly fading into chuckles. He looked up at Bonnie who was covering her face in embarrassment. He removed her hands away from her cheeks. "It's not what you think," he chuckled. "Come here," he commanded as he drug her by the hand to the mirror hanging on the walls next to the apron rack.

Once she caught sight of her won reflection, Bonnie gasped. Her face looked as if it was covered in a 2 year-old's artwork. A unibrow was drawn across her face, a line of snot down from her nose, hearts on her cheeks, tears from her eyes, and a goatee on her chin. And like an artist signs his work, across her forehead were the words "Sungyeol was here" in thick black ink. "Stupid choding prince," Bonnie murmured under her breath as she her hand and furiously scrubbed her face with it. 

"Actually, it wasn't just him," Woohyun said watching in amusement. Bonnie looked over at him with her jaw unhinged. "Ah no not me! I was in the kitchen the whole time!" Woohyun defended himself, and then poked her in the cheek. "I was just gonna say that this is how Soo draws his hearts. And this," he said, pointing at her new unibrow, "says Lee Sungjong all over it."

Bonnie pouted. She expected Sungjong, the death glare prince in her mind, to have taken part in Sungyeol's childish plan, but Myungsoo too? She looked at herself in the mirror again and sighed. What did she expect though? She had been waiting for their revenge and here it was. She just hoped it was washable.

Then she felt something damp swipe across her cheek. Bonnie looked over to see Woohyun rubbing the hearts from her cheeks. "Oh," he gasped. "It's coming off." He smiled until his eyes disappeared. "See, I told you that they liked you. If they hated you, this would've been permanent." Then he resumed cleaning off her cheeks.

Bonnie hung her head and snorted, "They have an odd way of showing that they like someone."

"Well, not everyone can be as mature as me," Woohyun chuckled as he grabbed her chin softly, turning her to the side so that he could wash her other cheek. That made Bonnie explode into laughter. Mature? Nam Woohyun? The man who would inevitably dislocate his shoulder from throwing so many hearts, the man who insisted on calling every single customer whether they were young or old (male or female too, Bonnie wagered) his girlfriend. He wasn't exactly someone Bonnie would call mature. Even Howon seemed more mature than this fellow, even though her brother-in-law was the one who started throw notes over their shared wall. But then again, Bonnie was the one to start the paper airplane war in the office last week, so maybe she herself was just as immature as everyone surrounding her. And that would explain a lot.

Woohyun paused. "What? You don't think I'm manly, Tokki-ssi?" he asked feigning hurt.

Bonnie smirked. "Well, you are a man...but I wouldn't call you manly."

Woohyun put the cloth to her face again and began to scrub Sungyeol's offensive name from her face. The damp cloth now covered her eyes, but Woohyun though it might be better this way because what he was about to ask. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat. "What do you think about me?"

He saw her bit her lips (the only thing the cloth didn't conceal) in thought. "I didn't like you earlier. I thought you were a playboy and a jerk...well, obviously," she commented with a short chuckle. Woohyun's stomach took a plunge. He knew from the article that she'd disliked him, but he didn't know it when to that extent. He unconsciously started to rub her forehead a little harder (okay, so maybe it wasn't so unconscious, and when he saw her wince in discomfort, it would be lying if he said it didn't give him pleasure). "But now...I don't think that anymore."

Woohyun slowly took his hand away from her face. "So what do you think now?" he asked. 

Bonnie paused for a bit. "I'm not sure, but I definitely don't see you as manly," she plainly stated.

Great, once again, Bonnie was wavering in 'like limbo,' toeing the line of like and dislike. Woohyun didn't know whether to consider this a victory, because what it really meant was it was an opportunity for him to win her over again, another battle. He cursed himself and his incessant need to be well-liked by everybody.

"Why don't you smile like that more?" Bonnie asked, breaking into his thoughts. 

Woohyun wrinkled his brow. "What smile?"

"Your real smile," she answered taking the cloth away from Woohyun and proceeded to scrub her chin and lips with it. "I wike it," her voice was muffled by the damp cloth.

"Huh?"

"I like it," she repeated, removing the cloth from . "It's geniune."

"All my smiles are genuine," he retorted, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards as his spoke. One corner was higher than the other, making it lopsided.

Bonnie's eyes widened, and she poked his cheek. "Oh, there it is."

He turned around and caught his reflection in the mirror. Oh, that's what she meant by disingenuous. It was his normal smile, the one he had since he was a kid, but once he grew older and more vain, he also grew to hate that smile. It exposed his crooked bottom teeth, and it was so lopsided that he thought it made him look insane. He had gone through get strides to change it, to make both of the sides even, to hide his crooked teeth, to smile beautifully. "Isn't this ugly?" he said pointing at his natural smile. "You can see my crooked teeth."

Bonnie nodded. "I think that's why I like it. When things are natural, they aren't perfect. When things are perfect, it's unnatural...not real," she answered with a pout, elbowing Woohyun from the mirror as she wiped her chin more vigorously. " 'Scuse me."

Woohyun leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. He cocked his head as he pondered over what she had just said. Was it really that bad that he had changed his smile? That he perfected it? No, it wasn't. Bonnie was the only one to ever complain, to ever dislike it. "What's with you and this 'genuine' thing?" he asked. 

"I don't like liars."

So that was it: an obsession with honesty, with things that were real and raw. Woohyun snorted. "You know, it's okay to tell a lie to make people feel better." Bonnie stopped scrubbing her face and looked at him incredously. Woohyun then pretended to toss his hair and then showed off his figure. "Yeobo, does this dress make me look fat?" he asked in a high pitch voice while batting his eyes. Then he straightened his posture and deepened his voice, "No Honey, you're more beautiful than Venus."

Bonnie scoffed. "But then the girls walks around in an unflattering dress, and she hears whispers of how bad she looks. Then she wishes that her husband would just tell the damned truth." She looked in the mirror again and gave a final swipe under her nose, getting rid of the last traces of the flower boys' revenge. "Lying doesn't work out in the long run."

"That's only because you're not good at it," Woohyun said with a cheeky smile. He could see Bonnie roll her eyes at that remark, but he didn't care. He knew that he was right. Lying is good at times. Without sweet little deceptions there would be no surprise birthday parties or other surprise events, acting in general wouldn't exist, and his bakery too with it's 'special service' wouldn't be as successful as it was. He just wished Bonnie could see how harmless it all was.

"I should be going now," she announced. Then she looked around. "Where did everybody else go? I want to say goodbye."

"At the bars, drinking," Woohyun said finally picking the tupperware off from the floor.

"At 5 in the afternoon?!"

Woohyun chuckled. "We all have the sleep schedule of grandpas. We do everything early. We sleep early, wake up early, eat early, drink early, and even probably early too!" 

To his surprise, Bonnie laughed at his immature joke. She began to gather her items into her bag, then walked back into the dining room to retrieve her coat, with Woohyun just a few steps behind. "Why didn't you go with them?"

Woohyun shrugged. "Alcohol is just fermented sugar. I mean, I can drink, don't  get me wrong. But I don't feel like doing damage control with my blood sugar levels. Besides," he began as he stepped in front of Bonnie, grabbing her coat. She automatically turned around, getting used to the baker's manners. He started to put it on her. "Someone needed to watch over the bum that passed out in the booth." Bonnie turned around after the coat was on, and she buttoned up her coat while facing him. Blush spread across her cheeks, and hushed words of apologies fell from her lips. "Are you coming back tomorrow?"

Bonnie nodded. "I want to interview the customers," she explained. She wanted to follow her new theory about the relationship between the staff and their patrons, that the bakery wasn't taking advantage of their feelings but playing with them. And so she needed to know what those teenage girls honestly thought about the flower boys.

After tugging her last button through the hole, she looked up and made eye contact with Woohyun. He was looking at her expectantly, and she looked at him with apprehension in her eyes. How do you say goodbye to someone like Woohyun? Someone you had torn apart with your words but are now slowly making a real and honest connection with? Someone you were starting to like. Aw! Screw it. She grabbed Woohyun's hand that was resting at his side. She shook it. "Good night, Woohyun-ssi. I'll see you tomorrow," Bonnie said before turning around and leaving.

"Uh, yes. Good night," Woohyun responded slightly delayed and stunned. Who shook hands anymore? Once he regained composure he shouted after her. "Listen to Papa Woohyun and go to bed, young lady."

"Yer not me Da!"

Bonnie was sitting in her bedroom at her desk. The tape recording was spewing out the day's conversations, and Bonnie's fingers quickly pecked at the keyboard, transcribing them. After typing in the last few words Sungyeol had shouted into her tape recorder (she had asked him about how he liked working there, and he yelled at her saying that he wasn't going to tell some low-class girl the intimate details of his life, staying true to his chaebol persona), Bonnie reached over to turn off the device, recalling that she had slumped into the booth right after that conversation (Woohyun was right, Sungyeol was more exhausting than Myungsoo and Dongwoo combined). 

But before her fingertips grazed the buttons, she heard a deep voice call out to her from its speakers: "Tokki-ssi, did you know that you snored? Listen!" Woohyun's voice commanded. He had then apparently put the recorder next to her face, and Bonnie could hear her loud snores, sounding like a starving pig. "So loud. The customers are complaining. You should've listened to me, Tokki-ssi."

Bonnie was about to shut it off, not in the mood to hear Woohyun call himself 'Papa Woohyun' again. But once again she was halted by a sound, this time a low, sweet note: "Sleep well, my child, in the garden and on the back hill. Birds and lambs are sleeping. The moon brings silver, and gold beads to the dawn through the night. Sleep well, my child. Sleep well," he sang. A few moments of silence passed, and Bonnie smiled sweetly at the device.

"I told you I sang like a seraphim," Woohyun bragged.

Bonnie immediately shut off the recorder. "Immature lil scamp."