Chapter Text
First day of December. Even if there's not much snow outside, the air still feels cold and the sky looks gray. Despite the harsh beginning of winter, Ahn Yujin sleeps in the warmest room of the dorm, on a cozy bed while wrapped in a blanket. So far, nothing has happened since the morning and therefore her sleep seems to be great.
She opens her eyes.
It's too quiet for her to sleep without worrying about anything. She frowned, her eyes began to run around the room, her heartbeat quickens, but she slowly rises while rubbing her eyes. It was a pleasant slumber. Now she had to get up and check what was going on outside the warmth of her room, even if she won't get that kind of sleep ever again till the end of her life.
Ahn Yujin doesn't worry about anything, she has everything under control. Yep.
She groans and stretches as she slowly gets up from her bed. White light shines through the curtains and she opens them. Which was a mistake because the light that hits her eyes is almost blinding. The white light turned out to be a reflection of the falling snow that had begun to cover the ground. She rubs her eyes again and watches the beautiful scene for just a couple of seconds. She doesn't have time for this, only responsibilities that she needs to constantly monitor. So she takes one last look at the window and quickly starts to make her bed. The sheets do not lend themselves to the mattress, which is a constant problem making her life difficult. But she can handle it, she's got it under control. Until the moment of truth came.
A small scream is heard from outside.
She just finished with her bed and ran out of her room as fast as she could without changing clothes, which greatly raises the chance that she's going to throw away her pink pajamas with puppies. The door slams shut behind her, she looks like she's ready to catch something with her hands up, and the first things first, she runs towards the kitchen, while being afraid that Wonyoung and Liz have done something, but what's happening behind the door makes her freeze.
In a second, she can feel the wonderful smell of something being baked, another smell of chicken soup, and the kitchen space just feels warmer than her room. But the one thing that made her stop, is a small silhouette humming a distant tune while cutting vegetables next to the stove, on which is most likely to be a boiling chicken soup. The silhouette puts normal pieces of vegetables into the soup and turns around.
Gaeul has the softest yet brightest smile Yujin has ever seen. Her skin seems to glow under the white light pouring from the window, and her eyes are glancing dearly through the strands of her short hair covering her face, while her graceful fingers tucking it behind her left ear. Her thin, cherry lips are moving but Yujin can't understand anything, as if she's stunned. She shakes her head and rubs her eyes again, then looks at Gaeul for a long time just to ask:
"Sorry, what?"
Gaeul's smile widens and now her whole face looks playful. She repeats herself.
"I said, good morning sleepyhead."
Yujin is not happy with the name Gaeul has chosen to call her and frowns trying to come up with a counter attack. She quickly replies to her talking about how she always wakes up first and cooks breakfast, but Gaeul doesn't seem to be interested and just nods.
"So I decided to cook breakfast for all of us today, after all, you must be tired of doing it every day."
Gaeul sounds playful but Yujin understands that the gentle words coming out of her mouth can never be a joke or a lie. Yujin just looks around the kitchen and raises an eyebrow.
"Soup and pastries for breakfast?"
"We've already had breakfast without you." Gaeul says quickly and turns away. She turns her head back again, just a little bit, and glances at Yujin before she starts slicing a fresh bread.
"You can set the table if you want."
Until now, Yujin felt relaxed, and this most likely affected her body. She lifts up her chin and twitches, suddenly feeling lazy.
"What about..."
She closes her mouth as quickly as she tried to open it to continue.
Little scream. She remembered why she ran out of her room in pink pajamas with puppies and now, cartoonishly runs out of the kitchen. There were different scenarios of what happened in her mind, for example, Rei most likely dared Wonyoung to pick up Leeseo, but she failed miserably and they both fell on the icy ground! Gaeul turns around to look at what happened, but Yujin was no longer visible in the process, so she just gets disappointed and continues to set the lunch table herself.
Yujin almost fell to the parquet floor when she reached the hallway, but managed to keep herself under control. She quickly puts on the large boots lying in front of the door and throws on Leeseo's expensive fur coat. Only now, when she opens the door and runs down the stairs, something happend that no one expected. Except for Yujin herself, since she knew that the luck in the hallway wouldn't last that long.
She slips on the second step and falls face down into the snow, just like an angel. She can hear the laughter subside, that was heard when she first opened the door. Also, she can feel the cold due to the thick layer of snow that cushioned her fall. She moans, lifts her head up and sees Wonyoung with a shocked face while Liz and Rei's faces are blank. After a few seconds of pause, she hears the orotund voice of Wonyoung calling to her.
"Oh God, Yujin, are you alive?"
Yujin groans and drops her face back into the snow. Liz and Rei run over and put her hands on their shoulders to help her up, as if she was a wounded soldier. When she finally gets up from where the snow angel formed, she peeks up. The person standing in front of her is Wonyoung, who, for some reason looks even taller, with a face that can only be described as unimpressed.
"What are you doing outside?"
Yujin sounds confused when she asks this question, and looks at the three girls with serious eyes and a snow-drenched face. But one more person does not catch her eye, because of which, panic grows inside of her and she urgently asks another question.
"Where is Leeseo?"
The answer surprisingly comes very quickly, in the form of a loud angry voice screaming behind her:
"Unnie, my jacket!!!
She slowly turns back, with the help of Liz and Rei, and sees the pouting, blushing face of a young girl who also looks like she's about to run away. Yujin has no idea what's going on and thinks that maybe something happened to Leeseo.
"Are you okay?"
Leeseo's mouth falls open and her expression looks offended. She widens her eyes and words come out of her mouth that leave Yujin to be even more confused.
"I was fine until you came!"
Wonyoung suddenly appeared in front of her with disappointment written all over her face, and with the fact that explains why Leeseo even has a jacket like that.
"It was a gift from me..."
Yujin didn't even get the chance to ask what's happening, when all the girls hear Gaeul's voice calling them. Wonyoung takes Leeseo's hand (who's still pouting), and they enter the house. Yujin can hear Wonyoung telling Leeseo that she's gonna by her another coat, and she yells at their backs:
"Hey! Don't spoil her, Wonyoung!"
But they seem to be ignoring her.
"Let's go Yujin, the food is probably served," Rey says while hugging Liz and they start to move without her.
When everyone flocks into the house, getting rid of their big jackets and barely taking off their shoes, everyone runs to the bathroom to wash their hands, which starts a small fight that Yujin chose to ignore after everything that happened. She leaves them to deal with themselves and hurries to the kitchen.
In the short amount of time that she spent outside, the kitchen seemed to be transformed. The counters are clean, everything is shiny, the table is set perfectly and most importantly, Gaeul is glowing and putting the last bowl of soup on the table. Yujin enters the kitchen slowly, so the older girl doesn't get scared and spill the hot soup on herself.
"Um... Why were the others outside?"
Gaeul looks up at the question and then smiles gently looking the other way. Her response sounds like something mundane, like something she's used to doing.
"Ah, I just asked them to play outside because, snow, you know? And I said I'd call when the food was ready."
Yujin sighs heavily and stares into space with a thoughtful expression on her face. Behind her, the rest of the girls appear and all together push her to her place at the table. She sat down in her chair in surprise, an awkward smile on her face that disappears when she sees Gaeul from the other side of the table, and acts serious. She looks around: Wonyoung is sitting next to the calm Leeseo, Liz and Rei are together as always. The table looks amazing and the baked cookies with a sweet looking buns are even better. All this seemed like some kind of dream, a ridiculous situation that her destiny had built. She was so lost in her own thoughts, that she didn't hear the conversation between the girls.
"Thanks. I was hoping you'd like something warm after being outside this whole time." Gaeul is shy, but her words are clear, thoughtful. Turns out she's talking to Wonyoung.
"No, seriously. It's not about the food, you already have golden hands. You're just perfect, unnie."
There is a light in Wonyoung's eyes when she looks at the older girl, a light that seems to come from her past. Gaeul smiles with her whole face, her eyes closed, and she gently slaps Wonyoung's shoulder for the cute compliments. Yujin grimaced a little at how sweet they are and also started to eat without taking her eyes off Gaeul. The fact that the soup was with vegetables (although there was chicken) was incredibly surprising, since, to put it mildly, none of them liked vegetables. But look at them now, young girls eating vegetable soup like they just got out of prison. Yujin doesn't hold back either and takes a bite of crispy bread with a spoonful of soup.
Gaeul, though slow, had already finished eating from her small bowl and stood up. Yujin is the only one watching her. Five minutes later, she returns with a tray of six mugs and gives one to each girl. Everyone looks at Gaeul and their mugs, after a minute they realize that everyone has different drinks. Yujin is holding a green tea, Leeseo and Wonyoung have hot chocolate, while Liz and Rei have warm milk. Gaeul herself, as Yujin noticed, has a simple ice latte, which she slowly sips, not paying attention to the fuss.
Although the bustle had continued since morning, they had a whole day ahead of them. Yujin also decides to ignore everything and drink her tea, because she has everything under control. Even if seconds later, Wonyoung and Leeseo burned their tongues at the same time. Yeah, she has everything under control.