Seulgi woke in a panic. She felt constrained, suffocated, and in stark terror. Worse of all, she could hear and feel breathing behind her. And it was not Suki.

  This terror sted for just a moment, then she realized that Yeji still had her arm possessively around her chest and the breath on her neck was her friend. She extricated herself from Yeji’s embrace and made her way to the bathroom.

  Seulgi washed her face to refresh herself from the dream that she had been having of being chased in a darkened parking lot that had nothing by knife-wielding maniacs. Fortunately, the dream was fading as she got her mind woken and working. She shook the terror off her like an old, used garment that no longer fit. She was stronger than any mere dream.

  At least that’s what she told herself.

  She continued with her morning routine.

  She had a robe on, giving Yeji a gentle shake, waking her up. She, on the other hand, didn’t want to wake up. “Five more minutes.” And she went back to sleep. Evidently, she was having a great dream. If it would not make a mess, she would tempted to be back with a pitcher of water. But she’s not foolish enough to do that to her bed. No matter how tempting it might be.

  Instead, she would be back in five minutes and pounce on her. Literally. With this pnned out, she left the bedroom to the yowling of Suki – she had been grabbed like the world’s best stuffed toy by Yeji as she went back to sleep.

  Seulgi heartlessly left her fuzzy friend to her fate.

  When she left the bedroom, she found her father in the kitchen, cooking. It smelled heavenly and of her childhood. Her father was making bear-shaped pancakes. There was already a stack of them waiting for her. After the day she had yesterday, she splurged and treated herself to two.

  She started her breakfast off by kissing her father on the cheek in thanks. He had to bend down for her to kiss his unshaven cheek, but neither of them minded.

  She added some butter and syrup in a Western breakfast fashion. Again, this is not her normal fare, so she wanted to live it up just a bit. Besides, this was still her childhood fantasy being relived. She smiled her very extra special smile just for her father.

  That smile made everything that they had been up to in the st twenty-four hours tolerable. He unplugged the griddle and then grabbed two bear pancakes for himself, leaving two for Yeji when she showed up. He also added the extra calories and joined his daughter at the table.

  They hear an arm going on incessantly while a sleepy and grumpy voice growls “Shut up!” and more silence. There was a bit of cursing before there was some movement. They could hear some stomping around as Suki teleported out of the bedroom.

  “Hurry up, Yeji, before your breakfast gets cold!” Seulgi yelled this as her father added two strips of bacon to her pte. She smiled a thanks to him. He returned it in spades. She may have gotten her beauty from her mother, but that grin was one hundred percent her father’s. They ate in companionable silence.

  When about halfway through breakfast, he asked, “So, what are the pns for today?”

  “I need to go to work. Yeji, Bhuwakul, and even Nayeon will be there. Nayeon is about as dangerous as a wet napkin, but she is very observant and highly intelligent. I figure that I’ll be making my lunch for the next couple of days, so I don’t go out for lunch or get delivery. We still don’t know if this maniac had an accomplice or not. So, for the next few days, Yeji will be accompanying me to and from work. I know that I cannot keep you here too long. I would love to spend my evenings with you for as long as you can stay.”

  He nodded back, deep in thought.

  “I want to start training you in martial arts and firearms. I have been wanting to train you for years now. You are too pretty, daughter ‘o mine. Even if this creep does not have a partner, there are other people out there that you need to be wary of. I am not expecting you to be a MMA fighter, but I want you to be able to keep your composure to kick someone where it hurts most and be able to run away.”

  With her recent experiences, she thought that this was a grand idea. She had no desire to be a soldier or a kickboxer, but some basic self-defense would be a good idea.

  “Morning, Sleepy Head.” At this, Alfred was answered with a most ungrateful response. Then the smell stopped her in her tracks. She was like a bloodhound scenting prey. As she made her way over to the pancakes, she stopped and pnted an impudent kiss of thanks on top of his head. Everyone there knew Seulgi could make more than cold cereal but not something this good. The pancakes would have been burned, not perfect.

  Alfred chuckled and added the st of the bacon to her pte as she joined them. Yeji didn’t bother joining the conversation more than just listening as she was too busy stuffing her face with this delicacy. She did not spend much time cooking for herself, she lived mostly on bare basics to power herself. It was not this often she could splurge, so she devoured everything like a starving madman.

  That st simile would not have gone over if she had said it aloud, she realized. Still, it was not entirely inaccurate.

  Taeyeon was grumpy. She was eating some brownies for breakfast. She made them for Seulgi but chickened out of giving them to her. So, she was sitting there eating some delicious brownies that she didn’t dare to share with the one she wanted to. This aggravated her to no end.

  Today would be miserable for some poor jerks that had nothing to do with her inability to py nicely with others.

  Bhuwakul was looking forward to making sure that Seulgi was doing ok.