at Seven-Thirty

You weren’t a morning person, not by choice, but because, for some reason, the people next door decided that Saturday morning was a reasonable time to do something involving drilling, which is not. No morning was. You were lying face down with the pillow over your head when your phone buzzed.

You ignored it.

It buzzed again. And again.

There was no urgency in the pace; the phone buzzed. You didn’t feel like answering it, but at the same time, you were curious what was going on for someone to be messaging you at 7:30 on a Saturday.

You reached for the phone without lifting your head from the mattress, got it on the second attempt, and turned it over.

It was Jimin.

Jimin wasn’t exactly a morning person, you know this, from the times that you’ve had to wake up Jimin in the middle of your morning class with drool dripping from her mouth back in college.

So it would be pretty strange for Jimin to message you this early in the morning. Usually she’d sleep in, but “What the hell, I’ll bite,”

SAT 7:31

JIMIN

okay so you know the place near the studio with the egg sandwiches?

the one I was always saying is fine

its actually good

I don’t know why Ive been underselling it

I think I was doing that thing where you don’t want to like something too much

anyway Im here and its good

You stared at the messages for a moment. Then at the ceiling. Then at the messages again.

At seven thirty-three in the morning on a Saturday, which probably meant that she'd already been to rehearsal, or was going, or had some other reason to be vertical and functional at an hour that you strongly felt should not yet exist.

SAT 7:33

Its 7:33

JIMIN

I know

the egg sandwiches doesn’t care what time it is

why are you at the studio on a saturday?

JIMIN

extra run through before the showcase thing

I wanted to clean the second section before Monday

or it's going to eat at me all weekend

also hi

did I wake you?

the drilling nextdoor woke me

you were second

JIMIN

drilling???

on a saturday??

apparently

JIMIN

that is genuinely criminal

im sorry

eat something

I just woke up

JIMIN

eat something after you wake up then

You put the phone down and lay there for another minute. The drilling had paused, thank god, at least they had the decency of being human. You could hear the building settling around you, the smell of perfume on a shirt you forgot to wash hanging on your chair, someone's TV two floors up, the clatter of pigeons on the windowsill without a care for your schedule.

You got up.

You were surprised how fast you got up than you normally would have. You simply were going to make coffee and eat something, like a functional adult, and not think too hard on the reason you actually got vertical at 7 was a text from a certain someone who was already halfway through her morning at the other end of the city.

You put the kettle on. You stood in your kitchen in the particular dazed state of someone who is in need of caffeine in his system, watching the kettle like supervision was needed, and your phone buzzed again on the counter.

SAT 7:44

JIMIN

the sandwiches