She put on a mint-colored roundneck t-shirt and an ivory-colored skirt before standing in front of the mirror. She left her room after checking if there were any creases on her clothes.

“You’re still at it?”

“Yeah, I’m still at it.”

There were bottles of coffee and vitamins on the table. She sighed before standing next to her mother.

“You should really stop drinking.”

“Why don’t you tell me to stop breathing instead?”

“If you can’t quit, why not just drink black coffee? I heard that it’s healthier for the body.”

“Coffee without milk and sugar is not coffee, girl. But are you going out?”

“Yeah. I’m going to hang out with Yoojin.”

“Do you need any money?”

“No, I still have money left over from last time.”

She peeked at the laptop screen. There were two different texts on the divided screen. One was an essay for a magazine, and the other was a novel.

“Don’t you get confused when writing two at once?”

She found it curious whenever she looked at it. Her mother always worked on multiple things at once. She switched between texts and wrote two different types of writing. She would switch to the other once she was stuck on one, and switch back if she was stuck on that. When she was young, she always watched her mother do so while dazing out. Her mother used to say that she was so adorable when she just dazed out like that as she sucked on her thumb.

“What kind...