Two weeks later, Joohyun woke long before dawn.

Her phone told her it was half past four in the morning, and she was foolish to lie there in the dark, grinning to herself.

She’d be dragging by the end of the day, and in the weeks to come there would be enough early mornings like this that she should sleep in while she still could.

But she couldn’t, not today.

Today was the day she got the keys to her very own bakery.

She had so much work to do, and she was so excited.

An ugly whisper of doubt tried to intrude, that it would be hard, maybe too hard.

Maybe she couldn’t do it.

But she wasn’t making any room for that voice in her mind.

Not now. Not ever again, but especially not today.

The house was quiet and dark, but as soon as she flipped the light on in the kitchen, she heard footsteps above. 

“Did I wake you?” Joohyun asked when Seungwan shuffled in, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Nope.” He scrunched up his face. “Yep. But only because I was sleeping lightly, apparently. I can sense the excitement. So what’s on our agenda for today?”

Our agenda. Not hers. Theirs, shared, together.  

“You don't need to come with me,” Joohyun said. To be polite.

Seungwan accepted the mug of coffee she handed him, then leaned against the counter. “When I bought this place, I didn’t tell anyone until it was a done deal. So if you want to do it all on your own, that’s cool. But it’s a really big deal, and I can...I dunno, take pictures for your Instagram?”

An excited grin split her face wide open. “Maybe you can come with me to get the keys, and then I’ll hang out in the cafe by myself for a while?”

That’s exactly what they did.

When Sooyoung texted to say the keys were ready to be pickedup, they walked over to the salon together, travel mugs full of coffee, and bundled up against the early morning frost.

Then they crossed the street and she let herself in. 

It had been thoroughly cleaned and left in turnkey condition. Kwon Boa had been eager to hand it over, and then she did it with a lot of care.

Her heart ached a little, for reasons hard to name. Part of it was that this had been someone’s dream for a long time, and nobody else had wanted it.

Joohyun wanted to honour the spirit of her agreement in buying this place, because she did want it. Desperately. 

This was her dream, although she would change it radically. Most of the tables and chairs would go to make room for longer lines and display tables of packaged cookies.

Silently, she walked through to the kitchen, Seungwan close behind.

She checked out the ovens, the walk-in fridge, the stainless steel work counters. All as they had been when she’d walked through it when her offer had been accepted.

When she turned around, Seungwan was looking at the fire alarm system, because of course he was.

“This is a bit outdated,” he said, pulling out his phone. “I want to upgrade you to a different system that better integrates with local emergency services.”

Those complicated feelings inside her rose and lodged in . She nodded. “Thanks,” she managed to get out. 

“I’ll leave you to it. How long do you think you’ll be?”

“A few hours.”

“Text me if you need anything.”

And just like that, she was alone in the future Bunny Bake! to make purchase order lists, to estimate baking capacity, and dream for the future.

What purchases she might be able to afford in six months and a year, to make the business even better.

It had been a long time since she’d been in charge of anything.  

Joohyun liked it a lot. She’d missed it.  

It was early October now. Just over two months until Christmas. She sketched out a calendar.

If she opened around Halloween,that would be an obvious treat-oriented event to theme a bake sale around.

But could she get the storefront up and ready by then, with the necessary inspections and business licenses?

She would try.  And in the meantime, she could use the kitchen for her back-up plan, something Joohyun already knew how to do.

The first official appearance of Bunny Bake Sale! on the Daegu was planned with three days’ notice and announced to nobody.

It was the Saturday of the long weekend for Korean Thanksgiving, the final holiday of the year for many residents in the area, and Joohyun had secured a table at the Purpletown farmer’s market. 

Seungwan had to work, so she couldn’t even be sure to have a friendly face appear. It didn’t matter, she told herself.

This was research and product testing, and both of those were done on a cold audience.

Joohyun started small. Her table at the market featured her three hundred won chocolate chip cookies and her oversized, extra gooey Rice Krispies squares, as well as two seasonal offerings, apple raspberry cupcakes and a pumpkin lace cookie.

Nothing too fancy. None of the higher priced tarts she loved to make but hadn’t figured out how to make profitable in the city.

Business was slow at the start of the day.

Her signs grabbed eyeballs, but she was surrounded by home-baked goods.

Traffic picked up mid-morning with a couple of families returning for more cookies, because their children had eaten them all before they left the market.

And those customers were also the first to ask her when her shop was opening. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Joohyun admitted as she handed over business cards. “Please follow me on Instagram and I’ll announce it soon.”

But at the end of the day, she didn’t have any new followers.

So much for that being an easy way to connect with the community.

By the time lunch rolled around, she realized it would be much more effective if she had an actual opening day planned that she could promote. Live and learn.

Instead of being disheartened, she booked her table again for the following weekend, and left, determined to have flyers for an actual opening day when she returned.

Which meant she had to pick a date and stick with it. Nothing like pressure.

The next week passed in a flurry of inspections and eighteen-hour days.

Joohyun barely saw Seungwan, who worked and slept and then worked again, until he came home Friday morning looking exhausted after yet another twenty-four-hour shift.  

She was about to head out the door to start prepping for he