Irene awoke in her husband's arms, her body relaxed into the firm yet comfortable mattress beneath her. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she gently pulled his limp arm off of her waist and rolled to the side of the bed, pulling herself into sitting position as she let her body wake up. Looking to her left through the window she could see the sun blaring into the room as it hung like a chandelier over a plethora of tawny brown colored rooves.

There was distant tweeting of birds harmonizing amongst each other and the occasional sound of a car whizzing past the cul-de-sac. The quietness made it difficult to sleep for Irene. She was used to the constant beeping and bumbling of vehicles, the loud talking from passer-by's and the constant whizzing of helicopters and airplanes as they hovered in the sky above. It was just too quiet.

Getting up after a moment, Irene pushed the dark hair out of her face and walked across the carpeted floor to the ensuite. Yawning and half asleep, she walked over to the faucet, and turning it on she splashed some of the water unto her face. Blindly, she reached for the towel to wipe the water off her face. When she had dabbed the water off her face, she looked directly into the mirror above the basin, only to see her worn out reflection – still in the clothes from the day before – was being displayed in a mirror that looked like it had been punched until it broke. This came as a surprise to her as neither her nor Namjoon had really bothered looking into the ensuite the night before.

"They really tried their best with this house, didn't they?" Irene sighed sarcastically to herself as she looked over the cracked glass. It was then that her eyes spotted the neon green post-it note placed in the top corner. Assuming that it was from Namjoon's parents, she reached up to pull it off the glass, bringing it to her face to read.

Sorry about the mirror! It was like this when we bought it. We'll have someone fix it ASAP!

That explains it. She thought as she put the note down on the faucet. She guessed that maybe the previous owners weren't the best people. Taking one last glance at the shattered mirror, she walked out of the ensuite and into the room. There was so much detail that the sun illuminated in the room – details that she had missed in the darkness of the night before.

Unlike their cold, white washed room in the apartment, this room was rather cozy. The walls were an olive color and decorated with wooden frames of random sketches. Fake plants were erected around the room, and Irene supposed that was because Namjoon's parents remembered his love of indoor plants. There was a cute, white little reading chair in the corner and beside it was a large table with a wooden lamp.

The bed, which sat in the centre of the room, looked like it had jumped out of a cottage with its olive and white furnishings and excess of pillows which now nested Namjoon's sleeping body. At the bottom of the bed was a chocolate colored footstool and on each side of the bed stood wooden beside tables on which sat large, white hatted lamps. Despite having harsh feelings on this place, Irene was impressed with the decorations.

Quickly slipping through the hallway, Irene jogged downstairs and into the kitchen, where her eyes flickered to the clock on the wall. The hands of the clock clearly pointed out to her that the time was earlier than her usual waking time. 5am. Once again, she could blame that on the lack of noise. It would take some time to get used to.

Taking a quick squiz around the predominately mustered colored kitchen, she was able to find the coffee machine. Grabbing a mug hanging from the hooks on the kitchen wall, she put it underneath the machine, and loaded the machine with a small canister of coffee.

As she waited for the coffee, her eyes wondered to the lace curtain which shielded the window. She could see the sunlight gazing in through the small holes in the fabric. She reached out to pull it back and look out the backyard, which was...well, like everyone else's. It consisted of a small, cliché picket fence surrounding a small block of perfectly cut grass. Thanks to the lack of height from the neighbors' fences, Irene could see into almost every single yard from that side of the cul-de-sac. No doubt they could also see into her backyard. So much for privacy.

When the coffee was finished, she took it and placed it on the table beside a stack of newspapers she hadn't noticed the night before. Taking one from the pile, she flicked through the paper pages until she found something of interest to her. There were a variety of useless and nonsensical articles about people's pets and new cars and a few pleading for the council to fix issues in the road amongst the array of others. However, most of what Irene saw was advertisements. She had never seen so many advertisements in the paper. At least 80% of the newspaper was a catalogue of advertisements, ranging from new cars – of course – to home wares and appliances to security installations.

Irene usually would have skipped over them if not for the fact that her eyes had caught an unfamiliar red ink scribbled around upon one of the advertisements. It was of a security screen installation. With curiosity, Irene looked over the bubble circled around the advertisement, her gaze clinging to the red writing scrawled across it.

Need this!!!

Frowning, Irene took a sip of her coffee and put the paper down. She flicked back to the cover and took a look at the date. It had been issued a year ago. Must have been from the old owner. Irene thought to herself. The question kept bugging her, however. Why was there such an urgent need of security screening? The last owners –judging from the damage to the mirror upstairs - seemed like they hadn't been that concerned about the welfare of the house, or anything in it. Irene could only ponder on how odd it was.

However, a knock on the door roused her from her thoughts. Confused as to why someone would be at their door at such an early time, Irene shot a glance towards the clock. It had only been 15 minutes since she had woken up. Cautiously, she pushed her chair in quietly, tip toeing towards the large door by the stairs.

Who could it be at such an early time? She wondered as she crept along, her arms hugging her torso in a subconscious protective manner. A delivery man?

When she reached the door, Irene quickly inched towards the front of it, putting her eye into the small peephole provided. Much to her surprise, at the door was a well-dressed man, a woman with large prescription glasses, and a small girl around Lily's age, all standing around waiting for the door to open. While the woman and daughter didn't look too interested in being there, the man's anticipating eyes never left the door.

Irene's eyes caught on the small plate of cookies he was holding. The welcoming committee? She assumed. They seemed pretty harmless, but why would they come like that at 5am? It was incredibly strange, but she didn't want to be rude by ignoring them. Reluctantly brushing her mind's protests away, Irene cranked open the door, her eyes meeting the almond ones of the man holding the plate of cookies immediately.

As soon as both the man and woman mentally registered her presence, they were quick to announce, "Hi there, welcome to our beautiful neighborhood!" Irene was speechless as they shouted, her eyes being the only part of her body that was able to portray their emotion as they widened to the size of saucers. Before she could even open her mouth to speak, the man already made his way closer to her, a wide, heart shaped grin pulling at his mouth.

He placed a hand on his chest. "I'm Jung Hoseok," He introduced, before pulling at his quiet-looking wife's shoulder, "This is Jung Byeol, my wife," she gave Irene a rather forced smile, and Irene watched as the man – Hoseok, leant down to his daughter who was looking elsewhere and turned her with his empty hand back towards Irene. "And this is Mi-Cha." He looked at both his daughter and his wife before turning back to Irene.

He held the small plate of cookies up for her to see, as if it was their invitation.

"May we come in?"