four.

                                    

                                          
"You're up early!" Madison said cheerily as she entered the kitchen area where I was making waffles. 
"Good morning, Madison." I took her in, all dressed and ready for the day. "And yes, I'm a morning person."
"I thought you'd be. Ooh, strawberries!" She squealed while picking one up and popping it in her mouth. "They're my favorite."
"I like cherries the best, even though they're not technically berries."
"They're not? But they rhyme," Madison stated in disbelief. I nodded empathetically. I'd been just as shocked when I first found out. "So where's your friend? She's not a morning person like you?"
"She is, but Kitty had a tiring night," I recalled as I took out the waffle out of the waffle maker. "She deserves to sleep in for as long as she can before the day begins."
Madison nodded in agreement. "That one really puts the K in K-drama. Get it?" 
I thought it over while plating the waffle. "The K is for Kitty?"
"Yes." She clapped her hands.
"That's clever." I pushed the plate I'd just readied toward her. Madison looked at me in happy surprise. "I already ate but I heard you wake up so I made this. There's a lot of batter so you can make more if you want."
"Best dormmate ever!" She said, pointing the fork at me before digging in.
"Thank you, Madison." She gave me a thumbs up, mouth full of waffles. "If Kitty wakes up before I'm back, could you please tell her I went to meet up with the friend I was talking about last night?" 
"Sure," Madison said in a garbled voice, stuffing more waffles in her face.
I smiled. That seemed like a sign that she liked my food.
===
"You have really grown in the past years," I remarked with evident surprise as I observed his tanned skin from the months spent in Greece.
"You want me to lift you up?" He asked, brown eyes twinkling.
"If you want to," I suggested, and was instantly lifted up in huge arms and twirled in the air. I missed the feeling of being weightless as soon as my feet were back on the ground. "That was a beautiful ride. It's really nice to see you again, Marius."
"You don't say." He wound an arm around my shoulders as we began walking again. "I almost didn't come back this year."
"Why not? You have friends here and you're not very bad at studying."
"According to American standards I'm not," Marius agreed, "but Asian standards are hard to keep up with. I've been on my toes the last two years and it got me back on track like papa wanted, so he said I could pull out this year if I liked."
"But you didn't," I pointed out the obvious, even though I was often told to not do that by people in what was the Sarcastic™ tone. "You're here."
"I was in a pickle when you told me about your acceptance." He looked at me with a small smile which I reciprocated. "It was one more person on the list of people I would have liked to see again, so I came. Academically tough or not, it's worth it just for the company."
"The official certificate of graduation or simply time spent at Korean Independent School of Seoul also holds a lot of prestige in the job market," I recited almost word for word one of the many advantages my mom had told me I would have in the future by going to KISS.
"I think I've already figured out what to do, but it would definitely be nice."
"You've a —"
"Isn't that Kitty?"