Go!

Sefi took a sip of the 'diluted' orange juice. Surprisingly, it tasted not too bad. She concluded, then carried on eating.

"What time did Dad leave this morning?" Eve asked, pulling out a chair next to Nathan and flopped down dramatically.

"Maybe around 6ish," Nathan said, remembering vaguely hearing the sound of the car engine downstairs. Their father and stepmother had a habit of disappearing as fast as they appeared, like some sort of an emergency evacuation procedure.

"Okay," Eve muttered, trying hard to hide the disappointment on her face. She pretended to be busy sipping her water, her eyes then suddenly laid on Sefi and immediately vented out her annoyance, "aren't you worried about getting high cholesterol?"  

Sefi's mouth was stuffed full of food and was caught off-guard by being in the firing line. All she could do was merely stare at Eve with big eyes and shake her head at the same time making her resemble a hamster.

"Are you training to become a competitive eater or something?" Eve asked, feeling more irritated by the second.

Sefi made a face. She wishes! After today, she swears she will never take a jab at the mukbangers ever again. She used to think they were just getting paid for eating in front of a camera, it was hardly rocket science, was it?  Stick a couple of lettuce leaves in front of a gerbil, it'll start munching.  Everyone could eat.  

Now, she was in awe of mukbangers. They deserved respect. No, they deserved a gold medal! It should become an official Olympic sport.

"Do you want to try it?" Sefi swallowed the mouthful of food and asked. "The four on top are just plain pancakes," she felt like a sales lady giving her recommendations, "The ones in the middle have chocolate in them, and the ones at the bottom are blueberry."

Eve curled her lips up in disgust, the so-called blueberry pancakes looked like they had mold on them.

Well, she did offer. Sefi shrugged indifferently. If Eve didn't want any that was her loss.  She then placed down the cutlery and trotted over back to the kitchen before bring back a neatly wrapped package.

Handing the present to Eve, she then pushed the birthday card she had prepared earlier across the table towards Nathan.

"What is it?" Eve asked with a frown.  She was not expecting a present from Sefi.

"Birthday present." She smiled.  Don't worry, it's not a lump of coal, Sefi wanted to add but decided against it.

Eve looked at Nathan like a primary school student seeking parental consent before proceeding. Seeing him nod, she began to quickly rip open the gift wrapping. When she saw the T-shirt inside, she raised her doe-like eyes and looked at Sefi in confusion.

Nathan's expression was not much different from Eve's, he was also confused.

Sefi looked at their similar expressions, she couldn't help but laugh.  It was a rare sight, seeing them speechless.  The present was already prepared by the original owner of the body.  It had nothing to do with her.  If anything, she decided to keep the one for Nathan for herself.  He didn't need a T-shirt when he was going to get a special pancake tower and a card...

"What is the meaning of this?" Eve's face darkened, her voice was dripping with icicles "Why would you want to give me a T-shirt that looked exactly like yours?" She asked fiercely, her eyes staring at Sefi's top.  "Are we going to wear matching T-shirts from now on? Or do you want to show that you are better looking than me? You can wear it better than me?" She threw the T-shirt on the table angrily.

"..." Sefi didn't understand what she meant, the only thing she could do was to stare at her with a blank expression.

Then she saw Eve grabbing the birthday card that was in Nathan's hand, and after examining it, she could see her whole body stiffen.

On the cover was a picture of a boy with a big mouth open and his fist raised in the air whilst riding on an angry-looking seagull, both of which appeared to be ultra- excited. The word "Chong ya" was written below. After opening it, a few simple and clear words were written inside: "Nathan, wishing you a happy birthday. Sefi."

"What the hell is this?" Eve asked, waving the card in her hands.

"'Chong' means 'GO', 'Ya' means 'duck', it plays on the words 'Run, go go go', encouragement type of thing,"  Sefi explained patiently, whilst secretly suspecting that the girl must've played too much piano and her brain was not working as well as it should be.

Come on, wasn't it obvious what that meant?

"Is this even a duck? Why does it look like a seagull?" Eve hissed.

Sefi tilted her head and looked at the unsatisfactory duck. If wasn't judged too critically, it could most definitely be used as a duck. She curled her lips. She only had about five minutes to draw the card, she wasn't exactly Van Gough!  If she had more time, she would definitely paint a hundred times better than this.

She stood up from her seat, thankful that she still had the marker pen she used when drawing the card in her pocket, and grabbed the card out of Eve's hand.

Quickly scribbling away something on the card, she passed it back to them with satisfaction.

Eve looked like she was ready to breathe fire out of her nostrils after seeing it.  The stupid girl had scored off the word "ya" and wrote the word "O" next to it.

Sefi pumped her fist in the air with a smile, imitating the little boy on the card, and shouted: "Chong O! Chong!"  

Nathan couldn't help but laugh.  It was a genuine smile that came from within and seemed to illuminate the entire room, like a ray of sunshine in winter.

Sefi felt her mouth gone dry.  How could he look this stunning?

 "What is so funny?" A male voice came over.

*O* is the pronunciation for the word seagull in Chinese.