"Thank you." Sam signed the form in front of her and gave it back to the delivery man. She closed the door behind her and brought the package to the kitchen.
Alex and Clover were sitting on the stools with Clover texting while eating and Alex was chewing on a carrot.
"Clover, no texting during breakfast." Sam said.
Clover put her phone down. "Jeez, mom. Grumpy much? "
Sam rolled her eyes and placed the package on the table.
"What's that?" Alex pointed her carrot at the box.
"Remember when Clover broke the cabinet in the bathroom?" Sam glared at Clover.
Clover looked away, pretended not to see Sam's glare. "Nope, don't remember."
"Anyway, I just ordered a self-assemble cabinet online"
"That's so cool. A cabinet that can assemble itself?" Alex exclaimed. Clover and Sam stared at their friend with concerning looks.
"That's not what self-assemble mean is it…?"
Sam shook her head. "So, finish your breakfast, girls. We're going to build a bathroom cabinet today."
"No thanks. I just got my manicure done." Clover flicked her hand and headed upstairs when Sam grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back.
"No, you're not. You are building this with us."
"How about I go out to get you guys some food first?"
"No, no. You always do this then you come home right after we've finished the job."
"How about we—"
"No."
Alex carried the box to the living room.
"Why didn't you just order a cabinet?"
"It'd be a waste of money." Sam explained.
"Well, this is a waste of time." Clover let out an inaudible sigh.
"It's gonna be a lot of fun, trust me." She quickly added. "Plus, you'll learn your lesson and stop breaking things."
Alex unpacked the box by dumping everything on the floor and Sam staring at her with utter shock. Noticing Sam's expression, Alex stuffed everything back into the box and pushed it over to Sam.
"On second thought, why don't you unpack it to make less of a mess…?"
After Sam finished re-unpacking the pieces and organized them in her own system, they gathered around and got to work.
Clover pulled out the instruction booklet which was nearly as thick as a phone book.
"I can't read this." Clover said, tossing the booklet aside.
"Come on, Clover. Co operate." Sam handed her the booklet again.
"No, I can't read this."
"Would you just rea—"
"It's in Chinese."
Sam checked the instructions herself. "What? But I got this from IKEA." After furiously flipping through pages of the instruction booklet, she decided to stick to the diagrams instead.
After 20 minutes of struggling, they have finally managed to find the required part for the top.
"Right, now let's actually get started." Sam clapped her hands together.
Sam was instructing them on what to do based on the diagrams, Clover was looking for the different parts and handing them to Alex who was putting them together. Their system was working well and no one was fighting until, Clover couldn't find a part Sam was asking for.
"What do you mean you can't find it? It has to be there somewhere."
"But it's not. Look for yourself, Sam." Clover stepped aside.
Sam began her search for the missing bolt while Clover and Alex were off to the kitchen.
"Hey, are you guys also looking for it?" Sam shouted from the living room where she was kneeling on the floor to look underneath the couch.
"Yeah we are." They answered absent-mindedly as they poured hot water into cup noodles for each other, not bothering to search for the bolt.
"I can't find it anywhere. Can you guys check the front door? It might've dropped out of the box"
Alex stirred the noodles around. "Sure, we will."
"It's not here either." Sam raised her hands up in surrender.
Alex and Clover walked up to her, each carrying a noodle cup and blowing on it to cool it down.
"You sure you've checked everywhere, Sammy?" Alex asked
"Where did you guys get the noo-"
"That doesn't matter. What matters now is that we have a missing part and I can run down to the hardware store to get it." Clover interrupted halfway.
"No, you're not going anywhere. You don't even know where it is." Sam walked out. "I'll go and get the part while you guys can assemble the rest." And on that stern note, she left.
"Well who wants to watch America's Next Top Model?" Clover flopped onto the couch as soon as the door closed. Puzzled by the silence from Alex, Clover turned to her side with an arm propping her head up to see the girl, she cocked an eyebrow. "Don't you want to watch it?"
Alex bit her lips, avoiding Clover's gaze. She actually wanted to finish assembling the cabinet but if Clover knew this, she'd freak out and tease her for sure.
"Alex, you can't just ignore me. I am literally right here." Clover moved in front of Alex to meet her eyes but she turned the other way.
"Now you're actually ignoring me just to avoid answering the question." Clover put a hand on Alex's shoulder and tried to turn the girl to face her, but Alex had her head down.
"Do you just want to continue building the cabinet then?"
Alex slowly nodded her head.
"Oh my god, why didn't you just say so?" Clover took a seat next to Alex, and joined her with the assembling.
Alex started giggling when she saw Clover helping her out. "The silent treatment works every time."
"I hate you." Clover scrunched up her nose, pretended to be mad at Alex but she couldn't supress her smile. She got up to grab a pillow from the couch to sit on and saw a piece of metal fall out. She picked it up to examine.
"Hey, I think this is the missing part."
Alex got up to see it for herself. "Oh yeah it is. We have to call Sam, she's out buying a new part." She reached for the phone but Clover stopped her.
"This is strange. How did it end up in the couch? Also, didn't Sam check the couch? It would've been really easy to spot it." Clover said.
"What are you saying,Clover?"
"I say we go down and look for Sam ourselves. I'm pretty sure we won't find her at the hardware store." Clover gave Alex a mischievous grin that Alex usually interpreted it as Clover's evil monologue smile.
Alex sat back down on the floor. "You go find Sam. I'll stay here and finish this."
"Aw, you sure you want to skip this opportunity to bust Sam?" Clover ruffled Alex's hair as she skipped to the door. "I'll tell you everything."
Sam was sitting at a table. Reading a book. And eating a sundae. At a coffee shop. She was as relaxed as ever. She wasn't worrying about the mess at home or the cabinet that was needed to be assembled or the homework that was due in two days. She was in a coffee shop, enjoying her alone time with a book and a sundae.
And Clover saw all of it.
After taking some pictures of Sam, she quickly ran back home to show Alex her achievement.
"Alex! Alex! Look! Look at this!" She shoved her phone into Alex's face. The brightness of the screen made the girl squint.
"Clover, I'm right here. No need to shout." She grabbed the phone and swiped through a gallery of Sam reading and eating in different angles. "That's a lot of pictures you took."
"I was so excited I couldn't stop clicking the camera" Clover pulled her arms above her head to stretch and flopped down onto the couch, feeling sastified with her work.
"Hey! I finished assembling the cabinet." Alex showed off her achievement to Clover, like a kid showing her parents her A plus.
"That's nice." Clover said dismissively, without glancing at the cabinet. "How do you think I should confront her?"
Alex slumped down, disappointed with Clover's reaction. "Just tell her normally."
"No, I want it to be spectacular. Maybe we should bake her a cake and write something on top of it. Something like 'Who's the lazy one now huh?' Alex phased out as her blonde friend continued to ramble on and on.
She heard the click of the door and it swung open. Stood outside was Sam, her hand holding a bag of bagels. "Oh hey guys, I went to the shop but I couldn't find the missing part. But I did buy some bagels for you guys."
"Cut the crap, Sam." Clover flashed out her phone. "We caught you chilling while we were working hard on the cabinet."
"I was working hard on the cabinet." Alex mumbled to herself.
"Oh look, you guys found the missing part…" Sam slowly backed away.
"Yep, at the exact spot where you hid it." Clover snapped.
Sam smiled and tried to play it off like a joke "Heh..uh..I was trying to have you learn a lesson from this, you know? Hardwork and such."
"Don't even bother." Clover put her hand Sam's face to shut her up. "You are irresponsible. I am responsible."
"Well technically I b—"
"BOTH OF YOU STOP IT!" This certainly had shut up both Sam and Alex. They were stunt by the sudden outburst from by their usually quiet friend, Alex.
"You guys did nothing. Clover, you were just trying to bust Sam. Sam, you were just trying to bust Clover. I built the cabinet." With that, Alex left the room leaving Clover and Sam feeling guilty.
A/N : Really really late update. I've started this a year ago but I sort of forgot about it. After spending a week watching season 6 online, I decided to finish this off :)