a/n: Last chapter. Thank you for reading. :)

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Taeyeon woke up with a groan.

She would always forget about the tattoo she got with Tiffany until she laid on her bed, her left side and pressed it against her pillow.

She sat up, drowsiness drifting away, and reached for the small healing tattoo at the back of her left ear, just beside the end of her scar. Taeyeon was so sure she'd regret it, but Tiffany assured her that she won't. She swore she even heard her boss' voice telling her to do more stupid things while she was being continuously poked by the tattoo machine.

A week has passed since she got it, and maybe a small part of her still kind of regrets it, but the huge part was surprisingly okay. Yes, it was definitely something she would never do, but maybe she needed more of those. She needed to stop being so afraid and conscious all the time.

Tiffany always told her that second chances are hard to come by, and if it ever did, she sure as hell should take advantage of it.

And she would, Taeyeon knew that now. She was finally learning.

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The following days had Taeyeon preoccupied from morning to evening.

She passed by a hardware store one day and just decided to buy tons of paint, in different shades of blue and purple. She spent days repainting her whole apartment, throwing out old furniture and rearranging the whole place until it looked and felt brighter. The whole time, Taeyeon hummed and danced along to new songs Tiffany had recommended, most she had never heard before.

On the last day of her self-renovation project, she made the other girl help her move in some of the new furniture she bought. They lay on the floor after, panting and sweating on Taeyeon's new rug.

"Thanks for helping me," she said, poking the other girl on her sweaty cheek before getting swatted.

"I'm here for the free food, Zombie Girl."

"Who told you there was gonna be food?"

"Jerk."

Taeyeon's loud laugh filled her freshly painted apartment.

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And just like that, Taeyeon's sixty days were almost up.

For the past month, she had gotten another tattoo on her wrist that said 'alive' in cursive, something Tiffany had chosen for her because it suited her well now that she didn't look like a walking ghoul. They had gone bungee jumping too, something Taeyeon surprisingly enjoyed and had to go for a second round, to which Tiffany had shakily declined after her first jump.

Taeyeon found herself laughing more and worrying less too, and whenever she couldn't sleep at night she would message Tiffany instead of taking sleep aids, also saving the other girl from her boring graveyard shifts.

Sometimes, on quiet nights such as this one, she'd visit her in the hospital and bring her snacks.

The morgue was colder now that winter was just around the corner, but Taeyeon was feeling incredibly warm with Tiffany sitting really close beside her.

"So, how does it feel to be alive again?" The girl asked, bumping her on the shoulder playfully. It has become her favorite question.

Taeyeon smiled as she sipped on her hot chocolate, turning to look at Tiffany who was munching on a sandwich. The girl was wearing the pink pullover she gave her for her birthday two months ago. "Like jumping off a tower. Exhilarating." She grinned.

Tiffany's face crumpled in a grimace and she couldn't help but laugh.

"We're not doing that again, Taeyeon."

"You're no fun. What about all the talk about living life to the fullest? About second chances—Hey!"

Tiffany shoved her a bit more forceful this time, scowling in mock anger.

Two months ago, Taeyeon would never get a tattoo, would never jump off a tower, would never even take a vacation. And five months prior to that she wasn't even alive, but here she was, with two tattoos on her skin, two 50-meter jumps under her belt, and sixty days less from her paid vacation leaves.

She could hardly believe it herself. For the first time after waking up in the morgue, she finally stopped questioning why she was given a second chance. Like what Tiffany had always told her, what's important was that she was alive. And she was, she even have the scar and the tattoo to prove it.

"It's funny how I had to die first before I could learn how to live," Taeyeon said all of a sudden, more to herself than to Tiffany. She felt the girl lean her head on her shoulder and it warmed her even more.

"Not many people realize that until it's too late. I'm glad you did, though." The girl replied as she scooted even closer, bumping their shoulders playfully.

Taeyeon finally looked at the empty metal table in front of them and smiled.

"Yeah," she said, bumping the girl back. "Me too."

The End.

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a/n: Mortuary was written without the intention of being a pairing-heavy story. The cheerful girl in scrubs could be anyone, but because I'm most comfortable in writing taeny, Tiffany was an absolute first pick. But really, I just wanted to show the two different ends of a spectrum—life and death, sadness and happiness, dullness and brightness, etc—and play around with the concept. And I believe, at some point, and on some level, we all got to relate to Taeyeon's existential dilemmas (and/or Tiffany's weird perpetual jolly demeanor lol).

Also, this was never planned as a long story, and as much as I wanted to apologize for the short length, I don't think I really can because the story just came to be like that. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed writing this one, and I hope you enjoyed reading too. :)