Taeyeon had never once cared about appearances or realized how important they were in the shallow world that she lived in until she decided to confess to Tiffany Hwang when she was just seven years old.

Wiping off the snot from her runny nose—it was a cold morning that day—Taeyeon walked up to Tiffany, who was talking animatedly with her group of friends. She had the cutest smile on whenever Tiffany babbled about god knows what since Taeyeon would be too mesmerized to pay attention.

“Tip-Tippany?” Unintentionally, Taeyeon squeaked out her name. Way to be confident, Taengoo.

The love of her life, the apple of her eye, the girl that stole her heart turned to face her with an inquiring look. God help her, she wanted to faint. But she had a mission, and that mission was to make Tiffany her girlfriend or wife, whichever the six year old preferred since Taeyeon would settle for either.

“Yeah?” Tiffany asked in that sweet bubbly voice of hers.

“I… I um, I, you—“ She couldn’t stop the incoherent mumble of her words because Tiffany’s big, brown eyes were batting those long eyelashes at her.

“Just say it!” One of Tiffany’s friends interrupted in irritation.

“J-Jelly!” Taeyeon suddenly shouted. It slipped out reflexively because that was her favorite snack and she was going to give some to Tiffany after her confession. Maybe they can go over to the slide later and Tiffany can feed her at the bottom of it. Kekeke.

“What?” Tiffany’s friend number two said the one word that they were all thinking.

Taeyeon shifted her feet as she clutched the bag of gummy fishes in her hand. “Will you be my girlfriend, Tippany? I’ll give you some jelly if you say yes.” Her head tilts after that as she raises the bag of jelly as a present.

It’s the cutest gesture ever. No one should be able to refuse, but then the unthinkable happens and the bag of jelly is suddenly smacked out of her hands and to the ground, scattering the fishes everywhere just like her heart.

She didn’t catch who did it, because she didn’t waste another second to run back into the classroom with tears running wildly down her cheeks.

Ew, the snot-nosed, ugly Taeyeon likes you, Tiffany!

“Taeyeon, what happened?” Seohyun, their teacher, knelt down and managed to catch the girl that had tackled into her.

“L-Love hurts.” Taeyeon whimpered as she buried herself into the hug. She learned a valuable lesson that day: Love is pain.

The next day was unbearable.

“Umma, I can’t go to school today. I’m sick.” Taeyeon complained, but one stern look from her knowing mother made her straighten up and grab for her backpack.

Mrs. Kim bent her knees to be at eye level with her daughter. “It’ll be okay, Taetae. You’ll learn to move on, trust me. There are other fish in the sea.”

Taeyeon pouted with tears threatening to pool once again. “I don’t like fish, umma! I like Tippany!”

Adults were so oblivious to romance. Did her mom not understand how much she was hurting over the rejection?

Mrs. Kim choked back her laugh as Taeyeon dramatically stormed out of the house to enter the school bus.

“Over here, Taengoo!” Sunny waved in the back of the bus, which was a terrible move on her part because then Taeyeon would have to pass all these students who were snickering and whispering about her.

“T-Taeyeon—“ A tiny hand grabbed her sleeve.

Taeyeon stopped midway and turned her head to the side. Just one look at Tiffany brought the pain back, so she quickly bowed and fastened her pace over to Sunny.

“You okay?” Sunny threw her arm over her shoulder so Taeyeon’s head had nowhere to be but on Sunny’s shoulder.

“Not really.” Taeyeon admitted as she leaned against Sunny. She wanted to cry all over again. Not only was she ugly, rejected by the girl of her dreams, but now she was the laughingstock of the school.

“Want me to beat her up? Will that make you feel better?”

Taeyeon’s eyes widened at Sunny’s suggestion. “No! Don’t hurt her, Sunkyu or I won’t share my apple juice with you anymore!”

“Oh my god.” Sunny straightened her shoulders and kept shut, not wanting to upset Taeyeon any further. Apple juice was on the line and one box per student was just plain cruel, which is why she usually drinks the rest of Taeyeon’s.

Taeyeon used to love recess. It was a time where she can freely stare at Tiffany from afar, eat some jelly, and daydream more about Tiffany. It was usually Tiffany, eat, Tiffany, but not exactly in that order.

But now, she had nothing. Since she was only allowed a bag of jelly per week, Taeyeon had nothing to console her dejected heart. And she couldn’t look at Tiffany anymore because it was too heartbreaking to. Her heart is still trying to fix itself.

“Taeyeon-ssi.”

Her blood ran cold when she recognized whose voice it was. Dropping the stick that she had mindlessly been writing Tiffany’s name in the sand with, Taeyeon looked up to find Tiffany staring down at her with bright red cheeks. She had pigtails on today, and it made Taeyeon’s heart race.

A cute, chubby-cheeked pig.

“Can we talk?” PigFany’s face had a look of determination.

“U-Um…” Taeyeon hesitated. She didn’t want to know what Tiffany had to say. It would probably be something along the lines of  ‘Ew, I can’t believe you like me.’ or ‘I can do so much better. Puh-lease.’

“Is Sunny your girlfriend?” Tiffany couldn’t hold it in any longer as she asked the question.

It sounded accusing, as if Tiffany was upset with her.

“Huh?” Taeyeon’s eyebrows wrinkled together, noticing the little pout that was now on Tiffany’s face.

“So you did move on.” There was a devastated sigh as Tiffany clenched the frills of her dress. “You don’t like me anymore.” She sounded close to tears, and Taeyeon had no idea what she was supposed to do because she herself was feeling confused.

“I still like you.” Taeyeon confessed in a whisper. Even if she didn’t want to admit it, she couldn’t lie to Tiffany.

“But you hugged Sunny and you were ignoring me and you stopped sitting by the slide so I had to look everywhere before I could find you to tell you I like you too.” Because all the words came gushing out of the six year old, it was difficult to keep up. But all she heard and all she needed to hear were the last four words.

“You l-like m-me?”

Those two tiny hands came crashing down on Taeyeon’s cheeks, squeezing lightly. “More than I like pink.” Tiffany and her big, adorable eyes confessed, and Taeyeon nearly fell over if it weren’t for Tiffany holding her cheeks in place.

Everyone knows how much Tiffany likes pink. Heck, she was dressed entirely in pink right now.  It’s a huge deal.

Taeyeon’s eyes began to water. It was a dream come true, Tiffany liked her back.

“And I’m sorry about yesterday. It was mean of Jessica and Yuri to do that to you, so I got you something.”

Taeyeon was sad when Tiffany’s hands left her cheeks. She wanted to bring them back, until she saw what Tiffany had taken out of her pocket.

A new bag of gummy fishes.

“Will you be my wife, Taeyeon?”

Good thing Taeyeon kept wife as one of the options. “Okay.”

Before they knew it, they were happily talking and eating jelly together.

“Wait, Taeyeon!”

The girl stopped herself before the green fish can go in .

“Eat this one instead.” Tiffany ordered as she replaced Taeyeon’s fish with the one she chose. “Only eat this one, okay?”

A pink gummy fish. Pink because it represents Tiffany. Tiffany’s the only pink fish in the sea for Taeyeon.

“I’ll only eat this one.” Taeyeon agreed as she gobbled up the pink jelly. 

So... whatchu guys think? haha. was it too fast-paced? xD