A/N: Faster update this time *nervously laughs* No more talk about this author hunting business alright? Right? ^_^;

The Color of Our Memories:

Chapter 11 – Shrapnel

“Taeyeon-ah, can I come in?”

The small group within the living room gradually stopped chattering amongst themselves, the sound of the television now prominent.

Tiffany had finally come out from her room. From how her and Taeyeon had locked themselves within their respective rooms since breakfast, the rest of the group naturally assumed that they must have gotten into an argument. As they all knew, during times like these, it was best to let the two sort things out themselves lest they wanted to become entangled in a mess they shouldn't have been in.

Despite having their faces glued to the screen, they attentively listened in, waiting to hear if Taeyeon would open her door and let the mushroom in. She did. But from how Tiffany’s less than amused expression was unchanging when the door opened, they all knew that whatever they had to discuss was either very serious or very minor to have fretted about in the first place.

“They have a photoshoot together next.” Yuri said plainly, finally breaking the silence.

“They’ll be fine.” Sunny responded, rolling over to have her back against the wooden floor.

Sunny chewed on the chocolate macaroon in , not entirely paying attention to its sweet taste as she mashed it with her teeth. She looked at the clock in the living room—a little under two hours until she has to leave for work.

She was itching for answers. She would not use direct measures like questioning because as the shikshin said, it wasn’t the time to. Why bother when simply observing provided all the answers she needed? With the current set up, Jessica was bound to slip up. Sunny expected it.

After calmly greeting the ice princess like the girl had never moved out, Sunny plopped down onto the couch beside Yuri. She didn’t fail to catch how the Shikshin side eyed her with forced composure, suddenly stuffing with a whole macaroon. All that did was fuel Sunny’s determination. Today everything would fit into one big piece.

“Finally! It’s on!” Yuri exclaimed, annoyed yet relieved that the sitcom was actually showing. She hugged the stuffed dolphin close to her body and sat up in full attention.

Meanwhile, Sooyoung sat at the foot of the sofa and ran through every possible way of getting Sunny to go away. She wished hard that two hours would pass.

The opening sequence for the sitcom began to play and Sooyoung groaned inwardly. The sweet macaroon in all of a sudden lost its taste once worry had overridden her senses. There was no hope; Sunny definitely wasn’t going to move from her spot and Jessica probably wouldn’t either.

As if a switch had been turn on, the whole dorm was swept with silence. The scene they had anticipated played first thing into the episode and when Hyoyeon’s lips ‘unexpectedly’ landed on Doojoon’s, Yuri was the first to give a restrained yelp, her dolphin plushie suffocating.

Then, there was silence once more and deeper and deeper into the kiss, the five members of So Nyuh Shi Dae felt awe struck. Mouths were gaping and breaths were caught in throats, all except for two in particular: one pursed her lips together firmly as she conjured an image of carrying Sunny out of the dorms, while another sat paying a bit more attention to a more than usual stone faced ice princess.

Jessica tore her eyes away from the television and grabbed another macaroon from the box. She couldn’t bear to watch any longer and as she tried to repair herself from the massive blow she received to the chest, she had only one thought, “That definitely wasn’t just acting”.

What difference did watching the actual scene make to Jessica? She was convinced that Hyoyeon and Doojoon held reciprocated feelings for one another. Watching the scene just stated the obvious. Besides, wasn’t she supposed to have accepted her fate? She shouldn’t be feeling hurt or jealous.

But she was.

Sooyoung could hardly digest the brilliance of Hyoyeon’s acting—Sunny and Jessica in the same room? There was no time to pay attention to a few careless peck on the lips!

She glanced at Sunny and panicked. Sunny was watching. Watching from behind those still damp bangs of hers, taking in every detail of Jessica’s movements and reactions. If this were to continue, Sooyoung just knew that the aegyo queen would find out. And so…

She switched off the television.

Just before Jessica, along with herself, Yuri and Yoona, could come to the part where the two on screen lovers gazed lovingly into each other’s eyes.

Everyone groaned, with the exception of Jessica who felt a sense of relief. Sunny chuckled inwardly to herself.

It was a fruitless attempt, as Sunny (who expected for Sooyoung to do such a thing and had moved to sit directly in front of the television) switched the television back on, allowing the rest to catch the most critical part of the scene. Sunny shot daggers from her eyes at the shikshin, who just stared back at her and pretended that she had committed no such crime.

Sunny crawled to the box of macaroons right beside Sooyoung’s thigh. She leaned in towards the box and in doing so, whispered into the shikshin’s ear, “Are you okay Sooyoung? You don’t look so good.”

Sooyoung balled her hands up into a fist. Damn Sunny and her brains.

“Yah! Kim Hyoyeon!” Yuri threw the heavily abused dolphin plushie at the television once the commercials came on with a huge grin on her face. She was excessively giddy at that point and she looked for ways to release her new found energy supply.

Yoona joined in the spazz session and began to converse animatedly with Yuri and Sunny about what they had just watched. Jessica joined in the conversation and as much as she hated to make positive remarks about the scene, she went as far as to say that, “They look good together.”

The words rolled off Jessica’s tongue like acid, but that was the price of normalcy. It was almost enough for Sunny to drop her suspicions about her altogether.

“Fashion King whaaaaat?” Yoona teased Yuri and poked her in the shoulder, “Your’s was nothing compared to Hyoyeon unnie’s.”

Yuri rubbed her shoulder in fake pain and retorted, “Obviously it would make a difference if the person I was acting with was my former crush.” Yuri said a matter-of-factly as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Former?” Sunny said eyeing Jessica from the side, expecting a reaction of some sorts, “I doubt that.”

“They’re probably together right now!” Yoona burst into laughter and rested her head on top of Sooyoung’s thigh.

“Maybe! Maybe!” Sunny clapped her hands together and pointed at Yoona in agreement.

Jessica’s ears perked up.She swallowed down to clear the nonexistent build up in .

Her anger was getting the best of her again.

Hyoyeon was the one who asked her to come to the dorms in the first place, asking her in a voice all too tainted with childish cuteness accompanied with such endearing actions. Hyoyeon was the one who seemed so eager to have her over, but she wasn’t here. She was nowhere to be found. Instead, she was out with him, doing who knows what. Did Hyoyeon forget that she was coming over? Did Hyoyeon even look forward to her arrival at all?

“Where is Hyoyeon?” Jessica asked trying to set things straight before her anger could cloud her judgement.

Sunny was hardly paying attention to Jessica anymore. She was too busy horsing around with Yoona and Yuri in singing an old Korean love song from the 90’s that they deemed perfect for Doojoon and Hyoyeon.

Sooyoung smiled. Sunny looked like she could care less now, but then she had another problem. Jessica was quieter than usual—a big difference in how she was so lively when she first arrived.

No one bothered to answer Jessica’s query and as the three continued to sing in off key, Jessica felt her irritation raise a couple of notches. All the jittery Sooyoung could hope was that by some miracle Jessica would cool down before she made a scene.

“Where’s Hyoyeon?” Jessica repeated the question again, but the difference in her voice—the sternness—was startling enough for the three to stop singing altogether. The three gave each other dumbfounded looks, largely due to the sudden change in Jessica’s attitude. “Why isn’t she here?”

“She’s probably out having fun wi—ouch!” Yuri’s sentence was cut short by a slap to the stomach by a dead serious Sunny. “What?” Yuri whined, rubbing the spot the aegyo queen hit.

Just then the door swung open, making a loud thudding noise once it hit the wall. A pair of feet tapped against the hardwood as their blonde haired owner entered the vicinity.

“Hey guys.”

***************

Sooyoung dropped the macaroon she had in her hand onto Yoona’s face below her on her lap, lips parting a little. Yoona flinched at first and was about to scold Sooyoung, but when she realized the close proximity of the macaroon to , she parted her lips and directed the pastry into with her tongue, soon after chewing on it contentedly.

Sooyoung glanced back and forth from a quietly fuming Jessica who watched Hyoyeon remove her shoes, and to a clueless Hyoyeon. Sooyoung pursed her lips together firmly. Just what on earth was Hyoyeon doing back so early.

“Oh. Hyoyeon unnie, you’re back.” Yoona waved her hand in the air lazily and tilted her head up from Sooyoung’s lap to get a quick look at the dancing queen who was in the process of closing the door and locking it. The dancer waved a hand in the air in acknowledgement, not bothering to smile and looked down at her feet as she took her sneakers off.

Yoona glanced at Jessica. Jessica was silently watching Hyoyeon with fire emitting from her eyes and if the silence continued, Yoona feared that her unnie would blow up any minute. Yoona had no idea why there was any reason for Jessica to be angry, but she felt like she should speak up to soothe the tension.

But before Yoona could even utter a single consonant or vowel, Hyoyeon spoke up.

“Why is it so quiet?” Hyoyeon asked while making her way over to the box of macaroons on the floor below Jessica’s feet.

Jessica turned away from Hyoyeon, just like she did when watching that scene. She was here, Hyoyeon was finally here. Jessica wanted nothing more than to greet her normally and to commend her on her excellent acting, but she just couldn’t. She was far too infuriated to and Hyoyeon hovered above her to take a macaroon from the box and gave a nonchalant, indifferent hello, Jessica’s blood boiled.

“Oh.” Hyoyeon placed the macaroon into and stared at Jessica blankly, "Hey."

That was it?

A measly little hello without even as much as a smile or a lame joke aimed at how stupid she was for moving out in the first place? Hyoyeon must have not cared at all if she was here or not. Jessica moved out, she minimized communication to insignificant yes’ or no’s, she pushed her feelings aside... why wasn’t Hyoyeon pulling her back? Why didn’t Hyoyeon ever take notice? She should have.

Hyoyeon should have chased her back and perhaps, thats what Jessica wanted all along. Perhaps all she wanted was for Hyoyeon to simply notice her; to look at her and just her, even if Hyoyeon would never be hers, even if she was supposed to be putting her love for the dancer in the past and had accepted that this would be as far as they would go: friends. It was selfish need, but it was one that couldn't be helped.

“Where were you?” Using all the courage she gathered up from her irritation, the ice princess finally spoke up and asked the question she had been meaning to ask ever since she arrived at the dorms.

Hyoyeon walked away as if she didn’t hear anything and went into the kitchen, chewing on the pastry in . Jessica jolted up from her seat, throwing the cushion she had on her lap onto the seat, and followed Hyoyeon into the kitchen. She didn’t care that she practically kicked Yuri’s dolphin out of the way and hit Yuri in the thigh as she did or that Sooyoung tugged at her hand weakly in opposition to what she was about to do.

“What’s up with her?” Yuri whispered to the three in the living room. Sunny put a finger over her own lips and mouthed for Yuri to just listen.

Within her peripheral vision, Hyoyeon saw Jessica walk into the kitchen with her arms crossed tight on top of her chest as she drank from a glass of water. She didn’t bother to care about how Jessica seemed to be irked at her because frankly she was tired of caring and thinking. What was strange however, was that even though she didn’t want to care, the plain sight of seeing Jessica within their dorm made Hyoyeon relieved and strangely happy—maybe too happy.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that, but Hyoyeon didn’t want to think about why it wasn’t and with all these foreign emotions swarming her, she suddenly felt like she wanted to go out again. Any longer in the dorms and she was bound to crumble under the weight of her self confliction. 

“Want some water?” Hyoyeon offered with indifference.

Jessica stared at the half empty glass for a brief moment. If she could, she would have frozen over the glass along with Hyoyeon’s hand. She nudged Hyoyeon’s offering hand away.

“Where were you?” Jessica spat out. She leaned against the kitchen counter near to the sink and crossed her arms tight over her chest again.

“Out.” Hyoyeon gave a curt reply void of any emotion. She finished drinking and placed the glass into the sink. Jessica watched with near to murderous intent, expecting (almost hoping), that Hyoyeon would suddenly twist on her heels and ask with the utmost concern why she was particularly upset.

The four in the living room pretended to watch the sitcom playing before them, even though they could care less about what was happening in comparison to the ensuing quarrel between the former roommates. They itched to intervene; to stop a fire before it started. Speaking, however, would mean to spell the wrath of a very fragile ice princess. They all lent their ears to catch Hyoyeon and Jessica’s conversation, tension building up in the air. Sunny laid comfortably on her back, unconsciously taking mental notes of Hyoyeon and Jessica’s conversation.

“With who?” Jessica firmly asked. “You didn’t even bother telling anyone where you went.”

Hyoyeon went into the fridge looking for something other than macaroons to eat. She gave a brief look up at Jessica, her eyes skirting the girl’s appearance and then stared at her dead on in the eyes.

“Why do you care?”

Jessica felt her heart skip a beat when she met Hyoyeon’s dark chocolate brown orbs. A thought flickered across her mind for a moment—Hyoyeon looked so smouldering like this.

How ridiculous. Wasn’t she supposed to be angry at Hyoyeon? Yet there she was, swooning over her. .

“You were with Doojoon weren’t you?”

“And what if I was?” Hyoyeon replied with that same indifference she had been wearing since she arrived and dug back into the fridge as if to dismiss Jessica’s presence.

Jessica nearly shot fire out of her ears. “She really doesn’t care does she?” She thought to herself.

“So you do still talk to him.” Jessica said.

Hyoyeon couldn’t lie about still contacting Doojoon from time to time. They would all find out anyway so why cover it up. She tried keeping it from Seohyun but that didn’t matter now. If it weren’t for the sitcom Hyoyeon probably wouldn’t have the sense of duty to keep in touch with the B2ST member.

“And? It's not like I can’t still be friends with him Sica.”

Lies, excuses, a cover up; that’s all that registered to Jessica.

“But you’re not just friends with him!” Jessica slammed the fridge door shut and hovered above a surprised Hyoyeon with a scowl on her face.

Hyoyeon fluttered her eyelids to collect herself and stepped back, exhaling sharply. She didn’t want to have to get into another meaningless fight with Jessica, but Jessica was making it painfully hard.

Hyoyeon’s patience was running thin. It had not been a good day for her, what with finding out about Taeyeon and Tiffany's secret relationship and having to add that to the million other things she kept herself up at night with. Apart from her meeting with Jinwoon and Seulong, the day (shortly put), . And now, with Jessica riding her for a reason Hyoyeon couldn’t even comprehend, the dancer was a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode.

“What is this really about Sica.” Hyoyeon said in a low growl, trying to hold herself back from raising her voice. She cocked her head to the side and stared at Jessica dead on in the eyes. Despite being angry, Jessica blushed nonetheless. Her conflicting feelings made her even more agitated.

“You’re still seeing him. All because of that stupid sitcom.” Jessica inhaled and exhaled heavily, her breath trembling with anger.

“It’s not a stupid sitcom,” Hyoyeon tried hard to keep herself calm. With her and Jessica being the most hot headed members of the group, it would be good if one of them kept level headed. “I worked hard on it; me, Seohyun and Sunny put our best into it so don’t say—”

Jessica scoffed, “Oh yeah, you definitely worked hard on that kiss.”

Hyoyeon clenched her teeth hard together. Jessica was being completely unreasonable and ridiculous. Hyoyeon couldn’t mistake it when she saw it in Jessica. The girl was jealous. But Hyoyeon knew it had to be something more than that for Jessica to be this infuriated.

Jessica gulped. The amount of hurt, anger and jealousy she felt was so overwhelming that condensation started to build up within her eye sockets. She wanted to get out before anyone, including Hyoyeon, could see her tears fall. Her voice croaked as she spoke,

“You’re such a liar.” She chuckled sarcastically, “ ‘I don’t know’? *Please. Don’t give me that. You obviously still love that bastard.”

And with that, Jessica stormed back into the living room, ignoring the looks the rest gave her, and grabbed her things. She didn’t bother slipping on her flats and instead grabbed them as she opened the door. Jessica slammed the door shut, causing the four in the living room to jump at the impact.

Hyoyeon stared down at the tiles and made balls with her hands. Her nails dug hard into her palms and she contemplated whether she should chase after Jessica or not.

“.” Hyoyeon mumbled under her breath. She didn’t like using ‘bitter words’ but at this point it really couldn’t be helped. “She just had to cry.”

She ran to the door hurriedly, putting her shoes on and swung it open. She slammed it hard against the door post once she left and for the second time that day the four in the living room jumped at the loud sound.

Sooyoung cursed herself and walked towards the door, opening it to look out in the direction the two left.

This is exactly what she feared would happen. Jessica would get overly personal about the sitcom and of course she would dash out to avoid showing just how hurt and angry she was. And to make things worse, Hyoyeon just had to chase after her. Oh Sunny definitely knew now. Those two made it nearly impossible not to know what was going on between them even if they didn’t understand it themselves.

“Okay...” Yoona, who was now sitting up, had her elbows rested on her thighs, her hands massaging circles on her temples. Her eyebrows were furrowed in confusion, “Why do I feel like I was watching a lovers’ quarrel?”

"Oh my god, you're right." Yuri's eyes widened as she fiddled with her fingers in her lap.

There was silence for a few moments and just as the tension in the air resided a little, the door to Taeyeon’s room flung open.

“Tiffany?” Yuri said. Tiffany didn’t bother to acknowledge the call and trudged across the living room towards her room,  the wood vibrating with each heavy step. Tiffany clearly was not happy at all and when Yuri took a closer look at her face, the girl noticed the redness in her eyes.

“Unn—”

SLAM!

Tiffany disappeared into her room and slammed the door shut. Yuri winced at the sudden impact. Sunny, along with Sooyoung and Yoona turned towards Tiffany’s room surprised. Each searched the other’s faces for answers but was met with confusion that matched theirs equally.

“Sometimes... sometimes I just have no idea what's going on in this group.” Yuri whispered softly.

*************

*Refer to Chapter 8.2, during the waiting room scene

A lot of rambling on in this chapter, but I think it’s necessary rambling lol

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