Chapter 1 - Naturally Difficult
The Color of Our Memories
Chapter 1 - Naturally Difficult
- Jessica’s POV -
Our dining room was filled with the chatter of eight girls; my fellow group mates. We chatted amongst ourselves and although everyone had just woken up and was now eating breakfast together, quiet bursts of laughter could be heard regardless.
A large percentage of that laughter belonged to three people in particular, the three pranksters of our group: Sooyoung, Yuri and... Hyoyeon.
Hyoyeon...
Throughout the time we ate our breakfast together I had my face practically plastered onto my bowl. Hyoyeon sat directly across from me at our rectangular dining table. Occasionally I would look up to respond to whatever Sunny was talking to me about and then my eyes would wander to look over at Hyoyeon.
As I ate my cereal, I could hear everyone erupt into laughter all of a sudden. Taeyeon's signature ahjumma laugh and the clapping of Tiffany’s hands rung in my ear. Not bothering to quench my curiosty and focus my attention as to why everyone was laughing, I continued munching on my breakfast. I faced down the entire time, concentrating on the crispy, sugar coated flakes in my mouth. They tasted gross. This high fiber stuff Seohyun’s been feeding us isn’t very good.
"Jessie-." Tiffany called me but then cut off her own sentence. She clapped her hands together before placing both of them over in laughter.
"It's so early in the morning why are you all laughing?" I asked still somewhat groggy.
"Sica, Sica-" I heard Hyoyeon call my name and so I turned my attention towards her.
Instantly she went into an exaggerated reenactment of me eating my cereal. Her face dug almost all the way into the bowl leaving barely enough space near the edge for her spoon to direct cereal into . When she reached up for her orange juice, she slightly tilted her head up so that her lips could stretch out to meet the edges of the glass.
Everyone laughed even harder once Hyoyeon up the orange juice with her face still half buried into the ceramic white bowl. She looked like a baby duck reaching for food. I covered my mouth with my hands as I let out a slightly high pitched laugh, my nose wrinkling. I took a nearby napkin and threw it at Hyoyeon in fake annoyance.
"Bwo..." I whined, calming down.
"Omo Jessica why do you eat your cereal like that?" Sooyoung asked while she went back to eating her cereal, her breathing regulating. "Sit up straight."
"Says the slouching Shikshin." Yuri said from her end of the table. Sooyoung then straightened up her posture at the remark, her shoulders forming a straight line.
"I was wondering the same thing while I was talking to you." Sunny told me.
"Sooyoung's posture?" Yuri asked.
"No obviously not that. We all know inside the dorm Sooyoung's posture ." Hyoyeon said answering for Sunny as she finished up her breakfast. After a few more munching motions, she swallowed down her food and scrunched up her eyebrows.
“Seohyun this high fiber stuff tastes horrible.” Hyoyeon stuck out her tongue and smacked her lips together a few times trying to get the slightly bitter after taste out. I see I wasn't the only one who thought that.
Seohyun put down her spoon and pouted at Hyoyeon. “Why did you eat it then unnie?”
“If Hyoyeon didn’t, you would’ve probably force fed her.” Sooyoung chimed in, brushing past Seohyun as she made her way to her sink with her dishes.
I remained quiet in my seat, just absent mindedly observing the scene before me. I ignored the fact that everyone was getting up to leave and stayed put in my seat, my head resting on top of my palms. Maybe because I had been doing it so often now but staring at Hyoyeon without her noticing had become a habit. It became so normal for me that I didn't notice that I had knocked over a glass of orange juice on my right while shifting my weight.
"Are you that sleepy?" Hyoyeon immediately stopped doing the dishes and came over to my side. She picked up the tipped over glass and flicked me on the forehead. I flinched a little and rubbed the space between my eyebrows. She wiped up a bit of the spill with a rag and took the glass over to the sink, patting my head on her way across. I grinned widely on the inside.
"Stop staring at me and help me out will you?" Hyoyeon said over the running sink water. "You're such a princess." she continued laughing lightly.
"Who said I was looking at you?" I retorted, hiding how surprised I felt. "Someone's a bit self absorbed."
"Its okay Jessica unnie I'll help Hyoyeon unnie out you can go." Seohyun said cleaning up the mess I made.
"But aren't you going out soon?" I looked around searching for the others who were now in their respective rooms. "I thought you were going to visit your parents."
"I'll go whenever Sooyoung and Yoona unnie go. We're leaving together."
"Besides you weren't gonna help anyway Sica." said Hyoyeon.
I stuck out my tongue towards Hyoyeon and got up from my seat, tucking in the wooden piece of furniture afterwards. I took one last look at Hyoyeon before taking off towards me and Sooyoung's room.
Hyoyeon noticed me looking and lifted her eyebrows in curiosity.
"What, wanna help out now?" She asked still in the process of cleaning the dirty eating utensils we had just used. I shook my head in response.
"Just thinking how pretty you looked."
For a short moment she just looked at me in surprise, a light shade of pink surfacing on her cheeks. Slowly a grin crept up on her and she took a wet rag and threw it at me while chuckling in that husky voice of hers. I quickly dodged the blue wet piece of cloth, the rag landing on the floor with a 'plop'.
I walked down towards me and Soo's room with a hop in my step. Making her blush sure is fun.
“Did you just call Hyoyeon pretty?” Sooyoung came out of the washroom with a toothbrush in . “Yuri get out here, your wife’s cheating on you!”
I erupted into laughter, the energy I got from seeing our dancing queen blush feeding my high spirits, and skipped away to the room I shared with Sooyoung. Once I arrived at the door I put my hand on the golden knob and turned it, revealing the mess I called my resting place.
Now that its just me and her today, I guess I'll be doing most of the blushing without her even doing anything.
***************
There was this awkward silence in the living room with only me and Hyo. Her curled toes probably stabbed through her feet by now with how tense the atmosphere was.
Lately it had become increasingly difficult for me to be even around her. Sure I was fine when we were with everyone else, but being alone with just her makes me a nervous mess.
I don't know when it first started, I don't know how it did but lately I've caught myself one too many times staring at her in a way I shouldn't have been. Having thoughts I shouldn't have had.
They were simple thoughts, nothing dirty. Its not like I didn’t find her ually attractive, but I just couldn’t imagine her . I didn’t feel quite right with it. All I want to do is hold her and feel her close to me. To look into her eyes and express everything I had built up in one look, and then just maybe, maybe, she would feel the same way about me.
And that's what makes what I've been feeling terrifying.
Holding her hand seems to take longer than it should, our lazy out of habit hugs have me clinging on longer than usual and anything she wears seems to make her beautiful. My eyes never stop looking for her... it's weird. Its not normal.
It scares me, yet at the same time feels like the most natural thing in this world.
The simple displays of affection we do as close friends... I don't want to do them as friends.
“Jesshika.”
I stopped with my current train of thought and came back to reality. The awkward atmosphere between me and Hyoyeon hit me like a strong gust of wind knocking open a closed door during a winter blizzard.
Sometimes I wish this feeling would go away.
"Sooyeon..." Hyoyeon said putting extra emphasis on my Korean name and then trailed off near the end. Immediately my ears perked up, shaking away any thoughts I had pertaining to me and Hyo at the moment.
"Yah, its 'Jessica'. 'Jessica' you got that?" I replied saying my name in an english accent as I faced towards the TV. I hugged my knees close to my chest, my back against the foot of the couch Hyoyeon was on.
"Aish, I don't know why you don't like that name. I think its pretty."
"Since when did your opinion count?" I joked, trying to hide the redness surfacing on my face.
Sound from the television set quietly rendered into the living room, it's volume low enough for our voices to layer over it. Hyoyeon laid on the couch upside down, her feet up in the air with her head hanging off the edge of the seating. I took a look at her spacing out and just as I did she turned her gaze upon me. Quickly I moved my head away pretending that I was watching the news report being shown, even though the audio was barely audible.
"So, Jesshika,” Hyoyeon spoke up, imitating my English accent. I chuckled a bit at her attempt. "What do you want to do today?"
"Hmm... well you know I don't like going out much. How about we stay in for today?"
I knew she had felt like using our day off for going out despite the cold out. Throughout the week she always talked about going ice skating since she never learned how to skate. Did I want to go out just to fall on my bum? No, no thank you. Especially not in front of her.
From the corner of my eye I could see a disgruntled look slowly come upon her face as she stared at me with furrowed eyes. I could see her puckering her lips outward and filling her cheeks with air, making two round balls on each side of her face.
I felt my heart skip a beat as she continued to make the same expression.
And you say you at doing the whole cute thing. Lies.
There was a long pause before she replied in a dragged out sigh.
"Alright." Hyoyeon said, adjusting her position on the couch so that she was sitting up right. Her blonde locks flipped over her slender face, hiding her features.
Stifling a chuckle, I put my palms to my now bright red cheeks and rubbed them in an attempt to get the discoloration to go away. I continued at this in the time Hyoyeon had her eyelids closed, making sure she didn't notice.
Whose bright idea was it to leave me alone with Hyo?
Recently I had gotten better at not letting my nerves get ahead of me when I'm around Hyoyeon. For a moment I would try and make myself think that I didn't have any feelings towards her, and then this numbness would appear. It's like freezing my own heart over. I freeze it over yet she always seems to melt it all away by giving me one look.
Stop blushi-
Right then I felt a hand snake its way under my bangs and onto my forehead, and then suddenly it hit me.
"Are you okay?"
She's been staring at me this whole time.
"Lately you've been looking really... red." Hyoyeon said her voiced drenched with genuine concern. She eyed me worriedly. "You sure you don't have a cold or anything? You've been spending a lot of time out in the cold recently."
She paused for a second, still looking at me with the same gaze.
"Nae, umma-"
I had my hand on her wrist so that I could take her hand off my forehead but she grabbed my hand instead and pulled me in forcefully, closing the minuscule distance between our faces. Everything was happening so fast I couldn’t react to what she was about to do, only to close my eyes and hold my breath.
...
She stopped just as the tips of our noses touched and put her forehead against mine. Her breath tickled the top of my lip.
"You don't seem to be hot." Hyoyeon paused. I could feel her eyes bore into mine despite having my eyelids closed. "Wait, no. Maybe you do have a cold. You seem warmer now, no wai- What the heck Sica, you’re burning up!" Repeatedly she touched different spots on my face frantically.
I fluttered my eyes open slowly, my chest heaving slightly and my shaky breathing heavy. The first thing I saw were Hyoyeon's pink lips, teasing me ever so much from how close they were to mine. I could hear my heart pounding against my chest, the sound ringing clearly in my ears. My eyebrows furrowed from the pressure I felt in my chest area.
I eyed her lips and bit my bottom lip without noticing.
It hurts. My chest hurts.
"Don't take your nickname so seriously 'Ice Princess'." she continued, grinning as her worries subsided. The smile didn't reach her eyes but it held so much genuine concern and sincerity that it made my heart jump out of my chest (as if it wasn't out on the floor already).
I put my hand over my chest and grabbed at the fabric in pain.
"It hurts..." I said in a whisper, my voice choppy. Hyoyeon still had her forehead against mine. She tilted her head to the side in confusion and tried to meet my lowered gaze.
"What?"
I can't take this anymore.
Instantly I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her away, not realizing how much strength I had used due to how flustered I was. Hyoyeon crashed down onto the floor, the back of head almost hitting the wooden ground.
"Yah! What was tha-"
"I-I'mgoingtothebathroom." I mumbled in one breath. Quickly, I paced myself over to the washroom in short steps. I almost tripped over my own feet midway but thankfully I holstered myself up by leaning against a wall.
I opened the bathroom door and closed it as soon as I got in.
"Calm down Jessica. Calm down." I hovered above the bathroom sink and then looked at my reflection in the mirror. I could still feel my heart pounding furiously. "You can't let this go on."
Slouching over the sink I could hear the front door from the living room open. Tiffany and Taeyeon's voices echoed throughout our dorm soon after.
"We're baaaack." Tiffany said in a sing song voice. I could faintly hear the door close shortly after with a click. The sounds of rustling shopping bags could be heard.
I decided to make my way to the living room hesitatingly, my route slowly diverging towards me and Sooyoung's room instead.
Just pretend nothing happened. You didn't mistake Hyoyeon checking your temperature for a kiss. You didn't anticipate one.
"Oh, Hyoyeonnie whats wrong?" Taeyeon asked. The volume of their voices were clear enough for me to make out what they were saying. I stopped just before I could enter the living room, hiding behind a wall.
"I think Sica's mad at me. I don't know, she's been acting weird lately." I heard Hyoyeon reply.
"Well, when are you guys not fighting." Taeyeon said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Yesterday you guys got angry and cried over who got to sit in the back seat." Tiffany chimed in, her light chuckles mixing in with her talking. "I wouldn't be surprised if it was something similar this time."
"I don't know. There wasn't anything for her to get mad at me for though. Today seems different. The atmosphere was... different. "
The atmosphere was different.
The atmosphere was different.
The atmosphere was different.
That one sentence repeated itself countless times in my head before it sunk in.
A hint of fear began to fill me, killing the butterflies I had in my stomach from a few moments ago.
She knows. They'll all know eventually.
*************
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