Tiffany

The day darkened and I became even more worried by the second. It was about two hours now since Jessica left to meet her colleague for some business issues. What if the ‘colleague’ was Jessica’s ex? What if Jessica was attracted to her? What if…argh! So many ‘what ifs’! I should stop thinking like that. Firstly, why would I care? Secondly, I trusted Jessica not to lie to me. But then I received a phone call…and I couldn’t think at all. My mind was blank and I simply stood there, frozen while the person on the other line continued to talk. It was as good as talking to a stone wall. Before I heard anymore, I hung up. No, that’s not possible. It’s not possible. Goddamn it! It’s not possible! Tears were trickling down my face as I fell to the ground lifelessly. I never truly realised the true meaning of appreciation until then. The appreciation of a good deed that I couldn’t repay, the appreciation of a beautiful angel that changed my life for good and the appreciation for a companion to help me cope with my empty and painful life. I never truly appreciated Jessica Jung until now.

I didn’t care about anything else, but raced to the hospital barefoot. I didn’t bother to put on any warm clothing in the harsh winter and the cold stung and bit into my flesh, but I kept on running. The tears on my face could’ve been frozen for all I’ve known. I just ran and ran with only Jessica in my mind.  The blonde idiot who paid attention to me, who never turned me down for anything at all and asked for nothing in return. The more I thought of it, the faster I ran. I only stopped when I was outside the operation theatre, panting with my hands resting on my knees. There, I leaned against the wall, panting and clutching at my chest as I slid down onto the cold floor. I heard footsteps running to me and stopping just next to me. I didn’t look up and didn’t bother to see who it was. I only wanted to see Jessica. But I raised my head when I heard loud, echoing sobbing of a hysterical girl. She was roaring, trying to get past a blonde with short, cropped hair. The blonde was obviously a girl, but I was too distracted to even care. The sobbing brunette was beautiful and she reminded me of Jessica; in the same fierceness and the icy glint in those wet, caramel eyes. The brunette was struggling and thrashing against the blonde, screaming to be let in the operation theatre and basically causing uproar.

“No, Krystal, stop. Please…stop. You can’t. Please,” the blonde was pleading as she held on desperately to the brunette, Krystal.

“Let me go! I need to see her! I need to be with her! Let me—damn it, Amber, let me go!” with a cry of defeat, she collapsed against the blonde whom she had referred to as Amber and sobbed against Amber’s neck.

That name…Krystal. Isn’t she Jessica’s sister? I merely stared and didn’t utter a word during her fit. I didn’t even dare to breathe while watching Amber comfort Krystal with words that neither of them knows is true.

“Shh…Sica unnie will be fine. She’s strong, she’ll make it,” Amber said soothingly as she rubbed Krystal’s back and her brown hair.

Amber shot glares at the nurses who had their arms outstretched in an attempt to restrain the hysterical Krystal, who was now sobbing dry, broken sobs that shook her entire fragile body. One of the nurses had a needle in her hand to put Krystal to sleep, but stopped when Amber regained control over Krystal. Almost immediately, the group of nurses dispersed and Amber helped Krystal to sit on one of the plastic seats aligned along the wall. A few minutes after that, Taeyeon came racing in, car keys jingling in her hand, with a strained look on her face. I hid my face so that she wouldn’t see me. But I had obviously failed when I felt a gentle tug on my arm.

“Hey, why are you barefooted? You must be cold. Come on, get off the floor,” Taeyeon gripped my arm lightly and guided me to the seats, where Krystal was still crying into Amber’s shoulder.

Taeyeon fixed my messy hair with a forced, pained smile on her face that was meant to be reassuring. But she didn’t look to sure herself. Taeyeon draped a blanket which she had brought in from her car over me, wrapping me in warmth, but it wasn’t the warmth I wanted, wasn’t the warmth I needed for now. We waited in tense silence for about another two hours until the doctor came out with an expressionless face that made me even more nervous and afraid. I was the first to get to my feet and race towards the doctor.

“How is she? She’s fine, isn’t she, doctor? She’ll be okay, right?” I asked mindlessly, not caring if I sounded insane.

I felt Taeyeon’s grip on my wrists, pulling me back and trying to calm me. Slowly, she faced the doctor as well.

“How is she, doc?” Taeyeon asked.

Krystal had wanted to tackle the doctor as how I almost did, but was held back by Amber. Taeyeon told them to stay there and had told Amber to break it slowly to Krystal if it was anything serious.

“She has a massive blood clot in her brain. We have removed it, but we are not too sure if it is a 100% success,” the doctor said methodically.

“Well, how would we know?” Taeyeon demanded when I was on the verge of fainting.

“We won’t know until she wakes up. But that is if she wakes up. For now, she is in coma and we don’t know how long it will be.”

“Then what do you know? Do something! You can’t just leave her on a life-support machine and let her live like that? You have to do something!” I yelled into the doctor’s face, all politeness and sense of respect lost in the moment of hysteria.

“We’re doing all we can. We’re trying our best. I’m sorry, please excuse me,” the doctor walked away and I tried to go after him, to force him to come back and do whatever he could for Jessica, but Taeyeon held me back.

“Let me go! Taeyeon, let me go!” I cried, but Taeyeon’s strong grip didn’t let me go.

“I’m sorry, Tiffany. I’m so sorry,” I felt Taeyeon’s lips against my hair and I gave up, staring blankly with tears trickling down my face.

I was certain that had Taeyeon cried too.

Readers’ Note:

I had a hard time writing this one. I’m trying to put comparisons between Krystal’s and Tiffany’s reactions. Krystal’s reaction is just plainly sobbing and screaming and thrashing, while Tiffany takes on the ‘I’m guilty’ approach and just reacts hopelessly. Or am I just too deep? Hah. Well, I’m sorry, readers, for putting our dear Ice Princess in a coma. Don’t worry, I promised that this will be a JeTi fic. As I had said somewhere before, and my favourite tagline, JeTi is JeTi in life and death. And for readers who think that TaeNy is going to happen in Jessica’s absence, you thought wrong! Tiffany’s really messed up now. It’s going to take more than a crush and a magical kiss to get it past her head that she should move on. I was thinking YulSic next. Let the ‘out-of-body’ experience begin!

Thank you for reading!

Yours Faithfully
Jazzign