Mixing nine women with booze ensured chaotic hilarity. Hyoyeon was drunkenly y dancing to nonexistent music while Sooyoung cheered her on. Seohyun was nonstop gushing about a concert she attended to a seemingly uninterested Jessica. Yuri was blearily looking around for her bottle of tequila (which was actually right beside her) while Taeyeon snickered at her by the couch. Yoona was trying to count the number of polka dots on Tiffany’s navy blue and white dress while the latter tried to sneakily replace Sunny’s cup of vodka with water.
 

These were all occurring inside Tiffany’s condo, as she had invited them all to celebrate her magazine winning Magazine of the Year.
 

“Okay!” Jessica clapped her hands loudly and stood up, cutting Seohyun off mid-gush. “Bed time.”
 

Out of the nine of them, only Jessica was completely sober, as she had volunteered to be the designated driver for the other seven (but really, it was mainly because she was still nursing a hangover from the party she had attended the other night).
 

Tiffany stopped her tug-of-war with Sunny for the bottle of vodka and shot Jessica a grateful and relieved smile.
 

Since Jessica only drove a sedan, she had to make two trips to bring everyone home. With Taeyeon and Tiffany’s help, she was able to usher the livelier ones into her car (as they all tried to scrape off the image of Hyoyeon dancing on everyone in the elevator as if they were poles).
 

Taeyeon and Tiffany shared amused smiles all the way back to the latter’s room.
 

The two of them found Yuri face-planting the couch, high in the air. Sunny was lying down on the floor, fast asleep, cuddling the half-empty bottle of vodka as if it were a pillow.
 

Taeyeon shook her head at the funny sight.
 

“Water? Coffee?” Tiffany offered her, heading straight to the kitchen, completely ignoring the wasted people crashing on her living room, as if she’d seen it a hundred times (and she had).
 

“Uh…yeah. Sure. Just water please,” Taeyeon replied, following the brunette.
 

The party had been fun and a little crazy, but that was expected. Taeyeon wasn’t drunk—maybe just a little bit tipsy—and she liked it that way. She didn’t care for the hangovers and barf fests that typically occured when she got wasted—which rarely happened, anyway.
 

And as expected, Tiffany could hold her alcohol. She probably drank twice the amount of alcohol Taeyeon had, yet she still seemed sober.
 

“Here you go,” Tiffany said as she handed Taeyeon a glass of cold water. Taeyeon took it gratefully as Tiffany leaned back on the kitchen counter, quietly observing her as she drank it all up.
 

“What?” Taeyeon asked, amused.
 

Tiffany shook her head. “Nothing.” Then paused. “Okay, maybe there is something.”
 

Taeyeon raised her eyebrow in response, but internally, she got kind of nervous. They were new to the friendship thing after all, and she didn’t know if she had done something that may have bothered Tiffany.
 

“Thank you.”
 

“…Huh?”
 

“For being the photographer, I mean,” Tiffany hurriedly explained. “I’m sure the beautiful shots you took for the November issue largely contributed to the win.”
 

Taeyeon quickly shook her head in denial. “Hey, no. It was you. My photographs were only displayed in one issue out of twelve. You were the mastermind of all twelve issues,” Taeyeon rebutted, and as she watched Tiffany's eyes soften, she continued on. “Honestly, I really like reading your magazine. I’ve read it before you became the editor-in-chief, and you really changed some things for the better. Like adding that column on casual yet affordable comfy fashion tips. I…sometimes took note of the advice there, too,” she ended shyly.
 

Tiffany was struck speechless for a moment. Taeyeon's words were so genuine, and it made her very happy to know that her friends actually followed her magazine and cared enough for it. It was her baby, after all, and she worked hard to always find ways to innovate and improve on it.
 

“Thanks,” she finally said. “You don’t know how much that means to me. …But really. The photos you took turned out amazing. If it’s not too much to ask, would you mind if I hired you for another cover shoot? ...Or three?”
 

Taeyeon laughed, putting down the glass she was holding on the dining table. “I don’t mind at all. I like seeing you on Charging-Bull-Tiffany-Work-Mode.”
 

“…Charging bull what??” Tiffany walked towards Taeyeon, closing the distance between them.
 

“Uhh…” Taeyeon shuffled her feet. “You know. You were on work-mode while I was taking pictures. It was fun to see you in your element. And it was kinda y…”
 

Now it was Tiffany's turn to raise an eyebrow. “y?”
 

Taeyeon mentally slapped herself. Stupid alcohol loosening her tongue. “Uh…yeah. A little. Umm. A bit. Just a bit.”
 

Tiffany chuckled. “You don’t have to keep saying it was just a little y. And…you were…kind of y too,” Tiffany admitted. “When you were concentrating on the lens and adjusting the camera…”
 

Taeyeon's mouth hung open, but no words came out. Was Tiffany messing with her? She looked into the brunette’s eyes, which were swirling with something Taeyeon couldn't read, and suddenly, the temperature in the room rose a few degrees.
 

What was happening? Were they…flirting?
 

Taeyeon tried to recall if she'd had conversations like this with their other friends. Sure, there was some complimenting and all, but the aura and feel of the room wasn’t like this. There was a certain tension in the air, made more painstakingly known when Tiffany began to move a little closer to Taeyeon.
 

And Taeyeon realized that maybe Tiffany wasn’t as sober as she had thought, because the smell of alcohol hit her nose hard, and the brunette’s eyes seemed to be a little half-lidded, but they were really ing beautiful. Tiffany Hwang was really ing beautiful.
 

The desire to kiss Tiffany suddenly hit Taeyeon like a freight train. Just grab her and crush her lips against hers and swirl her tongue inside to get a taste of her. And maybe it was the alcohol. Surely, it was. She wouldn’t dare think such thoughts when she was sober. …Or maybe she was just too afraid to do so. 'Liquid courage,' they called it.
 

“Taeyeon…”
 

Taeyeon inhaled sharply as she heard the huskiness of Tiffany's voice. She focused back on her eyes, and maybe she shouldn’t have done that, because Tiffany was looking down at her lips...like she wanted the same thing Taeyeon wanted.
 

“Your lips…” Tiffany murmured, her hand lifting as if she wanted to reach out. “I…I want…” Taeyeon's resolve practically crumbled on the spot.
 

The loud ringing of the doorbell made the two women jump away from each other to safer distances.
 

They stood there, staring at each other with a little bit of fear and regret. But there was no mistaking the that a doorbell couldn’t fully dissipate.
 

“It’s probably Jessica…” Taeyeon was the first to speak up.
 

“Yeah,” Tiffany said hollowly, and then she shook her head a bit, as if to clear away any remaining thoughts about what had just happened (or what didn’t). “Right. Let me just…yeah.” The taller girl quickly left the kitchen to open the door for their friend.
 

They didn’t get to say anything more to each other as Jessica walked in and promptly made her way to the two passed out people near the couch.
 

Taeyeon's eyes widened in panic when she realized that Sunny and Yuri could’ve heard their conversation. She immediately turned to Tiffany, who shook her head once in assurance, nonverbally trying to tell her that it wasn’t probable.
 

“Are you guys going to help me or what?” Jessica asked them as she tried to unclasp Sunny’s fingers from the bottle of vodka.
 

That moved Taeyeon and Tiffany to action, and in no time, they were tiredly dragging their slightly conscious friends onto the backseat of Jessica’s car.
 

“Bye Tiff. Thanks for the party,” Jessica said with a slightly tired but genuine smile before getting into the driver’s seat.
 

Tiffany bid her a goodnight, and finally, Taeyeon and Tiffany were the only ones outside of the car.
 

They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, when really, it was for only a few seconds.
 

They both knew some invisible line had been blurred tonight, and now it seemed like they were at an impasse, and neither one of them knew what they were going to do about it.
 

“Thank you again, Tae…yeon.”
 

Taeyeon didn’t like that hesitation. “Tae, Fany. Tae.”
 

Tiffany blinked at her before a small but very warm smile graced her face. “Take care on your way home, Tae.”
 

Taeyeon pictured that warm smile again seconds before she fully woke up the next day.

A/N:

oh my godddddddddddd I SHOULD BE STUDYING BUT I REALLY WANTED TO GET THIS DOWN!!! Because yy feelings are here!!! And I haven't updated in a while, which I'm sincerely sorry for. :(

THANKS GUYS OKAY BYE *runs back to books and notes*