***

“You can stay in my beach house if you want. It’s very peaceful there, so you can relax and even enjoy the summer weather,” Sunny tells Taeyeon as they fall in line at the coffee shop.

Taeyeon takes her friend’s suggestion into consideration. It will be good to get away from the city for a while as she prepares for her role in one of the (most likely) future blockbusters of the decade. It’s not that her role needs that much preparation, but she isn’t going to turn down a chance to take a vacation in a secluded mansion-like beach house.

Before she can tell her friend that she’s grateful and she accepts her generous offer, they arrive at the front of the counter.

After paying for their drinks, they move to the pick-up counter and continue their conversation there. They get their coffee and start to walk back to the entrance of the shop, but then Sunny suddenly cuts Taeyeon off mid-sentence and drags her towards one of the corner tables in the cafe that is occupied by a woman scrolling through her phone.

One of the girl’s legs is crossed over the other, and Taeyeon’s y self couldn’t help but notice their shapely endlessness. She’s also wearing a face mask similar to theirs, and that, plus the fact that her producer friend seems to know her clues Taeyeon in on her possible occupation.

The girl looks up once they get near, and Taeyeon sees the suspicion in her eyes, but it immediately fades away once she recognizes Sunny. Luckily, there are a few unoccupied chairs surrounding her table, so the two of them sit down quickly and prevent attracting the attention of the other customers.

“Soonkyu!” The woman whispers happily.

Taeyeon figures that the girl must be really close to Sunny for her to be able to teasingly call the shorty by her real name. She waits for Sunny to whine about it, but Sunny simply retaliates with a “Miyoungie~!” said in an annoying sing-song voice.

“Ugh.” The girl is surely pouting behind her mask.

“I knew it was you. I’d recognize that eye-smile anywhere,” Sunny says proudly.

And her eye-smile is worth-recognizing indeed, Taeyeon notes as she watches the girl’s eyes turn into stunning crescents. Wow.

“Ah! I almost forgot to introduce you. This is Kim Taeyeon, my good friend. I think you know of her?” Sunny gestures to Taeyeon, who bows down politely in greeting.

The woman bows in return, although much lower than Taeyeon did. “Oh, wow, hi! It’s nice to meet you. I’m a huge fan. I’m Tiffany Hwang.”

“Hwang Miyoung,” Soonkyu corrects jokingly, earning herself a light slap from the woman across the table.

Everything clicks into place. Taeyeon realizes that she knows the girl, having watched a few of her recent films. She also remembers seeing Tiffany in a few Hallyu events she’d attended recently. Tiffany all glammed-up looks quite different from the girl sitting in front of her now, wearing a floral black summer dress with barely any makeup on, but she’s still pretty. Oh, who was Taeyeon kidding? Tiffany is incredibly pretty. Bummer that she isn’t able to see her entire face because she remembers how attractive her smile can be.

Taeyeon realizes she’s been staring for quite some time and hasn’t acknowledged the girl’s greeting. “Hi, I’m Taeyeon,” she finally says.

“I already introduced you, you dummy!” Sunny chides Taeyeon quietly, giggling.

“Oh...right,” Taeyeon says sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m a huge fan of yours as well, Tiffany-ssi.”

“Okay, okay, stop flirting, you two,” Sunny admonishes teasingly, making the other two bow their heads down in slight embarrassment. Sunny begins to ask Tiffany something, but she gets interrupted by her buzzing phone. “Oops, sorry, Fany-ah. Taeyeon, we have to go.”

Before Taeyeon can even utter a proper farewell to Tiffany, Sunny has pulled her up and dragged her away from the surprised brunette who is only able to give them a hesitant wave goodbye before they exit the cafe.

***

After that accidental meeting with Tiffany, Taeyeon admits to herself that she has developed some sort of crush for the actress. She admits this on the third day of binge-watching through Tiffany’s entire filmography (and interview-ography) as she looks around her messy bed littered with half-eaten bags of chips.

An internal alarm of ‘STOP BEING CREEPY!’ gets her dashing to the end of the bed in order to grab her phone and call Sunny regarding that standing beach house offer.

She arrives in the estate the very next day and parks her rented sedan inside a huge garage (when the hell did beach houses have indoor garages?). A huge garage that is nonetheless tiny in comparison to the house she will be staying in for about a month.

Taeyeon lugs in her heaping pile of groceries that could probably last her her entire stay and begins to explore every nook and cranny of the Lees’ property.

***

Since Taeyeon’s thoughts about Tiffany has faded into about a few random flashes per day, she freaks the out when she thinks that she has conjured the very woman to appear before her (okay, more like a few meters in front of her).

Taeyeon was only rinsing an apple using the kitchen sink when she had looked through the window that faces the house’s backyard-slash-beach and spotted Tiffany in a pink summer dress lifting her phone in the air, then putting it down, then lifting it again.

Taeyeon slowly puts the apple down on the counter and wipes her eyes with her two hands. Rubs them fiercely for a good ten seconds. She finally opens them, and nope. Tiffany’s still there.

Taeyeon hasn’t been drinking. Taeyeon hasn’t been doing drugs. So...maybe she’s gone nuts.

Possibly sensing the laser focus of Taeyeon’s eyes on her, Tiffany turns to face Taeyeon, and their eyes meet across the window.

And then Tiffany smiles. Widely. And Taeyeon instinctively backs away because whoa. Blinding. Blindingly pretty.

Tiffany walks towards the house and Taeyeon doesn’t care if she’s some kind of witch-demon-succubus hybrid because she’s too far gone, so she opens the door and lets her in.

“Good afternoon, Taeyeon-ssi! You remember me, right? From the cafe two days ago?”

“Of course. Hello, Tiffany-ssi.” Smooth. So not like you just had a mental breakdown for a minute there. Good job, Taengoo.

“Is...Sunny here?”

“Uh, no. She’s just letting me stay here for a month.”

“Ohh, alright. I’m sorry if I trespassed on your—I mean Sunny’s—property. The signal in my house is horrible. At least by the shore area. I know Sunny owns this place, so I thought it’d be okay.”

“Oh, it’s fine! You can trespass all you want.”

Tiffany laughs and Taeyeon blushes in embarrassment at her weird choice of words. “Well, thank you so much. ...Have you been staying here long?”

“Just three days.”

“Oh. I haven’t seen you around, though? At the beach, I mean. I’ve been here for a week now.”

“Uh...I don’t really go out much. I just stay inside and watch Netflix.” Taeyeon immediately  wants to take back her words. My God she sounds like the most boring person on earth.

Tiffany raises her eyebrows in surprise. “So you don’t leave the house? Even just to swim or sunbathe?”

“Um...not really. As you can see, I’m still as pale as death.”

Tiffany laughs. “Well… We can change that, if you’re up for it.”

***

They form some sort of friendship within the next few days, and Taeyeon’s crush undoubtedly grows a hundredfold, because Tiffany is cool and funny and pretty and nice. So nice. And also so pretty.

Taeyeon informs Tiffany that she can use the Lees’ backyard for sunbathing (Taeyeon finds out that Tiffany doesn’t really like swimming all that much and annually rents the beach house next door in order to get a decent tan for the summer), but only after calling Sunny and asking for permission. When Taeyeon had told her friend about Tiffany, she could almost hear the smirk in her friend’s voice when she had responded with an “Oooh” and a very teasing “Have fun, you two.”

The first time Taeyeon had witnessed Tiffany sunbathing, the former’s eyes had grown wide as saucers as Tiffany turned to her stomach and abruptly unhooked her swimsuit top. “To make the tanning even” she explained, but to Taeyeon, it sounded more along the lines of “to make Taeyeon’s hormones go into overdrive.”

And then she makes Taeyeon rub lotion all over her back, and Taeyeon has to pretend she’s straight every single time she does it.

Taeyeon begins to join Tiffany during some of her sunbathing sessions (and she’s totally not enjoying the lotion back-rubbing Tiffany does to her...totally), so she isn’t as pale as before, and Taeyeon kind of likes the slight tan she has developed over time.

Taeyeon has also opened Tiffany’s eyes to the realm of binge-watching both good and trashy TV shows and movies (Taeyeon thankfully remembered to erase her entire Tiffany Hwang search and watch history beforehand). They do this once the sun goes down, and after a few hours of watching non-stop marathons, they snack on late-night comfort food together and chat about everything-and-nothing until the wee hours of the morning.

It’s safe to say that Taeyeon has done more relaxing than studying for her role in the past few days, but she doesn’t regret it one single bit.

***

A few dozen doorbells (at least that’s what it sounds like to Taeyeon, but it was probably just two) wakes Taeyeon up at 10 AM, and she groans in anguish. And then she realizes that it might be Sunny or any of the Lee chaebols and she’s suddenly more awake than ever. It takes her only a few seconds to run down the stairs while trying to fix her messy bed head, and she opens the door to a smiling pair of eyes belonging to a body decked in a white lace top and denim shorts.

“Wow, you look...tired.” Tiffany regards her carefully.

“No, I look dead.” Taeyeon doesn’t know if she should feel relieved that it’s only Tiffany and not any of the Lees, or if she should cry because her ultimate crush Tiffany just saw her at her worst.

“At least you’re not as pale as the dead anymore,” Tiffany says jokingly, but then her smile drops when she sees Taeyeon’s shoulders droop down sadly. “Hey, I was joking. You look...um...very...um...cute.”

“Those were too many ums, Fany.”

“No, I...I didn’t mean it like that. You’re cute. Very cute. ‘Bed head Taeyeon’ is the most adorable human-related thing I’ve ever seen...because sorry, but puppies still kind of win.”

Taeyeon looks up and all of a sudden, Tiffany is standing too close to her and looking at her with so much sincerity that she almost takes an instinctive step back.

And then Tiffany comes even closer and now Taeyeon can’t breathe because the former lifts her hand to fix the remaining messy strands of her hair, and she does it so carefully and gently that Taeyeon ends up holding on to Tiffany’s forearms for balance because she might’ve fallen otherwise (although Taeyeon thinks she already has).

And because Taeyeon is kind of an awkward turtle of a human being when she’s being herself and not the well-known actress that she is, she blurts out the first thing that comes to her mind: “So why did you come here?”

Her words definitely ends up breaking the nice tension they’ve got going on, and Tiffany drops her hands back to her sides as Taeyeon (reluctantly) lets go. “Oh. Uh. I came to ask if you wanted to join me for lunch outside. Not out in the backyard, but like...outside. I know a place nearby that will definitely give us the privacy that we need.”

“Oh. Okay, I’d love to.” Taeyeon flashes Tiffany a tentative smile, and Taeyeon internally exhales in relief when Tiffany returns it, although she’s still berating herself for changing the topic. But then Taeyeon realizes that maybe she can still salvage the situation a little bit, and she just goes for it, because they’re on the precipice of something that can turn into something really good here.

“Tiffany, I...I think you’re really cute too. And I know I’ve seen the cutest dogs ever, but for me, you win over them, hands down,” she says in a rush, and then she bolts up the stairs to get ready for lunch, but when she reaches the top of the staircase, she couldn’t help but look down to gauge Tiffany’s reaction. She doesn’t regret doing it one bit because she witnesses Tiffany shyly looking at her own feet and trying not to smile so widely, but failing.

***

Taeyeon has one of the yummiest lunches she’s ever had in Mr. Song’s Bar & Grill. Apparently, Tiffany has been the restaurant’s regular for a few years now, as well as Sunny, since had Tiffany explained to her that she and the producer had met and become friends while they were both on vacation in this town.

Upon seeing Tiffany, the owner immediately ushers the two through a door that leads to a private area separate from the usual customers. Taeyeon learns that it’s normal for the restaurant to be visited by celebrities and wealthy businessmen who owned or rented the luxurious beach houses close to it.

Mr. Song actually sits with them in their table for a little while as they eat their fill of his delicious cooking. He shares some of the funniest celebrity encounters he’s witnessed in his restaurant, and since the place has been open for twenty-three years, there are a lot of them.Tiffany also encourages him to tell them the stories he’d already told her before, since Taeyeon hasn’t heard them yet.

They come back to Sunny’s house that afternoon, hearts happy and stomachs full. Once they open the front door, they walk towards the kitchen, since Taeyeon has to put the two filled-to-the-brim bags of delicious grilled meat and fried rice Mr. Song had insisted they bring back home with them inside the refrigerator.

“Taeyeon?” Tiffany asks her as she lifts herself up onto the kitchen counter, feet dangling.

“Yeah?”

“Are you really staying here just to watch shows and movies?”

Taeyeon senses the curiosity and doubt behind Tiffany’s words, and she realizes her previous explanation did seem kind of dumb. “I just wanted to get away from the city for a while,” she clarifies, turning to the brunette. “And also because I had recently accepted a role in this huge film, and I need to rehearse my part in peace.”

“...Oh.” Tiffany somehow looks a little hurt by that, and she quickly jumps off the counter. It doesn’t take Taeyeon too long to understand why.

“No, no, no! I didn’t mean it that way, Fany-ah.”

“But I feel like I’ve taken up too much of your time. Have you been studying for your part at all?”

“...No… But my part isn’t that big anyway!”

Still a little wary, Tiffany asks what her role is and what movie it’s for, and when Taeyeon tells her, her eyes go wide. “Taeyeon, that’s a big part! And for a big movie!”

Taeyeon scratches the back of her head. “Yeah, but it doesn’t need much preparation. I can probably study it and be done with it in a week. And I still have two months before filming begins.”

Tiffany looks at her, tilting her head a little to the side like she’s assessing Taeyeon’s words, and Taeyeon gushes internally about how puppy-like the movement looks. “...Okay. But please tell me if you need some time and space to practice. I completely understand if you do.”

“Sure, but I really like spending time with you, so...nope. I’m never gonna tell you to leave me alone.”

Tiffany chuckles, flattered. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Taeyeon affirms shyly.

“Well, I love spending time with you too, Taeyeon-ah. I normally take vacations alone, but now I don’t know how I could’ve handled not being with someone for a long time. This job gets really kind of lonely sometimes, so...I’m glad I met you.” Then Tiffany smiles at her and Taeyeon wants to bottle that smile up and keep it with her forever.

“I’m glad I met you too. And...say, Tiffany… Do you want to rehearse my script with me? Obviously my lines mainly consist of conversations with the leading man, so it’ll help tremendously if I can have a partner saying his lines for me.”

Tiffany instantly brightens up at the idea. “I’d love to!”

***

They’ve been rehearsing Taeyeon’s script for several days now, in between the lunches and movies and dinners (Tiffany has stopped sunbathing regularly since her skin has already developed the tan she preferred).

Within just a few hours of practicing on the first day, they had both realized that script rehearsal and dissection was so much more fun with the aid of alcohol.

Tonight, they’re already on their second bottle of wine, and Tiffany finally has the courage to ask Taeyeon something that’s been bugging her for days. “Taeyeon-ah, did you audition for this role or did they just offer it to you?”

“They offered it.”

“Ah. Then...did you accept the role because you liked it or because the movie’s going to be a sure hit?”

Taeyeon laughs, eyes twinkling in amusement at Tiffany’s bluntness. “The second one.”

“Ahhh.”

“Come on. You can say it. Let it all out, Fany-ah.”

Taeyeon immediately kind of regrets saying that, because now Tiffany is going on and on and on about the one-dimensionality and shallowness and paper-thinness and ual-fodder-for-the-lead-guy-ness of Taeyeon’s role as the leading lady in the film.

“You’re just there to act as the only thing grounding him to his humanity and to his capability of accepting and understanding the feeling called ‘love,’ when in fact, if you look at page 12 to 64, all he really has for you is a giant case of lust! There isn’t a single thought of his in there that demonstrates a sense of him liking you for far more than your looks!”

“You’re right.”

“And his little—”

“Tiffany!” The brunette mid-rant promptly shuts up, making Taeyeon giggle. “I get it, okay? I really, really get it, but this is the reality. Most of the roles for women in big movies are basically all that you’ve mentioned, and then some. If I were a big-enough actress, I’d reject the role, hands-down. But I’m still lacking in some areas, and so I have to take the bitter pill and swallow it. But someday, I hope I’ll be able to have the opportunity to only pick the roles I want and not because they will keep my head above water for another year.”

Tiffany’s eyes soften, and Taeyeon is taken aback when the woman scoots towards her on the couch and hugs her tightly. Despite this, Taeyeon hugs her back just as hard, until she hears a slight sniffle. “...Tiffany?”

“Sorry.” Tiffany sniffles again. “Your lines are just so bad, and I hate this stupid industry sometimes!”

Taeyeon laughs and pats the girl on the back. “There, there. I think I can pull off saying ‘You’re the only one worth going gaga over for’ without puking.”

Tiffany pulls back and stares at her incredulously. “Really?? If you do, then I’ll be very impressed. You’ll definitely deserve an Oscar.”

Taeyeon smiles and adjusts her position on the couch in preparation. “I’ll do it right now. Ehem. You’re the only one worth going gaga over for.” She stares deep into Tiffany’s eyes, and that was probably a mistake because she gets utterly lost in them.

And maybe she feels the truth of her (ridiculous) line far more than she should, because she leans in and gives Tiffany a kiss. It was just a slight peck, so she doesn’t know if the brunette would have responded to her kiss if she had done it longer.

Tiffany blinks at her in shock afterwards. “Wha...you...you said them without puking,” she says, a little breathless.

“Yeah...and I even got into character...doing the kiss after and all that,” Taeyeon explains awkwardly, in case the other girl didn't like what she had just done.

Tiffany shakes her head in disagreement. “No. You didn’t get into character.” She leans in. “You didn’t kiss me like I’m the love of your life.”

“...Oh. Uh...can I...can I start over?”

“Uh huh. But umm...can you skip the gaga line? I might puke,” Tiffany says, laughing slightly.

“Yeah. Totally.” Taeyeon grasps Tiffany’s cheeks between her hands and brings their lips together once more.

***

As the two have predicted (as well as probably every other person in the world), the movie Taeyeon stars in becomes a blockbuster hit. The premiere also becomes a hit of its own because Taeyeon brings Tiffany as her date, and they publicly introduce themselves as a couple for the first time (even though they’d been secretly dating for over a year).

Taeyeon nails her character perfectly, receiving critical acclaim for being ‘the most heartwarming and soul-rending leading lady a leading man could ever dream of.’ Taeyeon and Tiffany are cuddling in bed inside Tiffany’s beach house (Taeyeon had bought her a more modest but definitely homier one for their first anniversary) when they read this article, and they end up laughing until they cry.

Taeyeon never regrets taking up the part, not when the recognition she receives helps land her a leading lady role opposite the love of her life.

FIN.

A/N:

I hope you enjoyed that...even though I'm still not as happy as I'd like to be about it. =.= Will edit it further in the future!

Thank you for reading!