3.00 AM.

She huffed, in relieved, as she watched the numbers on the unfamiliar digital clock just beside the also unfamiliar bed she woke up in. She shouldn’t sleep again if she wanted to make it a clean break this time, but it was still 3 AM and this person, whose hands draping across her waist, still didn’t show any sign of waking up. She tired his up, she guessed.

Slowly, she pushed his muscular arms from her waist and sneak out of his embrace. He moved a little bit but still didn’t wake up. How she wished her shadow, the one haunting her since forever maybe, was also this ignorant. But she never was an ignorant person, and that was one of thousand reasons why Taeyeon love her but then she wished she was because then, Taeyeon could sneak out from her or her shadow, as easy as of now.

She took a pack of cigarette from her bag, thank God she didn’t leave it at the bar despite how intoxicated and “busy” she had been. She didn’t even remember his name, nor that he actually had beards, she hated beards and they had been kissing and a lot more than that all the way from the bar to his apartment.

She didn’t care, anyway.

She slid open a door that seemed like a door of a balcony and smoked. She threw the ashes on the floor. This was a habit, was just a habit, anybody would do, she would say in denial. Only a little part of her, a whisper in the back of her mind she tried to shut off, knew that it was some kind of discovery in a very destructing way. Discovery of something close to the warmth from another body, or the explosion behind her eyelids as she reached the highest mountain, somethings she believed would make her whole again, something like love.

But she was looking in the wrong place. What they, those random people, could offer was all temporary and illusion.

She put off her cigarette, put on her clothes and took off.

They were never the same, they didn’t even come close.

---

She was broken hearted and she acknowledged it.

She was never whole again, and she accepted it.

It was her doing and Taeyeon loathed herself that she was fine with it.

As long as it is Tiffany, she thought.

She brushed her wet cheeks only after the taxi driver informed that they have arrived.

It has been a long time she brushed off her tears, when she was alone and crying, silently, she just let the them dry and accompany her to sleep.

Because the tears, her tears for the long-lost love, was the only remnants of Tiffany in her and she wanted to keep it. She had lost her sanity along with Tiffany.

The taxi driver didn’t want to be paid and instead asked for her autograph. He said his daughter was a huge fan and had all of her album. She smiled and thanked him.

She was loved by a lot of people, she was aware of it. The love she received from years and years of blood, sweat and tears singing, performing and all the hardship followed, with her eight-fellow member.

The love that she should’ve been cherished.

She had a hard time pushing the button of her apartment door. Her hand was trembling and her eyes was blurry.

Again.

Because she wouldn’t think twice to trade all of those loves for a love she wished she had.

And she hated how sick and insane she has turned into.

---

The sky was beautiful from up here.

Dark, but beautiful. She liked night skies better. Serene and calm, just like her and the state she wished her heart was in.

But she didn’t have the privilege to feel that way, because from all the places in the world, she had to fly to L.A, for a concert.

And she knew there would only be little to slightly no chance of meeting Tiffany since she would be very busy. There would even be a time for her to see the sunshine of the city, it had always been like that, she would be just commuting from hotel, concert venue, hotel again then airport. It had always been like that and she knew it perfectly as she had done the routine for more than a decade by now.

Even so, her heart was in a huge turmoil right now. Just the thought of being in the same area with Tiffany shook her.

Tiffany had decided to go back home, to L.A., two years ago. She pursuit an education in fashion, secretly at first, but as the news of a few member of SNSD not continuing to work under SM broke out, her activities also known by people.

Along with her marriage.

Suddenly Taeyeon wanted to take her sleeping pills.

She took her phone instead and scrolling randomly of her album photo. No internet .

A bad decision to kill a boredom, she regretted. Because then, she was stuck to one picture she didn’t know how where it came from, maybe from the group chat or maybe from Tiffany herself. If it sent by Tiffany herself, then Taeyeon must’ve fallen in love with a demon from how she loved to prick and torture Taeyeon’s poor heart with needles made of memory.

Taeyeon never see something with so many mistakes in it, all of those in the picture were wrong. The white walls of the kitchen Tiffany’s in, those colorful mugs that lined up on the pink cabinet, the photographs of them pestering the fridge and him, hugging Tiffany from behind, all of those were very wrong. Because once, during one of their sleepless nights, stargazing and warm blankets, that lovely kitchen, white walls and colorful stuff, along with little house with a lot of huge window and high ceiling was supposed to be their dream home. Her and Tiffany’s, not his and Tiffany’s.

And it was supposed to be her hands that hug Tiffany’s waist, her smile that reflected on Tiffany’s smile and her name that engraved inside the ring in Tiffany’s finger.

See how wrong it went, did it?

Again, she did what she supposed to do since the first time, forget.

She took the almost empty little tube out of her bag, took out the three pills and swallowed them with lot of water, to wash away the bitter taste on her tongue, or hopefully the pain in her chest.

---

“Taeyeon, I am sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”

She said with tears flowing down her reddening cheeks. How Taeyeon wished this night had not been this quiet, and the rooftop had not been this chilly, then maybe Tiffany sobs wouldn’t be this loud in her ear, wouldn’t be this torturing to her ear and Tiffany wouldn’t be so trembling in cold and in tears.

And how she wished they weren’t breaking up, because then, she could hug Tiffany and protected her from the world.

“Me too, believe me, I’m sorry too, Tiffany.”

“My father, he is…, God…” she choked on her cries, “He is an but he’s all I got, so…” this time, she couldn’t continue, she cried again.

“I know, I understand.” Taeyeon said calmly, she loved Tiffany, but she never one to break a family.

The problem started with a reporter, that told the company that it had been the talk among them that Taeyeon and Tiffany were dating, he got pictures as a prove, not a picture that could be denied to be just a sisterly love. The company knew all along but because of the report, they were afraid that it would became a scandal and ruin everything and everybody, beyond the two of them, until it couldn’t be salvaged.

They told them to make an end to their relationship, the meeting ending with resistance and shouts. They fought, until they company targeted Tiffany’s achilles heels, her father. Her only parent left. That old man spent her Sunday morning in church and never missed out a prayer every night before bed, holding tight a rosary, for his late wife and his children. The kind of old man who would die in sadness and disappointment if she ever knew Tiffany had a relationship far from platonic one, with another girl. 

She didn’t fight. They were too drained to fight. They had been talking, crying and fighting a lot trying to find a way, but nothing came up.

Only an end.

“3…2…1, GO!!”

The cue woke her from the unannounced and random memories flashed across her mind, she was about to cry again.

But she put a smile, a wide one like she was okay, and greeted the audience.

---

Taeyeon seated at the bar.

Their CEO would be there to meet her. It was quite an achievement for the company to be able to hold a concert in America, thus he came. The managers and the staffs had told her to stay a bit because of it. They were well aware of Taeyeon’s habit to disappear in the parties like that shortly after it began, bringing home or being brought home by random people.

Just staring at her phone, her other hand was tracing the rim of her glass, that usually had been her third glass by now. The ruckus behind her didn’t seem to bother her, at all. She was like in another world when she was thinking, quite in contrary with here, in “this world”, where everybody, the staff and the managers were dong something, everything and anything, preparing for the CEO’s arrival.

Tiffany texted her.

“Congratulation on you concert!! Sorry, I can’t come, final’s tomorrow, gotta study.”

Suddenly she felt like a bad person, because Tiffany was kind. Always kind.

Because Tiffany was never meant it when suddenly they didn’t get in touch with each other after some time. They hurt a lot, so it was natural for them to not contacting each other soon after the break up. But then Taeyeon decided that she had to live again so she pretended, while Tiffany looked like she had healed, and might be moved on, Taeyeon wished she didn’t though, just like her, never did. They fixed the relationship, or rather friendship, the only thing they could salvage from what left off from them.

And when Tiffany left to pursuit her dream, her education in fashion, somewhere far away from her, the devil inside her woke up and turn her into a bad person. Turned her into, some kind of over-dramatic pathetic teenager who needed something, or someone to take the fault on her loneliness, her still broken heart. Taeyeon had played as the selfless poor girl who got dumped by her lover, like the broke up wasn’t a mutual agreement because of hundred of reasons other than the love they had for each other, like Tiffany never tried to keep in touch even when she was miles away across the globe. But along the way, it just fell off and shortened only into birthday congratulation. And she blamed Tiffany for it.

On her good days though, which quite rare, when the company didn’t arrange some overly packed schedules and the music was good, she was sober and not waking up in somebody else’s bed, headache and all, she wouldn’t think so, she would think that the moment they were together were the best moment of her life, the rainy days were warm and the moon shined the brightest, a memory she would cherishes till she was buried 6 feet underground.

However, at the end of the days, she would always think, that partly Tiffany was at fault, for being too perfect for her, that made her trapped in this curse, or an oath she had sworn, both willingly and unwillingly at the same time, that her heart would stay in a certain place not inside her chest anymore.

“Can I see you?”

She texted her back and regretted it right after. She didn’t mean to sound so eager, but she was always a slow thinker. Her body, her heart or anything really, moved faster than her mind. She raked her brain to text her again, to at least save her a little pride.

But a text from Tiffany beat her to it.

“If you don’t mind coming to my house, I can use a company.”

Taeyeon smiled at the text, she didn’t know why but she was happy. Maybe she knew, but she didn’t want to get her hope high like Tiffany still able to read her mind like an open book, like it used to, and gave her the assurance Taeyeon needed but never dared to speak it out loudly, like Tiffany, somehow, still in love with her, like it used to, and wanted only her.

Taeyeon was always a slow thinker, and it didn’t matter, she never did a lot of thinking when it came to Tiffany. She should’ve, but she never able to.

“He is coming!”, somebody shouted.

She left the party.

----

The neighborhood was nice.

Where her house was, Tiffany texted her address.

“There, Sir, the house with the wooden fence, and pink mailbox.”

“That one?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Are you sure, miss? You seemed confused about the direction earlier.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure, that’s the right one.”

Of course, Taeyeon was sure. Tiffany told her, a long time ago, their dream house. How could she ever forget.

Standing in front of the white door, Taeyeon lost her confidence though. Maybe this was a bad idea, or maybe this wasn’t at all.

She looked at her phone, 11.05, ten minutes has passed. Almost midnight, maybe this was too late for a visit, she thought, she reasoned.

She took a step back, and inhaled.

11.25, she rang the bell.

Her heart jumped as rushed footsteps heard from the inside.

“Welcome, Tae-Tae!”

The greeting was too fast, Taeyeon noticed, not even waiting for the door to be fully opened.

And there she was, Tiffany, with the brightest smile. An apron hugging her waist, hair tight into a messy bun.

“Come on in,” then raised the spatula she was holding, “I am cooking something, in case you haven’t had dinner yet.”

Taeyeon followed her into the house.

“You? cook?”

“You’re still an , aren’t you?”, then she muttered the spaghetti, in panic.

Taeyeon laughed.

She was tensed, worried, about meeting Tiffany, but Tiffany made it easy. Then, she remembered, being with Tiffany was always easy, like a habit.

“I brought wine!” she shouted from the living room.

“My favorite?”

“Always.” Taeyeon said, too soft, like it used to. She cursed silently. Habits were hard to erased.

Maybe Tiffany realized it too, as her respond came a bit late. And a bit too solemn.

“Bring it here.”

Taeyeon brought the wine to the kitchen, put it in the counter, Tiffany kept herself busy with her spaghetti, and kept quiet. Taeyeon made herself at home, seated on the couch in the living room, turned the TV on and looking for something interesting, or rather something to distract herself from the many terrible pictures of Tiffany and him, hanging on the wall and on the cabinet in the corner of the room.

She thought wrong when everything was going to stay awkward since her mishap before. After a surprisingly delicious spaghetti and maybe third glass of wine, it went quite normal.

They talked about everything, catching up of the time they were separated. Taeyeon joked, Tiffany laughed. Although Taeyeon realized that it felt as if they were walking on a thin rope, how the both tried hard to avoid a certain topic, something related to memories and love.

But walking on a thin rope while being tipsy was hard. The timer was ticking and certainly, when it zero, the bomb was going to explode.

And it surprised her how the never drunk Tiffany was the one who did first.

“You still see me like that.”

Taeyeon took a moment to dawn on her what Tiffany meant by that, but maybe Tiffany was too drunk though Tiffany was never that drunk, as far as she knew her, but Tiffany said it with a smile that too nostalgic and almost half eyes, so maybe she did.

Standing between the tide of hopes and the shore of doubt, she thought.

They were just talking about one ridiculous TV show just now because it suddenly appeared when she changed the channel, or was it 30 minutes ago, Taeyeon wasn’t sure again.

Tiffany was sitting close to her in the couch, but 30 minutes ago it hadn’t bothered her.

Now, the closeness was suffocating. She could’ve moved back as there was still plenty of room in the couch behind her, but she didn’t do anything, what a masochist, she said to herself.

Tiffany was alluring, with glimmers on her eyes, half of her faced lighted by the flash from the TV while the other are shadowed, making her features more prominent in the right places and esthetically mysterious at the same time. Taeyeon was never good at resisting temptation, and Tiffany was the worst type of temptation.

Remembering the pain she had gone through, she tried.

But everything seemed to want her to crumble, to go back to square one, like two and a half years ago, when it was their end. Was it the right term? Going back was meaning that she took a step from where she had been, and she never did.

How could she not crumble when Tiffany locked their hand and drew circles on the back of it. She looked at their joined hand, she never saw something so perfect, the warmth made Taeyeon felt like she was whole all over again.

“Like what?” she said quietly, still not looking at Tiffany.

“Like you still love me, like it used to.”

Taeyeon was a lousy fighter, “trying” was never supposed to fail in less than five minutes.

She just accepted her defeat, in triumph.

“Because I still do, like it used to.”

Taeyeon finally looked at Tiffany and Tiffany was beautiful, more beautiful like she used to, not literally, because Tiffany was always beautiful, but it was just her eyes suddenly reflected Taeyeon’s, and all the things inside, the things she felt, things she wanted to, but afraid to disclose.

Taeyeon forgot, she shut her brain down. She decided to forget “consequences” and melted her whole being in the soft hand on her cheek, guided her to maybe another hundred years of pain, her lips, Tiffany lips, then they kissed, and everything calmed.

Taeyeon never felt so alive. They did say that to be reincarnated, one should die first.

And maybe she would die again after tonight, but that was a story for another day.

Tonight, there was no him, no pain, no future, no past, or anything that build the life neither of they wanted to have.

Only Tiffany and Taeyeon, kissing like it was their only source of living, breathing in each other’s bare chests, seeing exploding stars, hand in hand, under the same dark skies, in a place where space and time stopped as they pitied the long-lost soulmate to give them a chance in reviving love, for just one night.

---

“Tiffany, what if this doesn’t end well?”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“No, no, I mean… it’s a possibility, it’s … I don’t know…”

She thought that Tiffany would be mad, but Tiffany stayed calm.

“Say, Taeyeon, do you believe in soulmates?”

“I don’t know, why?”

“They said, the difference between the love of your life and soulmate is that one is by choice and one is not.”, she continued, “and with you, is so easy, and natural, like….”

“Like a lock and its key, somehow, like, everything just clicked.” Taeyeon finished her.

“You do know what I mean.”

“Yes, I don’t really know how to say it, but I get it.”

“That’s why I’d like to believe we are soulmates, and whatever happen later on won’t matter as we have fated to be together, one way or another.” Tiffany smiled, and continued, “whatever happens, we will always be fine.”

“Promise me.” She held Tiffany’s hand, it was always warm.

“I promise.”