“Why are you so happy?”

              Tiffany excitement was visible; she was just about bouncing out of her seat. She even greeted the waitress who offered to grab us drinks excitedly; I’m pretty sure Tiffany’s eccentric behavior threw her off, seeing her walk away cautiously in the manner she did.

              “Taeyeon just confessed to me!”

              I choked on my water.

              “What? No I didn’t!” I claimed briskly, coughing, clearing out the last bits of water from my esophagus.

              Tiffany cast her gaze on me with a questioning look on her face. “What do you mean? Didn’t I just clearly hear you confess your determination to be the best friend to me as you could be?”

              I wanted to hit myself.

              The others burst into laughter as I felt my face turn into a tomato. I wanted to disappear. Why couldn’t I just vanish right here? I peered at Seohyun for solace, but as our eyes met, she smiled empathetically and mouthed ‘you brought this onto yourself’.

              “That—That’s not fair,” I mumbled to myself.

              “Hm? Why not?” Tiffany inquired. I jumped, shocked that she was able to hear that.

              “What? I mean—I mean, well, normally ‘confess’ means to confess your love in a romantic way, right?” I explained, the four sets of eyes causing me to feel extremely self-conscious about the very fact that I was explaining myself.

              “Oh, so did you want to do that?”

              “You don’t need Tiffany, go out with me!”

              “You little…” Tiffany swiped at Sunny, who dodged her attack, laughing. “TaeTae,’s mine,” Tiffany claimed defensively, grabbing my hand.

              “But you two aren’t dating yet, right?”

              A momentary silence was pierced by a burst of laughter.

              “No Seobaby, we aren’t, not yet,” Tiffany clarified the helplessly confused maknae.

              “You shouldn’t say that then!” Seohyun exclaimed, flushing slightly. It was a nice change of pace to finally see someone else in my shoes, albeit for a different reason.

              “It’s ok Seohyun, it’s just that our American friend isn’t as good with this anymore,” Sooyoung said, “What’s the term? Tiffany ‘lost her hands’.”

              I nearly spat out my water. Tiffany, whose mouth was unoccupied, treated the poorly worded English idiom with a similar chuckle.

              “Sooyoung, it’s ‘lose your touch’,” Tiffany corrected her as I forced down the water lingering inside my mouth.

              Sunny broke out into laughter at that. “It’s not like you knew the correct saying,” Sooyoung told Sunny, breaking out into a grin regardless.

              “Taeyeon-unnie, is your English good?” Seohyun said, also smiling from Sooyoung’s fiasco.

              “I attend an American college and spent the first part of my life in America, so yeah I think it’s alright,” I explained to her.

              “Oh, can we test your English knowledge then?” Sunny inquired. I complied, to which they asked me a set of random English questions, ranging from simple conversational questions to translations of Korean phrases with Tiffany acting as the judge. The entire time, Tiffany’s gaze was trained on me, a smile fixated on her face that resembled a proud mother watching her child first speak.

              “You don’t even have an accent,” Sunny noted, awe in her voice.

              “Yeah, even though I was born in America, my first language was Korean,” I began, “When I started in primary school, my English was bad, so I just avoided talking. In my kindergarten class, there was someone who knew a little Korean and she became my first friend. She really helped me learn English, but I don’t really remember much about her … only that her family was really rich and her English name began with an ‘S’, I think.”

              The four of them were completely silent the entire time; I wasn’t sure whether or not it was because they found my story interesting or because of something else, but it definitely seemed more like that ‘something else’ because I happened to catch Sooyoung’s eye dart really quickly to what looked like in Tiffany’s direction. Just as I was pondering how uncharacteristic it was of me to suddenly break out into a story like that, Sunny broke the silence.

              “Wow, so that’s what you remember of her, huh? That she was rich? Don’t you even remember what she looks like?”

              Sunny’s response to my sudden story seemed to ease the other three out of whatever trance they were in.

              “What? I mean, I was young, so—”

              “Yeah Tae, are you saying that someone’s wealth is more memorable than her face?”

              “That’s bad of you, unnie.”

              I buried my head in my hands. “Seohyun, not you too,” I whined, my voice muffled against my shirt’s sleeves.

              “Tiffany has more money than—”

              Sooyoung’s voice was abruptly cut off. I lifted my head to find Tiffany rushing to cover Sooyoung’s mouth, grabbing her wrist with one hand and sealing with the other.

              “Don’t mind her, Taeyeon,” Tiffany said, smiling warmly at me and shooting Sooyoung a glare.

              Sooyoung escaped her grasp and, in an act of terror, scooted her chair away from her. “Sunny, she’s going to kill me,” she pretended to stammer, reaching for Sunny’s arm.

              “Yah, get off me,” Sunny replied, waving Sooyoung’s advancement off, “That’s your fault, don’t drag me down with you.”

              “Even though I’m your friend…?” Sooyoung said, looking at the shorter woman with an appalled expression on her face. “Seohyun…?”

              She shook her head, holding her hands up innocently.

              “I’m alone in this world,” Sooyoung cried, pushing her head in her hands as the waitress walked up from behind her, drinks in hand.

              “Um, I’m sorry to interrupt but your drinks are here,” the waitress said uneasily. I felt bad for her; judging from the concerned look on her face, I could imagine her impression of our group being similar to Tiffany’s first impression of the lively duo.

              “Sorry for my friends and thank you very much,” Seohyun apologized as the drinks were laid out onto the table.

              The waitress just laughed in response. “Your group of friends are very entertaining, aren’t they?” she responded; Seohyun smiled back in empathy as she retreated.

              After the meal, as we arrived back the trio’s residency, Sooyoung swung the door open only to be greeted with a face full of stifling heat.

              “Ah, it’s so hot!” she exclaimed, reeling back a few steps, turning her face away from the doorway. “Seohyun, I thought I told you to leave the air conditioning on!”

              “That just wastes money though, unnie,” she reasoned with her, calmly slipping past her.

              “But it’s so hooot,” she drawled, clinging to the door, refusing to step foot inside her own living space.

              “Stop complaining like a baby, Sooyoung,” Sunny said, scooting past her and stepping in herself. Tiffany and I followed suit.

              I cringed as I entered the apartment; it was the muffling, overwhelming kind of heat, the kind that stuck to one’s skin. It was the exact feeling of entering a car after leaving it outside on a hot summer’s day.

              “Tell me when it cools down,” Sooyoung said from outside the apartment, her head peeking around the side of the door’s frame.

              “Yah Sooyoung, just come in here already, you’re going to disturb our neighbors,” Sunny said as we removed our shoes.

              “No way, I’m staying here,” she declared stubbornly.

              “Ah, you…” Sunny said, walking back out of the apartment and grabbing Sooyoung by the wrist, “Come in here already.”

              “No! It’s too hot!” she said, clinging onto the door for dear life, fighting against Sunny’s attempt to move her, “I’ll be cooked alive in there!”

              “Just, come in and stick your head in the fridge or something,” Sunny said, straining to peel her off the door.

              That thought clearly appealed to Sooyoung. As she released the door, Sunny stumbled a few steps, using her firm grip on Sooyoung’s arm to stabilize herself; however, the taller woman didn’t seem to mind, throwing off her shoes and rushing in toward the kitchen.

              Sunny sighed, Tiffany giggling to the side. Sunny walked back into the apartment, making sure to put away Sooyoung’s shoes, and closed the door behind her.

              “Aah that feels goood,” Sooyoung’s content voice drifted from the kitchen.

              “Move, I have to get Tiffany and Taeyeon’s drinks,” she said as she fast-walked into the kitchen.

              “It ok unnie, I got it already,” Seohyun told her.

              “Thank you Seohyun,” Tiffany said, receiving the drinks from her.

              It was so fascinating to me: this whole situation, the dynamic the three shared along with Tiffany, how fluidly their conversation went. I only associated this kind of behavior with movies and TV shows, but never would have thought that it was a real-life occurrence. Was this the end goal of my determination? To emulate this level of comfort and familiarity? That seemed like a pretty good deal to me.

              “Go into the living room, I want to play a game,” Sunny informed us enthusiastically, grabbing Seohyun’s hand and ushering the two of us back onto the couch. As soon as Sunny convinced Sooyoung to leave the refrigerator and join them, reminding her the food would go bad if she continued doing what she was, Sunny plopped herself down at the edge of the couch. I noticed that we were seated on the couch in the exact same order as earlier today.

              “Ok, so I want to play 20 Questions,” Sunny said, clasping her hands, “The victims—I mean subjects will be Tiffany and Taeyeon. You’ve only known each other for a few days, right?” she inquired, to which we nodded, “Good. We will be testing her just how much they know about each other.”

              “Oh, I want to go first,” Seohyun said excitedly, shifting to the edge of her seat. However, as Seohyun opened , Sooyoung interrupted her.

              “So Tiffany, what are Taeyeon’s three sizes?”

              Tiffany burst out into a fit of giggles, planting her knee on my thigh as I directed my gaze down into the cup that was resting between my hands.

              “I asked Taeyeon that question, but unfortunately, she wouldn’t give them to me,” she replied, patting my thigh, “You should ask her that question too.”

              “I don’t know either!” I quickly interjected.

              “You don’t know your own three sizes?”

              Oh. So that’s what she was talking about.

              Right now, the ability to turn invisible seemed immensely appealing. I could feel my cheeks catch fire as I took a sip of the drink Sunny gave to us, trying to hide my embarrassment.

              “Why, what did you think I was talking about?” Tiffany teased, playfully nudging me as Sooyoung and Sunny laughed along.

              “Nothing, I was talking about nothing. I mean, I was talking about what you were talking about,” I stammered my reply in rapid-fire.

              “Hm? So were you talking about nothing, or were you talking about what I was talking about?”

              “Next question please,” I insisted, placing the cup down on the table. Luckily, Seohyun grabbed the chance and voiced her question.

              “Tiffany-unnie, what do you like the most about Taeyeon-unnie?”

              I seriously wanted to tackle Seohyun into an embrace. It was such an innocent, sweet question that I could feel my embarrassment fade away, a smile forming on my face. It took a few seconds to realize that Seohyun was asking about me, but at this point, I was used to this already—to an extent.

              “She has a cute, petite body, but her assets are seriously no joke.”

              “Yah! Fany!”

              I swiftly hit her on the shoulder in retaliation. Sooyoung and Sunny burst into a more boisterous laughter this time, Sooyoung keeling over. I didn’t know whether to feel glad that Tiffany thought that or embarrassed that she would say something like that to others.

              “Aw, I’m sorry TaeTae, don’t be mad at me,” she said in an adorable, whiny voice. Her bottom lip was pushed out into a pout, her puppy eyes reflecting the sunlight pouring in from the giant glass door next to the room we were occupying.

              I turned around as Tiffany wrapped me into a hug. “You can’t just say ‘sorry’ and expect me to forgive you,” I told her stubbornly. Honestly, her display of cuteness already inadvertently provoked my exoneration of her embarrassing comment, but the stubborn side of me refused to excuse her for cheating like that.

              “Um, I was more talking about her personality, unnie…” Seohyun said, flashing me an empathetic smile. I then wondered if the dynamic duo teased Seohyun a lot.

              “Oh, well in that case, it’s how prone Taeyeon is to getting teased like this,” she replied readily, setting her chin on my right shoulder. I jumped, feeling her breath tickle my ear as her cheek grazed mine. “For every minute you continue to be mad at me, I’ll kiss you on the cheek and work my way to your lips.”

              “I forgive you I forgive you!” I replied hastily, jolting as Tiffany planted a chaste kiss on my cheek anyway.

              Tiffany released the embrace, sitting back on the couch properly. “If your cheek is that soft, I wonder what—”

              I covered before she could continue, my face probably beet red at this point.

              “Ok ok,” Sunny said after recovering from laughing, “My turn. Taeyeon, what are your friends like in America? Aren’t we so much more fun than them?”

              “Yah don’t ask that,” Tiffany said, making a dismissive swiping gesture to Sunny, “I don’t want Taeyeon’s view of me to be tampered by you two.”

              “Um, I guess it’s not boring, at least,” I replied, carefully picking out my words, “I have a Korean-American friend in college named ‘Jessica Jung’ who’s sort of like Tiffany, but not as much. She’s also has a lot of energy, but…” I trailed off as the four of them quieted down substantially. Was I just imaging things, or were they exchanging glances? I couldn’t tell because they all had expressions ranging from content to engrossed, but it felt strange—like they knew something I didn’t. I decided to not think about it too much and continued, “…but she isn’t as touchy as Tiffany.”

              “What? You’re cheating on me?” Tiffany said in disbelief.

              “What? I knew her first, and we aren’t even dating or anything,” I said.

              Tiffany frowned, crossing her arms and turning away from me. “If you kiss me on the cheek, I’ll forgive you,” she said in a reluctant acceptance, as if that was the course of action she expected me to take.

              “Yeah right, like I would just do that,” I told her. It was only after she turned around, fire in her eyes, did I realize that I wasn’t learning from my mistakes at all.

              “Ok fine, then I’ll just kiss you inste—”

              “Wait wait wait, ok I’ll do it.” One of these days, Tiffany was going to be the death of me, I swear.

              She smiled victoriously, turning her cheek to me. I sighed, wondering how Tiffany was able to exercise this level of control over me, quickly closing the gap and pecking her cheek, closing my eyes while doing so. The kiss created a soft smooching sound, and I had to consciously redirect my thoughts away from how soft her cheek was.

              “Oh my gosh you two are so lewd, kissing each other in front of other people,” Sunny said playfully, peering at the two of use through the gaps between her fingers.

              They continued on much past 20 questions. Eventually, I started wondering why Sunny called this ‘game’ 20 Questions to begin with: usually, the game involved trying to guess what someone was thinking of via a series of strictly yes-or-no questions, right? Fortunately, they tuned down the teasing, although I wasn’t sure whether it was because they ran out of things to tease me about or they just felt sorry for me. I strongly suspected the former.

              About an hour into the game, after finally deciding to switch to Seohyun, my phone rang. I picked up my phone to a shock: my mom had texted me, notifying me that they had both returned home early and wanted me to come home. Before returning to Korea for the summer, my parents had informed me that their government job was momentarily relocating them somewhere else, so I was expecting to be home alone for the next two weeks at the very minimum.

              “Um, sorry everyone, but my parents just got home and want to talk to me in person about something,” I said, pocketing my phone and getting up.

              “Do you want me to walk you back?” Tiffany offered, getting up with me.

              “You just want to figure out where she lives,” Sooyoung accused her. I chuckled at the ridiculous notion, discovering that it wasn’t so ridiculous after Tiffany scoffed at her.

              “So?”

              I coughed, electing to disregard that. “I don’t want to keep you away from your friends. Maybe you can come meet my parents later, I’m sure they would love you,” I told her, exiting the living room.

              Tiffany stopped, taking some time to ponder this. “Ooh yeah, I’ll come by sometime,” she answered enthusiastically.

              As I said my goodbyes to everyone, Tiffany made sure that we exchanged phone numbers, something I just realized we had never done up until this point. Luckily, the apartment wasn’t too long of a walk from home, and when I arrived, I was greeted by my mother.

              “Hi honey! How are you?” she said warmly, pulling me into an embrace. I returned it, my lips curving up into a smile as I saw my father walk up from behind her.

              “At least let Taeyeon take off her shoes first,” my father laughed, a warm smile decorating his face.

              “I’m sorry, I just missed my baby so much,” she said, releasing me.

              “I’m well, I was just hanging out with some friends,” I informed her.

              I could tell that she was trying to contain it, but her gasp did not go by unnoticed by me. “I thought your friends were still in college?”

              “I made new ones,” I informed her, putting my shoes onto the shoe rack.

              “So quickly? Wow, since when was our beautiful daughter so popular?” my father laughed as I jumped into his embrace as well.

              “I missed you too,” I said, my face muffled slightly by his shirt.

              “I’m so happy for you Taeyeon, be sure to introduce us to these friends soon,” my mother said as I released my father.

              “Yeah, I think you’ll love her,” I told them as we moved to the living room, “By the way, what was that thing you wanted to talk to me about?”

              “Oh, right,” my father said. There was this unique aspect to my father that only he did, as far as I experienced. He had two ‘modes’, as I called them: family mode and serious mode. Most of the time when he was around me, his ‘family mode’ was on, in which he would laugh boisterously, smile warmly, and compliment me nonstop. His facial features were gentle and kind, like a giant teddy bear. Right now, in his ‘serious mode’, his face underwent noticeable changes: his eyes grew sharper and his eyebrows furrowed slightly. He took upon a much more serious attitude. “We’re not allowed to tell you much, princess, but we’re about to do something really important. In the thing we’re investigating, we suspected that an opening is about to present itself, so we’ll have to be ready; as a matter of fact, we weren’t technically allowed to come home today, but we missed you so much that they let us. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be heading back to the office and we’ll probably end up staying there for around two weeks. If we end up having to stay there for longer, then we’ll be sure to let you know, but we aren’t allowed to make any other outside contact during that time.”

              I nodded, absorbing the information in. While I was thankful that they got home early, I felt a little cheated after learning that they had to leave so soon. Was spending time with my parents so much to ask for?

              My father, apparently reading my face and determining these thoughts, switched back to family mode. “Oh, I’m sorry we have to leave so soon,” he said, pulling me into another hug.

              “It’s ok, it’s important,” I told him, feeling a mixture of embarrassment to the doting nature of my father and sadness at their imminent departure.

              “Do you want to do anything today? Like going to the zoo?”

              “I’m not a child anymore, mom,” I whined at her, causing her to break out into laughter.

              “You’ll always be our baby,” she said, my hair. I closed my eyes in content, smiling. My mom’s hands had some kind of magical power: if she anyone’s hair, a feeling of immense satisfaction and content would instantly wash over that person. It was probably one of the best feelings in the world.

              “Let’s just watch a movie together at home,” I told them. Despite how fun it was with Tiffany and her friends, being at home with my parents was always, bar none, the place I felt most content.

Introduction to Taeyeon’s parents! :O

What do you think that they’re doing? Maybe they’re some kind of super spy? Hm…

That’s it from me. As always, thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed!