Chapter 14: Dreams

The first time I ever set eyes on Jung Jessica was when the sky was grey, and the rain was light and I had come down the stairs in my usual practiced way, took a left into the dining room and stopped in my tracks because there she sat in the seat opposite where I usually sat, her back straight, her eyes down and her dyed brown hair falling around her face and shoulders. Her skin was pale but her cheeks had a slight redness to them that reminded me of a china doll. She had the type of beauty that I had never really seen before and it left me curious.

I looked over at the other kids dotted around the large table and approached, pulling out my chair and sitting in my usual spot, across from her. I tried to keep my eyes on my breakfast but they kept on wandering over to her, she was fascinating with the way she ate so delicately, and truthfully, I couldn’t help but just watch.

Having new kids come to the orphanage wasn’t something that happened irregularly and mostly I’d pay no attention, but there was something there, with her and the aura she emitted.

She directed her gaze at me suddenly and I could see the snow blizzard brewing in her brown eyes and for a moment I was stunned, my lips slightly parted and my spoon clutched within my hand.

I felt the air stutter in my lungs because I knew that look. I had given people that look before and being on the receiving end of that look made me feel slightly nauseous. I felt as though I had been caught red-handed while committing some unforgivable crime. But all I was really doing was staring at a pretty girl that had taken my breath away.

When my brain rejuvenated and my senses kicked back in, I finally tore my gaze away from hers and looked down at my food, almost guiltily. My heart had been pounding, and so I ate my food as quickly as I could and I left early that morning and took the long route to school.

It turned out that she was in several of my classes, and also stayed in the room down the hall from mine in the orphanage. We didn’t speak to each other for about two weeks after our first small and wordless encounter at the breakfast table.

Jessica was a troublemaker, so it seemed, because she was never listening in class and her homework was never completed, and she talked back to teachers and skipped classes frequently. She wasn’t the type of person that I’d want to associate myself with, but nevertheless, I still had this weird type of infatuation with her.

I had forgotten my P.E kit one afternoon at lunch and had gone back to class to try and find it. But when I opened the door to my classroom, the place was wrecked, desks turned upside down, chairs laying on their sides, papers everywhere and in the center of all this destruction was Jung Jessica. Her fists clenched and her tears falling, she looked over at my frozen self, her eyes ablaze and we just stared at each other for a moment. I remember how she looked so angry, so upset and confused, how much of myself I saw in her. The silence was thick and impatient.

I took a few steps into the room cautiously, gulped down the lump in my throat. I should’ve just left, but I didn’t. I continued on. This was the first mistake of many.

Her eyes followed me, and she was about to say something, but then a gasp was heard at the other side of the room.

We both spun around to see a rather stunned Mrs. Park, agape as her high-heeled shoes clicked against the floor as she entered slowly. Her expression soon contorted into outrage as she glared between the two of us.

“Who did this?” She demanded, gesturing to the wreckage.

I looked over at Jessica as she opened to fess up, but I quickly cut her off before a single syllable could leave her lips.

“It was me.” I said, stepping forward. “I did it.”

Mrs. Park looked at me, examined my expression for a moment before turning to Jessica.

“Miss Jung, is this true?” She asked, directing her gaze at Jessica.

I looked over at her too, signaling that she should just nod. And nod, she did.

Mrs. Park sighed. She was a nice teacher really, and it was rare to see her so angry. “Taeyeon, I am really very disappointed in you. I thought you knew better. You do realize that you’ll be facing a serious punishment for such behavior.”

I hung my head low and nodded. “Yes ma’am. I’m willing to face the consequences for my actions. I’m very sorry.” I said, trying to sound convincing.

“Right…” Mrs. Park said, “Let’s get you to the principle’s office and decide your punishment.”

As I left with Mrs. Park, I looked over my shoulder, back at Jessica to find that she had a lost expression on her face. As our eyes met, she looked down at the carnage of school property, away from me.

Sooyoung was called, punishments were discussed and all I could do was sit in the corner with my head down as Sooyoung continued to apologize for my behavior. Expulsion was mentioned, but since this was the first serious bad thing I had supposedly done, it came to agreement that I would clean the cafeteria after school for a month as punishment, and also clean classrooms to make up for the damage of school property since Sooyoung didn’t have the money to pay for it.

I took it on the chin and did what I needed to do and faced the consequences for what I had done - taken the blame for Jung Jessica’s wrong doings.

As Sooyoung pulled up in front of the orphanage, she sighed, pulling the car keys out, letting the engine fall back into its slumber.

“Why did you do it, Taeyeon?” She asked. “Why would you do something so reckless and irresponsible? This isn’t like you.” She said, shaking her head. “I thought I had taught you better.” She sounded hurt, but I said nothing. I pushed car door open, went inside and left Sooyoung to ponder over my actions.

The first time I ever spoke to Jung Jessica was two…maybe three days after the incident in the classroom, when the day was quiet and the wind was brushing lazily through my scalp as I sat in my usual spot, underneath the tree, sketching on a notepad.

She had essentially come out of nowhere and said: “Your name’s Taeyeon, right?”

I had nearly jumped out of my skin, because I hadn’t heard her approach, and nobody ever came out here, especially to talk to me.

I looked up, the sky behind her and her long hair moving with the breeze.

“Uhm…yeah…that’s me.” I said, nervously. Why was she speaking to me?

“Mind if I sit?” She asked, gesturing beside me.

“Oh…no…please take a seat.” I moved over a little so she could lean her back against the tree too.

She sat, her back against the tree as she inhaled the fresh air and sighed. I watched her, and noted how pale her skin was and brown her eyes were, and generally how beautiful she was with the natural world behind her.

“My name is Jessica. Jung Jessica.” She introduced, not looking at me but over at the grass and the trees.

I nodded slowly. “I’m Kim Taeyeon.”

“I know.” She stated simply, glancing over at my notepad, looking at what I had sketched. She went quiet for a moment, and the silence fell with the wind mixed in between. “I’m confused about you, Kim Taeyeon.” She said finally, meeting my eyes, holding the gaze firmly. “Why did you do it? Why did you take the blame for me?”

I shrugged and looked away from her. “I…don’t know.”

I heard her exhale through her nose. I didn’t know, I had no reason for helping her. I just did it because it felt like the right thing to do.

“Does there really have to be a reason?” I asked, looking back over to her.

She looked at the ground and shook her head. “No…I suppose not.”

This was the first time in a very long time that I had spoken to someone who wasn’t Sooyoung and I liked the way Jessica’s voice sounded and how her lips moved when she talked, and how the wind would carry the scent of her perfume. There had always been something so indescribable about her that had always left me wondering and calculating exactly what it was and unfortunately, I had never really found it.

“Well…thank you anyway, Taeyeon.”

We talked for a little longer. Jessica showed up everyday after school to help me clean, and it was in those hours that I found out more about her. And what I liked about her most was that she never felt the need to fill the silences with words, she just left them to hang in the air. I liked that and soon enough I became to like her to the point where I was labeling it as ‘love’.

It had been roughly a year since I had laid eyes on Jung Jessica, and we were lounging in the park, sitting atop one of the hills as the sun set before us. It was warm, and the breeze was perfect and we were having one of our conversations that would begin but never come to any real end.

“Hmm…you know what I like about the sun, Taengoo?” She asked, closing her eyes, leaning back on her hands.

“That it keeps us alive?”

“No, smartass.” She retorted, opening her eyes to glare at me. I give her a cheeky smile as she rolled her eyes playfully, trying to conceal her small grin. She looked over at the park and the view and the people as they passed us by and finally she says, “I like that…it never changes. The sun will always be the sun…and even when night falls and everything gets dark, the sun will always come out to shed light where the darkness had taken over completely.”

I traced the outline of her worn out, white converse trainers with my eyes, and nodded. “I suppose that’s kind of true.”

“Kind of? What, you think the sun’s just gonna change one day and not be the sun anymore?”

I wasn’t sure if this was a serious question, but I answered it anyway. “Hmm…not in our lifetime, no. I think we as humans will have to change first before the sun starts considering it.”

“You’re such a weirdo, Taeyeon.”

“Me? You’re the one who likes talking about the reasons for liking the sun.”

She pushes my shoulder playfully and I can’t help but smile and chuckle to myself a little. Things fall quiet once more. I liked our silences, because we never needed words, not really, because the silences always meant so much more, and told so much more.

“You know, Taeyeon, you’re kinda like my sun.” She says softly, picking at the grass with her fingers. “Remember when I wrecked that classroom and you took the blame. I was in a really dark place then, and when you helped me out I thought that maybe the world wasn’t so unfair, and that maybe not everyone was so stupid and close minded.” She slides her hand across the grass and laces her fingers through mine. “I hope that you and I can be together for a very long time, Kim Taeyeon.” She smiles up at me, in that shy kind of way that makes me fall a little deeper. “Pinky promise that you, Kim Taeyeon, and I, Jung Jessica will be together until we take our last breaths?”

I nod and laugh a little as I hooked my pinky around hers, not considering the consequences of what I had just agreed to. I didn’t realize at the time, but Jung Jessica had me wrapped tight around her little finger, literally and metaphorically. “I promise.”

I spent nights upon nights in that first year of knowing Jung Jessica, trying to convince myself that it was just an infatuation, that we were just best friends, and that every girl has a girl crush and that it’s nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. It was more than that, and sadly I had made the grave mistake of thinking that I had fallen in love - with a girl who could never love me back.

I loved the late nights and the pumping of adrenaline because I was doing t