CHAPTER 23

 

 

 

 

       KRYSTAL was about to close her eyes and drift into slumber land, catching up her lover sleeping soundly beside her when suddenly she felt the bed moved because of slightly movement earned by the latter. Taeyeon changed her position a bit and her arm just suddenly reached Krystal and curled her arms around Krystal’s abs tightly. Krystal couldn’t help but smiled and hugged back; she leaned her head on her shoulder, hope they wouldn’t be apart during the night.

       Not long afterward, Krystal began to hear Taeyeon mumbled unclearly and she just smiled even wider discovering the cuteness side of her that she had already known that it was one of her peculiar habit she could do during her sleep: talking like a conscious person. Again, she couldn’t help but landing a quick peck on her lips and giggled on her own afterward.

       “You’re so cute, Tae. I can’t believe you’re mine,” Krystal whispered secretly while staring at her.

       “Urmmm… My love for you would never change…,” suddenly she heard Taeyeon mumbled in her sleep, making Krystal eyes glimmered with joyful and satisfaction.

       “Thank you, T…,” Krystal was about to say thank you but suddenly her words just automatically interrupted as she heard another remark from her.

       “Don’t cry, Fanny~ya. I won't let Dong Hae hurt you anymore... I love you.”

       Once hearing the thing she had never expected before, a sudden pang just emerged and stung her heart painfully.

 

 

 

(Fanny… Fanny again? Is it Tiffany? Is she dreaming about her?)

 

 

 

       Feeling the pain, Krystal slowly tried to release herself from Taeyeon, but though Taeyeon wasn’t sober, she still persisted to embrace her tight and made Krystal couldn’t escape from it. Finally Krystal just let it flow. She just stayed silent and kept staring at the face in front of her, until her sight was slightly blurry. At that time she realized, her tears that had prickled on the eyelids started to stream down her cheek. It was her first time crying and feeling some real pain she never imagined before.

       “Taeyeon~aaa,” she whispered sadly. “What I suppose to do? I love you and I can’t just give up this way. But finding you still love her that much really would kill me softly…”

       Afterward she shifted her gaze to stare out at the ceiling, with her tears still bother to stop flowing.

       “Tiffany… I wonder how you looked like…I wonder if one day I could replace your position in her heart… Because after all this time, I now realize, some space in Taeyeon’s heart was absolutely still occupied by you… Will I get the chance, someday?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

       THE strong unmistakable scent of morning coffee tickled Taeyeon’s nose hence making her regained her consciousness. She rubbed her eyes for a moment and just quickly looked at the vacant space beside her.

(Oh damn. Krystal wasn’t here? Don’t tell me… it wasn’t only a dream…)

       Taeyeon didn’t waste any time again and just got up from the bed. Hastily she inspected the room and when she was about to shout out her lover name, Krystal had already greeted her from the dining room.

       “Morning,” she greeted while preparing her breakfast. “Have you sipped your coffee?”

       Didn’t really know why, but Taeyeon found it’s relieving that the scene on her dream just didn’t come true.

       “Morning, Baby,” Taeyeon replied joyfully and approached to her to give her morning kiss.

       Krystal was still putting her gaze on the table and had no chance to look at her yet.

       As Taeyeon was about to kiss her, Krystal just lifted her face up and Taeyeon just caught the both slightly swollen eyes.

       “Are you crying?” Taeyeon asked surprisingly and touched her cheek gently.

       “Uh, no,” Krystal briskly answered and faked a smile. And to dodge her curiousness, she just hastily cupped Taeyeon’s cheek and landed a morning kiss on her forehead.

       “It’s because of contact lens.”

       “Oh,” she heard Taeyeon briefly commented and found it’s relieving to find Taeyeon just nodded her head and didn’t question more.

       “Just buy some new one. It might run out,” Taeyeon suggested.

       “Doesn’t matter… I just bought it two weeks ago, it just might…” Krystal was about to refuse as the contact lens she used now actually was just she bought two weeks ago. And of course it had no relationship at all with her swollen eyes now.

       “I’ll buy you some new one after back from my office. Today, you don’t need to go to work. Put it off and take your glasses instead,” Taeyeon just cut off and stated firmly. Inside her firm tone, there’s caring feeling reflected. Though the scene last night still run in her mind, Krystal couldn’t deny that Taeyeon was really caring and touching her heart a lot.

       “Ah, Tae, don’t spoil me that…”

       “No. I want to spoil you even much more,” Taeyeon persisted and shook her head. “I don’t want you get something bad, even if just a little and even if you might think it isn’t necessary,” Taeyeon said solemnly.

(Taeyeon~aaa… Why you treated me such in a lovely way whereby I knew until now there’s always a space in your heart that will just be provided for Tiffany… I knew she’s still occupying your heart and your mind…)

       “Baby?” Taeyeon called out her wonderingly as she noticed Krystal seemed daydreaming for a moment. “Something wrong?”

       “Oh,” Krystal slightly taken aback. “No,” she managed to smile quickly. “It’s just…”

       “Just what?”

       “Will you promise me something?”

       Taeyeon frowned for a moment but she managed to nod.

       “Will you keep treating me this way forever?”

       “This way?”

       “I never felt so much love like this before. It’s only you who could make me feel so precious, Taeyeon. I don’t want to lose this feeling…,” Krystal said sincerely.

       Taeyeon just beamed gentle smile once she hearing the words. She slightly tipped toe and cupped Krystal’s cheek and managed to kiss her lips.

       “I promise you,” she said and sealed it with a passionate kiss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Jessica spread her arms widely to welcome Krystal once she caught the beautiful girl had already popped on her sight. Krystal smiled joyfully and just hugged her new best friend warmly afterward.

       “Ladies time,” Jessica said and showed off some shopping voucher to Krystal.

       “Yuri gave it all to you?” Krystal asked wonderingly.

       Jessica nodded and smirked. “Yes. She worked so hard lately to afford this shopping voucher, whereby I had told her she supposed not to do it…”

       “What did she say then?”

       “She said she only wanted to show how much she loved me and one thing she thought she could do was by giving me this voucher. She said sincerely at that time…,” Jessica trailed off to relive the scene and smiled touchingly. “’Sica… it might doesn’t value that much, but I just want you to know, I’d show me your love in every little thing I could. Please don’t break my heart and just say you’re happy with this and you’d love me even more’”

       Krystal eyes widened and she just giggled hearing the stupid remarks from Yuri. Jessica just managed to giggle along.

       “She’s crazy, right?” Jessica asked but couldn’t help to hide her amusement.

       “She’s cute and lovely,” Krystal said and suddenly somehow her mind just was back to Taeyeon again.

       As if could foresee Krystal’s mind, Jessica carefully asked.

       “Krys? Did Taeyeon treat you well?”

       “Oh, yes, of course. If she didn’t do it, I’d punch her,” Krystal replied and showed her fist in the air, dodged Jessica from the curiosity about her ruining thought.

       “Share with me. I never heard so much about you two,” Jessica smirked.

       “There’s nothing much to tell,” Krystal smiled. “I think we’re still on the early stage. We talk, we hug, we kiss, and we sleep together.”

       “Good to hear that. It isn’t like me and Yul,” Jessica said. “At the beginning, we had a lot of row.”

       “Oh yeah?”

       Jessica nodded.

       “Yeah, it’s because we don’t really know each other. I mean… we need some much more time to adapt. I just felt deadly jealous when it came to every girl having any contact with Yuri. I felt so insecure because I knew Yuri was adorable one. And… hell, she seemed like playgirl one. You should be thankful then, Taeyeon was sort of faithful one, so you don’t need to worry about her. You’re so lucky, Krys.”

       “Yeah, I know that. I’m indeed lucky one,” Krystal said and smiled.

        The thing that Jessica didn’t know was, inside her heart Krystal said…

        If only you know that Taeyeon as faithful as that… until she never got the chance to forget Tiffany… you must haven’t say that I’m that lucky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       KRYSTAL chose to hide the stuff on her own afterward. Time after time, day after day, and time after time just been passed away, and even though Taeyeon never shown any lack of care, Krystal had to admit, the specter of Tiffany seemed still agitate her mind and soul. It wasn’t that she bothered to share her problem with Taeyeon; however she thought she could still be able to handle it on her own. She thought it was just kind of insecure feeling that eventually just would be faded away as time went by.

       But one day, she knew she wasn’t totally right about it.

       It was the last day on September, at night. The sky was deep, velvety violet, and the stars were already ablaze. It was the last month of autumn, and as it was about to welcome winter, the chill night wind was blowing, making her hair blew up as she now was standing at her balcony. She had no idea for how long she had already stood, but she just did it without any particular reason as she just could close her eyes and sleep properly.

       About an hour ago, she just ended her daily conversation with Taeyeon and she remembered the seconds before she hung up the phone, she discovered her lover voice started to be faintly heard, indicating that the drowsiness had already crept over her consciousness.

       After exchanging good night and phone-smooch they just ended the conversation. And after all, she just couldn’t even feel sleepy at all. She had no idea what to do. She wanted to text Jessica but she just cancelled it as it was almost hit midnight and she knew when it came to stuff about sleeping, Jessica was a person she supposed to not make any mess with. After all she considered to text Yuri; however she just didn’t make it as well as she thought it wasn’t a good idea too to text someone’s lover at the midnight tough both of them tacitly knew she had no bad intention at all. So, here she was, finally, spent about an hour standing in the silence of night, and stargazed for a while.

       As she was still musing and losing with her thought, suddenly the electric just went off and all the things she could see now was only the black pit. She felt uneasy facing this situation. It wasn’t she’s afraid of the dark, but… as she glanced toward her neighbor flat, it’s clear that they didn’t have the same trouble with hers. The light was still on and it meant, the blackout wasn’t caused by central system.

       “Shoot,” she snapped and just made her way to scrabble around for getting some flash light.

       But her steps just suddenly stopped as her ears caught some steps inside her room. She unconsciously held her breath and felt slightly shuddered. The steps just came closer and she was sure it wasn’t her mind playing some trick to her ears. She started to freak out but struggled hard to not reveal it, in case it was someone dangerous already entered her room; for an instance a burglar.

       As her sight started to adjust with the darkness, she could notice someone was indeed already inside her room. Instinctively she grabbed the nearly baseball stick against the wall and ready to hit whomever it was, that was surely had bad intention for coming without any invitation in the middle of night like this.

       Once she thought it was the right time to attack first, the bulb just suddenly on again and she just taken aback witnessing what or more accurately, who were standing in front of her now.

       “SURPRISEEEEE!!!!!”

       The baseball stick was just dropped onto the floor as Krystal was still stunned from the scene. She felt like frozen. Her heart was still racing out, but slowly decreased to get the normal pace again.

       In her sight, Taeyeon was popping, holding some cake and trailing behind was Yulsic couple that was just like the refrigerator and the magnet one, sticking each other.

       Onto the cake, there’s some candles already flamed, and Taeyeon just grinned even wider witnessing Krystal hadn’t recovered yet from the scene. She stepped forward and extended her hands to put the cake in front of her face.

       “Happy birthday! I got you, right???” Taeyeon said cheerfully.

       “Happy birthday, Dear Krystal!” Jessica and Yuri followed.

       Krystal seemed still couldn’t put herself together yet, but Taeyeon gently instructed her to blow the candle.

       Krystal was about to spill out some words, but she just didn’t make it. Instead, she just closed her eyes for a moment and did what Taeyeon asked. Once the candle had been blown, they were all clapping her hands and hustled to Krystal to drop some kiss on her cheek.

       Krystal only could manage to say thank you and now everyone could see the tears already prickled on her eyelids.

       “Thank you, Tae. Thank you everyone,” Krystal said feebly.

       Taeyeon put the cake at the nearly table and kissed her again.

       “I hope we didn’t ruin your sleep,” she whispered.

       Krystal smiled thinly. “Of course not. You’re great, Taeyeon… Gomapta.”

       “We brought some beer. Let’s start the party tonight!” Taeyeon asked and beckoned everyone to gather at the dining room.

 

 

 

 

 

       IT didn’t take too long for Taeyeon to get into her drunk state again as actually her tolerance to alcohol was extremely low. After some shot, her face just quickly turned into red one and she just kept laughing for no point. But as they thought it wasn’t a problem to let her got some euphoria in Krystal birthday celebration, nobody bothered to stop her. Afterward, Yuri was the second who caught up into half-sober mode.

       “Look at them,” Jessica shook her head in disbelief. “We’re even stronger than our husband,” she giggled when talking to Krystal.

       Krystal managed to giggle along; but Jessica just stopped to pour some beer again as she caught something odd inside her giggle.

       “Krys? Don’t force yourself to drink if you aren’t into it…,” Jessica said as she thought Krystal just did it because she didn’t want to ruin the moment. Jessica could see there’s something written on Krystal face, even from the beginning, actually. But at first she just thought Krystal was still in her surprise mode so she just looked like that. But now, she thought they missed something from her…

       “Anyo,” Krystal quickly shook her head. “I’m okay with this,” she said and briskly took some gulp to prove it; however Jessica still had her perspective on.

       As Jessica looked at Taeyeon and Yuri to get some clue, she just shook her head in disbelief discovering both of them already snored and put her head onto the table because of drunk.

       Jessica just rose from the chair and approached Krystal that was pondering with something at that time. Jessica squeezed her shoulder gently and it made Krystal slightly startled and peered up to look at the blonde one who seemed so concern at her.

       “Wanna talk?” she asked and found Krystal didn’t immediately answer, but now her face obviously told her that she was indeed hiding something.

       Jessica gently held Krystal hand to help her get up and towed her to the balcony again. They were sitting on the chair at the balcony afterward and no one bothered to pipe up for a while as they might have no idea how to begin the conversation at first.

       “Krys, what’s it? I know you’re hiding something.”

       “Sica,” finally Krystal spoke up. Her face was so sad and her voice was just above the whisper. “I wonder how Tiffany looked like. In my mind, I imagined she’s a girl with adorable creature and she knew well how to comfort Taeyeon. Am I right?”

       Once Jessica heard the unexpected question, she just felt hammer on her chest. The question, frankly, caught her off guard. She had no idea where suddenly Krystal got all of the idea to release sort of question.

       “Why suddenly you questioned it?”

       “I’m just curious. Please let me know if you don’t mind,” Krystal replied.

       “I don’t mind, but…,” Jessica tried to think about something, but she just eventually nodded and took her mobile-phone. She touched the screen several times and just passed it to Krystal after she displayed one of Tiffany’s photos.

       It was one of Tiffany picture with Jessica, inside Tiffany’s super pink room. They both hugged each other and seemed Jessica was taking it. Tiffany’s face was bright and she revealed her eyesmile as well. Krystal just kept quiet while observing the picture for some moment and Jessica thought Krystal adored it so she just patiently stayed silence as well.

       The things that Jessica missed was, now Krystal seemed had clearance and confirmation that slowly but sure started to create pain inside her heart.

       “Seems she loves pink. Really cute,” Krystal commented. Jessica smiled and nodded.

       “She wasn’t only loves it. She’s obsessed with pink,” Jessica emphasized.

       “She’s beautiful.”

       “You’re too, Krys… You don’t need to…,” Jessica was slightly worrying now, as she thought Krystal felt to begin losing her confidence.

       But Krystal just didn’t give her chance to encourage her as she thought it wasn’t the thing she needed now.

       “Sica, what do you think about someone who never have a proper place in someone’s heart?”

       “W-what are you talking about, Krys?”

       “I’m talking about myself. Pathetic, isn’t it?” Krystal said.

       “I really don’t get it, Krys…”

       “I think Taeyeon really need much more time before she’s ready to experience another relationship, or else… I think… she would never make it… Her heart was only for Tiffany.”

       “How could you say that? It isn’t right, Krys… Did she do something hurt you or…”

       Krystal shook her head.

       “No. she’s a great lover and I meant it when I said it. She’s really caring and treated me so well. I know I shouldn’t ask for more…”

       “Krys… You made me confuse. Just tell the point, would you?”

       “At first I thought it was my unreasonable feeling only as you knew, we started it out fast. I thought as time went by, slowly Taeyeon would forget her and provide all her heart just for me, but now I knew, I was only dreaming.”

       “That’s ridiculous,” Jessica half shouted in denial. “You might only experience the same feeling with me, about the insecurity, but…”

       “Okay. Once more question and I’d proof you that we’re absolutely not facing the same situation, Sica.”

       “Fine, what’s it?”

       Krystal took deep breath before finally releasing the question she had to summon all of her courage to listen to the answer.

       “You only need to say true or false,” Krystal said. “Tiffany’s birthday is on 1, whatever the month, right?”

       Jessica eyes just widened in surprise, her jaw was dropping open, couldn’t absorb how Krystal figure it out. She thought, it was impossible too if Taeyeon told her about Tiffany’s birthday. It was so unnecessary thing to share with her, though.

       “I don’t see the connection with yo…”

       “So, is it yes? I guess I’d take it as yes, right?”

       Jessica just nodded confusingly.

       “It just confirmed my thought, Sica,” Krystal smiled wryly.

       “Krystal, I really don’t get it…”

       “It’s not the first time I experienced this,” Krystal started to explain. “So… it doesn’t really surprise me, though… I feel little bit surprise at the beginning, but I quickly managed to adapt it…”

       “This?” Jessica threw her puzzled look.

       “Taeyeon did mistakes.”

       “W-what mistakes?”

       Krystal squinted with her eyes shut for a moment again, as if cogitating the scenes she really wanted to wipe away from her thought.

       “She bought me pink cupcakes when I once told her I wanted chocolate. At first I thought she just like kinda forget about it and it just unnecessary small stuff to take into consideration. But… I knew something went wrong when one day I found her…,” Krystal trailed off for a while. “She mentioned Tiffany’s name when she’s sleeping with me… She even said…: I love you, Fanny~ya… I couldn’t blame her for the dream but… you know what I mean…, right?”

       Krystal’s voice began to crack and Jessica gasped and couldn’t say anything as she knew… it hurt a lot and what Krystal needed so badly was neither false hope or wishful thought. She knew better about it.

       “And… and… what about today? Did Taeyeon do any mistake again?”

       Krystal smiled pathetically.

       “Do you think how I could guess Tiffany’s birthday correctly?”

       As Jessica quickly got the knowledge she clutched her hand on and suddenly everything just became so clear.

       “You… Oh, Krystal… don’t say that today isn’t your…”

       “Yes, today is 1^st October and today isn’t my birthday. Mine is 24.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      "WHY YOU JUST DIDN'T SPILL IT OUT???" Jessica shouted in shock.

      "Because I don't want her get hurt!" Krystal stated and it made Jessica was in the edge of crying as well, witnessing how wonderful and tough the girl sitting beside her now.

       There's short pause afterward. Both of girl seemed feel the same agony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       “Please, don’t let her know. Please just keep this between us. I love her and I don’t want her bear terrible guilty feeling if she finds what she’s doing. She mixed up… No, she didn’t mix up… She… she just memorized well everything about her as if there’s no space left for anybody else…”

 

       “But Krystal, it doesn’t fair at all for you!”

 

       “Nothing really fair when it comes to love, Sica,” Krystal said. The tears already streamed down her cheek. Jessica felt so dreadfully sorry for her. She could say anything, she couldn’t help, she couldn’t bear the pain for her best friend, so all the things she could do now was only hugging her tightly.

 

       “It’s kinda funny. It hurt, Sica. It hurt a lot. But I just found though I would never get any chance to either win her heart or replace Tiffany’s presence inside her heart, somehow, part of me still want to cling on her like no tomorrow…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to be continued...

 

 

Does this chapter surprise you? Or some of you had already foreseen this?

Krystal really has angelic heart and I could sense... her love toward Taeyeon was so sincere... Right?

Should she give up? Or should she stay?