Hello Everybody~!

Thank you so much for the comments! Sorry I can't address you all one by one but I am kind of in a rush. However, I wanted to update this as a Christmas present so I'll try to answer all your questions merged together.

Also, to give you something... a bit more special for this holiday, I'm giving away some hints:

1. It'd be nice to know how Tiffany feels/thinks about this, right? Well, since it'll all be Taeyeon's POV, you'll only get to know as much as Taeyeon does. So I recommend you look for the little signs to find out more about Tiffany's thoughts and feelings! ;)

2. Just because it seems like they have no reason to be kissing does not mean they actually don't. "Not having a reason" can be a reason good enough sometimes, too. ;)

3. Jessica... I didn't think people would be so interested in what's up with her look. Well, I can't tell you exactly what her look means... you may or may not figure it out later (wait for ch5 ㅋㅋㅋ) but I can give this away: it will not have too much of a significance in the story or the development of TaeNy's relationship.

4. Who will fall for who first? Well, well, well. I never said anything about who will fall in love first, did I??? I said: "One of the girls slowly begins to see the other in a different light while the latter stays oblivious for a long time..." Do think it through a few times and look for the subtle signs and hints in the story. Just like in real life, not everything will be spelled out for you, so you might want to consider reading carefully! ㅎㅎ

Well, here goes your chapter 3 now. Enjoy!

~~~

She was much too loud for my liking again. The other girls seemed bothered too.

‘Tiffany, can you please lower your voice a bit?’ I grumbled as I walked past Tiffany’s room.

‘Huh?’

I stepped back from making my way into the bathroom.

‘I said, please lower your voice. And the music. Some of us would like to go to sleep.’

Tonight’s party was definitely not the best I’ve been to. I was already grumpy back there and I was on my period anyway so feel free to multiply it by some. I may have looked at her in a bit more hostile way than I intended. Whatever.

‘But it’s only midnight!’

‘Only midnight?’ I stepped into the room and turned the music off. ‘Sunny, Yuri and Yoona wake up at four tomorrow.’

‘Well, aren’t they already in bed anyway? They skipped the party too—’

‘Doesn’t matter Tiffany, you’ll be waking them up.’

‘What’s your problem, honestly? Obviously, the others aren’t bothered by my voice—’

My words were barely audible now, ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you.’ Seriously. That sounded mean. She shot me a look and I immediately recoiled like an obedient puppy to their dungy little dog house. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, looking away as I sat down next to Fany’s bed, on the floor. I don’t know why, I was originally about to go to the bathroom… Anyway. I’ll just stay a bit.

‘Are you taking things out on me again?’ she asked, slowly lowering herself to sit down next to me.

I tended to do that. More than anyone else here, I tended to treat her like a real family member, sometimes becoming a bit too blunt and open with her, acting as if no-matter-what, we would always be okay in the end, since we’re bound together for good anyway. That was not the case though. She might have felt like real family, but at the end of the day, she wasn’t. Despite this, I knew she could never leave me and I knew she would always forgive so, many times, I was taking her for granted and that resulted in unnecessary fights and tears that needn’t have been shed.

I tended to do that. I tended to take it all out on her.

This time, I really wasn’t, though. “I mean, I know I’m not in a good mood but I was right, she was too loud, I saw Seohyun’s expression too, she just wouldn’t say anything.”

‘I know…’ she continued, sighing after my stubborn moments of silence, ‘I’m sometimes a bit too loud,’ sometimes, she said, sometimes… I just had to snicker to myself a bit, ‘but you’ve been acting mean about it too.’

‘Mean, how?’ I cocked my head up to look at her. She was pouting in an adorable way, I now saw, a complimentary frown added to the cute little dimple that formed on her chin.

‘Like, I don’t know, just like now?’ she said.

‘All I was saying is to not disturb the others…’ I knew I could’ve used a nicer tone though. Then again, she could’ve just not argued with me in the first place.

‘You know, some people love this voice s—’

‘I like your voice too. But maybe sometimes... I’d rather you were silent.’

She nodded. ‘Like now.’

‘Like now and maybe some other times.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean, Kim Taeyeon?’ she stared at me through a fierce gaze.

I flashed a mischievous grin and winked at her, poking her thigh once.

“Kim Taeyeon’s ultimate attempt to save the day. Act dorky.”

She seemed to immediately get what I was thinking of. Of course, I was just trying to joke but apparently, she took it totally seriously, her expression quickly changing from surprised to the usual mischievous, then to one I could not really decipher. But it looked determined.

She leaned closer.

‘Like this?’ she swiftly took my lips between hers.

My mind went numb again.

I can’t even say she forced her way into my mouth because I totally let her do what she wanted.

But after a bit of pushing and intruding, my brain finally caught up with me and I decided I would not give in that easily. My tongue came alive and my lips supported its every effort in this little battle we were having.

I supported my whole upper body’s weight with my palms flat against the warm wooden floor. “It’s obvious the cleaning lady hasn’t been here for a couple of days now… ahh, my hands are dirty now…”

Tiffany did not give up the fight easily either though. She never really was the type. She pressed her soft lips against mine firmly and once I attacked, ready to take over her territory, she on my tongue, then quite abruptly, she finished off with a small bite on my lower lip.

My whole mouth was tingling.

‘Yeah,’ I replied with a small delay, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, ‘something like this.’ It had a bit of Tiffany’s saliva on it now. ‘Now look what you did!’ I showed her the back of my hand and shoved it in her face.

‘What,’ she backed away from my hand. I swept off the little dirt I had on my palms. ‘Couldn’t say you were much better than that,’ she snorted, wiping the corner of with her thumb. Honestly, it looked kind of y when she did that.

‘Well, I wasn’t the one attacking you in the first place!’

‘Attacking you?’ she furrowed her eyebrows and her eyes turned to shape an upturned smile. ‘Well, if you took this as an attack... then you surrendered way too easily,’ Tiffany laughed and flicked my forehead.

‘Next time I’m alone, drunk, with you, I’ll make sure to bring my AK-47.’

‘You’d better,’ she smirked.

‘Llama.’

‘Baby.’

I knew we had made up with that.

And you know, in retrospect, I kind of wish we would’ve discovered this way of doing so earlier. Like that time when we fought over which one of us could wear that jacket that day…

For another few minutes, we continued our little chat with Seohyun and Sooyoung joining in soon, then we all decided it was time for bed and went our separate ways.

I headed for the bathroom first before entering Sunny’s and my bedroom as slowly and noiselessly as I could. I kept thinking about those scenes in comedies where you step on a banana peel or a very loud quacking rubber duck while I carefully tiptoed to my bed.

‘So you two made up?’ Sunny mumbled as I sat down on my sheets.

‘Sorry, did we wake you up?’ I took out my pajamas from under the pillows.

‘Nah, I just couldn’t really sleep…’ she replied with a sigh, propping herself up by the arm. ‘I was thinking about the performance and practice and all that…’

‘Hmmm.’

‘So? Did you guys say sorry to each other and weep your hearts out again and all that?’

‘No, not really…’ I paused for a moment, considering if I should tell Sunny what’s really happened. ‘Sunny?’

‘Hmm?’

‘We made out.’

Like a rocket she jumped up from beneath her sheets, eyes wide in shock.

‘WHAT?!?!’ Now she was the one being too loud.

‘Sunkyu-yah! Shhhhh!’

‘What do you mean you made out?!’

‘Wow, it’s really not that big a deal, it’s not like this was the first time…’ “Why am I telling her all this? Shouldn’t the alcohol be evaporating from my system already or something?”

‘What do you mean it’s not the first time?’

‘It’s not,’ I shrugged and took off my rather tightly fit cocktail dress. It wasn’t the first time we did it and it wasn’t the first time that two members had kissed either, I knew that. Alcohol and loneliness make you do stupid things sometimes.

‘Aren’t you two taking this TaeNy thing a bit too seriously?’

‘What? Pfft. That’s got nothing to do with this.’ I threw the dress in the basket where my dirty clothes belonged to and noticed that it had some of Sunny’s clothes on top. “Aish, she should be emptying hers out more frequently instead of using mine.”

‘Sunny, your dirty clothes—’

‘Yes, I’m gonna do it tomorrow…’ she waved a dismissing hand towards me. ‘Well, why didn’t you tell us?’

I stopped halfway-through putting on my pajama top.

I was surprised at this question even though I should’ve seen it coming.

‘Am I supposed to tell you every time I hug or hold hands or kiss with someone?’ It was out of genuine curiosity I asked this. Really. I didn’t think it was something I was supposed to tell them.

‘Hug? No. Hold hands? Not really. Kiss? Definitely. Especially if it’s Tiffany.’

‘Hey, wait. Don’t be like that. Don’t make it look like I’ve been keeping this a secret. I wasn’t. I just didn’t feel like it was necessary to tell everyone.’ I finished putting on my pants too now.

‘Well, you could’ve at least told me.’ Sunny followed me with her eyes as I slipped under my sheets.

‘You’re saying this as if this was some kind of big news,’ I reached for my green, frog shaped contact lens container. ‘It isn’t.’

‘Really? So how many times did it happen?’

‘Umm… third time tonight?’ Sunny’s hanging jaw was enough for me to decide not to let her speak before I’d say anything more. ‘But we were drunk all three times!’

‘Is that supposed to be a positive thing?’ she raised an eyebrow.

‘No, but I mean, I never really considered doing it when sober,’ I took out my first lens and rolled back the lid on top. ‘I’m sure Fany didn’t either,’ I said, as I repeated the process one more time, on the left eye.

‘Are you planning to do it again?’

‘Planning to? I’m not planning to do anything.’ I let my body be completely burrowed by the warm and soft sheets at last. ‘This is not like… there’s no “TaeNy’s drunken special stage Plan A-B-C…”’

‘So what, you just randomly and spontaneously end up all over each other li—?’

‘Yah! No touching! There’s no touching and we don’t end up “all over each other”.’ The absence of any physical contact other than our mouths connecting became kind of an unwritten rule, I suppose, for us, that we both unconsciously kept ourselves to. Usually, we would be comfortable, or rather, even fond of any kind of physical contact. Hell, I even massaged her half- when she had that evil sun-burn. No problem. But there was a great difference between that and kissing and touching her at the same time. That would feel like going too far. Like wanting to make it more. At least, for me.

Also, only one kiss allowed. ... Well, breaking apart to take a breath did not count as finishing a kiss, right? So that was okay. But once a kiss was finished, it would be weird if we continued with a second or third or who knows how many other ones.

‘And it’s not like we do it for very long either…’ I continued saying out loud my train of thoughts before she would even have the chance to accuse me of anything. "Basically, I think we just never did stuff that could lead to a misunderstanding. Like Fany said the first time, it was just plain kissing that we both enjoyed. Just another thing the two of us did as a sign of friendly affection." ‘... just one kiss at a time allowed.’

‘Allowed?’ Sunny tried to hold in her laughter. ‘Are you keeping a rulebook too?’

‘Shut up.’

She sighed as she sank back into her warm blanket. ‘You’re a fool.’

‘Am not.’

‘You are. Good night.’

‘Yeah, good night.’

That night, I went to bed with many thoughts in my head of our next performance two days from then. There were still many things to fix in the choreography and our costumes still needed fitting too. Sunny kept mixing up the lyrics… “Ahh, so many things and so little time… But it’s always like this, isn’t it?” I listened to my roommate’s weird noises as she made those strange sounds that reminded me of an old lady about to pass away.

Seriously, my talking was weird?!?!