looking for you again(I)

"Is there...a particular memory that makes you feel happy?" the doctor crosses his ankles and tilts his head. Navy green is a good colour on him, she must admit. It fits him nicely. So she says it.

"Navy green looks good on you," she says almost absent-mindedly, looking up and down herself on the seat.

The entire place is an entire coliseum of books - books with blue bindings, books with weathered leather bindings, books with bursting pages - and everything is very neatly arranged. She spots a drawer full of paperclips and another drawer full of coloured pens. She looks around because she likes looking and observing. Her fingers find each other and they interlock and let go, interlock and let go.

The doctor tugs the hem of his navy green sweater, smiling proudly. "Thanks. My wife got it for me last autumn."

"That's nice."

The doctor looks from his sweater to her and smiles a wrinkled smile. "So how about it? Do you have a memory that makes you happy?"

Jessica doesn't have to think about it, actually, but she pretends to take time to rifle through her memories. In her mind, she is sitting cross-legged on the floor in her home, going through the stashes of records one by one and picking one for the right mood.

Finally, she nods. Her eyes are looking elsewhere beyond the four walls of the room, somewhere further than that, somewhere even the doctor doesn't know. She smiles.

"I guess there's one."

"What would that be, Jessica?"

Jessica's eyes lift to the doctor, and the doctor feels like he's being taken to that place between early morning and late night.

The memory that makes her happiest is the one where she is sitting on a couch and Tiffany is sitting on the wooden paneling of their home in JeonJu, a cartoon flashing on the television about a sea turtle and the air smelling of bacon, freshly-cut grass and many other things mingled into one. Tiffany had bought stickers and decorative tape from a DIY store before and was excited about using them - Tiffany liked those, those trivial things - and Jessica was overlooking her like she usually did, travelled down the expanse of Tiffany's sprawled legs and admired their smooth skin and the contrast between deep brown and alabaster white. Tiffany wore a hairslide to keep her overgrown fringe out of the way. A scar at her left elbow that Jessica knew by touch stood out in a pale brown on her white skin, one she got from trying to cook - only Tiffany could get hurt from frying eggs. From then on, Jessica was left in-charge of the kitchen.

Tiffany was winding the tape around a mint box, then applying stickers to it. It looked pretty and Tiffany held it up to the light, looking happy at her work.

"What'd you think?" Tiffany asked Jessica.

Jessica had her hand propping her chin on the armrest and stared past the tin box to Tiffany.

"Pretty," Jessica's mouth straightened into a line and she shrugged. "Not half bad. Pretty."

Tiffany's eyes narrowed teasingly. She knew what Jessica was getting at. "Not me." She held up the box higher. Jessica took it by her fingers and turned it over in her hands. "The box."

Jessica returned it when she was satisfied. "Pretty."

Tiffany looked disappointed. But she didn't pout. Tiffany didn't like to pout, but Jessica found it adorable.  "Is that all? Pretty? God you ."

Jessica loved teasing Tiffany and watch her turn defensive. Jessica watched Tiffany and smiled knowingly, smugly. "I said it was pretty."

"You could be a little more appreciative of my work. I spent two hours on this." And then Jessica was staring at Tiffany's back and Tiffany resumed her work quietly, sullenly.

Jessica's silent laughter untangled the knot in Tiffany's head and it cleared whatever thought of leaving Jessica in the living room alone. Jessica didn't move from her spot, but Tiffany could have sworn she felt warm arms encircle then engulf her. Jessica wanted to attach her heart to a lightbulb and see how bright it would have been at the moment. She was confident that the filament would melt from being overworked.

Tiffany spread her legs to collect the pool of decorative tape and half-used stickers from the floor, using her fingernails to pick at those stubborn ones stuck to the floor. Then, as she pushed all her stuff to the table and stood up - and Jessica clearly remembers this - Jessica followed her and trailed after her into the bedroom.

While Tiffany pulled out her clothes to change into for her random bouts of showers, Jessica captured Tiffany at the closet and kissed the tender spot that Tiffany loved to be kissed at - Jessica touches the side of her neck impulsively to stop her fingers from twitching - and let her hands guide Tiffany to Jessica's heart.

Jessica remembers all this. The doctor observes her from his chair and squints in interest at her. Jessica's mouth opens to speak, but she looks down to her shoes and smiles instead. Jessica had always been quiet, Tiffany had spoken mostly for the both of them, but Tiffany always found Jessica's heart to be the one loudest with uncoordinated and messy emotions, always the one who had most to say and a whole lot to tell Tiffany. Especially at night when they are alone.

"Jessica, my advice for you is to hold on to that memory," the doctor looks ageless when he looks at her like this, "and never let it go."

Jessica levels her gaze with him, recognition strengthening her eyes. "I'm not letting her go again."

"That's good then," the doctor says and reclines in his seat. "That's all for today; I'm sure you're tired."

Jessica nods wordlessly and stands. The doctor stands as well and see her to the door. She just smiles, as she has been doing an awful lot these days. She goes to her home back in JeonJu on public transport, partly because she loves the cushioned seats and the sound of spare change spilling into the container but mostly because she has been disallowed to drive and her driving license has been suspended.

The bus stops and rumbles in protest. The door swings open and Jessica looks up because she thought the saw the tortoiseshell sunglasses she bought for Tiffany once upon a time during Christmas, and the pink parasol they handpicked together on a street in Busan. But it's not and Jessica looks out at the sky through fingerprint-smeared glass to hide her disappointment.

Jessica drops the keys at the door, fumbling to find the right key. It sparks another memory, another dreamlike pulse within her.

"Hurry up would you?" next to her, Tiffany grumbled and itched and fidgeted.

The sight of it was fulfilling to whatever Jessica had been feeling and she stalled even longer, purposely going through the bunch twice and agitating Tiffany even further. Tiffany flung the plastic bags to the side and grabbed the keys from Jessica's hand.

"Just let me."

Tiffany found the right one and stuck it into the keyhole, fiercely cursing everything under the sun. The cold had been bothering her. When she got the door open, Jessica's hands were on her shoulders, pushing her inside - Jessica falters now at the right key - Jessica shed every stitch of clothing between their bodies and fell into Tiffany at the couch, kissing away all the cold.

Tiffany's voice is ringing in Jessica's head now. She nudges the door open with her foot and looks around her empty home. The door creaks softly as she pushes it all the way. She breathes a little longer. She feels like a stranger in the house.

She glances at the kitchen and wishes she heard Tiffany whining about the water not boiling and Jessica telling her to wait and be patient and Tiffany would always find some smart retort to fire back at her. Jessica passes by the bathroom and she finds it weird that she doesn't hear Tiffany singing in the shower and screaming when the soap slipped. Jessica's feet thread lightly on the floor. She thinks the saw Tiffany splayed on the ground, rolling to her belly and then to her back and making origami while singing to a song on the radio - Tiffany always liked singing. And Jessica liked Tiffany singing.

Tiffany wanted to be a singer. She wanted to sing for people. She believed music needed no language - it was an universal language that everyone and anyone could appreciate. Jessica was mostly her audience for the evenings and nights. When they had nothing to say on the bed, Tiffany sang for her; sang all of Jessica's favourite songs and her mother's lullabies while Jessica breathed in her skin.

Jessica ambles mindlessly and kicks off her shoes, realising that she has ventured halfway into her home with her shoes still on. She sits perched on the edge of the bed. An arrangement of white bottles align the bedside table. She feels like she needs to wash her face because it feels sticky, but she can't seem to move and see Tiffany's toothbrush waiting to be used in there.

She feels hands sneak up her stomach and she closes her eyes and swats them away because they're not real - she breathes deeply - not real, not real.

Her doctor told her so; they weren't real. She has to stop thinking of it.

She curls up on bed and wilts like a flower. She looks at a brown spot on the blankets and moves closer to Tiffany's side. The radiator is thrumming and her world is quiet but that.

She laughs when she remembers Tiffany dancing into the room, slightly tipsy and high on her favourite song and red wine. Jessica was half- underneath the covers and Tiffany had on a skimpy bathrobe and sang loudly. Jessica was so sure that the neighbours had heard her. Tiffany eased up into Jessica's arms later and they laughed at their reflections and Jessica squealed at Tiffany's cold toes pressing into the back of her knees.

Jessica blinks the memory away. The room is awashed with the yellow light from the lamp. A phone rings in the hallway and echoes all the way through the closed door to the bedroom. Jessica barely hears the incessant ringing - must be nosy relatives offering condolences again - and then Tiffany's voice speaks to record the message after the beep, and then an annoyingly loud beep goes off and the message plays. It's YuRi who just came back from Brazil.

"It's hard on all of us. I'm sorry I couldn't be there," YuRi's voice is muffled through the receiver. Jessica hears her sigh. "Call me back when you get this."

No. Jessica won't call back. She decides to throw away her phone maybe tomorrow. For now, the sheets ruffle around her like a loose embrace.

Jessica reaches for a pillow and pulls it down to rest her head on it, but her hand touches cold metal briefly. She looks at it, clasping her hands around it and pulling it closer to her. It had been tucked into a pillowcase. It's a tin box that once used to contain mints. Layers of decorative tape had been wrapped around it, stickers with tacky phrases pasted over it.

Jessica is hesitant about opening it, but her tentative fingers find the lid and pries it open. Inside is a rolled up piece of paper torn from a notebook and a ring - Tiffany's ring.

i'm looking for you again jessi

Jessica caps the box and rubs her face. think of the happiest memory you have. you'll feel better.

Jessica goes back to then. The edges of her mind are becoming increasingly blurred. She feels like a blurred photograph and hazily recalls a blurred photograph she took of Tiffany and got hit because she laughed at it.

Another beep goes off in the hallway. "Sica, everyone's worried. We all are worried for you. Please call back."

She fingers the box. She closes her eyes and the opens them. When she closes her eyes, she could feel Tiffany staring at her, but when she opens them, Tiffany isn't there.

It seems like an endless thing, Tiffany and her.

Unlike some movies, she can't hear Tiffany around her, she can't feel Tiffany around her most of the time. Tiffany seemed to only live in her memories. Tiffany left behind a gap in her life, an unearthed, unabridged gap that Jessica doesn't know how to fill up and even if she did, she never wants to fill it.

She brings the metal box closer to herself and then breathes evenly.

i'm looking for you again jessi

i'm looking for you again jessi

Did Tiffany somehow run away and is lost? Did Tiffany somehow think that Jessica needed to be found? Jessica had no idea what the hell that note meant.

The night deepens and time flows fluidly through Jessica's fingers. She falls asleep with the box against her chest.

Tiffany used to tell her that forever is a very long time - stretches of long time that gives everyone a chance to love somebody, and i think, jessi, that in my forever, i'm glad it's you and not some old saggy man - Jessica laughed at her.

Jessica falls asleep. She doesn't know what happens next, doesn't know what she does next, but knows that she is with Tiffany somehow. She is overlooking Tiffany wrap layers of decorative tape around the tin box. Tiffany is wearing her ring. Tiffany is looking so beautiful with a hairslide keeping her fringe in check, so beautiful, so beautiful - like Tiffany had been in Jessica's happiest memory.

Tiffany looks up at her and smiles two moons. She puts the tin box in Jessica's hand. Jessica looks at her in question. Her voice is tight and heavy, impossible to speak. Jessica struggles to say something, but Tiffany leans in closer with parted lips and piercing eyes. Jessica is still struggling, mouth feeling like it has been weighted with lots of dry sand, lips feeling too numb to respond. She feels helpless. Tiffany kisses her sweetly, softly. Jessica stops trying.

It only lasts briefly.

Tiffany pulls away after that. Tiffany taps Jessica's shoulder with a prodding finger.

"I'm looking for you again, Jessi."

Tiffany dissolves. Jessica wakes up. Her skin is red around the tin box against her chest. Sunlight prods at her eyes, looking like golden shards of glass. She rubs her eyes and puts the tin box at the bedside table.

She gets up and feels her joints crack. Slowly, she gets to the phone and dials a number. It's a morning without Tiffany. And, Jessica realises, many mornings without Tiffany after. But, like everything, she needs a proper closure. She needs to find Tiffany again.

The line rings for a couple more times. Then the person picks up.

"YuRi?"

it's time to find you again tiff.

—ジュリエット