The wind blows against her face, scattering her hair all over. Her face is pale, clammy, the neon green lights of pubs give her skin a ghastly green hue. A sheen of sweat is forming, and some of it trickles down her chin and the sides of her face. I begin to curse at the bride and groom for holding the wedding on the rooftop, not somewhere else that has air-conditioning. But it’s TaeYeon. TaeYeon almost never says no to her husband.

A line of men and some tiny, wasp-waisted women line the railings, pushing elbows and sharing some small laughter as they smoke. I look elsewhere, an uncomfortable burn where it shouldn’t be, the roof of my mouth feeling rough and corrosive from all the drinks I’ve had. The Chinese lanterns held up by a laundry line catch the drift of a hot Vietnamese summer. TaeYeon told me it’s always summer here.

TaeYeon looks lovely. She looks small, so much smaller than I had ever thought her to be. Her husband’s hands easily clasp her narrow waist. I can’t tell if she looks happy or not.

I yearn to escape the nervous chatter and drunken hiccups from swollen, alcohol-induced lips. I pat my purse. Maybe a cigarette would help.

DongHae isn’t of any help. He’s dancing with a Chinese girl, assumedly the daughter of the mafia boss in Taiwan. He knows how to speak Chinese and I have never been any more envious of that talent. I cross my ankles and hesitate over another glass of wine or a lit-up cigarette. Somewhere along three hundred to four hundred and seventy-six seconds of hesitating, she raises her head from the clothed table and her fringe has collapsed from its hold, her hair losing its volume and deflating. Strands cling to her forehead persistently. Small baby hairs escape and curl, and suddenly she isn’t as perfect as she had been fussing over her hair in the hotel room.

Just the way I like it.

Her palm comes down on my knuckles. Tiffany drunk is a Tiffany that has a pain capacity exceeding any of a regular human. I wince. She drags her chair closer. A sharp heel trails itself up my bare leg and something brushes against my thigh. I am too afraid to look.

Tiffany’s head is heavy on my shoulder, and she is drooling. A loud horn and a scattering of scared birds flapping all seem to take place in another different world. Right now, the people and DongHae and his is floating and flying and we are existing in a place where gravity does not exist. I think I am drunk too, but subconsciously aware of the flickering and fading taking my vision away.

She gets up, bent halfway over herself, and excuses herself. I follow her. Her eyes are heavy and blunt, like really heavy tar. Looking into feels like being buried alive or being made into a road. It presses down like a weight on my head.

The stray cats meowing and yowling at nothing, for some reason collecting at a flight of stairs, part to make away for us, hissing whenever Tiffany’s heel almost steps on their tails. The back of Tiffany’s dress has come ped, her heels unstrapped, everything undone.

We barely even make it to our apartment before she starts attacking me. Her tongue feels like rough sandpaper, and her nails dig into my thighs as she eases me into her and possessively, protectively, she trickles her fingers up to my back.

Something tears. Someone groans.

Tiffany groans again when she falls the wrong way onto the bed, and I yelp because the fall led to her digging her nails into my back. But she turns me over and kisses the angry red welts. Her hands are raggedly clumsy, delayed. She is nothing like she is sober. I am nothing like I am drunk.

I don’t even know if the door has been closed, or if we’re making too much noise, or is someone is staring and ogling at the sight at the doorway, or if the police has learnt by now that something is missing and stolen and are coming for us.

Heck, I don’t even know if I love her right now. But I feel comforted knowing that Tiffany probably won’t know either.

“Jess,” she shoves her hips into me, bucking like a wild horse.

We have this thing where we like saying each other’s names, because it helps, and because it’s some kind of reassurance.

“Tiff,” I gasp.

Something gets turned over in the process because Tiffany’s wildly groping hands push what sounds like a lamp down the nightstand. Some porcelain shards splatter and I feel the cold tingle on my skin.

I shiver unabashedly, and doing all the things they do best, and my hands scratch at her hair when I come close. I don’t tell not to stop, because if I do, she will pull away and stop. It’s a beautiful and selfish night so I don’t say anything.

I pull closer and land myself deeper into Tiffany. Tiffany. The criminal who whines because she can’t get the water running in the hotel in the mornings, the criminal who knows how to escape the government and yet not know international time zones outside of Asia, the criminal who can’t stand the concept of love, the cynical who keeps on crying to me about something about being lonely at night, when she is a stone cold come daylight. The criminal who sometimes likes me, but sometimes loves DongHae even more. But one thing’s for sure; DongHae won’t and can’t give her what I can.

I stop thinking of that when I come for the third time.

"Ugh," she snarls, "stop ing me over."

—ジュリエット