Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ III
~ part I ~

(Tiffany)

    I woke up in the morning with an arm and a leg thrown over my body.

    The first thought that came to mind when I opened my eyes was 'Oh my gosh, how can someone sleep in such an uncomfortable position?' and just had to laugh at the twisted body beside mine. I used to sleep in some pretty weird positions too when I was smaller but seeing it from the outside like this, it really looked funny. Taeyeon was lying flat on her stomach now, her limbs all over the place in very unnatural positions. Her hair was covering her entire face, basically.

    Then, my second thought was 'What an unlikely prince.' And sure enough, to me, Taeyeon was much like one of those princes that you hear about in fairy tales as a kid, the handsome hero that would save the captured princess from the dragon, except she was more 'pretty' than 'handsome' and rather a 'heroine' instead of a 'hero.' Plus, from what I've seen so far, you can also add the feature of some dorkiness to the list. She surely was one-of-a-kind for a prince but then again, I wasn't exactly your typical fairy tale princess either. Although, I did think of myself as one for a very long time. Actually, with her beside me, it took an incredibly short time for me to feel like a princess again, too, except... I was reminded time and time again as to why I felt more like a worthless rascal and an undeserving sl*t in the past long, torturous years, and I was still afraid that I'd do something wrong and then she'd hate me too, like everyone else.

    I sighed.

    I really wished I could forget it all in just a blink of an eye but it was not an easy thing to do when all those memories were still so fresh and vivid, and when the marks and scars were still so clear and aching.

    Taeyeon stirred beside me and suddenly started speaking. "I said three lobsters, Squidward. Mom wants four and Hayeon said minus one." I broke out in laughter at that. She paused for a moment. "That's three," she mumbled.

    'Wow, her sleep talking is really intense,' I thought, still chuckling. She mentioned yesterday that if I woke up at night to her speaking senseless stuff, I should just tell her to shut up. Apparently, that has worked once or twice before. But then she remembered that I couldn't speak. I didn't really mind her sleep talking though, it was kind of funny and sweet. 'Well, at least, her dreams are definitely a lot less scary than mine.'

    When I tried to go to sleep yesterday, I had a really hard time at first. Finally, exhaustion took over me though and I did fall asleep, however, I soon woke up because of a nightmare. In my dream, I was a little girl again and it was strange because sometimes I saw myself from the outside and at times I even looked like my mom when she was a kid, but sometimes I was just me, from my own perspective. I can't remember everything but I do remember running from my uncle and aunt dressed up as some kind of officers and they kept chasing me before I realized that I had huge bags of rotten meat, I think they were dead rats, with me that I stole from the electronics shop. I stumbled on a rock and fell at one point and they were just about to catch me when I woke up, fallen beside the couch on the floor, sweating, trembling and my face tear stained. The whole dream might have seemed crazy all in all, but it wasn't hard to figure out what it was all about.

    Then I did what my instincts told me to do and came here, into Taeyeon's arms.

    I was a bit scared that she'd reject me but I convinced myself that she's not like that and it will be fine, and that the world wouldn't collapse even if she said no.

    But she didn't.

    She let me snuggle up to her and I breathed her warmth in, the combination of her silent humming and her sweet scent slowly calming my nerves and lulling me to sleep.

"I thought I told you the password before," I now heard Taeyeon mumble. I smiled again.

    I felt wonderful. I felt as if today was the beginning of a new life. A better one.

    I knew I wasn't really free yet and I also realized I still had so much ahead of me but she was by my side now and it made me feel free, it made me feel almost weightless.

    I suddenly felt her shift, her arm and leg tightening on me, but before she could pull me closer I'd jumped out of the bed with a racing heart. Even though the feeling of unworthiness subsided when I was next to her, it seemed that my utter fear and disgust of sudden touches or moves like this still persisted. I didn't know how long it would go on like this, for all I knew, it could have been years even. But I really hoped not. Because, no matter how strange it seemed, deep inside I knew I wanted to feel her touch.

    Luckily, she was still fast asleep and wasn't bothered much by my sudden movements.

    I started walking downstairs and after going to the toilet and washing my face, I headed to the small kitchen area and immediately the iPad to listen to some music. At one point, I even got up to dance around a little in the room even though I had a terrible fatigue in my muscles from yesterday's endless running. I soon threw myself down on the couch and kept on listening to the music while inspecting some of Taeyeon's stuff on the coffee table. There were some random items like some beer caps, crumpled pieces of paper, a vanilla scented candle and a toy car. She also had a tiny plant in a tiny pot that she painted a butterfly and her name on. I saw a few notebooks on music, some cutouts from different magazines probably - whole articles, quotes and pictures, and I went through all of them one by one. This girl was truly fascinating to me and the more I found out about her, the more infatuated I was becoming of her.

    I eventually reached the bottom of the pile of papers on the table to find a sketchbook full of her drawings. Some were pretty childish and cute. Flowers, cars, cartoon characters, non-sensical patterns, unfinished sketches of this and that. But some of them were a little more serious. Well, if you can call 'Still Life with Gummy Bears' serious, that is. It was a fully worked out and detailed drawing of some wilting roses laid out on an old wooden table but on some of the wilted and fallen off petals had some gummy bears on top. Unlike the rest of the picture, the bears were playing in vivid colors while the roses were heavy and dark with black and grey. They almost seemed to be popping out of the picture like they were 3D or something and I considered for a moment if those could've also been cutouts from some magazine but when I touched the paper, I felt the same surface there as everywhere else. I was a bit surprised to find that there were also a few nudes among the drawings.

    There was only one portrait. That portrait was of a young girl, maybe around 16 or 17. She looked pretty but the drawing itself was unfinished. Unlike with the other ones, there was also a date at the bottom of the paper. It was from five years ago. So these drawings must not have been very recent.

    After rearranging the things on the coffee table, I just sat on the armrest of the couch peaking out at the streets of Seoul through the blinds as I listened to some peaceful music.

    A little later, I was starting to feel so hungry, my stomach kept on rumbling all the time in demand of food.

    So I opened the kitchen cabinet and immediately, I saw the pile of different types of ramyun Taeyeon mentioned yesterday. My eyes settled on a styrofoam cup. 'Gosh, I haven't eaten this in ages.' And when I say ages, I meant about two or three years, actually. I really missed that ramyun but could see only two of them left in there while there were several packs of the traditional Shin ramyun that's been a hit for a million years now and I've been eating it too almost every day. I decided to go with that. 'Who knows? Maybe Taeyeon wants to eat those two cups today? I shouldn't—'

"Hey," I heard a croaky voice from behind me. Taeyeon stood there in her pair of yellow and blue pajamas, rubbing her eyes before putting on her glasses, her hair a big fluff of mess. She looked unbelievably cute. I just had to smile. "You sure you want Shin ramyun?" she asked as she yawned, squinting. 'Even her yawn is totally adorable,' I thought, feeling giddy just from looking at her. I shrugged because I didn't want to lie but I didn't want to tell her either that I only chose that because I wouldn't want her to run out of anything because of me. "You can pick anything you like," she said, "but there's one thing you need to know: I don't do cooking in the morning 'cause I'd probably just burn down the kitchen," she yawned again, "so American stuff like... pancakes or something? Out of the question," she smiled apologetically.

    I nodded and just opened the bag of ramyun I was already holding.

    I made my ramyun while she went to the bathroom. She stepped out with her face washed and her hair brushed and tied up. A few strands fell out of the grip of the elastic and I marveled for a moment at how soft her hair really was. It looked like a baby's hair, really. She poured herself some of the coffee that was on the table and put it in the microwave. "You want some?" she asked.

    I hesitated for a few seconds. I always wanted to try real, strong coffee, it seemed like a very sophisticated and adulty thing to me. It reminded me of my grandfather. But I never really had the chance to do so except for one or two occasions in secret. My dad said I was too young to try it when I was still living with my family in America, and my uncle and aunt would never let me. I remembered Taeyeon's words: 'when I offer you something, I mean it.' Finally, I nodded to her question and she simply took out another mug and poured some for me too, then put it next to her own mug in the microwave. It was a strange idea but, looking at that pair of mugs in the closed microwave, it reminded me of the two of us and, for some reason, it gave me a warm feeling of comfort.

    Everything about her just made me feel so warm...

*

    A few minutes later, we were both sitting at the table together, me eating my Shin ramyun and trying to get the bitter taste of the coffee disappear (Taeyeon laughed at me when she saw me grimacing on instinct after the first sip and told me I didn't have to drink it but I did anyway), her, just about to finish her rice with ketchup.

"I think... we need some time to figure out what to do, right?" she said.

    I nodded while in some noodles.

    She paused for a moment. "So... since you'll probably stay for a while, I thought we could go get some stuff for you today." I was about to interrupt but I was still in the noodles so I could barely move my head left and right. "I... uh... I don't have much money... right now,' she mumbled a bit nervously, "but... we can buy you a few clothes at least. Some food you like... and stuff." I shook my head wildly now, and started scribbling away on the notepad I had at hand so as not to get any soup on the iPad. 'I won't let you do that. I'm not staying long. I'll leave tonight.'

"No," she said sternly and this was the first time I saw her expression harden like that. Surprisingly, it didn't scare me. It didn't scare me at all. Instead, it looked rather convincing and... should I say attractive, even...? "Where would you be going?" she continued, frowning. And I sighed. Honestly, no matter how many times I went over it, I had no idea. "See? You don't know either, huh? You wanna roam around on the streets and beg? You want to be caught by the police?" Now that thought did scare me. And I shook my head in desperation as if I was asking her to not throw me out.

"Of course... you know, I guess... we both know you can't stay here forever," I really wished I could, "but... you can stay here while we find some kind of a solution for you. Or at least a safe place to stay at."

    I nodded solemnly and looked down at the broth and small bits of noodles that were still left in my bowl.

"Are you sure you don't have any family or friends that you could contact? Your family in America? What about them?"

    My heart felt heavy and painful as I wrote 'My only family left there are some cousins but even as a kid I'd barely met them. I haven't even seen them since I was 10. I'm not even sure if I remember their names well. The rest of my family are gone.' I wanted to write 'dead' just so that I wouldn't have to hear her say the words if she wasn't sure she understood it well, but I really couldn't. Luckily, she got what I meant though. After she read my words, her face fell. She didn't say anything but waited for me as I turned the pad back to myself and continued. 'I know no other family here in Korea. I started going to school when I got here but I couldn't really make any real friends. I was pulled out very soon. So those classmates have probably already forgotten me.' I remembered the days when I first got here. It was summer vacation but during that time, I didn't get to know anyone else other than my aunt and uncle. They never let me go anywhere alone and of course, I wasn't too happy but I didn't think much about it at the time, just that they were rather strict and that maybe in Korea, really strict parents would treat their kids like that at that age. I often saw other kids with their parents too, while back in the US, at my age, you'd usually hang out with your friends and boyfriend. I thought I'd only have to put up with it for just a short while anyway. But later, when school started, it turned out that what they were doing was not natural at all. I started to rebel and they soon pulled me out of the institute. 'If we could find the ones back in the US... I'm not sure if they'd care after so many years, or how they could help... ' I thought of my old friends probably spending their days drinking and partying day and night now as university students, 'but we could try.'

    Taeyeon nodded. "Alright. Let's do that tonight. And what about professional help? I mean, I know you don't want to talk to the police but who else do you think could help, then?" She waited for an answer but I couldn't give her any. "I... I talked to my mom yesterday," she started uneasily, "and... she said maybe we should contact social services."

    I shook my head again and started writing. 'He has too many connections there. They could also easily involve the cops.'

"Are you sure we really can't trust the police though?"

    I sighed. 'It's my word against everyone else's. Nobody would believe me.' Taeyeon tilted her head. She probably still didn't see through the situation as well as I did. 'My uncle is well-known as an exemplary figure along the police officers and in church. He's even admired by most.' Taeyeon scoffed at that. 'He's a head officer at the Seoul Police Agency and he can make tons of people lose their jobs through his connections, get them arrested for petty crimes, or threaten them that they'll go to jail too as accomplices in crime because they knew about me.'

"What about the evidences?" she asked desperately.

'There isn't much evidence we could hold up against him. He was always mindful about that. Like, causing injuries that would be painful enough so that I "learned my lessons" but then heal within a few days or weeks. If not that, he often did things in a way that it could just be deemed as an accident. Like falling off the stairs or burning myself on the stove.'

    Taeyeon was about to ask something but she appeared to be lost for words. She took off her glasses and buried her face in her hands.

    I felt the guilt begin to eat me up again. 'See? There's not much you can do for me. I should just leave.' I didn't want to go, I really, really wished I could stay but my conscience told me otherwise. I nudged her arm with the notepad and she looked up from her hands, reading what I wrote.

"Tiffany, you need to stop being so stubborn because I won't let you get out of my sight anytime soon," I shook my head disapprovingly but deep inside I thought, 'Strange. The same sentence I've heard a million times before that made me want to die so many times now seemed so different... really like the beginning of a new and better life. One where she's beside me.' "You're coming with me to go shopping after breakfast."

    My heart started to beat wildly at the thought. 'Shopping. It's been so long... ' 'I can't. What if someone recognizes me?' I was sure he'd entrusted some of his 'friends' at the police about my escape already.

"Uh," Taeyeon thought for a second, then she suddenly ran upstairs without a word and came back with a few bags of masks. The kinds that you use when you have a cold. "Here," she threw them on the table and I now saw she also had another pair of glasses in hand, "and there's this," she put it on the table. I picked it up and saw that it was a fake one with the actual glasses missing from the inside. "I also have a hoodie for you so that you can cover your hair. It's pretty baggy too, so they won't even recognize you from your figure. You'll be under full disguise," she finally smiled. "And I'll be on my toes all the time, okay? If I see a police officer or basically anyone that even just looks at you suspiciously, we'll just leave." I was stunned. 'How could she be... so...?' In that moment, I seriously wondered if she was maybe a guardian angel sent by Mommy.

'Wouldn't it be simpler if I just stayed here while you went out?'

"Well, I don't know, you just told me like three minutes ago that you're not willing to stay, so honestly, I'm not sure if I'd still find you here when I come back."

'Well, maybe you'd be better off,' I thought but I didn't say... I didn't write anything.

"And anyway. You need to be there for clothes shopping. I don't know your sizes and except for the fact that you like pink, I don't know much about your taste." I smirked at that. "I want you to pick stuff for yourself anyway."

    Finally, when I realized I couldn't really argue with all that, I couldn't contain myself anymore and just offered her a wide grin as a reply.

*

    Before we started getting ready to leave, I was reminded of my rush and extremely stupid action from yesterday as I looked down at the small coffee table in front of the couch. The tablet was there and for an hour or so it skipped my mind that I wanted to return it to its rightful owner as soon as possible. I asked Taeyeon to let's try and contact someone before we leave.

    We looked through his contacts' list and decided to write to 'Honey,' who we assumed was his wife from the picture, simply telling her we had the guy's tablet and we'd like to return it.

    While I changed upstairs into some clothes I borrowed from Taeyeon (she claimed she's not really using them anyway so I could keep it too), she the washing machine and got changed downstairs and when I went down she was in front of the mirror, dressed in a really cute and kinda cool-looking outfit. She had a black denim jacket on and a chain of cute, colorful figurines much like her key chains, except smaller, attached onto her jeans. She wore her hair in a loose bun. I couldn't stop myself from thinking about touching those stray strands that fell onto her collarbone. 'It must be so soft... ' She was putting some earrings in and I now realized that she had her ears pierced at several places. Suddenly, I felt so much cooler than before because in a silly, teenage kind of logic I felt like we were more similar now and were somehow connected because I had my ears pierced on many spots too. That was the one thing that I could still hold onto when I had nothing else to decorate myself with: the piercings and earrings in my ears. I put them in every once in a while when uncle and aunt didn't see so that the holes wouldn't close up.

    As I watched her putting on some make-up, I was captured by her beauty but not because of the products she put on her skin. The way she concentrated and slightly opened as she put on some mascara, the way she pressed her lips against a tissue to remove some of the excess lip gloss... it was such a fascinating sight to me, I even forgot that I've been standing in the middle of the stairway for minutes now, just shamelessly staring at her, admiring.

    She looked up at me when she was finally done and noticed I was staring. "Uhh... You wanna put some make-up on, too?" she asked.

    I considered her offer for a moment; it was still hard to wrap my brain around the fact that I was offered things. That I had options to choose from. And that I shouldn't be feeling guilty at all for accepting those offers from time to time.

    So I nodded as I took my final steps down the stairs and she let me in front of the mirror while she sprayed some perfume on herself. 'Mmm, is that what makes her smell so nice?'

    I didn't even know where to start. I was nervous because I haven't done this in years and even when I was younger, back in America, I could only use little make-up and I had to do it in secret because my dad didn't like me 'parading around looking like a forty-year-old' back then. I remember how upset I was about it at the time... seemed so silly by now.

    I was pretty much fine while I just had to deal with the concealer, it's something I used a lot to make my skin look better especially through the early stages of puberty. It was not something my dad would have noticed anyway. But when I began to apply the silvery eye-shadow Taeyeon noticed my nervousness and fidgety, unsure motions, so she asked, grinning: "You haven't been doing this too much lately, huh?" She stepped beside me. "You look like you're just about to perform a double eyelid surgery or something," she chuckled and took the box of eyeshadows away from me. I pouted at that indignantly as she lead me to sit on the couch even though I knew she was totally right. "Hey," she smiled... 'Ahh, her smile is so sweet.' "It's alright, I look just like that when I try to do it drunk, so... " I had to laugh at that as I closed my eyes to let her put on the eyeshadow for me. "Actually," she went on, "it's probably even worse than that. Now open your eyes." I looked at her. She was focusing on me now just like how she did a few minutes ago when she did her own make-up and it took my breath away and made me feel all funny inside. "Okay, close it again." As I did so with her image still sticking in my brain for a moment longer like when you look into bright light, I finally noticed that something was different about her... and it wasn't the make-up. She did wear some light make-up yesterday too. What was it then? "Open," she said again. I did, and I suddenly realized what it was.

    I frowned, tilting my head as I formed two circles with my index and thumbs, placing them around my eyes.

    Taeyeon raised her eyebrows for a moment before she got what I was getting at. "Oh, that?" she said. "I only wear my glasses at home or when I have an eye infection and can't wear the contacts," she said while she ordered with her hand again for me to close my eyes. "Or, well... when I'm too lazy in the morning and don't have the time or patience to mess with that evil thing," I smiled again at her referring to her contact lenses as 'that evil thing.' "Like yesterday."

    I wanted to tell her that she looked very pretty with or without glasses and I wasn't even sure which one was better. I wanted to but no voice would come out of my throat. I sighed instead and just focused on the soft sweeps of the brush against my skin. And suddenly, as my brain made the connection between the brush and Taeyeon and me... I felt my skin tingle or maybe it was something under my skin and... I wanted her to do this for much, much longer than necessary.

"Done," she said finally. I looked at myself in the hand-mirror she offered me as she said "If you want it a little darker, we could do that. The glasses will make it seem less pronounced anyway." I shook my head, smiling at my reflection. My eyes looked more sparkling and alive now. And even slightly bigger, I'd say. My whole look was just... healthier and prettier than I had seen in ages and I knew what the reason was for that.

    I gave Taeyeon a thumbs up.

    She nodded at that and went to pack some stuff in her bag while I put on my mask, hoodie and glasses. I took a final look in the mirror and was surprised to see that the simple disguise really did work well. With the addition of make-up and my healthier look, I was almost unrecognizable as the same girl that ran away just yesterday. In a way, I really wasn't the same girl.

"Okay, let's go," she said, handing me her iPad before heading towards the door, now equipped with her key chain filled backpack. This time, my eyes lingered on the little guitar replica and I wondered where she kept her real one since I haven't seen it around the apartment before. 

***

I decided to publish this chapter in two parts even though it is one unit because it's very long and I thought you might need a little time to read and actually process things. >< So, the second part comes out on the 8th. (: