It was a week after graduation and Taeyeon, Sunny, and a few other friends and I decided to go on a vacation somewhere. You know, to get away for a while and celebrate the fact that we graduated.

You’ll meet them later, but I have two other pretty close friends. One is a loud girl with long red hair and a pretty cute eye smile and the other is a tall and quiet girl with an obsession with healthy foods and keeping us in order. The loud one’s name is Tiffany while the other is Taeyeon’s younger cousin and the youngest in our group, Seohyun. But I don’t have to tell you about them, I’m sure Taeng’s mentioned them and that you’ll meet them later.

Anyway, at the time we were all really close. We all went to the same school together and while Seohyun hadn’t graduated yet, we insisted that she came with us.

It wasn’t anything fancy, but we rented a cottage by a lake in the countryside.

It was beautiful and we had planned to stay there for a month. We all brought a variety of supplies, including an abundance of books and art supplies. Taeyeon and Sunny here constantly had painting battles while Tiffany and I went hiking and took a lot of photos. When I wasn’t hiking, I’d be reading books with Seohyun under the many tall trees nearby or on the docks.

Sorry, remembering it now, it was a really gorgeous place. We’ll take you there in the summer maybe!

“Sica!” a voice called out, interrupting the flashback. Taeyeon nudged her girlfriend to make sure she didn’t rant too much.

But, that’s not important. What was important was that two nights into our stay, Taeyeon and I decided to hang out near the lake and under the stars.

It was gorgeous. The sky was so clear and even if I spent the rest of my life counting them, I could never count all the stars in the sky.

The rest of the girls were asleep by this time but both of us couldn’t seem to go to sleep. I still remember what we were talking about. We were worried about university and college despite it being so far away. We were worried about maybe losing touch since we went to different schools, despite them being so close together.

I remember laughing and constantly changing topics. I remember it almost being sunrise by the time we were almost done. It was a miracle for someone like me who really loved sleep. Taeyeon and I hadn’t talked just the two of us in a long time then, I guess.

But as the sun began to pierce the sky with its light, a different light came to be.

Our group never really cared much about our gems. Sunny hated it so much that she covered hers and eventually we all did the same.

But since we were on the countryside with barely anyone around, we figured that we didn’t need to cover the things.

I sometimes wonder if maybe they were supposed to activate before but because we covered them, they couldn’t breathe and glow? But with what happened with Sunny’s gem today, I guess that isn’t really the case. Maybe it was just the timing?

Anyway, our gems began to glow and we looked at each other, startled and probably a little scared. I didn’t believe it was happening, but Taeyeon looked like she was going to pass out from the shock.

It immediately became awkward and I ran away first, straight into the cabin.

Both of us came up with reasons to cover our gems. We couldn’t let the others know what was going on.

I was confused, really confused and I wondered it maybe the heavens were playing some kind of joke. I wondered if maybe they thought they were being funny since I was always apathetic towards the whole theory of glowing gems and finding your soulmate.

It couldn’t be true, I thought. Taeyeon was my best friend, not my soulmate.

I decided to ignore her for a while. I had to think on my own about my feelings and see if maybe there were feelings hidden there. And I guess Sunny was right, we shouldn’t be forced to fall in love because coloured rocks told us to. I didn’t want to risk anything, so I distanced myself from Taeyeon.

And as you know, it didn’t last long because I kept catching Taeyeon staring at me sadly.

She was my best friend and I couldn’t just ignore her. So we went back to talking as if nothing happened.

But that also didn’t last long. Another week, I think.

I started thinking a lot about how I felt about Taeyeon. She was my best friend, yes. I knew her for the longest time, yes. She made me happy? Yes. But I never thought about her that way. It was weird, and it was awkward to think about. I mean, try suddenly thinking of your best friend as a potential romantic partner, let alone your soul mate.

And although we were kind of normal, we were still generally awkward around each other.

So I guess Taeyeon had enough of it and invited me to talk with her again. And we spent another night under the stars, talking about everything from the first time we met until the present.

Taeyeon told me later that Sunny gave her the idea, but I’d like to think that she wanted to do it since our gems reacted to each other. But once the sun began to rise again, she grabbed my hand and pulled me in for a kiss.

It was clumsy and I was surprised, but I didn’t pull away.

I felt something I had never felt before. As she pulled me closer and wrapped her arms around my waist, I figured that she felt it too. I hate talking about it too much because I can already feel my face heating up.

“You’re like a tomato!” Sooyoung exclaimed, doing her best to restrict herself from shrieking with absolute joy.

Anyway, after our kiss and that night, we decided to try it out. After all, as the um Gem Gods or whatever say, we had a year to change the colour of our gems. Surprisingly enough, after that night it was already green. Or maybe, I hadn’t been paying enough attention to it and it was already changing colours before.

So yeah, long story short, we took advantage of the rest of the time we had there and fell in love and junk.

But I do like to think that Taeyeon had been in love with me since we were kids. I guess the gems just gave her the push to realize that?

The present was brought back when Taeyeon groaned at Jessica’s last words. They bickered for a little longer about the details of the story and Sooyoung found her eyes wandering over to Sunny who was leaning against the wall throughout the entire story. Her eyes were closed, but there was a clearly evident smile on her face.

Sooyoung wished at that moment that she could go somewhere alone with Sunny for a month and make her fall in love with her, the way Taeyeon and Jessica did. But then she remembered that they had a history while she and Sunny had just met.

They shared the same resistance, that’s for sure. Except the want to not do anything about the gems in Taeyeon and Jessica’s case was to prevent ruining their friendship.

Sunny simply didn’t believe in it.

As soon as Sooyoung was sure that she wasn’t ready to faint anymore, she and Taeyeon decided to take their leave. When Sooyoung saw her supposed soul mate wrap her gem again in bandages she couldn’t help but feel a little pained.

“I’ll see you around?” she offered, giving Sunny a hopeful look. She didn’t want to cry but she could feel her eyes getting watery. She wasn’t sure if she wanted Sunny to see it or not.

But Sunny could tell, and she felt a little bad. She tried to shake her head of it and decided to stay strong.

“Sure,” she responded simply, smiling at the incredibly tall girl.

“Later guys,” Taeyeon called out after giving her girlfriend one last kiss.

---

The first week of school was pretty uneventful.

Sooyoung was glad that she went to a school where her best friend also attended. She wanted to specialize in Drama, but she shared a lot of Sooyoung’s English classes.

The two were sitting under a tree in the middle of campus and slurping instant ramyun. There was silence as the two thoroughly enjoyed their lunch.

“Nothing like the taste of instant noodles,” Sooyoung cooed after downing the remaining broth in her bowl. It may have been packed with sodium, but it was delicious and satisfying after a morning of classes.

She turned to her best friend, Yoona who was just finishing her own bowl. With a big gulp, she let out an exaggerated breath of air.

“Amen to that,” she added before the two clanked their empty bowls together and tossing it into the close by garbage.

“So how’s your roommate?” Sooyoung started, leaning back and allowing her long body to take up as much surface area on the ground as possible.

“She’s really cool!” Yoona responded excitedly, also plopping down. She decided to rest her head on Sooyoung’s stomach and giggled when she let out a little grunt. “She’s in second year, like your room mate! And she’s studying to become a personal trainer. She’s super, super fit!”

Sooyoung nodded at the sky, “Ah wow, I wish I had the will power to work out and become fit.”

Yoona shook her head, the sensation tickling Sooyoung’s stomach. “You’re too skinny, Syoung. If you exercised, I’m afraid that you’ll turn to dust.” She laughed at her own comment, the volume only increasing when Sooyoung slapped her playfully on the forehead. “What about Taeyeon unnie? Does she work out?”

“I don’t think so,” Sooyoung answered right away, picturing her small room mate in her head right away. “She doesn’t look like she needs to anyway.”

“We should have a roommate double date,” Yoona offered, rolling over so that she was now facing Sooyoung. “It’s been a week and I haven’t been over at your place, or yours at mine. What’s up with that?”

But Sooyoung wasn’t paying attention. As she gazed into the sky, all she could think about was the short blonde girl that made her heart race.

It was a bad habit, but Sooyoung had a tendency of spacing out. It happened a lot more recently, since her encounter with her supposed soul mate. She couldn’t stop thinking about her, and she wondered if it was the same on the other end.

“Hello? Did you hear me?” Yoona called out, waving her hand in front of her best friend’s face. “Are you thinking about dinner already?” she teased, once again laughing at her own words. But when Sooyoung didn’t respond, she grew slightly agitated. However, with a mischievous grin she thought of a different way to grab her fellow long friend’s attention.

“Get ready for battle!” she cried out, her long fingers beginning the tickle ambush on Sooyoung’s sides.

When Sooyoung screeched and started laughing, Yoona was certain she got her attention.

Not too far away from the tree the girls were sitting under, three shorties were walking with hotdogs in hand.

“Why am I here? I could bump into that girl again,” Sunny groaned as she relentlessly took a bite from her hot dog.

“Because you love spending time with me,” Taeyeon answered back simply, poking her fellow short friend on the nose.

“I thought I was here because Jessica made me,” Sunny replied with a sigh, “The things I do for my best friends.”

“What! You weren’t objecting when I made the suggestion earlier. I bet you only thought of Sooyoung because your heart started racing again,” Jessica teased, her smile practically reaching her eyes.

Sunny flinched at Jessica’s words and began to rub her neck nervously, “What? What makes you think that I-“

And then she heard it. The most beautiful and obnoxious sound she had even heard in her life. Sunny knew her heart was racing, but she didn’t think that the girl was that close by.

“Isn’t that your roommate?” Jessica asked as she tugged on Taeyeon’s arm in the direction of the loud laughter and screaming. “I think she’s being attacked.”

“Should I save her?” Taeyeon asked genuinely concerned by the sounds coming from her younger roommates mouth, “I think she’s suffering.”

“No, no,” Jessica shook her head, “Let Sunny do the saving, She’s supposed to be Sooyoung’s knight in shining armor.”

“I am nobody’s knight!” Sunny protested, backing away from the scene Jessica wanted to approach.

“Come on, I’m not asking you to fall in love with her, but you could at least be friendly,” Jessica insisted, her hand tugging on Sunny’s hoodie.

She didn’t want to admit it, but she did want to see her again. To Sunny’s dismay, the girl always found a way into her thoughts at least once a day. But she wanted to avoid seeing her and possibly think about her even more. Whenever Jessica wanted to visit Taeyeon’s dorm, she always said no, thinking that she’d bump into Sooyoung again. But the inevitable was the inevitable.

“By the way Sooyoung expressed her enthusiasm for the whole Gem prophecy thing, I expected her to stalk you until you caved in,” Taeyeon went on honestly, smiling at her roommate who was still under relentless tickle attacks. “But I guess she really respects your desire to not pursue the whole thing.”

Sunny sighed. Taeyeon was right. She didn’t expect it, but Sooyoung was doing her a favour by not seeking her out. She could at least try to be friendly with her.

“Alright, let’s go save the tall kid,” Sunny announced happily, marching over to the two girls who were fighting for tickle dominance.

Sooyoung could barely breathe under Yoona’s control but she continued to struggle for dominance. She could care less that many of their fellow students were staring as they walked by, for all she could think about was winning the tickle war.

“What’s going on here?” a familiar voice rang out.

In unison, Sooyoung and Yoona turned to see three girls looking at them with amused expressions.

“Ah, Taeyeon unnie!” Sooyoung called out, pushing Yoona off of her and instantly trying to fix her hair. But then her eyes met with Sunny’s and she immediately blushed, which Yoona didn’t fail to catch.

“Are you two in your right minds?” Jessica asked, crouching over to look at the two girls in the eyes. Their clothes were wrinkled and their hair was messed up beyond repair.

“We were just playing around,” Yoona spoke up, jabbing Sooyoung in the stomach as if hinting for her to introduce the best friend.

“Taengoo unnie, this is Yoona, my best friend, Yoona, this is Taeyeon, S-Sunny and Jessica unnie. They’re all a year ahead of us.”

Yoona didn’t miss the stuttering either.

“Nice to meet you!” she greeted enthusiastically, grabbing all of their hands and shaking it, despite them not initially offering it.

“Pleasure’s mine,” Sunny replied, smiling widely at the energy emitting from the younger girl. Ah, to be a freshman again.

“So what brings you here?” Sooyoung asked as the three other girls sat down with her.

“Just hanging out,” Taeyeon responded with a shrug. They didn’t really have any specific plans. They could have got started on their assignments or readings, but who really did that?

“It’s prettier on this campus too,” Sunny added, finishing the remaining piece of her lunch. She almost cursed at herself when her eyes met up with Sooyoung’s again. She could feel the electricity run through her body at the contact, but did her best to ignore it.

She watched thoroughly as Sooyoung started mouthing something, as if she was carefully thinking of what to say next.

Yoona glanced at her phone though to check the time and nearly had a heart attack when she saw the numbers flashing on her screen.

“Ah! Syoung we gotta run to class now!”

Groaning, Sooyoung stood up with Yoona and allowed herself to be dragged to class. She barely had time to talk to the person she wanted to talk to the most.

“That was interesting,” Jessica said as the three girls watched their two juniors run desperately to class. “They should have just skipped class to hang out with us.”

“We shouldn’t encourage that kind of behaviour,” Taeyeon responded with a sigh. Jessica just chuckled and squeezed her girlfriend’s arm playfully.

“Look who’s talking,” Sunny added with a smirk. She knew very well that Taeyeon was the queen of skipping.

Taeyeon just gave a groan as her response as they continued to watch Sooyoung and Yoona’s figures disappear into the distance. Sunny couldn’t help but feel a little emptier as the burning sensation in her wrist faded and her heart rate went back to normal. She slapped her face however as an attempt to remove any unwanted thoughts.

Jessica and Taeyeon just watched their best friend amused. They looked and exchanged knowing smiles at each other, certain what she was thinking about.

“She asks about you a lot you know,” Taeyeon then brought up as the two decided to head back to Taeyeon’s dorm. “About how you’re doing and your classes.”

Sunny didn’t say anything, nor did she face Taeyeon as she addressed her. But still, she smiled to herself quietly.

“Is that so?” she whispered to no one, feeling a little warmth build up in her chest again.