She wished to have a nice life. You know, what would be considered orthodox, a caring lover and maybe a pet or some adorable little children. The realization hit her hard, and as any sane person would respond to this situation, Choi Sooyoung, age 24, a proud newspaper editor, wept instantly.

"Don't worry dearie, it'll be fine." Well of course it would in Taeyeon's opinion, sh e never really cared about the concept of death that much. Although Sooyoung would over think on the subject, the brunette thought of herself as greatly sensible in comparison to the stick-in-the-mud Taeyeon. It still amazed her till that day on how her mind configured a technique of finding the latter's attractive points amidst the black coal of her many dull attributes.

"Taeng, I don't know if you heard what I said properly. The. Government. Said. That. We. Would. Die. In. Seven. Months. Have you no idea what in the bloody hell this means!?" Sooyoung was nonplussed at the indifference her girlfriend was showing, such ignorance irked her to the brim.

"Tae, do you not even care that we'll be dead in seven months!?" She screamed at the top of her voice, so much so that hurt, but that couldn't match up with how much her heart was hurting, and it ached with every beat, with every tear that fell from her bloodshot eyes.

Finally, Taeyeon expressed concern in her usually dulled out eyes and without a moment's notice, she ran up to Sooyoung and hugged her before planting a kiss on her forehead. And as her goddess' face flooded with tears enough to fill an entire lake, Taeyeon ran her fingers through her lover's luscious hair, and let the mindless words roll out from .

"It'll be okay,", "I'll be here with you," and "Don't worry, I'll love you till the end" made up around 70 or 80% of the meaningless whispers that she had let out in a continuous string.  Not that she didn't love Sooyoung, it's just that she found those sentences, those words useless. Perhaps they weren't useless to her love, but in her personal opinion, she felt that it wouldn't change anything about the actual situation, reality.

Sooyoung glanced away from Taeyeon and took a much-needed look at the view from their New York apartment. The cars down below were honking, with bright lights flashing, the drivers’ consciences only wanting the warmth of their homes, not the cold and stiffness of the outside world where traffic jams and soulless buildings seemed to take over whatever happiness or joy there was, ever.

A city of dreams. The city would be gone in months, but only the lucky few knew about that and its many, many pieces of dark, sinister information that the government had kept. Sooyoung tried to explain to Taeyeon how this was so, she told her other half that the acquired information was kept top secret as they feared that the people would panic, chaos would ensue and the entire world would amass in great pandemonium.

“So how exactly did you get this piece of information? If it was meant to be kept top secret?” As usual, Taeyeon was sceptical about this. At first, she got into the story, but then, she sunk into realization that it had about a 90% chance of being true. She had heard many ridiculous, out-of-the-world stories before that had turned out fraudulent.

“The lady at the carnival told me. She was wearing a babushka-“

“And she was waving her wrinkly hands around a magic crystal ball, right? Soo, I told you a million times, all those people do is scam others. Don’t be so gullible, please.” Taeyeon could clearly see that Sooyoung was annoyed to the nth degree. The girl had put so much faith in it; she was convinced that their world was going to go down in seven months.

Taeyeon’s eyes wandered around the room as she tried to take in and comprehend the information that Sooyoung spouted out. The gleam of the grand piano immediately caught her attention, oh how it shone like a diamond under the intense lighting of the lone chandelier.  She tried to avoid it, tried to tear her gaze off of the instrument but its presence seemed too inviting. Her fingers craved the keys, though her sympathy stopped them.

Like Sooyoung, Taeyeon stared out the window, but instead of looking below, she looked up at the night sky. Very unlike her, actually, it was very unlike Sooyoung to set her sight on the streets below, their mind sets were quite the opposite. But tonight, tonight was different. Tonight Taeyeon and Sooyoung both felt a sense of loneliness. By now the apartment would be filled with the sounds of laughter and of horribly thought-through puns.

Tonight they felt distanced. Maybe it was because of the talk they had earlier on, that seemed to be the easiest answer. Taeyeon grew tired of this loneliness, despite the fact that she was an introvert. It was just because Sooyoung had not started a conversation between them, the girl with a megaphone for a mouth had not spoken for more than half an hour. Something was definitely wrong.

“Why the long face, huh?” Sooyoung took this as a rhetorical question and shrugged it off. She knew that Taeyeon had the answer to that. A quiet Sooyoung was a mad Sooyoung that needed time and space to think the situation out. Since Sooyoung was utterly assured that she was going to die, her mind was in a mess. Usually when her mind was in distress, Taeyeon would be her outlet. Tonight was different, it did not matter to her anymore. Taeyeon, in her mind, did not care for her well-being, did not trust her and most especially, did not love her as much anymore.

“Look, Sooyoung, this is-“

“Shh. I don’t need any explanation for this. I’ll be back. I need some air.”

When Taeyeon heard the door slam shut, and heard it get locked, she fell onto the wooden chair, a chair that belonged to a quaint set made up of two oak chairs and one tiny oak table. It was like a treasure to the blonde, her and Sooyoung bought it from a yard sale a few blocks from there. What set it apart from other table and chairs sets was that it had a distinct print on it- it had a picture of a dart board printed right on its middle.

“You won’t be there tomorrow, your love is like an arrow through my heart” It was uncommon to see Taeyeon singing, there’s only so many songs that she bothered to remember the lyrics of. This song, she didn’t even know its name, and she only knew one line from it, but if she dared to forget those lyrics or that tune, she promised to hate herself.

“When will she be back?” She was irritated. They’ve been together for three years but never had Sooyoung been out as long as she was now. Often, they would’ve made up in a mere ten minutes. It’s been forty-five minutes.

“It doesn’t even feel warm now.” For some reason, Taeyeon started to shiver and so she ran to the thermostat, turning the temperature up a few degrees. But the shivering wouldn’t stop and she decided to put on a jacket, followed by a blanket, followed by a thicker one, and finally she stopped and gave up trying harder.

“Damn feelings.” Her eyes moved unconsciously to the door knob. Sooyoung. Her Sooyoung was out there alone, heartbroken, probably trembling just like she was. She felt pressured to finding her love, thought the girl might not exactly like it if Taeyeon ran up to her and apologized profusely; Sooyoung bore grudges easily.

She couldn’t take it anymore and she stormed off to look for Sooyoung. Taeyeon grabbed her keys and let them drop inside her jeans’ pocket. She dashed across roads and entered gloomy alleyways in search of Sooyoung with fear creeping up on her more with every second that passed. What if she was assaulted? What if some foul beasts kidnapped her?

Her hands were greased with sweat as she wiped them on the denim whilst waiting for the traffic light to turn green. Growing hasty however, she rolled her eyes and sped across the long stretch of road. A few cars honked at her, and maybe a few people swore at her but it was well worth it. It bought her time.

“Where are you?” She thought aloud. It took a while for her to navigate through a crowd of bike-riders, teenagers and drunkard fellows, though after she did, she noticed a girl at the far end of the pavement along an area full of food shops. Well the girl had her hair tied up, was wearing a black cardigan and was eating, so immediately, Taeyeon knew it was her Sooyoung.

“Yes!” She took to her heels and exhausted all of her energy running at lightning speed towards Sooyoung. However, before Taeyeon reached her, Sooyoung had already proceeded to stepping onto the road in front of her.  Taeyeon ran faster.

“Tae?” Sooyoung stood there, with feet planted to the ground.

“Soo, move! Move! Soo! Move! SOO! MOVE! SOO, THERE’S A-“

Taeyeon saw everything. Sooyoung’s hand let go of her half-eaten popsicle and it fell to the floor. She stared at the car like a deer in the headlights, and although one could say that she had a good few seconds to scoot to the side, she just stood there, terrified.

Taeyeon tried to run as fast as she could but it wasn’t good enough.

The car hit Sooyoung, her body flew to the side, and it fell to the ground with a loud thud. Everyone turned their heads to look at the gruesome scene in front of them. They gathered around her body and whispered to each other in pure suspense.

“Is she dead?”  One of them yelled.

“Out of the way!” Taeyeon pushed the pesky onlookers to her sides as she collapsed onto Sooyoung.

“Sooyoungie! A-are you okay?” She was stuttering, she was afraid of Sooyoung’s fate. She kneeled up and grabbed her pale, blood-covered girlfriend’s body, trying to hug it. She held on tighter, mumbling three words.

“Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay.” Like a mantra, she said it over and over, with each phrase getting louder and louder.

The incident hurt her. Even that’s an understatement. Taeyeon shut her eyes tight and cursed inwardly.

Damn that nice life, all she wanted was her Sooyoung! All she wanted was to be with lanky, cheeky angel again! Why did she have to leave? Why? Why!

And as Taeyeon heard the ambulance sirens, she wiped off all of her tears and kissed Sooyoung one last time on her lips. She put all of her emotions into it, all of her bittersweet feelings, all of it, in a fair hope that the girl could feel it and embrace it as their last moment together.

And it was at that moment that Taeyeon truly believed that the world would be over, but not in seven months. Her world was over within a few hours. The paramedics managed to pry Taeyeon off of Sooyoung, despite the fact that Taeyeon was very much in resentment and they carried her off to the nearest hospital.

Taeyeon had little to no hope left. The painful memory of the accident played again in her head. The image of a seemingly lifeless Sooyoung flashed too. Her head was hurting, her heart was dying and her vision was shutting down on itself. No amount of tears she shed could ever compensate for the amount of pain it inflicted on her. 

“I told her, but you didn’t believe in it, did you?”

Taeyeon whipped her head around and assessed the area around her. She swore she heard something. No one was in sight. Odd.  She turned her head back and curled up into a foetal position as she cried though her eyes hurt like hell. Even if there was a car that was coming at her, she didn’t care.

“Just take my life.”

Her last word, it rang in Taeyeon’s head.

“Tae?”