There’s a difference between an underground affair and a summer’s air lover who you can link arms and spin in circles with until you become even dizzier than you already were.  It has a sting to it.  The kisses taste like alcohol burning the back of your throat and the embraces feel brief, yet suffocating and desperate.  You can beg the sky for a few extra seconds but you won’t get them because you can’t have them.

You can’t.

You don’t deserve them.

“What day is it?”  Taeyeon asked in a quiet and sleep deprived voice.

“Saturday.  This weekend is off.”  Tiffany sighed in relief.  She sat up, deciding to get up for the day just when a firm hand grabbed her arm.

“Then let’s wake up on Monday.”

Tiffany laid herself back down beside Taeyeon, allowing the laziness take over.

“You know we’ll be in serious trouble if anyone comes to wake us up, right?”

“Nobody around will care.”

“… Where… are my clothes?”  Tiffany scanned the floor of the room, only finding Taeyeon’s undergarments, jeans and T-shirt scattered around the bed.

“Didn’t we-”

“Oh.”

They stared at the ceiling with stopped hearts, remembering the heated trip to the bed, Tiffany already down to her bare skin when they had entered the room.  Suddenly, they heard footsteps outside, quick at first, then slowing down to a crawl.

“Well, great.”  Tiffany face palmed.  “They’re following my trail of shame.”  She looked over at the girl beside her, already seeming fast asleep.  “Can you at least get dressed and pick up my clothes for me?”

Taeyeon chuckled. “No.”

“Don’t do this to me.”

Taeyeon laughed.

“I hate you.”  Tiffany stepped out of bed and with a swift motion, pulled the blanket off of Taeyeon and wrapped it around her own body.

“Hey.”  Taeyeon stood up on the bed, towering over Tiffany with a threatening look.

“You really have no shame.”  Tiffany smirked, daring to scan the figure before her from head to toe and back up.

“Of course not.” Taeyeon drew closer, leaning towards a pair of lips that she had been missing.  She felt Tiffany’s warm breath and smiled when she noticed the latter’s sudden lack of breath.

“Hey, so we can put our stuff down here, right?” The door suddenly swung open.  Sunny turned to face the room and stopped in her tracks.  She rolled her eyes and pointed her gaze away from the scene. “I really have seen too much of you two.”  Her sight landed on the pile of clothes just outside.  With her foot, she slid the pile into the room, walked out, and closed the door.

The two exchanged nervous looks in silence for a few seconds.

“Well,” Taeyeon walked over to the pile. “I found your clothes.”  She picked it up and turned to Tiffany, who was walking closer to retrieve her dignity.

“Thanks- HEY.”  Tiffany exclaimed as Taeyeon pulled back and held the clothes behind her.  “Okay, stop playing around, come on.”

“You know what looks best on you?”

“What?”

Taeyeon leaned forward, almost touching her lips to Tiffany’s left ear.

“Absolutely.” She whispered as the clothes slipped from her fingertips to the floor. “Nothing.”

“I-” Tiffany felt the heat rise to her cheeks and wash over the rest of her body.

“What was that?” Taeyeon asked, teasingly.

“… Lock the door.”

____

“If you could start again with a happy start, what would you change?”  The woman asked as Taeyeon’s eyes traced the edges of the painting, following the questions.

I would change every moment of hesitation I had for telling her how I feel.  I would have made every previous moment last.

“I don’t really leave home much and I feel that I should do something.  I guess I need to try going out more.”  She paused.  “I worry about that constantly.”

I’m scared to reach out to her and maybe that’s what I need to do.  I don’t want her to slip away.  I don’t like being alone but I want to be alone.  It’s safer that way.

“I’ve been a radio DJ for a while and because of that, I think more before I act so I only say things when needed.  But because of that… small misunderstandings happen without me intending it.  I learned that not everybody’s feelings can be the same and there have been people who taught me that.  I don’t want to hurt their feelings anymore.”  She looked into the camera, imagining a face in the reflection of the lens.  “So I’ve realized that what I say is very important.  This is a job where you have to consider a lot of things.  There’s a lot to worry about, I think.”

“What is freedom?”

Taeyeon pondered on the question for a minute with a puzzled face before answering.

“Freedom is…” She frowned, not knowing how to pin it down with words. “Freedom is a good thing.”  She laughed.  “Freedom is things like this.”  She spread out her arms, feeling the cool air around her.

Freedom is being able to love my heart’s content.  It’s being able to show her how I feel without worrying about who sees us and who might break us apart.

____

“Taeyeon, are you okay?  You suddenly went quiet.”  Tiffany wore a worried expression.

“I’m fine, really.”  Taeyeon smiled.

“You don’t seem fine.”

Taeyeon sighed and covered her face with her palms, rubbing her eyes as if it would make her thoughts clearer.  She rolled onto her side, facing Tiffany and pressing her forehead against the latter’s.  She closed her eyes and frowned.

“Does your head hurt or something?  Do you need water?  Pills?”  Tiffany laughed.

“I need you.”  She brought her arms over her chest and held herself, seeming fragile and brittle.  “I can’t do it.  I can’t mess around with you like this and then spend the following week on the other side of the planet.”

“I know, I know.  I’m sorry.  Should we stop?”

“I don’t know if I can.  I’m in too deep, aren’t I?”

“You can always turn around.”

“Is that what you want?

“Is that what you want?”  Tiffany asked, looking up at Taeyeon’s still-closed eyes.

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you.  Just you.  I don’t care about anything else.  I don’t care anymore.”  Taeyeon opened her eyes, meeting another pair of them just an inch away.

“You should care.  You have a great life in front of you.”

“I feel like there’s something wrong with me.  I think… I think you broke me.”  She blinked away her tears, only causing them to fall to the pillow.  “I don’t know if I can love you the way I did before.  It’s not the same.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry.”  Taeyeon roughly wiped her tears away, ignoring the sting that the action caused.  “Stop saying you’re sorry.  You always say that and you shouldn’t.  You do realize that it doesn’t matter how many times you say it, right?  I can’t hold anything against you.  To me, you don’t make me happy, you are my happy.  My life didn’t start until I met you.”

“Taeyeon… I don’t know what to say.”

“I want you to say that you need me; that you can’t live without me and that the weeks we spent acting like everything was fine were actually miserable.  But I don’t want to hear you say it because it hurts me when I know you’re hurting too.”  Her pillow was now wet from her messy crying.  She ignored the cold feeling of it.  “You were fine, weren’t you?  You didn’t hurt nearly as much as I did.  I’m at the shorter end of the stick with this whole thing.”

“I could never argue that I love better.  It’s obvious that you’re the one who holds that title.  You’re right.  You have the shorter end of the stick.  It really amazes me that you haven’t left me behind.”  Tiffany whispered, wiping away Taeyeon’s tears with her thumb while cupping the rest of her cheek in her palm.  “Whatever happens to us is your choice from here.  I’m only going to be holding onto you.”

“I want to try again.”  She brushed her hair out of her face and tucked the strands behind her ear.  “We’ll fix everything.  This.  Us.  I’m in too deep to stop here.”

“Good.  Me too.”  She sighed with relief and pulled Taeyeon closer, soon running her fingers through the blonde’s soft hair.  “Let’s sleep it all off.  We’ll wake up refreshed and we’ll figure things out from there.”

“Deal.”  Taeyeon already sounded sleepy.  Her embrace slowly weakened as she began off to sleep.

“I like this.”

“I love this.”

Tiffany wrapped her arms tightly around Taeyeon, missing the feeling of waking up this way almost every morning.  It poked at her heart and left a bitter taste in , remembering all of the problems that had come between them.  She thought she had to settle for what she had but it’s not enough now.

“Taeyeon.”  She broke the silence of the room.

“Hm?”

“I need you.”

It's almost 4am here.  Oh gosh.  It's been a rough week so I wrote quite a bit to cope with it.  This story is honestly starting to pull at my heartstrings.  Yes, it's fluffing up again a little bit but it's almost like when you miss someone.  I don't know, my heart hurt when I read it over.

I think the story is going to take a slow climb from here.  Mostly so I can fit in more things so that it's not just a typical story that ends up like all the others.

My goal with this chapter was to show that you can, in fact, write an entire chapter where the characters are but it doesn't have to be in that moment.  Ya know?  , as in just the emotions right here.  Yeah.  It's late and this is when I start to feel poetic and philosophical.

Anyways, the next few updates are probably going to be fairly short.  I've barely been able to squeeze in sleep time lately.  ><  Getting into university is a struggle.

I hope you like them, regardless of the length :)

Happy reading! ♥

Next chapter teaser:  you can expect some drama with Jessica...  and the whole landslide that happened there....