She sighed in front of the mirror of the university’s toilets. The corners were covered with scribbles quoting Shakespeare’s sonnets or Cookie Monster quotes, which left her leaning precariously on the sink to redraw her eyeliner. She squinted at her reflection, her bloodshot eyes and the dark circles underneath. Staying up late watching American series was always a bad idea, but she had been unable to go to sleep. Jessica’s words echoed in her head, even when she had switched the lights off and pulled the covers of her and her insomnia provided her with a justification to finish of the third season of “The Big Bang Theory”.  She rummaged in her bag for her eyeliner, twisted the wheel underneath to push the stick up and placed her elbow on the sink, trying to balance between her bodyweight and the optimal distance to draw her eyes in. The sudden opening of the bathroom door nearly caused her to be the proud owner of a unibrow and she quickly turned to look at the culprit, but they had already gone into one of the stalls.

She was so fixated on the task ahead that she did not notice the toilets flushing, nor Kim Taeyeon standing behind her with a slightly amused expression.

Tiffany looked down momentarily at the mirror and saw that dimpled smirk smiling back at her.

She tried to ignore it and to continue doing her make-up, mascara now in her hand, but every time she caught her reflection, the girl seemed to be smiling even wider. It wasn’t a nice smile though. It was a taunting, provocative grin, the Kim Taeyeon trademark.

“What are you looking at?” she snapped, as she tried to give volume to her eyelashes.

“Your ” the other girl calmly replied.

That was enough to make Tiffany lash out. Her arm shot out, reaching for the other girl’s clothes and once she had managed to snag her shirt, she pushed her back into a stall.

“Leave me alone” she huffed as she raised her fists to her face “Just leave me alone, already”

The momentary shock had melted from Kim Taeyeon’s face, and the girl was back to her laid-back demeanour.

“No”

“Why?”

“You hate me” she said.

“And this is your pathetic attempt to gain my affection?” she pushed her back further, until the other girl was forced make a grab at the walls for support.

“Don’t look at me and certainly don’t look at `my ´” she continued. Her hands were now shaking with rage and her voice was beginning to break. “Do you even know, can you even imagine, how much I dislike you? How lowly I think of you? Can you?” she tugged at the girl’s clothes harder, making a plastic button from her shirt pop. Kim Taeyeon followed the trajectory of the tumbling button before looking straight back at Tiffany’s eyes.

“Yes”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I can imagine”

Tiffany’s grip slackened, and Kim Taeyeon used the chance to break away from her hold. She walked to the sink and began to slowly wash her hands, looking at Tiffany through the reflection. Tiffany’s fiery eyes stared back.

Then, something clicked in her mind.

“You weren’t looking at my ” she said, as coldly as possible.

Kim Taeyeon smiled and dried her hands as best as she could with a paper towel, before finally wiping them down on her jeans.

“I was looking at your eyes.”

Tiffany wanted to express her disbelief, her apparent disgust, her utter contempt for Kim Taeyeon’s lying moronic ways. And so, she was surprised herself when instead of an incredulous “what?”, what came out of was-

“Why?”

Kim Taeyeon didn’t  answer. She bent down, picked up her unthreaded button and left.

Why do you hate her so much, Jessica had once asked her.

 Why does she bother you so much?

Why can’t you stand her?

 I know she’s a pretty mean person but your feelings are different. It’s like you hate her with a passion.

With a reason.

Why?

There’s no particular reason, she had sworn.

She just irks me.

I hate people like her.

She treated some of my other friends badly.

I don’t hate her with a passion.

I’m just a passionate person.

“She has feelings too”

Tiffany stopped in her tracks, the spoon b with ice-cream floating half-way between and the ice tub.

“What are you talking about?” She asked, pausing the movie they were watching- some generic romcom from the 90s.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot-“

“I told you to stop, it’s fine, everything’s fine, forget about that night”

“It’s not about me, Tiffany. It’s about you”

Tiffany was taken back.

“If you don’t have a reason… your feelings- I mean, physically lashing out is a bit out of line, don’t you think?”

“It’s not”

“Well, why not, Tiffany?” Jessica raised her voice. “I don’t approve of what she does, but your behaviour now, it’s starting to bother me”

“Don’t tell me you’ve turned into one of her little minions, Jessica. What did she whisper in your ear some nights ago, huh? How love-“

“Shut it.”

“No.”

“Tiffany, I can somehow understand the night at the club, but the toilet incident? Really, really? Do you think your behaviour is normal?”

“She deserves it Jessica, if I don’t do anything, she’ll just waltz around life thinking she’s the ing Queen of Sheba”

“That still-“

Tiffany smirked, trying to contain her anger

“Really Jessica what did she tell you? What did she sing to your little ear?”

“It’s not what she told me. It’s what I saw”

“I don’t want to hear anything more about her!”

Jessica flinched at the volume of Tiffany’s voice. Tiffany now towered over her, menacingly, her black raven hair partly covering her face.

“I.don’t.want.to.hear.anything.more.about.her”

She practically chewed out and spat every single syllable.

Jessica stood up, facing Tiffany.

“I saw her crying. I didn’t stop because I saw money. I stopped because I saw her tears”

“Think about that Tiffany”

“And you told me that everything was okay, to forget about that night at the club”

“That was low, Tiffany. Even by Kim Taeyeon standards”

Jessica’s eyes were now red.

For the second night in a row, Tiffany was unable to sleep. She swiped her hand over her phone, plugged in her ear buds, and laid in the dark, listening to rock music. A lonely tear travelled down her cheek and fell on her ruffles bed sheets.

“I hate you” she whispered to no-one in particular.

“I hate you, because sometimes I hate myself.”

Her eyelids became heavier and soon she lost consciousness.

She was walking through one of the freshmen accommodation dorms. She recognized the characteristic colour scheme of green doors and blue walls that had been likened by some to a government torture system. She walked past doors adorned with hand-drawn pictures, printed photos and large Hollywood posters. Some even had hastily scribbled post-it notes with messages such as `-head´, ´tiny-’ and `lil`wiener´. Tiffany kept walking past, looking for her green door, with a taped beach poster.

Out of nowhere, or so it seemed to Tiffany, a figure appeared, wearing a red hoodie and old pj bottoms.

She crashed into it.

She knew how the rest of the scene would play out. In fact, she had relived this moment many times before.

The figure turned around, but instead of being greeted by a grinning face, with twinkling mischievous eyes and bed hair, she was now face to face with a crying Kim Taeyeon.

No.

Tiffany knew, even in her sleep, that the girl in front of her was not Kim Taeyeon. Kim Taeyeon had a permanent taunting half smile. Kim Taeyeon would continuously flick her well ironed hair. Kim Taeyeon would never cry in public. This girl was someone whom she had not seen in a very long time. Three years, to be precise.

“Taeyeon” she felt herself whispering.

And Taeyeon had looked up, biting her lip furiously in an attempt to hold her crying.

“I hate you, because I hate myself sometimes.”

Tiffany reached out to pull the fragile girl into an embrace but the girl vanished before her fingertips could graze her.

Kim Taeyeon had replaced her. She leaned against the wall and looked at Tiffany up and down, clearly unimpressed. That unnerving smile began to creep upon her face.

“I hate myself all of the time”

Tiffany was ripped from her slumber by her alarm clock. She reached out to stop it and sat up on her bed, rubbing her eyes. Her music was still blaring from her ear buds.