Taeyeon’s fingers were still trembling as she was slowly closing her lap top. She and Tiffany just chatted. Not a lot, actually it wasn’t even worth mentioning, but still. Plus… Taeyeon had a feeling like the afternoon that day went really well. Is there any chance she can succeed in her mission? Is there actually a chance? She always had that tiny bit of hope somewhere deep inside. That was what was making her actually proceed with her… non-existent plan. If she believed it was useless since the beginning she wouldn’t even bother to try. She had hope. There was a chance. Please…

The following day was really disappointing for Taeyeon. And the next day as well. Tiffany wasn’t at school for two days in row now. Wait, she skipped school on Monday as well. So she wasn’t at school for three days by now. That was making Taeyeon kind of upset. Tiffany told her on Monday she had been at the doctor earlier, didn’t she? What if there is something seriously wrong with her.

Should I send her a message on Facebook? Or wait… I’ll just try to… try to…

“Uhm…” Taeyeon cleared as she went closer to that intimidating person. She was probably sleeping. Nothing unusual. “Jessica?” Taeyeon asked quietly.

The other girl didn’t even move. “Jessica…” Taeyeon said a bit louder, putting her hand on Jessica’s shoulder, shaking her really gently.

Jessica shifted a bit, before lifting her head, looking very sleepy. “What the do you want, Kim Taeyeon?” she asked.

Taeyeon took a deep breath. That was probably the first time ever she spoke to the sleeping beauty. Jessica looked like she could actually hurt Taeyeon at the moment. Taeyeon was so regretting waking her up. It was totally a mistake. But well, since she already did it…

“Uhm, I was wondering… where is Tiffany?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“Uhm, why the do you care?”

“I’m just… curious. I consider her my friend.”

Jessica frowned. “You two are friends? Did I oversleep something important?”

“Well… she keeps saying we are not friends, but I believe our relationship can be defined as a friendship,” Taeyeon tried to explain the situation.

“Okay, so… firstly, if Tiffany says you are not friends than you are not friends. And secondly… if you are friends, then why don’t you just ask her yourself? It would be much better than disturbing me, seriously,” Jessica said grumpily and collapsed back on the desk, showing Taeyeon she has no the slightest interest in continuing this conversation.

“I was just wondering if she was okay…” Taeyeon mumbled before slowly walking away.

Jessica lifted her head a bit, watching Taeyeon leave. She was obviously thinking.

“Huh…” she mumbled to herself as she let her head fall once again. Why does that midget care about Tiffany that much?

“What do you want from her?” Taeyeon looked up. Jessica was standing above her, arms crossed looking pissed. Or maybe just being her usual self. It was the next break and Taeyeon was damn shocked Jessica actually voluntarily got off her seat. And she found Jessica very hostile.

”W-what?” Taeyeon stuttered.                                                                                      

“Tiffany. What do you want from her? I wanted to ignore the talk we had earlier, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I couldn’t sleep peacefully, it keeps bugging me, I need to ask you this. Why are you doing this?” That was the longest thing Jessica said to Taeyeon ever. That was actually the longest Taeyeon heard Jessica say. Ever.

“I want to be her friend?” The fear in Taeyeon’s voice made her intonation go up, changing the sentence into a question. Jessica looked like she was about to struggle her. Or maybe it was still her usual self? No. Taeyeon disturbed her sleeping, Jessica must have been ing mad.

“Uhm, no you don’t,” Jessica stated.

“Yes, I do,” Taeyeon took a deep breath to gain some courage before continuing. “Who do you think you are, telling me what I want and what I do not want? Or what Tiffany can and can’t do and who she can or can’t befriend?”

Jessica scoffed. “I am Tiffany’s friend, I know her, she wouldn’t befriend you or anybody actually, and it’s my ing obligation to protect her from people like you,” she said angrily. It left some huge impression on Taeyeon. She always thought Jessica was a meanie, but just now she was being a great friend to Tiffany. But it was a bit weird. Something didn’t make sense about what Jessica just said. Tiffany was well known for having fun with the entire variety of people in private. Then why wouldn’t she befriend people? You obviously have to have friends or at least some relationships with people to them. Or not?

“I really want to just become her friend, I like her,” Taeyeon defended herself.

Jessica was still frowning. “I know people like you, Tiffany gets a bunch of those. You just wanna get laid just like every boy who sees her.”

“Firstly, I do-don’t, secondly, is there something bad about it? I mean... her reputation and stuff,” Taeyeon reasoned. She was realizing she was blabbering and her reasoning was really bad, but at least she tried.

“Well, leave her alone, because she is not interested, she is straight. S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T. Get it?” Jessica said before turning around and returning to her desk.

“You made it very clear,” Taeyeon mumbled more to herself than Jessica. Another enemy on the list...

Taeyeon’s fingers were itching. There was a green circle next to Tiffany’s name suggesting that she was online. Taeyeon always wrote a message, then thought there was something wrong about it, deleted it and started to think of another thing to write. ’Are you okay?’ was too austere. ‘Will you be at school on Friday? We are getting a new task in Physics.’ was too insensitive. ‘Are you ill? I’m worried.’ was too personal. ‘Is everything alright? I kept asking Jessica, but she wouldn’t tell me anything.’ was too stalker-ish.

“Just be yourself Taeyeon, be honest,” she mumbled to herself.

Kim Taengoo 6:17PM

Hi, Tiffany. I was wondering if you’re okay, haven’t seen you at school lately.

She tapped her fingers against the table, nervously waiting for the other girl to reply. Tiffany read the message two minutes later and immediately started to reply.

Tiffany Hwang 6:20PM

I caught a cold. Jessica told me you had been asking about me. Is it the Physics? Don’t worry, I’ll be fine by Friday :-)

Oooh, she wrote a smiley face! I hope Jessica didn’t tell her anything weird though.

Taeyeon gained courage. Tiffany seemed a bit more opened than usually, so she might as well try to push her luck. She has nothing much to lose.

Kim Taengoo 6:22PM

It’s not just that. Say whatever you want, but I do consider you as a friend of mine. So... I guess you could say I was also worried because you are my friend.

Taeyeon closed her eyes as she sent the message. Her heartbeat went crazy. She was wondering whether she had overdone it or not. Tiffany read it almost immediately, but it took her a while to start replying. Taeyeon felt almost like fainting, waiting impatiently. Then a surprisingly short message popped up.

Tiffany Hwang 6:25PM

Thank you.

Taeyeon ended up staring at the text, really confused. What does that mean? “Huh.... okay”

“Great, now bend your knees a bit and put your hand on your head. Great! Now smile! That’s right!”

The photographer stopped taking the photos, put the camera aside and just looked at the model lovingly. “You’re so natural, it’s a pleasure working with you,” he exhaled, looking like he was in a haze. “You are very gifted, you were born to do this, I just love you, my darling, let’s take a break, you deserve it, we all do.” He clapped to announce the break to the rest of the crew and walked towards his favorite model. “I’m buying you a drink. Let’s go to the restaurant upstairs.”

Jang Geunsuk was a very stylish young photographer. He was very nice, probably gay, but cute anyway. He and Yoona got both hired by Marie Claire to shoot a photo shoot about winter fashion. Yoona was really excited about it and it was very obvious as she did exceptionally well that day.

There was a really pretty restaurant just above the studio they were shooting in. An expensive one of course. But lovely. And they both could afford it.

They sat down and the waitress was there in a second. “Good afternoon, can I take your order?” she said sweetly with an angelic smile on her face and handed them the menu. “Omo! You are Taeyeon unnie’s friend, right?”

Only then Yoona actually bothered to look up. “Oh!” she smiled as she immediately remembered. “We saw each other at the café last time. I’m actually her cousin, Yoona, nice to meet you!”

“I’m Seohyun, Taeyeon’s classmate, nice to meet you too,” the waitress smiled. They kept looking at each other for a while, before Geunsuk coughed.

“I would like to order.”

Seohyun blushed. “I apologize, sir,” she said before taking the order for the drink. Then her eyes met with Yoona’s one again and they giggled.

“I’ll have the same,” Yoona said and Seohyun walked away.

“Yoona, honey,” Geunsuk grabbed Yoona’s hand which she had on the table. “Please don’t get offended or anything, but... honestly, are you gay?”

“W-what?” Yoona stuttered, surprised.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s just a question. It’s okay if you are gay, it’s okay if you are straight, really. You don’t have to answer, I'm sorry if I made you upset,” he said quickly to calm her down.

“No, it’s fine, just... what made you think so?” Yoona asked, really curious about the answer. Taeyeon told her she is probably biual, but that was because she told her about her suspicions. She wondered what made the young photographer assume she might not be straight since she didn’t tell him anything about her uality.

“Oh dear, my gaydar is screaming, flashing lights and dancing in circles every time I see you interacting with a woman,” he laughed.

Yoona blushed. “I’m biual,” she said then. She wasn’t sure if that was true though.

It was like Geunsuk could read her mind. “Are you sure? How long do you know you are biual?”

Yoona remained silent. Seohyun came back with their orders. She looked a bit awkward, no doubt she had overheard the gay talk earlier. Yoona smiled at her nervously and Seohyun smiled back.

Awkwaaaard.

Seohyun walked away again and Yoona buried her face in her hands with a sigh. “Oh damn, I’m so gay...”

Later that day, call it coincidence, call it fate, Seohyun and Yoona met once again.

Yoona had finished her shooting and Seohyun’s shift had ended at the same time and they ended up bumping into each other in front of the building.

“Oh, hi,” Yoona smiled.

“Hi,” Seohyun smiled back.

“You’re going home?”

“Yes, I’m taking a bus. You?”

“Well, kind of. I will go with you, I’m living nearby.”

Seohyun looked a bit confused. “What does that mean, kind of?” They slowly started to walk towards the bus station.

“I live in a hotel for the time of being. I’m from Busan,” Yoona explained.

“You are from Busan? Really? You don’t have the accent at all,” Seohyun wondered.

“It’s because I travel a lot, I spend in Busan only around four months a year, I spent a lot of time in Japan and in Seoul.”

“Ah I see, that must be difficult, you are still at school, aren’t you?” Seohyun said.

“Yes, I’m a year younger than Taeyeon unnie, so I have still two years to go,” Yoona smiled. “But I have a special program. I have private teachers, I just need to pass the tests, I don’t have to attend classes. So it’s not that bad. I’m happy with what I am doing.”

“Sorry to ask, but what exactly are you doing? Are you a photographer or some kind of fashion designer…?”

“Oh, I’m a model,” Yoona laughed.

“Oh, really? Wow!” Seohyun smiled. “That’s very cool. And… are you somehow famous?”

“Well… not yet, I did a Pepsi commercial in Japan last year and just last week I came back from shooting some photos for Levi’s. I will get featured on their promotional posters along with one girl,” Yoona said. “Today I was shooting for Marie Claire, I should get featured in the next issue in the fashion section, we were shooting promotional photos for some winter collections.”

“Ooh, that’s awesome, you are famous!” Seohyun breathed out. “You are a legit model!”

Yoona felt heat coming into her face. She was pretty sure she was blushing. “Well, I am not famous,” she mumbled.

“Ah, whatever,” Seohyun shrugged. “I really like what you are doing. You must be very independent, sorry if this is an inappropriate question, but do you make a lot of money? Sorry, just curious.”

Yoona looked at her, thinking a bit before answering. “I don’t know if a lot, but I do make money. But well, since I have to pay for the hotels sometimes and I pay for my flights as well… I don’t have that much left at the end of the day. Sometimes the companies are kind enough to cover my expenses though.”

They arrived at the bus station. “My bus should be here any second,” Seohyun said, checking her watch.

“Ah, yeah…” Yoona breathed out. There indeed could be a bus seen coming closer. They arrived just in time. Yoona was a bit sad; she wanted to talk with Seohyun a little longer. She felt like they could become great friends. At least. Ahem.

“I guess we will see each other sometime. Maybe,” Seohyun smiled mysteriously as the bus stopped in front of them.

“Well, I hope so,” Yoona smiled.

“So bye,” Seohyun said as she entered the bus and Yoona watch it drove away before leaving herself.

Friday morning. The last day in school before the winter break. Then almost two weeks of freedom! Except for the fact they will have to do another Physics project.

Taeyeon was shocked to see their teacher enter the classroom without any weird stuff. No golf clubs, no wine bottles, no guitars or anything else he usually brings. Just a stack of papers. That was actually very scary. Maybe even scarier than that one time he brought a kitten. Yes. A kitten. No kidding. What was he up to this time?

“Good morning kids, good morning, you can sit down,” he said and put the stack on his desk. “Since the winter break is coming and since I know many of you will travel during the holidays and it would be difficult to do a project together with your partner, I’ve decided to give you a little bit different task this time.”

Taeyeon looked around. Everybody seemed a bit terrified by the fact that he took that stack and started to give each student a piece of paper.

“This is a list of 20 physics problems. With the proper knowledge of mathematics, basic formulas and simple logic, you should be able to figure it all out.”

He walked around Taeyeon, gave her the sheet. She looked at the very first question.

‘A train speeds through a tunnel at constant velocity. The trajectories of both ends of the train and both ends of the tunnel are shown in the space-time diagram. Answer the following questions.’

“Oh my dear god,” she groaned, tilting her head backwards.

“No need to be desperate, Taeyeon,” the teacher laughed as he overheard her.

“You won’t evaluate it!?” Taeyeon asked, full of hope.

“No, I’m not that kind, Taeyeon, sorry,” he said. “But you will have a buddy! The pairs remain the same, I want you to cooperate and solve the problems together with your partner,” he smiled. “So basically, you need to figure out just ten problems and understand the other ten after your partner solves it. That should be a piece of cake.”

At that moment more students started to groan desperately.

“Jessica, you are smart, you do it yourself,” Yuri said to Jessica loudly. She was pissed. Jessica indeed called her that morning. Yuri forgot about it and hadn’t turned off her phone the previous evening. It woke her up and even though she rejected the call and turned off her phone immediately she wasn’t able to fall asleep anymore. So Jessica succeeded in her task - she managed to get Yuri to school in time that morning. And she herself got to school early. So surprisingly both of them were present at the first lesson.

“Not so fast, Yuri,” the teacher interfered before Jessica could lift her half-asleep head from the desk and answer. “I require all of you, all of you,” he said twice and pointed at the students, “to understand all of these,” he pointed at the piece of paper. “There will be an exam on the first lesson after the break.”

“Oh my gooooodddd. Nooo…” almost everybody groaned.

“And the mark you will get from the exam will be very important; it will have a huge influence on your final mark. And it’s mandatory. So don’t even think of avoiding it, Kwon Yuri,” the teacher said.

Yuri pouted, upset.

Taeyeon just looked back and her eyes found Tiffany who was coincidentally looking at her as well and their eyes met. Taeyeon firmly nodded, saying they can do it. Tiffany smiled and nodded back. They can do it!

Finally! Winter break! No more school for the rest of the year! Okay, that was just something a little over a week, but whatever, Taeyeon was still really excited, just like everybody else. It was Christmas coming in two days.  And then in the next two days, Sunny was supposed to come! Taeyeon was honestly looking forward to it; if she could she would skip the Christmas itself – she would spend it with her mother as every year. Kind of boring. They barely celebrated it. Her brother didn’t even come home for the Holidays anymore, he just stayed in France. They agreed on not spending money during Christmas, it was basically just another evening. It was hard for Taeyeon every year at school, when her classmates bragged about all the awesome Christmas gifts they got - new iPhones, laptops, diamond necklaces… Taeyeon hated that time. It was similar to the beginning of the semester after the summer break when all of the kids spent the summer break abroad, on Maldives, Galapagos, in Australia or Egypt. And when Taeyeon was asked, she wouldn’t answer. She didn’t want to lie and she was too upset to admit she spent her summer break in Jeonju.

Taeyeon finished packing all of her school stuff and was about to head home, when suddenly a hand on her shoulder stopped her.

Taeyeon turned around and was surprised to see Tiffany there.

“Hi,” Tiffany smiled slightly.

“Oh! Oh, hi,” Taeyeon smiled back. “Do you- do you need anything?”

“Well, yeah, I wanted to talk to you because of the physics… you know,” Tiffany said.

“Ah, right, do you wanna discuss it right now?”

“No, not really, just wanted to ask you will be on Facebook this afternoon or tomorrow, so we could talk about it.”

“Ah… okay. I… should be online every day. Until the 27^th, then my friend is coming over for the couple of days. Mhm, in case you wouldn’t be able to get in touch with me during the time, you’re going to the New Year’s party our classmates are holding, right?”

Tiffany nodded. “Yes. I am. Are you?”

“Yes, I actually am planning to stop by,” Taeyeon said sweetly.

“Oh… Okay,” Tiffany nodded. “I guess we will see each other there then.”

“Yes. I think it would be weird if we discussed physics on the party, but just in case… you know. We will meet there.”

“Okay, sure,” Tiffany smiled. “I will send you a message on Facebook.”

“Okay.”

“Jessica.”

“Yuri.”

The two girls met at the hallway after their last lesson. They didn’t have it together, they just happened to meet coincidentally. Although Yuri thought it was a bit weird, she had a feeling Jessica had been waiting for her.

“We have an assignment to deal with.”

Yuri rolled her eyes. “Not doing it. He won’t let us fail the subject in our senior year.”

Jessica took a step forward, so she was now really close to Yuri. Really. “You will do it. You will solve the first half. You will.”

Yuri frowned a bit. Maybe she finally saw why Taeyeon always thought Jessica was intimidating. But that doesn’t mean she was scared or felt somehow threatened. She laughed.

“Oh please, stop it,” she said, lightly pushing Jessica further from her body as she didn’t really like the close distance. “Do whatever you want, but you can’t force me to do anything. Anything. Got it?”

Jessica snorted out. “Seriously you… Why am I even bothering.”

“Yeah, good question, you are wasting your effort,” Yuri shrugged.

“Go to hell, Kwon Yuri, go to the ing hell,” Jessica spat before turning around and walking away.

“Been there and it was awesome! See you at the New Year’s party! Noticed you’re coming!” Yuri yelled at her, before chuckling. Jessica angrily sped up, the sound of her high heels echoing, she was obviously furious or at least really upset. It was simply hilarious. “Funny.”

A/N: Sunny will make an appearance in the next chapter and I promise I will update sooner than usually (I've been writing like mad lately :D)

Thank you all for reading, thanks for subscribing and commenting, yay for 200 subscribers! Love youuuu~~ ♥ :)

Finally the fic is about to get really interesting :) Expect it :P