Taeyeon went downstairs to get a glass of water for Jessica who suddenly woke up in the middle of the night saying she’s thirsty. She was still half-asleep while descending the stairs but she didn’t fail to notice that the front door was slightly opened. She peeked and saw Tiffany chugging down what seemed to be her favourite drink.

“Fany? Isn’t it a little late to be drinking beer?” she asked as she sat beside the girl.

“It’s the good thing about beer. You can drink it anytime you want. It’s never too early nor too late to drink one.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” she asked, feigning ignorance.

“We all know you and Soo have broken up. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Soo came home with her eyes swollen, nose red and looked crappier than ever. Then, there’s you…being all quiet.”

Tiffany opened another bottle and offered it to Taeyeon which the shorter girl politely declined saying she doesn’t like the taste of beer.

She shrugged and started talking, some of her words coming out as a slur. “I feel like crap. I’m a freaking monster. From day one, I knew that I didn’t deserve Soo but what did I do when she asked me to be her girlfriend? I said yes. Stupid Fany. I shall change my surname to ‘Stupid’ so people would know and it’ll serve as a warning.”

She ended her rambling with a burp that woke up Taeyeon.

“Fany, how many beers have you drank?”

Tiffany pointed to the plastic bag beside her. “That much. I’ve lost count at how many times I’ve peed so don’t bother asking.”

“Why are you even doing this? What good will drinking do? Do you think punishing your liver would atone for your stupidity?”

Tiffany looked at her, eyes unfocused, and reached for her small face. “I’m not sure if I’m talking to Taeng or my sister. Jessie, are you practicing black magic? Did you and Taeng switch bodies?”

Taeyeon let out a yelp when the younger girl pinched her cheeks. “Ack! Stop it, Fany!”

Tiffany let go of her face and leaned on the doorframe. “I feel like shᵢt. You should’ve seen her face, Taeng. She…she doesn’t deserve getting hurt like that. I shouldn’t have…I’m the worst person ever. I had a choice and I fcked up. I should’ve said no. I…”

“There’s no use thinking about that now. You said ‘yes’ and you were in a relationship with her. I bet if you ask Soo if she’d do it again, fall in love with you, she’d say yes and I don’t think she’s regretting falling in love with you. Who said love doesn’t have to hurt? Whoever said that is a liar. Hurting is part of it, isn’t it?”

“You and Jessie seems fine.”

“We weren’t before. Well, at least, I wasn’t. I got hurt every time she said mean things about me when we weren’t a couple yet. Who knows, maybe we’ll encounter a speed bump someday. I hope not though.”

Tiffany dropped the bottle of beer on the floor with a thud and hugged her knees. “She’s a nice person.”

“She is…with a huge appetite.”

“I’m a horrible horrible person.” She felt a fur tickling the side of her forearm and as she looked down, she saw the cat that she gave Yuri for her birthday. She tried reaching out for her only to get ignored. “See? Ms. Thor probably thinks I’m a monster.”

Taeyeon sighed and took the kitten in her arms and petted it. “You’re not. You were just trying not to hurt her more. Sica told me and I think that breaking up with her sooner is the better thing to do, too. Sometimes when you know the relationship is going nowhere, the smartest thing to do is to let it go instead of just letting it dangle there, hoping and waiting for something that you both know won’t happen.”

Taeyeon picked up the bottle and poured its contents on the lawn. “Now, stop mulling over it and for crying out loud, stop making a mess here. You and Yuri…it’s either a bottle of beer or a chocolate wrapper I see here all the damn time. What will our neighbours think? That everyone who lives here are either alcoholic or soon-to-be diabetics? Go to your room.”

She took it back as soon as she saw Tiffany struggling to even stand up. “Aigoo, wait here. I’ll call Yuri to help you get to your room since I can’t possibly do that without one of us face planting.”

Taeyeon quickly made her way to the kitchen to get Jessica’s glass of water and speed walked her way upstairs. She knocked at the door of Yuri and Tiffany’s room and waited for Yuri to come out.

“Yeah?” asked Yuri groggily.

“Fany’s drunk. She’s sitting at our doorstep and I can’t really help her up. Do you mind?”

Yuri didn’t need to answer and made her way to her drunken roommate. When she got there, the older girl was almost asleep and was mumbling incoherent words. “Fany-ah, let’s go to our room.” She wiped the beads of sweat on her roommate’s forehead. She tried pulling her up in a standing position but the girl had way too much to drink so she decided to just carry her on her back.

Oddly enough, she carried Tiffany with ease. It pays to exercise every other day.

She gently laid her down on her bed and tucked her in. “Good night, Fany-ah.”


---


The next morning, Sooyoung and Tiffany decided to freak everyone out by acting like nothing happened the other night. They sat beside each other and conversed casually while the others observed. The two acted like they’re fine but their respective roommates, Hyoyeon and Yuri knew better.

Tiffany drowned herself in beer while Sooyoung cried her eyes out all night.

Jessica, who can’t seem to believe what was happening, decided to speak up. “Okay, what the hell is going on?”

Everyone looked at her including the former couple who were busy talking about the upcoming finals.

“What do you mean?” her sister asked.

“You two are talking like nothing happened yesterday. Like no tears were shed, like no hearts were broken.”

Sooyoung scratched the back of her head and said, “Well, we only broke up. It’s not like we decided to cut each other off of our lives.”

Seohyun, who rarely talks, decided to speak as well. “Fany-unnie and Sooyoung-unnie, don’t you think doing that will prevent the other or both of you to truly move on?”

“We were friends before we got together,” she said as she eyed Tiffany, “so I don’t think there’s anything wrong to going back to that.”

“You’re not going to give each other a break? A little bit of space?” Yoona asked.

“We’re fine,” said Soo, acting like she really is fine when in fact, the thought of being in Tiffany’s life only as a friend is eating her up.

Tiffany seconded. Little did everyone know that it was going to bring a small tension between two of their housemates in the future.


---


It felt like it was only yesterday that they were celebrating the end of their first school year and now they were back in the school grounds, fixing their schedule for their second school year.

Taeyeon wrapped a scarf around Jessica’s neck and pulled her closer, wrapping an arm around the younger girl’s waist, while they were in line in front of the Registrar’s Office. “Your clothes aren’t thick enough, Sica.”

“I didn’t think it’d be this cold since spring’s approaching.” She sniffed and fixed the scarf around her neck.

“Hi, Sica,” said a guy from behind Taeyeon.

“Jae.”

“See you again this term. I’m looking forward to working on the project with you again.”

Taeyeon hated the guy’s guts and she doesn’t know why. She hated his mere presence and the fact that he tries too hard to be friendly with her girlfriend.

As if the gap between her and Jessica wasn’t small enough, she decided on decreasing it a bit more which earned a weird look from her girlfriend and a smirk from the guy in front of them. Someone’s threatened.

“Well, I’ll get going now. See you around.” With that he turned around, the small smirk still plastered on his face while mumbling, “I haven’t even done anything yet Kim Taeyeon. Wait for me to make my move.”

At the Accounting Office, the mood pretty much consisted of cheerful catching up between Krystal and Yuri and Tiffany silently snarling at the fact that she’s not included in their tiny conversation.

Yuri tried to bring up a topic that Tiffany could relate to but Krystal would change it again and make Tiffany feel out of place.

Tiffany felt her phone vibrating and she thanked the heavens that she could do something else other than listen to Krystal’s jibber-jabber. It was a text from Sooyoung asking her if she’s done paying her school fees.

The first few weeks of them returning to just being friends seemed to be doing fine save for the things that Sooyoung got used to when they were still dating like the pet names. The taller girl would sometime slip and call her ‘Honey’. She’d apologize quickly but the awkwardness would linger for a few more minutes.

Tiffany wasn’t an idiot. She knew Sooyoung still has feelings for her and maybe being friends with her ex wasn’t the smartest thing to do but she just can’t cut her off like that. She doesn’t have the heart to do so and she’s really not interested on adding that up on her list of problems. She still has her feelings for Yuri that needs to settle. After all, she still wasn’t entirely sure what she feels about her roommate.

She sent a reply to Sooyoung and paid attention to the two girls in front of her again.

Krystal has invited Yuri to go to lunch with her and her friends. Yuri looked at Tiffany and then back to Krystal and asked, “Can Tiffany come?”

Krystal hesitated but eventually said yes.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll just eat with Soo and Hyo,” she said with a subtle hint of bitterness while typing away on her mobile phone.

“Oh, okay,” Yuri mumbled fully aware that Tiffany was upset.


---


Later that day, Yuri sent a short text to Tiffany saying she wanted to talk to the latter.

Today was the first day they saw each other again but they didn’t even have a decent conversation. She arrived at school to enrol herself for the third term and the first thing she did was to find Tiffany. Too bad they didn’t get to talk that much because Krystal arrived.

She wanted to catch up with her roommate since the two of them didn’t really get the chance to talk during their two week break because they were with their families enjoying their short vacation, Yuri with her family at Thailand and Tiffany with Taeyeon and Jessica at San Francisco, California.

For two weeks, Yuri has been contemplating on telling Tiffany what she feels about her but told herself multiple times that Tiffany and Sooyoung just broke up recently. She didn’t want to seem like an opportunist and she thought of how Sooyoung would feel if she finds out.

She was waiting for Tiffany inside their room but she never came. She received a text from her roommate saying that she was sitting at their doorsteps and feeding Ms. Thor. She quickly got up and went downstairs.

“Hey.”

“Hey, how’s your lunch date with Krystal?”

“It was fine.” She took the kitten in her arms and its back. She looked at Tiffany and asked, “How was your trip with Taeng and Sica?”

She leaned back and stared at the house across theirs. “I was the third wheel, what else?”

“That’s it?”

Tiffany nodded and stared blankly at the feet.

“You look tired.”

“I’m fine. Just thinking about stuff.”

Yuri nodded and silence engulfed the two of them. Five minutes have passed when Yuri thought of a funny incident that happened to her brother while they were in Thailand/ she was ready to tell Tiffany about it but didn’t have the chance to. Apparently, Tiffany also had something that she wanted to say.

“I’m in love with you.” There was a long pause and Yuri couldn’t see if Tiffany was being serious because she was staring elsewhere.

Yuri was dumbfounded and she still couldn’t believe what she just heard. She needed for Tiffany to say it again which the older girl did.

“I’m in love with you, Yuri…I think,” she said as she stared at the tanned girl’s eyes.

Well, that was unexpected.