The only sound filling the girl’s ears was the occasionally sound of the cars passing by her on the street, as well as the sound of her shoes making contact with the pavement as she walked forward. The hand around the handle to the bag of groceries tightened as she made a turn and entered the area she lived in. Her gaze left the ground to look up, her eyes landing on the apartment complex she lived in, only to slowly go to a figure standing outside of it.

Taeyeon’s eyebrows furrowed. The person she could see was a male was pacing outside of the building. And from how the guy was moving, she realized she recognized him. She recognized him all too well.

A frown was on her lips, and she continued her way towards the apartment complex. Only slowing down when she got closer. Her feet came to a complete halt, the guy hadn’t noticed her as his back was turned towards her, and his gaze was focused on the building in front of him.

“What the are you doing here?” Taeyeon asked. Her question made the guy turn around towards her. Wide brown orbs met hers, the guy’s stance slightly shrunk under her gaze, but she didn’t care. She continued to glare at him, hoping he would get that this wasn’t the place for him to be without her needing to say anything.

“I-I w-wanted to check u-up on m-mom.” He said and let his gaze go down to the ground. Taeyeon frowned when she realized he was scared. Her arms crossed and she let her gaze fall down to the bag of groceries the guy was holding in his hand.

“Mom is fine.” Taeyeon said. “She doesn’t need your help.” She added and proceeded to walk past him.

“I’m sorry.” The two words that left his mouth made her halt in her steps. Silence engulfed between them, she heard that he moved, probably turning around towards her.

“Taeyeon, I’m really sorry.”

“Are you really going to do this now?!” She snapped and turned around towards him. His guilt stricken face came into view. She frowned, and considered throwing something at him, but she had nothing to throw, if she didn’t throw the groceries at him.

“P-please, hear me out. I-I just wanted her pain to end…I d-didn’t want it to go that far.” The guy spoke, his voice almost sounding like it would break.

“We all were in pain, Kangin! All of us stuck together because of the same reasons. That could have been anyone. That could have been me. Instead of her it could have been me. Do you ever consider that?!” She snapped at him. He looked away from her; the guilt was still visible on his face.

“You were stronger.” Kangin mumbled.

Taeyeon scoffed by the words. “Bull.”

“She always said it.” He continued and looked up. His guilt filled eyes met her burning ones, but he didn’t look away. “That you were the strongest. That you were her strong pillar that kept her up. She always said that.” He added.  

“Then why the did she go to you for help?! Why?! If I was so strong then why didn’t she come to me then? Why didn’t she let me help her? Why couldn’t I save her?” Taeyeon snapped. The bag of groceries had fallen to the ground and her arms were flailing by her side as she spoke now.

Kangin looked sympathetically at her. The guilt in his face had been joined with sadness.

“She didn’t want to bother you when you were trying to save yourself.”

“Damn it!”

She spun around. Her fingers brushed through her hair before she let her hand fall down to her side. Her chest heaved up and down, her heart was beating fast against her ribcage, her blood was boiling from anger.

“Why did you try to help her? Why couldn’t you just tell her to go to me?” Taeyeon asked and turned around towards her brother again. She saw Kangin looked sympathetically at her.

“She was my best friend, who was in pain, and who asked me to not tell you.” He explained.

“I’m your sister!”

“I know.” He let his gaze fall down to the ground. If she had been standing closer to him she would have hit him, but she didn’t, and she didn’t feel like closing the space between them to do it either. Instead she stood rooted to her spot, her eyes glaring at him.

“I’m never going to forgive you.” She spoke after seconds of silence. Kangin looked up, he looked sad, regretful, but he had a look of understanding on his face as well.

“I can understand that.” He said and nodded his head slowly.

The siblings stood in silence, none of them saying or doing anything. Taeyeon began to frown the longer time passed, and the longer Kangin was standing in front of her without doing anything.

“Leave.” She spoke firmly. Kangin didn’t need to be told twice. He looked sadly at his sister one last time before he spun around and began walking away from her.

“Don’t get close to my friends again. I don’t want you to kill them too!” Taeyeon shouted after him. Kangin did no sign of hearing her, and she frankly didn’t care. She just didn’t want to see him close to any of the people she knew.

When she had made sure he was gone and wouldn’t come back she spun around, quickly picked up the grocery bag from the ground and went inside. She was still feeling angry as she was riding up the elevator. She kept moving her feet, trying to figure out how to get rid of the feeling.

A sigh left her lips and she put her hand inside her pocket, picking up her phone only to discover she had gotten a message she hadn’t noticed before.

‘Yo, what’s up? :)’

She read the sentence a few times, trying to figure out what to reply, or if she should reply. Eventually she sighed and pressed the call button and put the device against her ear.

“Hi!” Jessica’s voice answered on the other line. “I was beginning to wonder what you were doing when you weren’t answering my text.” She added.

“Can we meet up?” Taeyeon asked without explaining why she hadn’t answered Jessica’s text message earlier.

“Now?” Jessica sound surprised, and Taeyeon understood why the girl was. It was sudden and unusual of her to ask to meet up like this, and Jessica probably didn’t expect it to come from her.

“Well…yes.” Taeyeon responded. She got silence as her answer, which made her wonder if something was wrong, as she had expected Jessica to be delighted to meet up with her.

“I have a small favor to ask then.” Jessica finally said and broke the silence that had filled between them. Taeyeon nodded her head, thinking that it shouldn’t be a problem.

“Sure, what?”

“Come pick me up at my place.”

Taeyeon raised her left eyebrow. She had thought the favor would be something bigger than that, but if it was only that she had no problem doing it.

“I’ll come pick you up.” Taeyeon said.

“Good.” Jessica sounded relieved. But Taeyeon paid no more attention to it. “See you later then.” Jessica said.

“See you later. I’ll be there in twenty.” Taeyeon said.

“See you in twenty then, Kim Taeyeon.”


---


She watched as the air from her lips became white steam clouds in the cold autumn night. Her eyes stared at them until they had faded in the dark night. A wind blew past, making her press her arms tighter to her body to keep the warmth.

The door to the apartment complex she was outside of suddenly opened. Her head turned and she saw herself looking at Jessica that quickly made her way to her once the blonde’s eyes had landed on her.

“Aren’t you cold?” Jessica asked when she had stopped in front of her. Taeyeon let her eyes fall down to the leather jacket and hoodie she was wearing before she looked up at Jessica again who was dressed in a similar leather jacket, but had a scarf around her neck and mittens on her hands.

“I’m fine.” Taeyeon said and shrugged her shoulders.

“Okay.” Jessica nodded her head; her eyes glanced towards the road before she looked back at Taeyeon.

“So, what are we gonna do?” Jessica asked.

“Take a walk?” Taeyeon suggested as she didn’t feel like doing anything else.

A smile appeared on Jessica’s lips and she nodded her head. “Okay, but you gotta show the way then.” She said.

Feeling like it shouldn’t be a problem Taeyeon began walking. She felt Jessica quickly joined her side as they walked down the street, walking without a destination in mind.

It was silent between them. Unusual silent as Jessica usually had something to say, or ask. It made Taeyeon glance at the blonde girl to make sure nothing was wrong with her, only to discover Jessica was looking around her.

“You okay?” She asked the girl. Jessica snapped her head towards her, a smile on her lips and an expression of embarrassment on her face. It made Taeyeon raise her eyebrow in a question manner, making Jessica lightly laugh and move closer to her as they continued to walk.

“This might seem very out of character of me…” Jessica began. Taeyeon blinked and turned towards the blonde girl. She felt one of Jessica’s arms snake around hers, and soon the blonde girl was clinging to her arm like a koala to a tree.

“But I’m afraid of the dark. I don’t like walking around at night. So, just deal with me clinging to you now.” Jessica finally confessed.

Taeyeon blinked surprised as she hadn’t expected that to come out of Jessica’s mouth. She looked at her, noticing that Jessica looked genuinely scared. She had no idea what to say, she didn’t know anyone in their age that was afraid of the dark.

“Um…You’re…afraid of the dark?” Taeyeon asked. Jessica didn’t reply right away. The girl just hugged her arm tighter and let her gaze fall to the ground like she was embarrassed.

“Yes.” Jessica finally replied.

“Do you sleep with a bed lamp on?” Taeyeon couldn’t help but ask. But with Jessica anything seemed to be possible. The blonde didn’t reply right away, and it made the answer obvious, but Taeyeon needed a verbal response to react to it.  

“Sometimes…” Jessica said after seconds of silence.

She couldn’t help it, but opened, and laughter escaped from it. Her hand covered to keep the sound inside, but she found out Jessica had already heard her when she felt the blonde bump into her shoulder with her.

“Yeah, just laugh at my miseries!” Jessica said and pushed her again.

“Sorry. It was just really unexpected.” Taeyeon explained after she had stopped laughing. And it was true. She had never expected Jessica to be afraid of the dark. The girl who usually was to bold with what she said and did, had a fear like that.

She looked at Jessica. She was happy that Jessica didn’t look hurt or offended, but she couldn’t help but look apologetically at her. Jessica only smiled warmly and her and shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s okay. It was at least nice seeing you laugh.” Jessica said.

Taeyeon blinked surprised. Her silence earned her the blonde’s attention, and Jessica continued to smile at her, her head titling to the side.

“You don’t do that often.” Jessica added.

Taeyeon felt the corner of her lips turn downwards into a frown. She looked away from the blonde and focused on the road ahead of them instead. “Don’t have much to laugh about.” She eventually said.

“Except for me being afraid of the dark.” Jessica pointed out.

Taeyeon nodded her head and glanced at the girl that was still clinging to her arm. “Yeah.” She said.

“But you should laugh more often. It’s nice to hear, and nice to see.” Jessica said. Taeyeon met the girl’s gaze, and they continued to stare at each other for a long while. A small smile appeared on Taeyeon’s lips and she looked away from the blonde girl.

“You just have to make me laugh then.” She said and glanced in the corner of her eye at Jessica. She saw Jessica break out into a wide smile. Her arm was squeezed tighter.

“I’ll try to crack some jokes every now and then, or just tell you about all the times I had to turn on a bed lamp to be able to sleep.”

Taeyeon felt her lips form a sincere smile, and when she looked at Jessica she felt her whole body warm up in this cold night. She continued to smile at the blonde when she turned to meet her gaze, and saw Jessica returning her smile.

“Thank you.” Taeyeon said and felt she meant it with her whole heart. Jessica looked a bit surprised by her expression of gratitude, but the girl started smiling soon again, and she hugged Taeyeon’s arm a bit tighter.

“Nothing to thank me for, Kim Taeyeon.” Jessica replied.

Taeyeon didn’t say anything, because she felt no use in explaining exactly why she needed to thank the girl. And she went with just feeling satisfied about having said the words.