She felt her heart had started beating in a normal pace by now. But even so she still felt completely awake, and she was warm. Really warm. But that could be because she was wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a sweater, and there was a comforter covering her body. And on top of all that, another body was pressed up against her, one arm was wrapped around her waist, and a leg was lying across of hers, keeping her completely immobilized.

Taeyeon didn’t know how many times she had counted the plastic stars that glowed in the dark that were in the ceiling above Jessica’s bed. But by now she knew the girl had twenty seven stars above the bed. She had also tried to figure out what brand Jessica uses for her shampoo, because she figured that smell, together with the taste of Jessica’s raspberry lip balm would be two things she would remember very well.

The brunette girl slowly exhaled. She didn’t dare to make any sudden movements, because she didn’t want to wake up the girl who was sleeping next to her. She didn’t know how it had happened, but she only knew that she and Jessica had gone to bed together, they had said goodnight. Nothing else. And then, after some time of trying to make her heart stop beating so fast and actually trying to sleep, Jessica had turned in her sleep, and had wrapped her arm and leg around her, making Taeyeon completely unable to sleep.

Taeyeon sighed again. She wanted to move in her position. She could feel the fabric of the clothes sticking to her body because she was sweating from the heat. It was uncomfortable, and she figured if Jessica’s closeness hadn’t been the main issue for her inability to sleep, the heat would probably keep her from sleeping.

A chirping bird caught her attention, which made her realize it was probably early morning by now. It also meant that they would need to wake up soon, and it also meant she hadn’t slept a wink the whole night.

She closed her eyes. A tired sigh escaped her lips. Movements from the girl beside her made her snap her eyes open, her body going rigid, and her heart starting to beat fast once again.

Jessica turned in her sleep. Her back now facing Taeyeon, who was staring wide eyed at the back of the blonde’s head. Seeing that Jessica wasn’t moving anymore she let out a sigh of relief and slowly closed her eyes again.

Her heart slowly went back to its normal pace, and she opened her eyes, taking in the ceiling above her, like she had done all night. She glanced at the girl beside her. She could see Jessica was breathing rhythmically, meaning that the girl was still sleeping soundly. A small smile appeared on her lips, and she bent her knees, pushing some of her weight up, and slowly turned her body around to lie on her side.

She continued to stare at the back of Jessica’s head, trying to ignore the urge of feeling the girl’s blonde locks with her hands. She bit her lower lip, and averted her eyes away from the other girl, focusing on the pillow instead.

The longer she stared at the pillow, the heavier her eyelids felt. She blinked, and blinked, and blinked once again, trying to keep them open. But it was futile. She finally let them shut, and she felt her body slowly relaxing. And she finally fell asleep, to the scent of fruits and taste of raspberries.

---

She felt something was pushing her shoulder. But she didn’t open her eyes. She heard someone calling her name. But she didn’t respond. The pushing was changed to shaking. Her body was being shaken by someone who was holding her shoulder, and calling her name. Yet the only thing she did was close her eyes tighter, and push the hand away from her shoulder.

“And I thought I was a heavy sleeper!” A familiar voice said. But Taeyeon paid no attention to it, until she felt her hand being grabbed, and she felt her body move on the soft bed, and soon she found herself lying on the floor, in a room she wasn’t quite familiar with, staring confused and dazed at the person who had dragged her out of bed.

“You’re heavy sleeper.” Jessica pointed out, a small smile on her lips.

Taeyeon felt her cheeks heat up at the statement when she realized who had tried to wake her up all this time. And she finally realized she was in Jessica’s room, and she had been sleeping in Jessica’s bed.

She felt like hiding. Embarrassment made her body feel heavy, and she didn’t feel like moving at all when the blonde girl was watching her, but she still did, to hide how embarrassed she was feeling.

“S-sorry.” She mumbled and scratched the back of her head.

“It’s okay. Here, I made you coffee.” Jessica said and held out a cup for her. She grabbed the cup, feeling some comfort in holding the thing in her hand, and bringing it up to her lips to hide some of her blushing face.

“I tried waking you up before, but you didn’t even respond.” Jessica said, her head tilted to the side, her eyes watching Taeyeon as she slowly sipped on the warm coffee.

“Sorry…” Taeyeon mumbled inside the cup. A smile appeared on Jessica’s lips, and Taeyeon had to avert her gaze elsewhere as the sight made her heart beat faster. She focused on her clothes that were folded neatly on a chair in the room.

“Were you cold last night?” Jessica asked.

Taeyeon shifted her gaze back to the girl, not sure how to answer the question. She hadn’t been cold, she had been so hot it had felt she had been sleeping in a sauna. She kept mum, only staring at the girl in front of her who kept observing her.

“I mean, you slept with a sweater. If you had been cold you could have told me and I could have fixed more blankets for you.” Jessica said.

Taeyeon blinked and let her eyes go down to the grey sweater she was wearing. She had slept with it, not because of coldness, but because of scars and marks she was trying to hide on her body. She looked up at the other girl, only shrugging her shoulders in response.

Jessica’s left eyebrow rose, but the girl didn’t say more about the sweater and turned around instead. She picked up her bag that was on the floor, placed it on her desk and started rummaging through it, taking a few books that lied on her desk and placed it inside of it.

“I’m sorry, but we have already missed our first class.” Jessica suddenly said.

Taeyeon stopped sipping on her coffee, and turned around towards the bed, her eyes landing on the bedside table where a clock was. Her eyes seeing the time she could confirm that she had already missed half of her first class.

“If we hurry we might be able to get in time to our second class.” Jessica said.

Taeyeon nodded her head understanding. She downed the rest of her coffee in one go and gave the cup back to the blonde girl who left the room. While Jessica was gone Taeyeon busied herself with changing out of the clothes she had slept in.

She stopped in her actions to check her phone. She suddenly remembered that she had tried to contact Tiffany the day before, but not heard anything from the girl. Her screen showed no text messages, or any missed calls.

Her eyebrows furrowed, but she dismissed her friend’s silence and pocketed her phone instead and focused on getting her clothes on instead.

---

The walk to school had been silent. Taeyeon had been busy with her thoughts, and Jessica had been busy with smoking her cigarette along the way. They hadn’t said much, just talked about what their next class was. No mention of the night had happened, and Taeyeon wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed because of that.

They walked through the parking lot outside of the school. Jessica slowing down a bit to finish her cigarette before they entered the school grounds. Taeyeon did the same and waited for the girl to finish up the stick of tobacco.

Jessica let the finished cigarette fall to the ground where she stepped on it. When she looked up at Taeyeon she noticed the blonde looked at something behind her, something that made Jessica’s expression show surprise.

“Tiffany.” Jessica said and nodded her head.

“But…” Taeyeon spun around before the blonde had finished her next sentence. Her eyes landed on the familiar girl she had tried contacting last night. Her eyebrows rose in surprise, and a weird feeling of abandonment appeared in her when she saw the sight in front of her.

“She’s not alone.” Jessica finished her sentence.

Taeyeon nodded her head. Questions appeared in her head as she watched Tiffany walking with the blonde, unfamiliar, guy by her side. She watched as they stopped, the guy, being taller than Tiffany, leaning down and planting a kiss on the girl’s cheek, before he waved at her and left. Tiffany continued her way towards the school building, completely oblivious to the two pair of eyes that had watched her.

Taeyeon stood completely frozen in her spot. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel. She felt disappointed, cheated. She had no idea who the guy was, and why Tiffany hadn’t said anything about him before.

Anger started build up inside of her. Was it because of the guy that Tiffany hadn’t answered her calls last night? Had the girl spent the night with him?

“Hey.” The call from the girl beside her made her snap out of her train of questions. She turned around and looked at Jessica that seemed to have been observing her all this time.

“Are you okay?” Jessica asked. She felt the blonde reached out towards her hand that was closed into a fist. The cold fingers brushed against the side of it, it made her relax, unclenching the hand, and she looked away from the girl in front of her.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Taeyeon lied. “Let’s go. We shouldn’t be late.” Taeyeon said before Jessica managed to ask anything else about her wellbeing.

The two girls walked in silence towards the school building. Jessica didn’t say anything else nor ask anything else. She only walked by Taeyeon’s side, the latter still trying to figure out who the guy that had been with Tiffany was, why the girl hadn’t said anything, where they had met, if someone else but her knew.

They entered the school. Taeyeon noticed Jessica still didn’t leave her side. The girl walked with her to her class, even though Taeyeon knew that Jessica’s class wasn’t in the same direction as hers. But she didn’t say anything, Jessica didn’t ask bothersome things, or talk about things she didn’t feel like talking about, so she didn’t mind the girl’s company.

When they reached Taeyeon’s classroom, they noticed that Tiffany was outside of it, busy talking to some of her and Taeyeon’s classmates. Taeyeon stopped in her tracks, not feeling like approaching the girl when there were other people around.

“Will I see you at lunch?” She heard Jessica ask.

She turned towards the blonde girl. She nodded her head, and found a smile forming on Jessica’s lips. Her eyes caught Jessica glancing at Tiffany’s direction, and she let her eyes go the same way as the blonde’s.

“Hey, Tiff!” Jessica shouted. Taeyeon’s eyes widened and she turned back to the blonde.

She wondered what the purpose of getting Tiffany’s attention was. And she kept her eyes at Jessica even though she could see in the corner of her eyes that Tiffany was approaching them.

“Hey, did you just arrive?” Tiffany asked when she had walked up to them.

“Yeah, Taeyeon slept at my place and we got kinda late.” Jessica told the girl and turned towards Taeyeon. The latter felt like shoving one of her books into Jessica’s mouth to make the girl shut up. Why did she have to tell Tiffany that? It wasn’t like Tiffany was telling them all her things, so why should she know everything about them?

“Oh, really?” Tiffany sounded surprised, happily surprised. Taeyeon could feel the girl was looking at her, but she didn’t feel like meeting the girl’s gaze. She would either start blushing from embarrassment for Jessica spilling her information about where she had spent the night, or she would blow up at the girl for keeping secrets from her.

“What about you?” Jessica asked. Taeyeon saw Tiffany turn her attention back to Jessica, and this time she could look at the girl. She noticed Tiffany didn’t fully look Jessica in the eyes, focusing on something else that was behind the blonde girl. She noticed Tiffany’s pose changed, her hands playing with the sleeve of her shirt, and her feet going inwards.

“I overslept, so I got a little late.” Tiffany said.

Taeyeon had to use all her willpower to not look skeptically at the girl. Even though she might have a clue to why Tiffany got late, the girl didn’t know she knew. And she felt that if Tiffany wants to keep secrets from her, then she might as well keep what she knows a secret as well.

“I see.” Jessica nodded her head. Taeyeon felt the girl looked at her, and she looked back at her, meeting Jessica’s gaze. And she could already tell from Jessica’s eyes, that the blonde had figured out that Tiffany was lying.

“I have to go to my class.” Jessica announced. And Taeyeon felt like the girl was telling her that she had to leave her alone with Tiffany now, even though she would like to stay, and so, she nodded her head understanding, and got a smile in return from the blonde.

“I’ll see you at lunch.” Jessica said and her heels. Taeyeon felt the girl reach out towards her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze, before she let it go and began walking down the hallway.

Taeyeon didn’t say anything, but she could almost see all the questions that popped up in Tiffany’s mind on the girl’s face. But she told herself that no matter what Tiffany asked, she wouldn’t tell the girl the whole truth.

“So…you spent the night at Jessica’s place, huh?” Tiffany was smiling happily when she asked the question. Taeyeon only nodded her head in answer to it. She could see the excitement build up in the other girl, but she felt she didn’t want to share it with the girl.

“So what did you do? Did something happen?” Tiffany asked.

Taeyeon didn’t say anything, and to her relief she saw the teacher coming. She completely ignored answering Tiffany’s question, and instead started walking to the classroom.

“Hey, Tae.” Taeyeon felt Tiffany stop her in her tracks before she could leave, and she turned towards the girl and met her gaze.

“You’ll tell me about it, right?” Tiffany asked.

Taeyeon looked down at Tiffany’s hand which was holding hers and keeping her from leaving. She looked up again and met Tiffany’s inquiring eyes.

“No.” She answered and snatched her hand away from Tiffany’s hold. She could see surprise on Tiffany’s expression, but she ignored it and her heels again.

“Why not?” Tiffany asked and stopped her once again from leaving by holding on to her elbow this time.

Taeyeon frowned and turned back to the girl. “Why should I tell you what happens in my life when you’re not telling me what happen in yours?” Taeyeon snapped.

She saw surprise and confusion form on Tiffany’s face. Taeyeon felt she couldn’t be bothered with the girl anymore as she would just get angrier the longer they had this conversation. She sighed and snatched her arm away from the girl. And without any further questions from Tiffany, the two of them entered the classroom with heavy air surrounding them.

---

She could tell from the other people by the table had noticed it. But she felt she couldn’t care anything more about it anyway. All she wanted was to finish her lunch in peace, but it was hard. Because one of the girl’s by the table wasn’t focusing on eating, she was instead looking back and forth between her and the girl who was causing the tensed air by their table.

Taeyeon could see Hyoyeon exchanged glances with Jessica, but Jessica shrugged her shoulders in response. That the two girls weren’t talking made the situation even worse. She felt like giving up on eating and leave the table. At least one of the girls causing the atmosphere to me like this would be gone.

She sighed and dropped her utensils on her plate. Her eyes went up to the girl sitting opposite her.

Tiffany wasn’t looking at anyone by the table. Her eyes were focused on the plate in front of her, her fork poking the food that was on it. Taeyeon could see the girl hadn’t eaten anything, which made her roll her eyes at the girl and divert her gaze elsewhere instead.

The awkward silence by the table was prolonged. And Taeyeon wished that Jessica or Hyoyeon could start up a conversation about anything. Anything that could make her forget about the tension between her and Tiffany.

She heard a fork being dropped to a plate, and it made her turn towards the girl who sat next to her. Her eyes caught Jessica’s empty plate, and she let her eyes wander up towards the girl’s face. Their eyes met, and a small smile appeared on Jessica’s lips, making her blush and avert her gaze somewhere else instead.

“Hey,” Jessica was the one that broke the silence by the table. She turned towards the girl who lightly poked her arm to earn her attention. “Come with me for a smoke.” Jessica said. It wasn’t a request, and Taeyeon didn’t even protest. She and Jessica took their plates and left Hyoyeon and Tiffany by themselves at the table while they left the cafeteria.

Once they got out, and to a place outside of the school area, Taeyeon inhaled long and slowly before she let the air slowly leave her lunges. Her eyes landed on the blonde who was observing her, a sympathetic smile was on Jessica’s lips.

“I thought you needed to get out of there.” Jessica said.

“Thanks.” Taeyeon said and watched as Jessica took out a cigarette from the front pocket of her hoodie. The blonde put it in , stopped in her action of lighting it, and looked at Taeyeon again.

“You okay?” She asked with the cigarette between her lips. Taeyeon furrowed her eyebrows as she let the question swivel around her mind a bit before she answered.  

“No.” She said. No lie. It was the truth. She was feeling like crap.

Jessica let her eyes go out to the road in front of them, before she let her eyes go back to Taeyeon. Her hand reached inside the front pocket once again, and when it appeared, it was holding another cigarette.

Taeyeon blinked when she saw the girl reach it out towards her. She looked up at Jessica, met the girl’s eyes. They stood in silence. And before Taeyeon got the chance to decline the offer, the cigarette already was in , and a lighter with fire was in front of her.

She inhaled the tobacco smoke. Felt it travel down to her lunges, feeling it burn there before she blew it out. She hadn’t smoked for years, and she felt the urge to cough, but she held it in. Her eyes went over to Jessica who was watching her.

“What do you want to do now?” The blonde asked.

“Anything is fine, really.” She answered.

Jessica nodded her head. Her eyes went back to the road in front of them, the girl inhaled the smoke from the cigarette she was holding between her fingers, before she let the hand fall down to her side. Her eyebrows furrowed and she looked back at Taeyeon.

Taeyeon looked quizzically at the girl. A smile appeared on Jessica’s lips, like an idea had just popped up in the girl’s head. Taeyeon was just about to ask what it was, but before she could do it, Jessica’s lips was on hers, kissing her, almost desperately. It felt like Jessica was about to up her being, and before it felt Jessica had consumed all over her, the blonde broke the kiss, and leaned away from her.

“Let’s skip the rest of the classes.” Jessica said.

Taeyeon blinked her eyes, still trying to recover from the sudden kiss. Her heart was pounding and her head was spinning. She had barely heard what Jessica had said.

“I mean, do you wanna go back to school, deal with Tiffany?” Jessica asked.

Taeyeon didn’t even need to be convinced after that question. She agreed to skip the rest of the classes. And she could tell Jessica was more than pleased with that.

---

Taeyeon had let Jessica decide where they were going. Because she was too busy thinking about the guy that had been with Tiffany, and why the girl hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing a guy. She didn’t quite know where Jessica was bringing her, but once she started to take more notice of her surroundings she noticed she was in a café.

She turned towards the blonde girl who was beside her. Jessica only smiled at her, and nodded towards a table in the corner of the café. The tables near that table were empty, and it looked like barely anyone used to sit there.

She followed Jessica who took the lead towards the table. Both of them sat down facing each other, Jessica leaned back in her chair, her eyes set on Taeyeon’s form.

“What?” Taeyeon asked as she started to grow shy under Jessica’s gaze. The blonde girl only smiled and shook her head.

“Nothing. Do you want something to drink?” Jessica asked.

Taeyeon shrugged her shoulders in answer, and Jessica’s smile slowly disappeared from her lips.

“Come on. I’ve decided where to go, now it’s time for you to decide something for yourself.” Jessica said.

“Don’t you usually do whatever you like anyway?” Taeyeon asked.

Jessica’s smile returned to her lips, and she looked down at her hands before she looked up at Taeyeon again.

“I do, but I’m not going to force what I want you to drink down your throat.” Jessica said.

Taeyeon nodded her head at the girl, but she still didn’t tell Jessica what she wanted. She kept her eyes locked with the blonde for a few seconds, until she lowered her eyes from the brown orbs, down to the pink lips that she knew too well how they felt like and how they tasted like.

She gulped when she realized what she wanted, and she quickly averted her gaze back to the blonde’s eyes. She noticed Jessica had one eyebrow raised this time, and she felt herself panicking as she realized Jessica probably had noticed where her eyes had wandered to.

“So, Kim Taeyeon, what do you want?” Jessica asked, her voice was low but firm. Taeyeon felt her heart beat faster; she wanted to look away from the girl as she felt her cheeks getting hotter by each second that passed.

“I…” Taeyeon opened to speak, but stopped when she realized how dry felt. She closed , swallowed and pressed her lips tightly together. Jessica kept her eyes on her, and she felt it was getting way to hot under the blonde’s gaze, almost as hot as it had been when she had slept next to her.

“I want…” Taeyeon began to say again. Her eyes glanced at Jessica’s lips again, before she looked up at the girl’s eyes once more.

“I want water.” She quickly blurted out. Her cheeks red from embarrassment, and a part of her was yelling and screaming in disappointment. She thought she would see the same disappointment she was feeling on Jessica’s face, but the blonde only smiled amused.

“Okay, water it is.” Jessica said.

Jessica stood up from her seat and went over to the counter in the café. Taeyeon’s shoulders slump, and she let out a long sigh. Her eyes went from Jessica’s empty seat, towards the blonde whose back was facing her. Another sigh left her lips, and she felt disappointed in herself for not saying what she had wanted to say from the start.

I want you.