- Story view -

Jessica woke up early the next day, but she stayed in bed as she stared blankly at the ceiling. There were too many things on her mind. So many things, and not one, but two people ­— Taeyeon and Taecyeon.

Memories that had Taeyeon in it were torturing her once again. She missed Taeyeon so, so much. She couldn’t understand why those happy days were what gave her the most pain. Yes, she could fool anyone, but she couldn’t fool herself that Taeyeon was the only one whom she wanted. However, she had left years ago because she knew that Taeyeon could only be a dream, and a distant one. She knew it better than anyone else that if she were to look Taeyeon up, it would only prove further that she was selfish, plain selfish. However, being selfish this way felt like a much less painful choice than to let Taeyeon go.

Then, memories that had Taecyeon in it started to torture her as well. She never gave a chance to any man her mother arranged for her to meet. She never failed to find a way to avoid meeting them. It was coincidence, that she mentioned Taecyeon’s name to Stephanie. It was coincidence, that much to her surprise, Stephanie told her that she knew that man. It was coincidence, that Taecyeon was a friend of Stephanie’s boyfriend Nichkhun. Then, it was pain, because even after Taeyeon had been deleted off her life physically, the girl had never for once left her heart. It was pain, because she still found herself staring at her phone mindlessly at random times of the day, hoping to see the girl’s messages. It was pain, because the girl’s face appeared in her mind every single night when she tried to sleep. It was coincidence, and pain, that brought Jessica to meet Taecyeon.

She had expected Taecyeon to be an immature and arrogant lad. She had expected herself to not even take Taecyeon’s words seriously. She had expected much more, but Taecyeon was nothing like her expectations. Taecyeon was as gentlemanly as one could ever imagine. He was gentle and careful with her, yet fully respecting her as a strong, independent woman. He had easily brought laughter to her within the first five minutes that he had met her. It wasn’t long before they met for the second time, the third, fourth…and then Jessica lost count. She had considered him to be her best friend, and Taecyeon had the exact same feelings towards her.

Then a day came, when marriage was brought up by Jessica’s mother. The two of them went on with it without objections, surprisingly. However, Jessica and Taecyeon made sure that the marriage happened under the condition that it was to be made private. So, it did happen, and exactly like how they both wanted, their parents never bothered them any more, not just the issue of marriage, but pretty much everything else. Even though it was an arranged marriage, Taecyeon never fell short of being the perfect husband. He took good care of her, slowly getting used to it. Jessica, on the other hand, was being well taken care of, and she was slowly getting used to it as well. She should never be the one to hurt a man like Taecyeon. But, if she were to look Taeyeon up again, then she would be hurting him, no matter how much Taecyeon told her that it was okay. It couldn’t be okay, she figured. She ran her fingers through her hair as she gently sighed.

“You…feeling better…?” It shocked her a little bit when Taecyeon’s groggy voice sounded in her ear. Turning to face him, she saw a half asleep Taecyeon who was struggling to open his eyes.

She only smiled, before she softly replied, “I’m thinking of you.”

This time, a smile crept up on Taecyeon’s face and then he closed his eyes. “Liar. More like, you’re thinking of Taecyeon minus the ‘c’.” When he heard silence, he opened his eyes and saw the frown that had replaced the grin. “Hey… I was just jokin’ with you… Don’t take it to—”

“I don’t know what to say...” Jessica interrupted. “It’s like, I know that it’s wrong, but I’m just… I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.”

Taecyeon let out a soft sigh, and then he closed his eyes once more. “If it’s love, it’s not wrong. I told you last night, go get the girl. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. You know me Jess. I don’t give a damn about the marriage itself. What I’ve always been concerned about is just…us, really. I don’t understand love, and I’m never gonna make myself try that again. But if you’re gonna go after it, then you just need to know that you have my full support, and that includes…” Taecyeon paused for a moment, and then he opened his eyes. “My stinky morning breath,” he finished his words before he grinned.

“You ought to stop being so nice Taec. You make me feel worse every time you are nice to me.”

“BFFs for life yo!” Taecyeon pumped his fist in the air and laughed before he turned his back on Jessica, snuggling himself deep into his blanket once again, covering his head completely.

“I swear, people won’t ever believe our situation. It feels even more dramatic than those Korean dramas that Krystal likes watching,” Jessica commented.

The blanket was tugged off Taecyeon’s head with a sharp pull, and then he stared at the ceiling with his eyes wide open. “Oh please, I don’t give a flying for what the world thinks. But honestly, I do feel…kinda sad…”

Taecyeon’s words shocked Jessica and she fixed her eyes on the man almost immediately. She blinked a couple of times, guilt building up in her. “I… I kn—”

“My girl’s going for a Taecyeon without the ‘c’, and I’m gonna lose a ‘c’ as well…”

This time, Jessica only furrowed her eyebrows. “What…?”

“34C!” Taecyeon yelled before he covered himself with his blanket, laughing heartily.

It took Jessica more than half a minute to finally understand him. “Gosh you ert!” By then, she was hitting him more than a couple of times with her pillow before she herself started cracking up.

Jessica was a person who brought happiness to Taecyeon, just like how he had brought happiness to her. He had been alone, and ever since his first girlfriend broke his heart completely, he never gave himself a chance to date again. Then, Jessica came into his life. To him, Jessica eventually became a younger sister, a best friend, a confidante. Still, she never came close to being a girlfriend figure in his eyes. Even so, he didn’t mind a bit becoming Jessica’s husband. He was alone anyway. Plus, maybe, just maybe, if he did get married with Jessica, his dad would stop making him meet those other rich girls. Nonetheless, it surprised him when Jessica said yes too. He had never expected her to say yes, but there was nothing else for him to question, when Jessica gave him the exact same reason as his own. I’m alone anyway, and if this would make my mom stop her nonsense, I’d gladly do it. He remembered her saying. God, my sentiments exactly. He remembered himself replying.

There was another reason why Jessica accepted the marriage. One reason that no one else knew besides the two of them. Jessica saw herself in Taecyeon. Taecyeon might not have been a bad man, but it caught her totally offguard when she found out one day that Taecyeon could very well be the male counterpart of her Kitty identity, perhaps just without the mask. He started doing the exact things Kitty did after he lost that first girlfriend, and he told no one about it because he knew that people would only deem him as a player. No one would bother to care and he didn’t need an extra label to his name. Jessica was the one who told him the truth of her previous identity of Kitty the night before they decided to go on with the marriage. She didn’t want to hide this dirty truth from that angel of a man. She never expected Taecyeon to come clean to her as well. Not only did she not view the man badly, she almost felt a weird connection with him. It was also that night, when Jessica finally told him about Taeyeon, about how she decided to stop being Kitty because Taeyeon hated it. Then, that same night, Taecyeon promised her to stop doing whatever he used to do as well. Before long, Jessica and Taecyeon were officially married.

***

Krystal sat at the café, mindlessly tapping on her phone.

Jessica Jung might have left Taeyeon, but Krystal Jung entered instead. For Krystal, even though she had to cope with her sister being in another country, she gained another sister where she was. When Jessica was gone, Krystal found herself summoning Taeyeon to her office more often than usual. She knew that Taeyeon would be sad, and she also knew that Jessica would want Taeyeon to be fine. She took over her sister’s job in keeping a lookout for Taeyeon instead. It didn’t take long for Krystal and Taeyeon to become good friends. Krystal was there when Taeyeon cried, when Taeyeon called her while she was drunk, when Taeyeon had no one to eat with. Taeyeon was there when Krystal had relationship problems, when Krystal got fed up with her mother, when Krystal needed advices. Krystal could finally understand why her sister loved Taeyeon so much, because she felt that if she did like girls, she might have already fallen in love with her Taeyeon unnie as well. But, the two of them never talked about Jessica. So Taeyeon wasn’t supposed to find out that Jessica had already returned to Korea. Neither was she supposed to know that Jessica was already married. But she knew, all the same.

Krystal’s phone rang, and her eyes darted to phone, half expecting it to be Taeyeon. However, she frowned when it wrote Jessi instead. She picked it up quickly.

“Hey Jessi what’s up?”

“Soojung ah I kinda need your help.”

“What do y—” Krystal didn’t get to finish her sentence when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning behind to look, she saw a smiling Taeyeon who then made her way to sit herself down comfortably opposite the girl. Krystal almost forgot to return the smile but luckily, she did. “Uh…” Krystal was at a loss for words all of a sudden. “Um, yeah so uh…what do you need…?” Taeyeon gently did a reverse nod, her way of asking Krystal if everything was okay. Krystal only smiled while she nodded.

“How do you access the staff’s database?”

“Database?”

“Yeah like, phone numbers and such.”

“Uh you can go my office and use my—” Suddenly, Krystal paused and stole a glance at Taeyeon. “Give me a minute,” she spoke into the phone before she hit the mute button. “Taeyeon unnie, what do you want to drink? I’ll go finish this call and then I’ll buy our drinks.”

“Vanilla latte?” Taeyeon replied in a cheery tone.

“Okay!” Krystal grinned and then she stood up and made her way towards the counter as she unmuted her conversation. “Hey Jessi sorry. What were we saying?”

“I need to access the database…”

“Oh yes you can just— Wait. Why would you need to access the database?”

“Um… I need… I kinda need…Taeyeon’s number.”

“What?!” Krystal almost exclaimed and she spun her head around and found out that Taeyeon was staring at her. She gave an embarrassed smile and then she proceeded to walk further away from their table. “What do you need her number for?”

“I wanna talk to her or something…”

“What the hell Jessi? Whatever for?”

“I just... I just need to, Krys. Okay please just tell me how to acce—“

“She’s with me.”

“She’s with…who?”

“Yes, me. She’s with me.”

There was silence for a moment, before Jessica’s voice sounded again. “She… Why is she with you?”

“I don’t know how to explain this all of a sudden but she’s just with me. We hang out pretty often…”

“You never told me about this Krystal Jung.”

“I only wanted to make sure that she was fine initially and then we just became friends. But that’s not the issue right now. Jessi she went through hell after you left and now she’s finally back from that hell so…let her be won’t you…?”

“I need to talk to her.”

“Jessi you’re like freaking married. Can’t you just let her be?”

“I said, I need to talk to her.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Soojung… I’m begging you… If she doesn’t want me any more, if I hear it straight from her, I’ll let her be… I promise. I can’t live with this any more… It’s killing me…”

“Then what about Taec? And Jessi… You know that she would never say that to you. You know that she would always stay by your side if you ask her to. You know that very well and you really shouldn’t do this…”

“I know that I’m selfish…but I’ve…I’ve let someone go before and I…don’t wish to do that again…”

“You… You already did that. You already left her so… I mean, if you really didn’t want to let someone go again you shouldn’t even have let Taeyeon unnie go in the first place. What’s the point of this now…? Jessi I hope you understand that I’m just… I don’t want the two of you to get hurt again…”

“We learn from mistakes… I made a wrong decision and I just wanna try to fix things before it’s too late…”

“How sure are you about this…? I don’t want things to go back to square one after everything…”

“Then just let me speak with her… Let us settle this. Please…”

Krystal let out a sigh as she ran her fingers through her hair. “I… Fine. We’re at the café near Yoona unnie’s old apartment.”

“Thanks Soojung… Keep her there for me. I’ll be right there.”

[A/N] 29/11/2014

So, here's a really long chapter 17. There are almost no TaengSic moments here, but I consider this chapter really important in the development of the story, especially after that huge turning point by TaecSica's marriage. I know I've been missing for a while, so do write me something. :)

Subscribe, comment and upvote if you liked what you read :)
Follow me on Twitter here
© Sky Blue Tales ✍