A couple of days later roll by with silver clouds and bitter wind, indicating that it would be yet another rainy day. School had just ended as Tiffany and I were walking towards the bus stop. Small drops of water had landed upon my forehead on the way, but I didn’t think much about it because I knew for a fact that the weather wasn’t going to get any better.

During the short trip a warm feeling arrives upon my hand, and casually I look down to see Tiffany’s hand in mine. “Is it okay if I hold your hand?” she asks a little carefully, her eyes studying my expression. Faintly I smile before intertwining our fingers and continue to walk, not missing the beam of happiness from the girl beside me. I know for a fact that a hundred eyes were staring at us and our hands, but I ignore them. We didn’t exactly come out public or anything; we didn’t even say anything, but people still noticed and probably just assumed. Not that they really cared about what I was doing, but they seemed genuinely surprised by the fact that I, the so called “loner”, had gone steady with somebody. Not even to mention someone like Tiffany.

I thought I would care too much about what they said, how they would react, but surprisingly… I felt nothing. I did get a little disturbed by the mean words and gossip, but that was only in the beginning. After a while I simply didn’t care anymore; no matter what I did people would either ignore me or simply gossip. It’s not like anything changed.

When we reach the bus stop it’s nearly packed with students, and only then do I realize a lot of people take the bus. I only live about fifteen minutes away, so I usually walk home and honestly, I like taking my time by walking. But today I wasn’t going home right away; I was going somewhere else.

“So you’re going to take me somewhere and you won’t tell me where?” Tiffany asks as a big pack of students’ board the bus, some of them bumping into us even if we move a little away. “And you seem really, really happy today.” She comments later over all the noise. Casually I look at her, feigning innocence as if nothing in my mind. Smiling towards her, I simply shrug before looking away. And when the bus departures it’s only us and a couple of other students. I look around and see that they’re mostly on their phones or other devices, so I look back at Tiffany again.

I open up the notebook function on my phone before typing.

“You’ll see when we get there.”

A small push lands on my shoulder, and silently I chuckle by her childish antics. She always seemed to do that when she wasn’t happy with my response, something I learned along the short time I’ve known her. It’s hard to believe that we’ve only known each other for two, almost three months. For some reason I feel as if I’ve always known her, and those months felt like mere weeks. And as I look at her, I realize that I barely remember my everyday life before Tiffany came along.

Tiffany wakes me up from my thoughts with another small, playful shove. “Come on… at least give me a hint?” Silently I wonder if I should, but in the end I decide to play a little nice towards her. “It has something to do with… are you ready for it?” I type and give her the phone, smiling amused by her confused expression. Then I take the device back before typing another message.

“It has something to do with a conversation we had earlier today.”

Tiffany turns to look at me, still confused and I let out a faint laugh again. She looks kind of funny like that, but I still find it endearing. “But we’ve talked about a gazillion things today; you wrote a whole page while I could barely finish a sentence! Sometimes I wonder if you’re more talkative than me…”

I let out another small laugh by that, knowing well that it was true.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not…” I reply, mostly to even more. And another unsatisfied sound escapes her lips, but in the end she starts to laugh as well. Then in the corner of my eye I notice the bus approaching, and silently nudge Tiffany to indicate that it’s time to go. We sit down by the window in the middle, the only two seats that weren’t occupied. After a while the bus starts to drive, and in the meantime I go back to my phone to write another note. “Okay, I’ll give you another hint… It involves animals, or to be more specific… dogs.”

A while passes again as Tiffany tries to click the pieces together, before she looks at me with realization. “You didn’t…” she starts after a while with disbelief in her voice, probably understanding what I had planned. “I knew how much you wanted to visit the shelter, but I suppose you didn’t want to do it alone?”

Earlier that day in Chemistry, Tiffany was talking about a dog shelter she wanted to visit, but never got around to actually going there. “I heard they were looking for volunteers, but I don’t know... I’m still not that comfortable in speaking Korean, what if they misunderstand me?”

And then an idea sparked into my head when I heard that, and I figured… why not?

Sometime during lunch, when Tiffany wasn’t paying attention of course, I managed to find the shelter’s number and sign us up via a text message. Not that it was so hard; they replied in only a matter of minutes and we were of course accepted. And I suppose I could do something else than sitting inside all day.

“Thank you so much Jess!” Tiffany smiles wide as we exit the bus when it finally arrives and walk down the street, all the way until we reach a small, worn out building cramped between two more modern ones. The wood is painted off white, paint crumbling a little and there is some dirt on the walls as well. Painted on the window was a faded blue and white logo, along with the name “Love & Peace”. It was easy to see that the years had taken its toll on the shelter.

The small bell upon the door rings as we enter a room with white tiles and blue walls, and almost instantly the sound of dogs barking fill the area. I look to my right to see a small, secluded fence area with a couple of small dogs. When they see us they immediately start to wave their tails and nearly climb out of the small play bin they are in. I keep my distance, but Tiffany on the other hand is nearly gawking over them as she tries to pet them all.

Soon an elderly lady enters the room and smiles when she spots us. With very gray hair and very short stance she greets us with enthusiasm. “Welcome to Love & Peace dog shelter, is there anything I can do for you?” she asks cheerfully, and silently I nod as a greeting before looking at Tiffany, who’s still petting the dogs.

After a couple of seconds Tiffany stands up and bows towards the old lady, smiling cheerfully. “Oh, we just came to visit I suppose,” Tiffany replies before looking at me, and I let my gaze stay there until I turn back to look at the owner. Silently I chuckle before finding my notebook.

“Actually we’re here to volunteer; I’m Jessica, the one who sent you the message.”

Suddenly the lady seems to realize something, before letting out a sound of glee. “Oh yes, I nearly forgot! A lot of things slips out of my head nowadays, come on back and I’ll show you around.”

Tiffany looks at me, slightly confused, but mostly happy. “Show us around?” she asks curiously, and I simply smile before writing a note in reply and giving it to her. “We’re going to help out around here,” it simply says before I tuck the book away in my bag. Then I nudge Tiffany along towards the small door where it says “staff only”.

“So we’re going to volunteer, you mean?” she asks, and as I notice the happiness inside her eyes I’m glad she gets to fulfill something she has wanted to do but probably never had the time to do before now. Nodding with a faint smile, I see Tiffany’s eyes light up before me as we enter the door and into a small office. It’s not much; only a desk in the middle, along with a cluttered bookshelf and a small table. The old lady hums a tune as she keeps on looking for something under the huge mess of papers on her desk, before bringing up two small papers.

“Do you think of volunteering just for today, or do you want to come here regularly?” The woman asks as she finds a pen and hands it to us. “I really do need some help around here, I suppose I’m not as young and fresh anymore,” she says with a humorous tone, chuckling a little for herself.  Silently I look over at Tiffany, thinking it was mostly up to her what she wanted. She ponders a little before looking up again. “I want to help around here as much as I can,” Tiffany says hesitatingly, thinking over her words carefully before starting again. “I’m free most of the time… after school that is.”

With a small smile I look away from Tiffany and over to the woman, who gives us both a look before speaking again. “Well that’s great,” she starts before casting her eyes at me, and for some reason I feel a little embarrassed. “What about you?” she asks and I wonder for myself, not really knowing. I want to do something in my spare time, and at the same time I want to spend time with Tiffany but I have my studies to take care of. Plus, I don’t really know a thing about taking care of animals. But I suppose that’s something we all learn, right?

“I’m also free most of the time.” I say through another note, and then the lady smiles gently at us, before speaking in that cheerful voice of hers. “You understand that I won’t be paying you with money, right kids?” she asks, sitting down on the wooden chair while looking at us. “But what I don’t pay for you now, you will earn later. Volunteering is a good thing you know? Many colleges admire that nowadays,” she ends and we nod as she breaks out in a smile before standing up. “Then that’s it; now let’s get started.”

And so we did; we learnt the basics about feeding, playing and washing the dogs. At the same time we also got a 101 on how the adoption process works, but she said that she would take care of that and not us. Now Tiffany is a fast learner; it took her few tries before she mastered the task, and she understood right away what to do. And even if we’d just been there for mere two hours she had already gotten most parts down, and happily played around with the dogs.

I on the other hand was a completely different story; I have never had a pet, and my actions were a bit clumsy. I’d either drop or mess something up. I even managed to brush the wrong dog with the wrong brush (who knew that there were two separate brushes for long- and short haired dogs? I didn’t). So my process of learning took much longer, but in the end I still found myself enjoying my time little by little, maybe by the help of a certain someone.

At the end of our little shift Tiffany is sitting on the floor, playing around with a white, fluffy puppy that was only a month old. I didn’t know the name of the breed, but I had to admit it was a little cute. But most of my attention went towards the girl playing with him, on the way her eyes sparkle in glee as she keeps petting and playing. “You’re so cute… I’m going to call you Prince, is that okay?” Tiffany says cutely to the small dog, and I feel my heart flutter just a little as I watch the scene. The little dog barks with a tail waving a hundred miles a minute, making Tiffany smile even more as her hand gently the top of his head.

“Isn’t he the cutest?” She asks. I simply nod, but quickly understand that she isn’t looking, so instead I just set for watching the adorable scene in front of me. It stays like that for a while until a small cough is heard, and we both look up to see the owner smiling at us. “It’s getting late girls, I think you should go home now,” she says softly before placing a bowl with water in front of another dog. “The last bus leaves in about half an hour,” she continues and Tiffany doesn’t seem to want to leave just yet, but unwillingly places Prince into his cage. “Until next time,” she says before patting his head again, and then closes the door.

On the way towards the bus stop it’s mostly silent; there were no cars around, and the entire neighborhood was tiny so there weren’t many people around either. The only sound around us was our footsteps. But it didn’t stay like that for long, after a loud boom of thunder came from the dark sky, right after a small flash. Curiously I look up at the dark sky, until a drop of water lands on my forehead, and then another one, until it pours.

Hastily I take Tiffany’s hand as we run towards the bus stop, rain soaking our shoes and school uniform. The water splashes underneath us as we run the distance until we finally locate the bus stop, and luckily find refugee under the small roof above the benches.

Small pants fill the air of our short run, before Tiffany suddenly laughs. “Rain… does this remind you of something?” she asks with a mischievous glint in her eye, smiling a little wickedly. For some reason my face instantly heats up as I look away, the memory clear to my mind.

And then I feel the tingling upon my lips again and small bubbles in the pit of my stomach as we stand there. Silently I look down at our hands, we still hadn’t let go, before I look up at her again. By now Tiffany was too focused looking up at the dark sky. “How long do you think the rain is going to last?” she asks as her eyes are cast on the sky, and I silently study her side profile as small drops of lingering rain keep falling down her face. A sudden urge runs throughout my body as we stand there together, hands intertwined and for some reason I just really, really want to experience that feeling again.

Without thinking I feel my face slowly lean towards hers, until her scent faintly enters my nose. By now my heart is pounding with butterflies in my stomach and my throat runs a little dry, but it doesn’t stop me. “Jess-” Tiffany suddenly turns around and much sooner than I intended too, our lips connect again for the first time since that day. In a state of surprise Tiffany doesn’t do anything and I was about to part, but she soon responds by slowly kissing back. And then I feel my eyes flutter shut until I see and feel nothing but sparks.

The sudden burst inside of me comes as a surprise, even if I actually intended for this kiss to happen, and it nearly throws me off. My heart is still beating at wild speed as I feel myself nearly combust, but I still like the feeling. Carefully she fully turns her body to face mine, gently taking my other hand as well. The warmth transfers right over to me as we stand there, just gently kissing until we both finally part. Slowly I open up my eyes to look at Tiffany, her usually pale complexion covered in a small blush, and I smile. “Do we have a thing for kissing in the rain?” she asks with humor in her voice, and soon enough both of us laugh together as another set of thunder echoes through the sky.

 Oh, the irony.

Tiffany’s about to lean in for one more I suppose, but soon I notice a pair of lights in the distance, and then I notice it’s the bus. Laughing, I gently release my grip on her hands before stepping away. The pout on her face is funny, but still cute. “Why’d you do that?” she asks and I simply nod my head towards the upcoming bus.

When we board it is empty; I suppose nobody took this bus regularly anyway, but even then it was a little odd. We find a seat in the back of the bus, silently laughing for ourselves. I sit down by the window as Tiffany finds a seat next to me.

“I still want my kiss though,” she says in mock anger, barely containing her smile. Carefully I look around, but I already know the bus is empty and I doubt the driver would pay attention to us, so I suppose the coast is clear. Then I roll my eyes, but lean in to gently plant a peck on her cheek. When I lean back, I simply give her a look as if I was asking her if she was happy now.

 “Well, I could be happier…” her voice goes up a little as she taps her hands on her knees, and then looks back at me. I simply laugh at her antics before leaning in again, and giving her a small kiss on the lips. It was only supposed to be a peck, but for some reason I just didn’t want to part yet, and instead of doing so I find myself giving her more, small kisses. Tiffany smiles throughout and gently leans closer, which causes my back to meet the window behind me.

My head bumps against the glass, creating a small noise and causing it to hurt just a little. But instead of complaining I simply laugh again, and kiss her once more until I can barely breathe. After about probably three bus stops we finally part, and I suppose both of our faces are a little flushed by now. At least my face is heating up, along with my whole being as I still lean against the window.

“Just can’t get enough, huh?” Tiffany asks teasingly as she looks into my eyes, and again my heart beat speeds up by her gaze. However, I won’t admit it so I gently shove her away, which causes her to laugh yet again. I smile a little as I look at Tiffany’s cheerful expression and the way she laughs, her eyes nearly disappearing. It’s charming somehow, and I’m fascinated by how someone could spread so much joy.

How could someone make me this happy?