I wanted the Holiday’s to last forever to be honest, where we could just take things slow and lie in bed all day, or walk around aimlessly in the football field and just not doing anything at all yet feel as if the day was complete nevertheless. But of course like life really is; the Holidays didn’t last as long as I wanted it to.

I walk into the classroom, stretching and slightly yawning because I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Tiffany said something about not coming the first two periods, and she didn’t tell me why, but I figured it had something to do with the hospital. I didn’t ask why, I just nodded, and hoped she would at least make the last period of our day.

When I finally sit down by the desk, eyes facing the window with a bored expression, I suddenly feel a presence in front of me, and curiously I look away from the falling snow and up towards someone I really didn’t expect to see. “Hey,” Nichkhun said while hovering above me, standing there for a while until he leaned a bit forward. “You know if Tiffany’s coming today?” he asks with a pretty much neutral expression, and I just look at him suspiciously for a while. I mean, I’m pretty sure he knows about us (like the rest of the school does, more or less) so if he is still trying to win her over, then he really must have problems, but I don’t think voicing that will be necessary.

“She’ll attend some classes after lunch, why?” I respond, my voice a bit quiet, but still I couldn’t hide that suspicion that I really didn’t want to show. I never trusted Nichkhun at all, and I’m not going to either.  He just stands there and thinks for a moment. “No problem, I just needed to talk to her,” he starts coolly enough, but it doesn’t go over with me one bit, wondering what in the world he would want to talk to her with anyway. “But then I’ll see her later. By the way…” he suddenly starts before leaning closer, almost as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear it. I automatically felt my body lean away, but for what reason I don’t know. As I said, I don’t trust him, but he hasn’t really done anything to harm me physically, and I doubt he would for no apparent reason. “How’s your relationship going?”

I sit there for a while not knowing what to say and by the tone of his voice, I almost felt a bit offended, although I don’t really know why. By now he’s seated on the chair across the desk, almost as if he sat down for a chat with a friend, although we are everything but friends. For a moment I thought of just ignoring him and switching seats, but then again our seats are assigned, so it wouldn’t work anyway. “It’s good,” I reply curtly and he only nods a bit, looking away with a thoughtful expression, and then he suddenly starts to chuckle.

“I’m sorry; it’s just weird to think that the school’s loner is dating someone, nevertheless a girl,” he says after a while and I’m not even sure what to say anymore. Aren’t we over the whole same relationship thing now? At least I hoped we would be; it’s not like we’re that different from anyone else.

But then again Tiffany has a terminal disease, I didn’t even speak to anyone before, we are in fact probably the only non-straight couple in this school and we appear to be polar opposites. Okay, maybe we aren’t as normal as most teenage couples, but does it make us that odd?

I am honestly too tired to deal with this, and I keep on secretly praying that the teacher will come inside and start class so he could just get out, but luck isn’t on my side at all it appears. For a moment I just look at him, almost feeling infuriated by the way he just spoke, but I don’t want to let it out. For God’s sake I don’t need one more detention, no matter what he just said about us right now.

“Well, is there anything else, or are you done?” My voice comes out sharper than what I intended it to, but it helps mask the slight annoyance and anger inside. I start to take my books out of my backpack, hoping he would just walk away by now, but he doesn’t. “Wow, no need to be so defensive Jessica,” he says with his hands a bit up in the air, as if to shield himself from an attack. I’m not really amused, if you wonder. “It’s just small-talk, no wonder people don’t talk much to you. I just wonder if this is some kind of faze, because things like these don’t usually work out so well. I mean, girl and girl in this part of the world?” Nichkhun voices out his opinion and I am honestly this close to giving him a piece of my mind, but before I can another voice appears.

“You’re in my seat,” Hyuna says with that same voice of hers; a bit high pitched and dragged out, but for a reason it doesn’t come out as annoying or demanding as before. She just seems to state it, rather than rat you down for it, and for a moment I almost seem surprised. Nichkhun just looks up at her, raising an eyebrow by her sudden appearance and I nearly do the same; she actually sits in the middle of the room, not in the corner. She just rolls her eyes. “I switched places with Min because I like it better here, now stop looking like I just demanded to have your dog and move,” Hyuna gives us a bored look, with an equally as bored voice, and it takes Nichkhun a second before he slowly gets up from his seat and moves.

Before he goes towards his desk though, he turns around; giving me a look I really can’t read. “When you see her, just tell her to meet me by the library,” he says and then finally leaves, but there is no way I’m doing that. What would Tiffany want to help him with anyway? Of course she attends classes when she can and we don’t always share the same classes, but when did she ever speak that much to Nichkhun? I don’t know how and if they keep in touch, but I really doubt they do at all, but it still felt a bit odd.

“Stop thinking about it, you look like you’re about to explode,” Hyuna says as she now sits on by the desk in front of me, checking out her perfectly manicured nails while tapping her heels on the cold floor. I turn to look at her, wondering why she was talking to me. Yes, I helped her out, but I never heard of her after that before now.

She blows away a speck of dust from her nails before turning to look at me. “I just did you a favor by getting him away, now we’re even, okay?” Hyuna, with her red lips and dark hair, looks at me for a while before turning away to face the blackboard, the teacher entering the room. She seems indifferent, but something in her eyes appears to be genuine in a way and not as cold or mean. Feeling a slight smile on my lips, I figure that maybe those girls can change, at least a little bit.

The day passes by with not much happening, except for Tiffany’s appearance in History class, our last period for the day, which makes me instantly happier when I step in to see her in the classroom, eyes on the book in front of her. With a smile I walk over and sit on the desk beside her, and she looks up with a very faint smile on her lips. “Hi,” she simply says; nothing more and nothing less, and I give her a weird look.

Usually she would be all jumpy and hugs whenever she saw me, crushing me and talking vividly about her day or something else. Sometimes she would be a bit calmer and talk slower, but she’d always smile as if she were the sun herself, but now something just feels wrong. She doesn’t even hug me, and simply looks back at her book again. I want to ask, but not wanting to pry in case she got bad news or something, I decide to not jump too fast into conclusions.

“So… what’s up?” I ask after just watching her reading silently, and while flipping the page of the heavy book, she doesn’t even spare me a glance while talking. “Nothing,” Tiffany says, and as she does, I start to wonder if something went really wrong. Unconsciously I look down at her arms and legs, and there are some bruises, but not many more than before. However there was still this oddly white, almost transparent look on her skin this time. I feel myself swallowing a bit hard, but nothing of that hits me as hard as the hollow look in her eyes as she looks down at the page, but not at me.

“Did something happen?” I ask before I can stop myself, the worry probably extremely evident from my voice, but it’s no use to mask it either way, and Tiffany shakes her head though, but she doesn’t look at me. “It’s nothing, I’m just a bit tired, that’s all,” she replies curtly, maybe partly true, but it still sounds odd to my ears.

I don’t get to ponder much more about it before the teacher enters and the session begins, another dragged out, honestly very uninteresting lecture about the history of China and many names I’d have to remember for a test, but would never think much of later. Tiffany is still as quiet as ever, and she doesn’t even try to communicate or answer, even if I ask her about anything. The only sound she makes is a small fit of coughing, but other than that, nothing.

We’re a bit over halfway through with the lesson, an hour which felt like a day, before Tiffany excuses herself and she doesn’t state why, which again sounds a bit off, but as she got permission and left I couldn’t do much than just watch her go.

We only got some tasks to do a while after that, and taking the opportunity I lied, saying I had to go to the restroom, earning quizzical looks from the others, but they mostly don’t say anything; or except for Suzy.

 “What are they going to do? Film a in the stalls or something?” she snickers with the rest of the girls, but it quickly stops when Hyuna just glares at them all for a split second, instantly shutting them up. As I watch Hyuna and her reaction, it makes me wonder if that was also a way to call us even, or if she just didn’t feel like teasing me today, but I don’t dwell too long on it before I almost escape the classroom.

The halls are quiet as I walk down; looking around me, trying to think were Tiffany could’ve gone. She didn’t bring her belongings, so she can’t have gone out of campus, and where would she have gone anyway? Despite her improved Korean, she still didn’t know how to read it very well, and why would she even leave anyway? Was something really wrong?

All of these multiple worries and thoughts came onto me at once, and while walking further down the hall I start to wonder what’s going on, and what her mood was all about. Maybe it’s weird that I’m basically walking around and looking for her for no apparent reason, but then again I’m pretty worried; she really didn’t seem too good.

I stop moving for a while when I suddenly hear voices further away. At first I don’t know who it is, but judging from the familiarity of one voice, and then the other, it doesn’t take long until I figure out who it is, both of them seeming a bit oblivious to the situation around them.

“You know, you can’t pretend anymore,” the first voice says after a small moment of silence as I stop walking and effectively hide behind a set of lockers, sharpening my ears to hear a bit better. A moment passes before the piercing familiarity of the next voice, hoarse and hollow, speaks up.  “I’m not pretending,” Tiffany says after a while with a throaty tone, almost as if she had been coughing a lot before, the edges of her voice very rough, as if she had just swallowed sandpaper. “It’s just… complicated.”

The other person sighs, but whatever expression he is sporting I can’t see, not wanting to expose myself and interrupt whatever is going on. Funny how I have been eavesdropping so much lately. “It still doesn’t change what happened right now,” he says after a while, and it takes me about a second to realize who it is, and for a moment I almost wished I hadn’t even stepped out of the classroom after all, the beating of my heart almost coming to a halt by the realization.

Tiffany doesn’t say a word as the voice seems to continue. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this to yourself, it’s not like anything good is coming out from this,” Nichkhun says as if it’s a matter of fact, even if I’m not really sure of what he’s talking about, even if I have the slightest idea, but really, I really hope that I’m wrong.

“I mean, I don’t really care too much for Jessica, but won’t this hurt her when she figures out the truth?” he says a bit softer after a while, his voice more serious and the words more severe than what I thought they would be as I listen to the conversation. “You have to choose.”

And again I feel my chest tighten uncomfortably, a pressure that I haven’t felt in a long time suddenly reappearing, as if placing blocks of ice down my body and letting it stay there. Choose? Choose what? He didn’t mean what I thought he meant… between me and him? But that can’t be it, it just can’t be…

Had I just heard correct or was my mind playing tricks on me? This didn’t really make sense for me anymore. My whole body felt as if it had grown to stone, my legs were almost too weak to stand it, the crushed feeling inside only expanding by the second, no matter how much I tried to stop it. The seconds passed with nothing more than the silence between us all, my knees growing a bit weaker as I find myself leaning on the wall, really hoping this is some twisted dream or something like that.

I can hear my heart pounding against my chest again, echoing through my ears in a deafening noise that almost makes me lose my focus on everything around me. And as time only ticks by, I almost feel as if the walls were trying to close in on me and crash upon my body. But despite the pounding in my ears and the resounding noise, there is one sound that wakes me up again, the thud of something, along with Nichkhun calling out Tiffany’s name, seemingly confused and shocked at the same time.

And in that moment I take a step forward, one that required more strength than what I thought I had, and I witness the image of Tiffany lying on the cool floor with her eyes closed, making my heart almost stop again.

For a moment it looked like she was barely breathing.