“You can have more than one soul mate, you know.” She pushes the other girl’s feet off the couch and flops onto the newly vacant space. She leans her head backwards and takes another sip of her iced coffee, watching the blades of the fan revolve, allowing her thoughts to travel with them in circles.

It’s odd being home. It’s much more puzzling when home feels foreign – like being uncomfortable under your own skin but never knowing the reasons why.

“Honestly, I always thought you deserved better.” She speaks again, treading dangerous territory this time. It happens often – Taeyeon would fill the space with thoughts that never materialised while Tiffany would fill the silence with words, sometimes wildly and recklessly.

“I was right,” she adds, regretting the words soon as they rolled off her tongue. It was probably too early to say these things, but the notion of right timing is lost whenever Tiffany felt the urgency to speak – which was always.

“Go away, Tiffany.” Taeyeon drags out each word like she means them. She has been saying that a lot, but Tiffany has never taken them seriously. Perhaps she should, but the thought had never occurred to her.

“I’m not leaving you to mope alone. We can mope together - just like old times. We will write our pain into poems and laugh at how melodramatic we are years later.” She cringes, thinking about the box of writings that Taeyeon still keeps under her bed. Tiffany feels the urge to burn them whenever she sees them, removing all traces of naivety – of lost innocence and raw ideals. But Taeyeon is adamant about keeping them, collecting every part of Tiffany that Tiffany wants to destroy. She has records of who Tiffany used to be hidden under her bed, and it is most unnerving.  

“I don’t want to write. Never again. I’m quitting my job and spending the rest of my days brooding with you until we both figure out what we really want to do with our lives. This writing thing is stupid.” Taeyeon stands up promptly and Tiffany is suddenly worried that Taeyeon would actually make stupid decisions based on stupid emotions. But she collapses in the space next to Tiffany and the thought evaporates as soon as it settles. Taeyeon is fickle like that.

“Life is stupid.” She breathes and Tiffany silently agrees.

“Don’t ever quit your job. You’re too good. I cry to half your songs. It’s gross.” Tiffany admits and feels the inevitable tinge of jealousy. She remembers being 13 - listening to Taeyeon recite an original poem in front of the class titled “My Best Friend”. It was about Tiffany and it was moving, but when the teacher chose Taeyeon’s poem over hers for the school magazine – it triggered an unspoken rivalry. 

She loved her best friend, but she hated being second best. When Tiffany chose to study Economics over English, Taeyeon looked at her with sad eyes all week and Tiffany wondered if it was more than the distance between their colleges that upset her. Taeyeon became a very successful songwriter in Korea and Tiffany worked in a bank halfway across the world, until she was deemed redundant during a merger.

“You’re better.” Taeyeon states, like she always does whenever Tiffany compliments her. Tiffany never believes her, but it’s still nice to hear. “I’ve not written anything in a month. I’m probably going to get fired soon.”

“They are not going to fire you.”

“They wanted me to write a love song, but I just can’t. The songs all start out well, and then they crash and burn – just like my relationship.” She gathers the crumbled pieces of paper scattered around the coffee table and hands them to Tiffany.

“They’re really dark.” Tiffany chuckles. She devours the words attentively and feels what Taeyeon feels. She doesn’t appreciate how Taeyeon manages to hijack her emotions this easily, but it’s addicting. Being brought to places she never wanted to go in the first place gave her a certain kind of thrill. “Save these for breakup songs,” she adds.

“Save me.” Taeyeon pleads.

“I don’t know how.”

“Write the song for me.” Taeyeon whines, but there is this sparkle in her eye which tells Tiffany that she’s dead serious, or that she’s about to be.

“What?”

“I don’t mind getting fired…”

“You are not getting fired.” Tiffany sighs and rolls her eyes. Sometimes, they were too melodramatic for their own good. They fed off each other and spiralled into pits of despair, often unnecessarily. They were bad for each other that way.  

“I’m not writing the whole song this time - just the lyrics. I’m collaborating with this incredibly talented young composer named Seohyun who’s about to get her big break. I can’t let her down. You’ll get the credit. I just need someone who’s good with words, someone I can trust – someone I can be honest with if I think the work is crap.”

“Ouch.”

“You conveniently missed the part where I complimented you.”

“I always do. It’s a bad habit.”

She doesn’t know why she’s considering it, but she dangerously plays with the idea in her head. Saying “no” to Taeyeon was hard enough, and saying “no” to a broken-hearted Taeyeon would be infinitely harder.

“I hate you.” She mutters under her breath, wishing she could scream it.

“Is that a yes?”

She nods.

It wasn’t like she had anything better to do than write some stupid love song.

________________________

ps: I'm not abandoning the other fic, I just need another channel for all the angst.