CHAPTER TEN: Attempt

Shikshin Paradise blew up after they were featured on the local newspaper. They hired another kitchen assistant and another server, both had worked at restaurants for at least two years. Shikshin needed to get an extra dishwasher, but paying for the experienced new hires was expensive, so they waited it out. In the mean time, Taeyeon stuck a handwritten Help Wanted poster on the front window.

Fortunately for the restaurant, Taeyeon got too sick to do waitressing- nobody wanted to get served by someone coughing and sneezing every ten seconds with a blocked nose- so she went to the back of the kitchen. She took another stool and sat beside Junhyung while they washed dishes. Junhyung was her age, and spoke a mile a minute with a Gyeongsang dialect. It was tinny and annoying but Taeyeon was just trying to get through the night. Her entire body ached, her head was pounding, and her skin felt cold. Not to mention her nose was leaking every so often. 

He just kept talking and talking. Taeyeon kept giving him chances in her head. I'll finish washing three plates... another five plates... okay, two bowls and if he doesn't stop... just another... one more... Finally she told him to shut up, and he laughed like she was joking and continued rambling about how good living in the countryside was.

She carried a stack of dried plates over to the counter. As she walked by Sooyoung, she muttered, "Junhyung is driving me crazy."

"I know... I accidentally talked to him a few times while closing down and he'd hold me back for like thirty minutes."

"Wait that's why we went back late?"

"Not all the time. But mostly."

"Ugh."

"Well he's probably lonely, being from the country and all," Sooyoung said. "And he comes here and washes dishes for like twelve hours without talking to anybody."

"Ugh," Taeyeon said. "Still six sodding hours to go. I want to kill myself." 

Sooyoung looked up from her wok, and her eyes softened. "You shouldn't have come to work today."

"Don't say such demoralizing things," Taeyeon said, and then she went into a coughing fit. Sooyoung chased her away from the food and she went back to dishwashing.

The days and nights were hell. She found herself waking up at the wheel when she was doing substitute driving, and her client would be similarly passed out in the backseat. Come Sunday morning, Jessica picked her up and they went to the apartment. 

Taeyeon staggered to the couch in the living room, but Jessica pulled her by the wrist towards the bedroom.

"I'm sick Sica..."

"I have eyes, Taengoo. I'm obviously not getting into bed with a sick idiot like you," Jessica said. "But you're taking the bed."

Jessica lightly pushed her into bed and pulled the covers over her. Taeyeon heard her draw the curtains and turn off the light before walking out.

Taeyeon woke up intermittently to Jessica wiping her face with a damp towel or to take flu tablets. At night, Jessica came over with a bowl of fish porridge.

"Did you cook this?"

"I bought it," Jessica said, but Taeyeon was no less touched. Her girlfriend was ridiculous enough to scoop out a bit of porridge and blow on it.

"Ah..." Jessica said, opening .

Taeyeon reached out for the spoon, but Jessica leaned back. "I can hold a spoon, Sica."

"Shut up and open your damn mouth, Taengoo."

Taeyeon grimaced and opened her damned mouth an inch.

"Bigger. Ah..."

Taeyeon grudgingly widened the gap, and Jessica fed her with a smug smile. Jessica shared about the goings on at the gym, and then about how Krystal was going to Germany for a conference in a few weeks.

"Are you going with her?"

"No," Jessica said. "Her professor and some other graduate students are going. And the school will pay for an accessibility helper, so she doesn't need me."

Taeyeon did not have much of an appetite. It was a small bowl but she had only eaten half of it. "I'm not hungry."

"Are you sure?"

Taeyeon smiled and nodded with her eyes closed. Jessica took a tissue and wiped Taeyeon's mouth. "You're such a kid."

"I want to kiss you. On the mouth," Taeyeon said. 

Jessica pushed her face away. "Fat hope, loser."

"Well just let me touch your then."

"Eww. No."

"Please, pretty please?"

Jessica smirked and turned around, just out of range. She wriggled her hips. "Can't touch this."

Taeyeon lunged forward and grabbed on with one hand, while clinging to the bed with the other. Jessica shrieked and jerked away. "You're ing byun."

Taeyeon hummed in thanks and leaned against the headboard as Jessica sashayed off with the bowl.

Taeyeon got better. She had a lingering small cough and the usual sharp pains, but she was back to waitressing and doing daeri driving like a boss. She found herself looking forward to another Monday with Jessica.

They went to Namsan park. Taeyeon had packed Shikshin leftovers for the picnic. Jessica had a paper bag.

"What did you bring?" Taeyeon asked while they munched on red bean dumplings. Jessica passed the bag to her, and she looked inside. She pulled out a sketch book and a pencil box.

She flipped open the pages, but they were empty.

"Since we're at such a nice place, I thought you could draw something for me," Jessica said. "I took care of you so well last week."

"I haven't drawn seriously in years..."

"I know it's going to look like chicken scratches, but everyone needs practice," Jessica said. "Just ignore me. I'm not going to judge. Just draw whatever and however."

Taeyeon tried sketching the trees and the walking trail, but she was conscious of Jessica's presence. She looked up and giggled sheepishly at Jessica. Jessica sighed and stood up. She stretched. "I'm going to do some light roadwork."

Jessica was actually dressed for roadwork in her running shoes and compression shorts, but Taeyeon knew that she was mostly being considerate. With Jessica gone, Taeyeon relaxed and scribbled on the first page, drawing stones and flowers. She scratched them out and flipped to the next page. This time, she drew the empty lunch boxes on the picnic mat.

The drawings were indeed ugly. They were not stick figures and had perspective and all that, but the lines were too childish and some proportions were just crappy. Taeyeon was displeased with the results even though the process had been fun. Her mind had been entirely consumed by putting pencil on paper and trying to record her surroundings.

When Jessica came back, she cooed at the sketches. "Hot damn, this is better than I thought it'd be."

"It looks like crap."

"It's not that bad," Jessica said. "You owe me a better drawing though."

"Yes, princess. I will make a masterpiece on the level of Monet for you," Taeyeon said.

"Ah... then I should have gotten you paint."

"Ooh Jessica Jung knows art history?"

"I did go to high school, unlike a certain dropout."

"Harsh. But even so I'm still cultured enough to rival a high school graduate."

"Oh yeah? Then do you know..." Jessica trailed off, trying to think of an obscure painter. Taeyeon could read the names going through her mind. Picasso, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Gauguin were all to obvious. "...Jim Lee?"

Taeyeon furrowed her eyebrows. She hated to admit it, but no.

"He draws Batman," Jessica said.

Taeyeon sputtered. "American comics? Not even manga or manhwa, but... American comics? That story-less, colored rubbish? It's not counted!"

Jessica laughed at her. "Just admit you've lost, sour grapes Taeng."

Taeyeon sulked as she drew in her sketchbook again. Her subject was a fat sumo with blonde hair in a pony tail. She wrote Jessica's name under it and linked them with an arrow. "This is you."

Jessica took the pencil and drew a blob of poo under the sumo. "And that's you."

Taeyeon grinned. Then something wet hit her face. It started to rain, in the way that the sky stays bright but the rain drops fall large and fast. They scrambled to keep their things and ran all the way to the carpark. When they got to Jessica's sedan, they were quite wet. Jessica had spare gym clothes in the trunk, and she grabbed them before getting into the car.

"Change your clothes. Can't be falling sick again," Jessica said. She started up the car and blasted the heater. The rain was pattering the windshield. They took off their shirts and pulled on Jessica's clothes. As the shirt slipped over her face, Taeyeon could smell Jessica, the scent of lilac and warm wood. She turned around and pulled Jessica's lips into hers.

Jessica responded eagerly, and then she pulled away. "Aren't you still coughing."

"It's just a bit, and it's been so long it's not contagious anymore," Taeyeon said with a small cough.

Jessica threw all caution to the wind and climbed over the stick shift onto shotgun atop Taeyeon. Her hand was in Taeyeon's hair, and Taeyeon's hand was massaging her again, but their mouths were together and that was all that mattered.

It was another long day at Shikshin. Taeyeon pulled out her phone to text the substitute driving manager that she was up to taking a shift for the night, but there were eight missed calls and one text message from Minji.

[Minji]
[Received 22:32] Hi ty-unnie. Call me when you see this, thanks"

Taeyeon put the phone to her ear. Minji picked up before the first ring was over.

"Taeyeon-unnie?"

"What is it?" Taeyeon asked, a familiar sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"It's about Hayeon."

Of course it was.

"Maybe you should sit down first, unnie."

Taeyeon sat. "Okay."

"She tried jumping off Mapo bridge today."

Taeyeon felt like the wind was knocked out of her. She gripped the phone tightly and the world spun. She continued pressing the phone against her ear.

"But she's totally fine, unnie! Don't worry," Minji said. "A fireman was on duty and rescued her. She didn't drown or anything. It was a bit cold tonight so she had mild hypothermia, but! The nurses say she's fine."

"Okay..."

"Well... they called me because I'm listed as her emergency contact in the school records."

Of course Hayeon's same-aged friend was, instead of her negligent older sister.

"And now I'm telling you."

"Thanks, Minji," Taeyeon said. "Where are you guys now?"

"At my house. After what she tried to do tonight," Minji started crying, and Taeyeon realized that she must have been very shocked too. She waited for Minji to collect herself. "...I thought she shouldn't be at the goshiwon by herself."

"Thank you, Minji-ah. I don't know what I'd do without you," Taeyeon said. "I'll come over now with Sooyoung, okay?"

"No problem, unnie. Hayeon's my best friend. And... please don't be too angry at her. The nurses said that we should be supportive."

"Okay, were the police or anything involved?"

"Not really, but they did inform the university. They gave her the week off, and Hayeon will have to start seeing a school counsellor."

"Okay. Thanks. See you."

"Bye, unnie. I'll text you my address."

Taeyeon's shakily stood up. She winced when a pang of pain shot through her back and into the back of her head. The damned chronic pain. Her body would probably shut down before Hayeon successfully killed herself. Taeyeon sat down again. She had no idea what she should do. What was she going to say to Hayeon? Why did you try to commit suicide? Taeyeon could guess the answer. 

So many people jumped off Mapo bridge that even an ignorant person like Taeyeon knew that it was just what people did when they just wanted to end it all. It was understandable. Without Sooyoung, Jessica and Hayeon, she would probably have killed herself long ago too.

And so Taeyeon tried to rationalize things like this. 

She tried to explain this to Sooyoung too, who started crying when she heard the news.

They hugged each other.

"Don't give up, Tae," Sooyoung said. "Hayeon's going to get better. She just needs a doctor to help her get there."

"I hope so," Taeyeon whispered. She patted Sooyoung on the back. "Let's go to Minji's."

Sooyoung insisted on driving even though she had been the one to bawl her eyes out, and Taeyeon was too tired to object. She texted Jessica to tell her that Hayeon had tried to drown herself. Taeyeon was so grateful towards whatever higher beings that were up there for saving her sister. She was going to find the fireman who saved her sister and thank him.

Minji's father was in Japan for a business trip, but her mother was at home. Mrs. Gong was sad and teary as she enveloped Taeyeon and Sooyoung in a hug. They had never met, but Minji probably told her mother all about Hayeon, and by extension, the both of them. Mrs. Gong and Sooyoung prayed while Taeyeon went to Minji's room. When she went in, Minji left the two sisters to their privacy.

Hayeon's face was empty, and Taeyeon suddenly felt the urge to slap some emotion into it. She drew a deep breath. 

Hayeon spoke first. "I'm sorry for disappointing you again."

Taeyeon had given her plenty of chances, and every time, Hayeon always had something worse up her sleeve. She was afraid of what might happen next. She wanted to believe that this was the last bad thing that was going to happen to Hayeon. "What happened tonight?"

Hayeon had received her second midterm exam results. There was no way she could get a B-level scholarship. She would have to complete her finals almost perfectly to qualify for the 30%-waiver C-level scholarship. She was being a burden. She had little motivation for school. The only reason she was sticking with it was so that everything would not go to waste, and it was a poor substitute for wanting to get straight As, for wanting to become a lawyer.

For the past few months, Hayeon had been waking up wondering why was she still alive. She was dirty, damaged goods. She was a murderer. Nobody would care if she died. Taeyeon, Sooyoung and Minji would, but that was it. And these three people were better off without her. She was such a drag. She took so much effort to just keep afloat. They might cry over her, and then they should just get over it and start living their lives without a black hole the joy out of their lives. She was completely worthless.

Hayeon was only able to get out a few words at a time, but Taeyeon could piece them together and understood the bigger picture.

She wanted to reassure Hayeon. She wanted to see that vibrant grin and that unfaltering determination to do her best in everything. "You're a very special person, Hayeon. You've just run into many very painful things at once, but they don't make you any less of a person. How many Koreans with your circumstances get into the top university? And you're not important just because of your academic potential. You're a loving younger sister and a caring friend. That's why Minji, Soo and I want to do things for you. Because you had to be completely devoted to school, you haven't been able to make many real friends outside of us, but later on, others will get to know the strong, relentless Hayeon that I know."

Hayeon hugged her. "I'll go to see the school counselor. I'll try, unnie."

"Thank you. I love you."

"This the last time I will shock you, unnie. I swear I have no other secrets."

Taeyeon chuckled to cover a sigh. "Good. Absolute last time, Hayeon."

A/N:  Can't wait for Taeyeon's featuring in f(x) Amber's solo album title track!