Jessica puts a folder down on her boss’s desk. “Here are the files you wanted, do you need—” She stops mid-sentence, her eyes widening as they land on a face she hasn’t seen in months, one that she thought she might never see again.

“Oh, thank you, Jessica,” Yuri says warmly, and then blinks at Jessica’s befuddled expression. “Sorry, this is my…friend Tiffany.” If the pause doesn’t give her away, the blush across her face certainly does. Jessica remembers to compose herself, but it’s too late. “Do you know each other?”

Tiffany, as expected, recovers first. It makes a splinter of something bitter lodge in Jessica’s chest, to see her look at Yuri the way she had once looked at Jessica, to see the smile that she thought was a rare treat given away like a commodity.

“We’ve met before, through a friend of a friend,” Tiffany says casually, nothing about her expression or tone giving away their history. “It’s…good to see you again, Jessica.” She holds out her hand, even, and it takes Jessica a second before she remembers to take it, to shake it and to let go in an appropriate amount of time.

Jessica’s facial muscles feel stiff when she returns the smile. “It’s good to see you too,” she says, and the words have a strange taste of a half-lie, one that teeters towards the truth more than she’s comfortable with.

Yuri asks Jessica to take a look at another set of files in her office and then she’s called away by an associate. That leaves Jessica and Tiffany looking at each other across her desk, alone in the same room for the first time in months.

“So how are you doing?” Tiffany asks casually, like she’s talking to any other acquaintance. Maybe that’s all Jessica is to her.

“Fine,” Jessica says automatically.

“How’s work?”

“Good.”

“You’re as talkative as ever,” Tiffany says with a chuckle.

“And you’re as…you as ever.”

“What does that mean?” Tiffany asks, tilting her head to the side. She’s always managed to make the gesture look both cute and charming, and this time is no exception.

“How did you and Yuri meet?” Jessica blurts out in a complete non-sequitur.

“Through a friend of a friend,” Tiffany says easily, the same thing she had told Yuri about Jessica.

Jessica bites her lip. “Did you know…?”

“That she’s your boss? No.” Tiffany takes a closer look at her expression and then gives a different kind of smile. “Do you not believe me? Do you think I seduced your boss just to get to you or something?”

“Please,” Jessica snorts. “I don’t think I’m that special.”

“You’re plenty special, Jessi,” Tiffany says softly, eyes intent on hers, and the word still makes Jessica’s heart twist all these months later.

“I…have some work left to do,” Jessica says, randomly grabbing a folder off Yuri’s desk.

Tiffany blinks. “I don’t think those are the files Yuri mentioned?”

“Right, I know that. I just need these too.” Jessica’s nails bite into her palms as she tells herself to get a grip. She finds the correct folder, straightens the other ones she disturbed and pastes a professional-looking smile on her face as she turns around and faces Tiffany.

“It was good to see you, Tiffany,” Jessica says, and she can’t even tell if the words are true or not.

“Yeah,” Tiffany says and smiles back. It’s not like Jessica’s smile, polite but strained, nor is it her usual smile, sweet and radiant. “You too, Jessica.”

Jessica walks out of Yuri’s office, reminding herself not to look back, and feels Tiffany’s gaze on her the entire way.

“Hey Sica,” Sooyoung says. “I’m grabbing lunch downstairs, do you want anything?”

“Hmm?” Jessica looks up from the files she’s been staring at but hasn’t made a dent in. “Oh, I’m good, thanks.”

“Okay, text me if you change your mind.”

“Thanks,” Jessica says absently and returns to boring holes in the paper in front of her with her eyes. Maybe if she tries hard enough, she won’t even have to use a hole puncher.

She takes a sip of lukewarm coffee, massages her temples and sighs. It’s going to be a long day.

Jessica almost wants to be called to a meeting or get a sudden visit from a client just for something to do, something to distract her from thinking about—

She goes to the bathroom and splashes some cold water on her face. She keeps her head bowed and eyes closed for a moment, wishing she could sink into the basin and emerge elsewhere somehow. Then she raises her head and opens her eyes – and sees someone in the mirror.

Jessica jumps. “Jesus, what are you doing here?”

Tiffany raises an eyebrow. Or well, she tries, but she’s never been able to do it and she just raises both of them, the left higher than the right. “I’m…flattered, but I don’t even think we look alike?”

Jessica just stares at her. It takes her a moment to recover her wits. “You scared the hell out of me,” she says, putting a hand over her chest involuntarily. “What are you doing, trying to audition for a horror movie?”

“Okay, first you call me Jesus, then you imply I look like Kayako.” Tiffany pouts. “What have I done to you to deserve this?”

Jessica means to fire back a snarky retort, but instead some low words tear out of her. “You know what you’ve done to me.”

Tiffany’s expression turns pained. For once, she doesn’t say anything, and Jessica thinks that signals the end of the conversation, so she turns to leave. However, before she reaches the door, Tiffany suddenly stretches out an arm and blocks her.

“What are you do—” Jessica can’t finish the question as a pair of warm, soft lips cover hers. Tiffany tastes like the caramel coffee they stock in the staff room and a hint of something else, something uniquely her. “…Tiff?”

Tiffany stares intently at her, like she’s looking for something in Jessica’s face. Jessica stares back, having no idea what to make of the expression, what to make of Tiffany’s intentions. She had once thought that they knew each other the best in the world, that she knew everything about Tiffany from the lines on her palms to the whorl of her hair, but right now Tiffany might as well be a stranger.

Of course, it’s Tiffany who breaks the silence. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“What are you doing?” Jessica finally completes her question from before.

Tiffany smiles. “What does it look like I’m doing,” she says coyly as she runs a hand down Jessica’s shoulder. Involuntarily, Jessica shivers.

“You – you’re with Yuri.” It almost comes out like a question.

“Mm,” Tiffany says noncommittally. “It seems like I’m with you right now.”

“I-I’m at work.”

That makes Tiffany laugh. “Oh, come on, Jessi, this won’t be the first time we’ve fooled around where we weren’t supposed to.”

“You’re not making a very convincing case.”

“You lawyers,” Tiffany tsks. “You always need logic and reasoning.”

“You can’t get anywhere without—” Jessica’s voice chokes off when Tiffany’s knee presses between her legs.

“Without what?” Tiffany asks, her voice even huskier than usual.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Jessica says, but it’s hard to deny the hot press of Tiffany’s mouth against .

Tiffany chuckles, the warm, raspy sound washing over Jessica’s skin in a way that brings about a wave of shivers. “Then tell me to leave you alone.”

“Will you if I do?”

Tiffany stares at her with dark eyes. “I don’t know. Why don’t you say it?”

Jessica tries, but she can’t force the words out of . She’s never been good at saying no to Tiffany, and apparently that hasn’t changed.

She takes another approach. “It’s not fair to Yuri.”

Tiffany’s eyes flash. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

It’s hard to argue when those lips cover hers.

Jessica runs her fingers through her hair and tugs down her blouse, but she knows it’s futile. She practically screams ravished, and Tiffany seems to think so too by the way her eyes gleam with satisfaction as they sweep over Jessica.

“I’m going to get fired,” Jessica says.

“She won’t find out,” Tiffany says confidently.

“No, not because of that. Well, not immediately. I mean, I have projects waiting on me but I just disappeared.”

“You haven’t been gone for that long. You could have had an upset stomach or something.”

“We’re lucky nobody wanted to use the bathroom.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Tiffany says breezily. “I locked the door.”

Jessica blinks. “You did?”

“Yeah, you didn’t notice. You were a little…preoccupied.”

Jessica feels heat fill her face.

“You still blush so beautifully,” Tiffany says, running a hand down Jessica’s face. Involuntarily, Jessica leans back. Even though they had just done what’s called the most intimate of acts, she doesn’t feel intimacy between them right now. She feels…

Tiffany looks at her in a way Jessica can’t read, her arm still raised, hand held in mid-air. Then she lowers it and her lashes, hiding her expression. When she looks up again, her expression is composed, inscrutable. “I guess we should get going.”

Jessica clears . “Right.”

“You probably want to—” Tiffany gestures awkwardly, clearly meaning clean yourself up a bit. “I’ll leave first so we aren’t seen coming out of the bathroom together.”

“Right,” Jessica repeats with a wry twist of her lips. “Wouldn’t want anyone to get suspicious.”

Tiffany doesn’t say anything in reply, just quickly checks her reflection, fixes her hair and adjusts her clothes. Somehow, she looks much more put together than Jessica, even though Jessica remembers being just as passionate, just as heated as Tiffany, if not more so. Maybe Tiffany just has a way of leaving behind her mark.

“I’ll see you later, Jessi,” Tiffany says, giving Jessica a gentle, chaste kiss before sweeping out of the bathroom.

Jessica brings her fingers to her lips and feels the ghost of Tiffany’s there for a long while.

Incredibly, nobody seems to have noticed her prolonged absence. She gets through her work with unprecedented efficiency and doesn’t catch a glimpse of either Tiffany or Yuri, for which she’s grateful. She’s not sure she could face her boss right now. And as for Tiffany…

Jessica remembers an old ballad she heard on the radio many years ago. It’s about lovers who haven’t seen each other in many years, and the lyrics went something like, why did you have to return and stir my heartbeat? She wants to ask Tiffany that. Her life has been—if not happy, then calm and peaceful. Then Tiffany Hwang bulldozed into it with all the force of a wrecking ball.

And the most pathetic part of it all is that Jessica can’t even say she minds.

“Sica?” It’s Sooyoung again. “Aren’t you going to go? Haven’t you finished all your work for the day?”

Jessica raises her head with a start and realizes that it’s well into the evening and everyone else has left.

“Oh, yes.” She gathers some files she needs into her briefcase and almost knocks over her mug in the process. It still has a little coffee in it, dark and sluggish at the bottom.

“You’ve seemed distracted today,” Sooyoung observes. “Except for how you powered through your work in the afternoon. I don’t even think I saw you come up for air in hours.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jessica chuckles. “That’s how it goes for me. Good patches and bad patches.”

Sooyoung smiles. “I hope the good ones outnumber the bad.”

“Yeah,” Jessica says quietly. “I hope so too.”

She doesn’t know if she’s surprised or unsurprised as she gets out of the elevator in the parking garage and finds a familiar figure waiting for her.

“It’s late,” Jessica says senselessly.

Tiffany smiles, a rather shy one this time. “I know. I was hoping I could get a ride home?”

Jessica doesn’t ask why Yuri didn’t give her one. “Sure. My car’s over there.”

“I know. I saw it.”

They don’t make any more conversation until they’re in Jessica’s car. Jessica checks that Tiffany has her seatbelt fastened before pulling out of her parking space.

“Where do you live now?” she asks Tiffany while keeping her eyes on the road.

Tiffany doesn’t answer.

“Or you could put it into the GPS. You know how to use it, ri—”

“I lied to you,” Tiffany suddenly says.

Jessica almost reflexively stomps on the brakes. “About what?” She’s impressed at how normal her voice sounds.

“I did know that Yuri’s your boss. Not right away,” Tiffany adds quickly. “She approached me first and we were having a nice chat. Then she eventually mentioned where she worked and I knew it was where you worked too.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s on your LinkedIn,” Tiffany says, like it’s obvious.

You check my LinkedIn? Jessica wants to ask, but she bites the question back.

“Of course I check your LinkedIn,” Tiffany says, as if reading her mind. “You don’t post on any other social media so what am I supposed to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe leave me alone,” Jessica says pointedly.

“You don’t want me to leave you alone,” Tiffany says, and the sad thing is Jessica can’t even argue with that.

“Do you think you know what I want?”

“Do you know what you want?” Tiffany fires back. Jessica remains silent.

“So this was all a scheme of yours?” Jessica says after a moment. “You used Yuri to get to me, you came onto me, you cheated on her and now what? I’m supposed to, what, be flattered? Fall into your waiting arms because you took all these measures to get to me?”

“Where are you going?” Tiffany asks instead. “I didn’t tell you where I lived.”

Oh, that’s right. Jessica had just gone on autopilot. “I’m driving to your old place.” She had gone there so many times that it’s second nature for her.

Tiffany doesn’t comment on that, doesn’t tell Jessica her new address or ask her to change routes.

“Do you remember what I told you about my views on infidelity? Do you think I was lying back then or I’ve changed so much I would just toss my beliefs out the window?”

“I don’t know what to think about you, Tiffany,” Jessica says candidly.

“I don’t know what to think about you, either,” Tiffany says quietly. “I just know that I think about you all the time.”

Jessica’s hands shake on the steering wheel. Thankfully, she’s a good driver and she doesn’t let the car swerve because of that.

“I never thought you’d be the type of person to cheat on someone,” Jessica says. “I also didn’t think I would be the type of person to be a third party in a relationship.”

“You aren’t,” Tiffany says.

“What?”

“Maybe you should stop the car before you drive it into a ditch or something.”

“That would be your fault,” Jessica says testily, but she does as Tiffany suggests and pulls up against the curb. “What do you mean I’m not?”

“Yuri and I aren’t in a relationship.”

“Then what? You were pretending to be her girlfriend?”

“Yes, exactly,” Tiffany says. Jessica stares at her, waiting for her to deliver the punchline, and Tiffany just looks patiently back at her.

“Why?” Jessica finally asks.

“Because I, like you said, took all these measures to get to you. Because I miss you and I’m too pathetic to just message you like a normal person. Because I’m still in love with you.”

“You’re still…?” Jessica can’t even finish the question, like she’s held her breath for too long and has run out of air.

Tiffany smiles, and even in the darkness, Jessica can see it clearly. This is her real smile, sweet and radiant, and it still lights Jessica up.

“I’m still in love with you,” she repeats. “I’ve never fallen out of love with you.” Her expression tightens, becomes tentative. “Maybe you think that I’m crazy and manipulative and pathetic, but—”

“You’ve used that word twice now. Pathetic.”

“I guess it fits me too well right now.”

“And here I thought I was the pathetic one,” Jessica says, mostly to herself.

“Hm?”

“You’re unbelievable,” Jessica says, shaking her head. “You’re really unbelievable.”

And then she grabs Tiffany and kisses her hard.

“Are you going to tell me your address?” Jessica asks.

“Sure, but we’re closer to your apartment now so why don’t we just go there?” Tiffany yawns. “I’m ready to fall asleep already.”

“It’s not even late.”

Tiffany shrugs. “What can I say, you wore me out.”

Jessica blushes and hopes that Tiffany can’t see it in the darkness.

“You really do blush beautifully,” Tiffany says. “Maybe you thought I was saying it like a line, but I wasn’t.”

“I know.”

“I thought you didn’t know what to think about me.” There’s almost a pout in Tiffany’s voice. That shouldn’t be possible, but she makes it happen.

“I don’t sometimes. You can be hard to read.”

“You can be too.”

Jessica snorts. “I’m an open book.”

“Yeah, and ‘ off’ is written on the cover.”

Jessica can’t help but laugh at that. “But you didn’t do that.”

“I told you, I know you don’t want me to leave you alone.”

“I don’t,” Jessica admits. “I guess you knew me better than I knew myself there.”

“I want to know you better than you know yourself everywhere,” Tiffany murmurs, and Jessica shivers.

“Should we turn up the heat in the car?” Tiffany asks considerately, and Jessica would elbow her if she weren’t driving.

“What about you?” Jessica asks after a moment.

“What about me what?”

“You know what I want, but – what do you want?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

The road is all clear, so Jessica lets herself look at Tiffany, knowing she probably won’t be able to look away for a little while. She was right, and it’s a good thing she checked the road, because she very likely would have crashed into something due to Tiffany’s smile.

“I want you.”