THEIR DAYS IN BOXES
-ANONYMOUS

 

There are spaces to fill. There are days to count.

“Maknae! You’re turn!” Sooyoung called out from the dining table, waving a pen for Seohyun to take.

The youngest approached, pulling a chair out for herself before taking the pen. “Aw, unnie… Not the same ‘Grow taller soon, ahjumma!’ message! Why not write something like ‘Take your vitamins because we worry about you’?” she told Sooyoung, pointing to the inscription on the top left portion of the card.

“And since when have you become so bossy, hm?” Sooyoung replied, raising an eyebrow. “Besides, if I wrote that down, you wouldn’t have anything left to write. You should thank me!”

Seohyun paused. She had already written ‘To Taeyeon unnie.’ “Hm, you’re right, unnie.”

“Of course I am!” Sooyoung said proudly. She watched as Seohyun started writing—

“Omo!”

“What is it?”

Seohyun lifted the pen, revealing her jagged handwriting. “Tiffany unnie…” she said as she turned to the figure sitting across from her.

“Hm? What?” Tiffany replied, not bothering to look up.

“You’re making the table shake with the way you’re writing.”

“Sorry,” went the flat reply.

“What are you doing anyway?” Sooyoung said, craning her neck to get a better view of what Tiffany was scribbling on.

“Just writing on a planner,” Tiffany answered, still not looking up.

“Looks like you’re writing on every day.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Unnies…”

Sooyoung got back to their dongsaeng. “What?”

“I still can’t write with the table shaking.”

“Oh, right. Hey, Fany-ah—”

Tiffany stopped writing. Leaving the pen on the table, she stretched her arm. Out went a sigh of relief. “I’m gonna go take a shower. TaeTae might arrive any minute now. Where are we gonna celebrate again?”

“I dunno. Sunny said she’d take care of it,” Sooyoung answered. Seohyun could finally get on with her writing.

“Okay then. I’m gonna go take that shower now.”

“Take your time,” Sooyoung said with a laugh.

Tiffany added a giggle as she closed the planner and clipped the pen on the spring spine. Then she left for the bathroom.

“Done~” Seohyun cheered, examining her now neat handwriting and the cute heart she drew at the end of the message. She managed to add a bit more after the ‘Take your vitamins’ part. “Unnie, what are you doing? That’s supposed to be private!” she told Sooyoung upon seeing the latter unbuckling the sleeve of Tiffany’s planner.

“Oh pshaw! Fany-ah wouldn’t mind,” Sooyoung replied with a smirk.

“But…”

“We’ll just take a look at what she has planned for the week. Okay?”

“Well…”

“Okay! Now let’s see here…”

Sooyoung thumbed through the pages and reached a laminated bookmark. “Wow. She already has plans for December?!”

“Unnie, you said you’d only look at the ones for this week.”

“Yeah, yeah. Might as well check everything out since she’s already filled out the entire year.”

“Eh…”

“Here we go. December 1.”

December 1 – Practice

“That doesn’t sound like much,” Seohyun commented.

“I guess. But what do you expect? I don’t think we’ll have a lot of time to do other things anyway.”

December 2 – Order rice cakes
December 3 – Greet good morning
December 4 – Talk
December 5 – Hug


“What the? Hug who?” Sooyoung blurted out, frowning at the statement.

Seohyun shrugged. “Maybe it’s Yuri unnie. I mean, it’s her birthday, after all.”

“Hm, maybe.”

December 6 –

“Smiley face?” Sooyoung pondered. She traced the remaining weeks with her finger then moved back a page to check November. Then October. Then September. “Look, there’s a smiley face at least twice a month. I wonder what that means.”

“Unnie, we should stop going through this. It’s Tiffany unnie’s private schedule,” Seohyun reminded once more, already trying to snatch the planner from Sooyoung.

Sooyoung pulled the planner back then shifted on her seat, her back now turned against her dongsaeng. “Man, it’s a bit repetitive. Talk, practice, eat out. It’s like this for the entire month of December. Except for these smiley faces – whatever they are – it doesn’t seem like Fany-ah will be up to anything interesting.”

Seohyun sighed. “See? Like you said, there’s nothing interesting. We should stop looking now—”

“Ooh! Let’s see what she planned on my birthday!”

Sooyoung flipped through the pages until she reached February.

February 8 –

“There’s that smiley face again. What the heck?” Sooyoung mumbled.

February 9 – Talk
February 10 – Go shopping

“Huh. Well, this is typical Tiffany Hwang, all right… Wait a minute! It’s my birthday! She didn’t even plan on getting me a gift or something?!”

“But I do recall her giving you a present, unnie.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t plan it! What the heck, Fany-ah?”

Seohyun patted Sooyoung’s back. “The shopping must have been for you, unnie. Think about it.”

Sooyoung’s shoulders fell as she sighed. She kept her eyes on February 10. “Maybe you’re right.”

February 11 – Practice
February 12 – Watch a movie
February 13 – Go to an amusement park


“Fany-ah went to an amusement park?” Sooyoung whispered to herself, already thinking back to whether or not she came along for that trip.

“What was that?” Seohyun asked, now moving her chair closer to Sooyoung’s.

Sooyoung turned around and pointed the date out to her dongsaeng. “There. She wrote it down. ‘Go to an amusement park.’ Now when did she have time to go? We were busy, if I remember correctly.”

Seohyun nodded. “Strange.”

February 14 – Go out for coffee, dance in the rain

“Now that’s even stranger,” Seohyun commented, squinting at what Tiffany had written down just to make sure that she read it correctly.

Sooyoung nodded in agreement.

“But more importantly, why do these sound like solo activities? It’s like Tiffany unnie has been feeling all alone or, at least, it’s like she wanted to be alone,” Seohyun said.

“You’re right. It’s so unlike her. Plus, how in the world can she plan for rain? Well, unless she already heard the weather forecast the day before…”

May 1 – Visit the set of the musical
May 2 – Visit the set of the musical
May 3 – Visit the set of the musical


“It’s like this for this week and the weeks before. It’s almost for every day…” Sooyoung paused, looking over at the consecutive days with the same inscription once more. “Fany-ah has a musical?!”

“Not that I’ve heard of,” Seohyun replied.

“Then whose musical…”

“Maybe we should skip to this week just to get it over with. Tiffany unnie might catch us looking through her things.”

“Fine. I’m starting to feel a bit guilty anyway.”

Sooyoung turned to the month of March.

March 1 – Greet good night, offer dinner

“Hm, she must be doing something for someone,” Sooyoung said, underlining the ‘offer dinner’ part with her nail. “There was som