~[Intertwined]~
ANONYMOUS

“Hello there! My name’s Tiffany! What’s yours?” a hyperactive foreigner girl no older than nine suddenly asked the petite girl sitting over at the sandbox in the playground. She was beaming with the brightness of the sun, her white smile catching the little girl by surprise.

“Uh… K-Kim Taeyeon…” the girl’s shyness was shown even in the way she spoke with her soft voice, and as she lowered her head she wished for nothing more than to take refuge in her own little sphere of comfort.


“Heehee! Don’t be shy! Come on! Let’s go play over on those swings!” Tiffany’s playfulness urged her to drag the little girl with her.


“Um… I won’t get hurt… right?” Taeyeon was still hesitant, content in writing words, her own thoughts on the grainy sand.


“Geez! If you say it like that, I’d look like the neighbourhood bully!” a look of mock anger complete with a pout took over the face of the foreigner, trying to look like the victim.


“No no no!! It’s not like that… It’s just that this is my first time seeing you… and I’m scared of swings,” Taeyeon was taken aback at the stranger’s actions, completely convinced that it was all her fault.


“Well, I just moved here recently from the States. And what’s there to be afraid of? Swings are fun~” the girl was trying her best to pull the hesitant girl out of her comfort zone.


“Swings are scary… Strangers are scary…” Taeyeon just wanted to stay where she was, where it was safe, where there were no strangers trying to bother her.


“Nonsense! Gaaaahhh… What do I do with you…? Hmmmmmm… AHA! I got it!!” a light bulb went off in Tiffany’s head as she brought her face real close to Taeyeon’s.


“WHA-wha-wha-wha?” she was once again taken aback, not only from the invasion of her private sphere but also by the girl’s sweet loud voice that resounded in her ears.


“Since I’m the foreigner here, you’ll be my personal tour guide! As payment, I’ll be your playmate! Whaddaya say?” Tiffany excitedly said, her eyes glowing with the radiance of the sun.


“Um… uh…” a moment of hesitation for the little girl who lived all her life inside her shell, never coming out nor being disturbed, until that day when she met this unusual girl from America.


“I’ll take that as a yes!” without waiting for an answer, she took hold of Taeyeon’s hand and pulled her towards that small pink slide next to the swings.

“U-uwaaa! Wait a minute!” and the little girl could do nothing but let herself be dragged along.


That was the first time Kim Taeyeon met the foreigner girl named Tiffany Hwang, and that day the shy girl finally found the joys of playing on the swings alongside her newfound friend. From then on the two would meet everyday at the same place, on those pink swings that slowly became their very own special spot. They would share stories while sitting idly on them, talking about creatures of fantasy and dreams that take flight in their imaginations. When one was happy, she would share her joys with the other. When sorrow instead overtook, one would willingly shoulder the other’s burdens and pains. And when they fought, violently at times, that place served as the peacemaker.


Everyday the two of them were filled with so much… life. To the grown-ups, they were simply two kids playing around some worn-out swings. But to them it was more than that. It was something only children like them would understand, and it was something they definitely cherished.


Especially Taeyeon. She was a girl who shut herself off from the outside world, believing that she would be safe all by her own, in her precious little space. But then the sun just had to come and personally drag her outside of that space. Tiffany brought light to her life, made her see things that she never thought existed in the world. Tiffany made all the scary things fun and enjoyable.


And that guaranteed her position as Taeyeon’s Best Friend Forever.



 

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“Geez, when will that girl get here?” a woman with shoulder-length hair like warm chocolate sat on a round table outside a coffee shop, a tall Café Latte in front of her next to a MacBook Pro showing a half-completed PowerPoint presentation. “She was the one who said that she wanted to have a talk yet her call came twenty minutes ago.”


Kim Taeyeon, manager of an idol group under SM Entertainment, adjusted her square-rimmed glasses and continued typing on her MacBook Pro. She was preparing a presentation for the senior managers regarding her group’s promotions during the next two quarters of the year. She was hoping that her proposals be approved so that she could help her idol girls attain their dreams more quickly and soar to greater heights faster. In between the rapid keyboard tapping she took sips out of her now-cold coffee, while stealing glances at her iPhone 4 to see if she received a message of any kind. So far she was still seeing the background picture of a brightly-smiling girl with black wavy hair and eyes that shined like the sun.


“Hmph. When that girl gets here I’ll make her treat me to a cup of strawberry banana ice cream,” but she was smiling as she said this, happy at the prospect of meeting the closest person to her heart after a week of busy schedules. Oh, how she looked forward to these simple times when all they would do was talk and talk and laugh and talk and just enjoy each other’s company and each other’s warmth. “Fany-ah… I’m getting real impatient here…”



 

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It was the first day of grade school, and Taeyeon was once again looking back to her safe sphere for comfort. The pastel colors of the school building scared her. The many children running towards the entrance of the school scared her. The thought of spending time inside a classroom with people she didn’t know scared her.


“TaeTae! Sorry I’m late!”


But what’s there to be afraid of when she had someone like her BFF with her?


“You sure took your time… the gates almost closed on us,” she lightly scolded the girl named Tiffany.


“Sorry, sorry! My mom took extra time to make sure that I had enough to eat for recess,” she raised a rather heavy-looking pink-colored lunch box with floral patterns as proof.


“Uwa… good for you. My mom packed me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a carton of milk… What’s yours?” Taeyeon asked in quiet voice, grabbing tightly onto her brown paper bag.


“Hmmm… PB & J. Hmmm, that simply won’t do,” Tiffany regarded her companion with scrutinizing eyes, choosing to ignore her question. Then she broke into a wide smile and said, “Then I guess I’ll share some of my food with you!”


“B-but, is that okay with you? I mean your mom made it for you and everything… I don’t think I can accept it,” the fidgety Taeyeon tried to reject the offer.


“Meh, don’t worry about the little details! Besides, mom always told me that it’s good to share your blessings with friends. And you’re my bestest friend so I will definitely share mine with you,” that smile of hers and the conviction behind her voice meant that Taeyeon had no choice. And most of the time, it was for the better. “Now come on! We don’t want to be late on the first day of class.”


“Uh… yeah. Let’s go,” Taeyeon wasn’t even asking for it, but Tiffany’s hand found itself entangled with hers. It was as natural as the sun rising every morning and setting in the night. And Taeyeon wasn’t complaining one bit. She welcomed the warmth that came with this simple contact between friends, and at that moment made a simple wish that things would stay the same between them for the rest of their lives.


But for now she had to haul herself to the classroom if she didn’t want to be scolded by their scary teacher.



 

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Taeyeon’s iPhone finally rang, the touchscreen showing the name of the person she’d been waiting for all this time. In a snap she stopped the work she was doing and swiped the phone from the table, answering the call with a single press on the screen. “Yah! Where are you and why aren’t you here right now?”


“I’m sorry, TaeTae! I’m currently stuck in the Main Road because of this hectic traffic. Don’t worry, I’ll be there soon!” just from the apologetic voice Taeyeon could imagine the flustered face of her lover as her fingers drummed the steering wheel in irritation, waiting for that stop light to go green.


“Just get your here as soon as you can, or I’ll do unspeakable things to it,” Taeyeon was sure Tiffany realized that it referred to a certain body part of the latter that the ByunTae liked to stare at and occasionally… tap.


“Yah! Don’t say that… there’s time for that later,” the light embarrassment in her tone made Taeyeon want to pinch those fluffy cheeks of hers so bad.


“For now, just wait there patiently till I get there, okay?” normally, everyone who treated her as a little kid would earn her ire. But coming from Tiffany, Taeyeon was instead filled with cotton candy warmth, and a bit of yearning.


“Okay, okay. But you’ll have to treat me to some ice cream later as payment for being late,” a childish remark masking her earnest plea for the girl to get to the coffee shop soon.


“Rest assured, I’ll give you something better than ice cream. Ah, the traffic light’s green now. I’ll see you in a minute, TaeTae!”


“Sure thing! Ah, is there anything you’d like from the coffee shop?”


“Hmmm… a tall Caramel Coffee would be nice. I really have to go now. It’s hard driving while talking on the phone. See you later! Mwah~” then Tiffany dropped the call. The moment of silence that followed immediately intensified the longing that was burning inside Taeyeon’s chest.


They haven’t seen each other for five days already, given their hectic schedules. The only mode of communication they had was through their smartphones, which provided them small comfort through the innovative video calls. While Taeyeon worked as the manager of a promising idol group, Tiffany had a career as a musical actress. Ever since her first appearance in the musical scene as Carmen Diaz in ‘Fame,’ she received requests from almost all the big entertainment names in the country and even some from abroad, trying to cast her in the lead female roles. Their jobs demanded a huge chunk out of their time, and usually that meant less time with each other. For Taeyeon, that simply won’t do. She loved Tiffany like no other, and it’s just natural that she wanted all of her time spent by Tiffany’s side.


“Which is why this is a good time to tell her something that I’ve been considering for a while,” she took a long sip from her coffee as stared at the sales figures of her groups’ first album launch, deep in thought about what she had to say to Tiffany.



 

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“Nyehehehehe. That’s right. Give me all your lunch money,” the junior high school bully, Kwon Yuri, said, pinning the shoulders of a helpless Tiffany to the wall on the side of the gym. It was a quiet and peaceful place in the afternoon, a perfect place for bullies and their victims.


“I told you, I don’t have any money with me!” defiant till the end, Tiffany shouted at the tanned girl who was overpowering her.


“Ahhh. Feisty, aren’t we?” then she slapped Tiffany’s cheek, leaving a bright red mark where she hit. “You don’t talk back to me. Nobody talks back to me. It’s your fault for looking oh-so-pretty with that annoying smile of yours.”


“And that gives you the right to take my money?” another slap to the face. Tiffany’s head reeled from the shock and the pain, and it took all that she had just to stand straight.


“You better learn to keep your mouth shut, Tiffany Hwang. Or you just might find yourself stripped of a normal high school life,” then Yuri raised her hand once again, thinking that one more slap was all it took to make Tiffany submit to her.


“Stop it!”


The sound rang clear and loud across the silence of the place. Both girls looked at the source of it, and saw a girl with a short stature and a fierce expression. She glared daggers at Yuri though it was clear that she herself was unsure whether she was doing something heroic or something incredibly stupid. The tanned girl was looking at the girl as if she found another prey to play with, while Tiffany stared angrily at Taeyeon as if telling her to run away as fast as she can.


“Y-You better let her go, or else-”


“Or else what?” the bully interrupted the girl who barely said anything. “What can a shorty like you do, kill me with laughter? I guess that’ll work.”


Strangely, instead of backing down Taeyeon held her ground and tried making a confident smirk. “Well there’s that, but I have something better.”


She made a dramatic pose, raising her hand slowly in the air. Yuri, finding the scene in front of her amusing, opted to watch without releasing her hold on Tiffany. Tiffany just looked on in abject horror, worried about what might happen to her best friend.


“KWON YURI FANS CLUB, COME OUT!” then Taeyeon snapped her fingers. In an instant about ten males sprang out in hiding from the corners, from the bushes, and even from the tops of the trees around them.


“The Kwon Yuri Fans Club reporting for duty, Kim Taeyeon-ssi!” a tall, lanky guy shouted with a DSLR hanging from his neck. He said his name was Gwang Soo.


“One Black Pearl, as promised. Now go get her!” like the leader of a pack of wild animals, Taeyeon pointed her finger towards their prey: the tanned girl with a gaping mouth and widened eyes.


“Well you heard her, guys. Come on!!!” and Gwang Soo led the charge, heading towards Yuri who let go of Tiffany’s shoulders and ran for her life.


“Just wait and see, Tiffany Hwang! This isn’t over! Not by a long shot!!!” she shouted one last time as she disappeared into the school building, chased by her fan club like bloodhounds to a wily fox.


When the coast was clear, Taeyeon hurried over to her bestfriend and took out a handkerchief, gently rubbing that red hand mark on Tiffany’s cheek. “Are you okay, Fany-ah?” she asked, pain stabbing her heart from seeing her friend hurt like this.


“I’m okay… more importantly…” she was still looking worriedly at Taeyeon. “How did you know we were here? And how did you get her fan club to help you?”


“Well, when you’re best friend’s name is Kim Taeyeon who happens to know someone from the fan club, anything’s possible,” the short girl confidently said with a wide grin. Tiffany managed to make a light chuckle in spite of the anger and worry she felt at the girl who put herself in a very dangerous situation.


“Stupid kid…” then she wrapped Taeyeon in a gentle embrace. The other girl was surprised, even more so when she felt the subtle hics and bumps from Tiffany’s body.


“Fany-ah… are you crying?” asked the little girl.


“No I’m not!” came the stubborn reply. But Tiffany’s sobs and tears betrayed her true feelings. “It’s just… if anything ever happened to you because of me, I don’t think I’ll be able to live with myself…”


“Heh, babo-ya. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m a strong girl, remember?” Taeyeon hugged her best friend tighter to give her assurance. “You don’t have to be so emotional all the time. Or else I might run out of tissues to give you.”


“Hahaha… you’ve changed a lot, Taeyeon-ah,” Tiffany mumbled, snuggling her head against the nook of her bestfriend’s neck. “I wonder where the extremely introverted girl went to?”


“You forced me to be like this,” Taeyeon retorted with a hint of sincerity. “You’re a clumsy, ditzy, Korean girl born in America with a tendency to get herself in whole lot of trouble and a penchant for mixing up the local vocabulary in embarrassing yet hilarious ways. I have to be strong in order to protect you from others and yourself… mostly from yourself. And bugs.”


“Yah!” Tiffany released the embrace, glaring at Taeyeon with round teary eyes so adorable you wouldn’t think she was annoyed. “I-I mess up when I speak at times, I get it. I mean, who would introduce themselves as ‘Brighter than Mushrooms’ Tiffany? And I always slip even when the floor’s perfectly slip-free. That happens to everyone, right? A-And, and… AH! That time when I bumped myself on the wall three times consecutively for no particular reason. That’s perfectly normal, right? RIGHT? And I swear that huge beetle at that time was trying to kill me. I had no choice but to use a broom to defend myself!”


When Taeyeon simply raised her eyebrow at everything Tiffany just said, the flustered girl tried to come up with a witty retort. Then the realization that such things almost never happen to a normal individual, she resorted to her last measure: her patented hurt puppy pout. Taeyeon almost visibly flinched at that one, and she had to fight the overwhelming urge to pinch Tiffany’s cheeks so hard they’d turn red as an apple.


“Oh stop it with that pout. I won’t be able to stop myself if you keep on doing that,” Taeyeon merely said this as a joke, but she never expected Tiffany to answer like she did.


“Don’t, then.”


Those two words caught Taeyeon completely off-guard. Her mind had the wrong timing to interpret what Tiffany just said in a rather… improper way. She didn’t see it, but she was sure that her face suddenly turned bright red. Her heart was beating hard against her chest that it hurt. If it beat any harder, Tiffany would’ve heard it. She then began to notice things that she usually took for granted. Tiffany’s long, wavy hair, her warm brown eyes, those pink moist lips of hers, the strawberry perfume she always wore…


She also noticed that they were all alone at the back of the gym.


“Uh… Tiffany? I was just joking, um… you know that,” Taeyeon was fighting hard to keep her feelings in check. She wasn’t even sure if it was okay to be having these kinds of emotions for her best friend.


“I’m not,” Tiffany’s eyes completely changed. They weren’t teary anymore. They had something in them that Taeyeon couldn’t quite define. No, she had a word for it. She just didn’t want to use it.


“U-Um, gee… Lunch break is almost over a-and… we really need to go right now to e-eat so um, yeah,” Taeyeon stammered. She found herself backing away from the girl who was steadily advancing, a certain hunger burning in her brown eyes.


“Lunch? There’s one in front of me already,” Tiffany lightly bit her lower lip, an action Taeyeon found extremely disturbing… and somehow irresistibly attractive at the same time.


Taeyeon mentally slapped herself to stop the inappropriate thoughts from taking over her mind. But Tiffany’s sudden change in demeanor wasn’t making it easy for her. “Fany-ah! You’re sick, aren’t you? Maybe you ate something funny… Y-Yeah, you’re acting like this because a virus is messing with your brain. Or that Yuri girl might’ve hit you too hard. Hahahaha.”


“I’m not sick, and I’m not joking. I’m serious about this, Taeyeon,” the way her name rolled off of Tiffany’s tongue sent shivers wracking down Taeyeon’s spine. She could feel her heart beating faster and faster with each step Tiffany took. “Think of it as… a way for me to thank you for rescuing me.”


Taeyeon didn’t realize it, but she already had her back on the wall. She had unwittingly trapped herself between a rock and her best friend. “Y-You can thank me in other ways! T-T-T-T-This isn’t right!!!”


“Oh come on. We’re best friends, right? Skinship is perfectly normal for the two of us,” Tiffany softly said, placing both her hands on the wall on either side of Taeyeon’s head. And she slowly inched her face towards Taeyeon’s which was red with embarrassment and other… emotions.


“Not this kind of skinship!” Taeyeon tried to say it out loud in hopes of snapping her bestfriend out of whatever daze, trance or delusion she was in. “Wasn’t the hug enough!?”


“No, Taeyeon. It was never enough…” and Tiffany brought her face in even closer. The little girl tried to scream, tried to shout, tried to move her body to escape from this cage her bestfriend had trapped her in. But she found that her voice was stuck in , with her body rendered immobile by the seductive stare Tiffany was giving her.


“Fany-ah…” Taeyeon could barely speak. In the end, she gave in to her bestfriend’s control. Her body tensed up, blood pressure rising above normal levels. She shut her eyes tight, waiting for Tiffany to do… whatever she wanted to do with her. A million thoughts were racing inside her head, but the image of Tiffany’s face outshone them all.


She could feel it coming closer. Closer, closer, inch by inch, millimetre by millimetre. She could feel Tiffany’s hot breath on her lips. She could smell more and more of her intoxicating perfume. Taeyeon was totally powerless, and as Tiffany closed the distance between their faces…


…Taeyeon felt something warm bump onto her forehead.


“Wha-?”


Tiffany quickly broke the contact and released Taeyeon from her cage. She was grinning widely, her eyes which looked so predatory before turning into cute little crinkles of mirth and mischief. Taeyeon stood against the wall, dumbfounded. Her mind was trying to process everything that just happened, which ended up giving her the expression of a blank slate.


“Pfft! PUHAHAHAHAHA! You should’ve seen the look on your face when I did that! You were expecting something erted, weren’t you?” Tiffany laughed, feeling giddy that her little prank was a complete success. “Yah, you byuntae. Of course I wasn’t going to do anything like kiss you on the lips! You’ve been reading waaay too many fanfiction again, haven’t you?”


“…Wha-?” Taeyeon could only say, still in a state of shock.


“That was my little revenge for what you said to me earlier. Merong~” Tiffany stuck out her tongue, then began running back to the main school building. “Gotta hurry back to our classroom now. We only have twenty minutes left before fifth period starts. Come on!”


The gears clicked together and finally Taeyeon realized what Tiffany did to her, and her mind which was filled with a clutter of thoughts was overwhelmed by sheer embarrassment and indignation at the girl who made her go through such a harrowing experience. And she let out all these things in one deafening shout.


“FANY-AHHHHH!!! COME BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE- GRRRAAHHH!!”


“Ahahahaha! Catch me if you can, TaeTae!” came the playful reply of Tiffany.


And as Taeyeon chased her bestfriend across the school grounds, Tiffany let out a huge sigh of relief. It was better that Taeyeon didn’t know her true intentions, her true feelings behind that prank of hers. It was too early… for both of them. She was still afraid of the possible outcomes of her actions.

She was especially afraid of rejection… from Taeyeon, and from the cold, harsh rules of society.


“I guess I couldn’t do it after all,” Tiffany mumbled to herself as she ran. “If she knew that I really wanted to kiss her, what would she do?”



 

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A few more minutes of waiting, some more sips of her almost-empty latte cup, and a few more adjustments to her final report, and still no sign of Tiffany. Taeyeon had already ordered a slice of Oreo Cheesecake for her rumbly tummy and a cup of Caramel Coffee for Tiffany, which had already turned cold. It had been thirteen minutes since she received that last call.


“That must be one heck of a traffic jam. It was so bad that it turned the entire highway into a parking lot. Yeah, I think I’ll go with that one. It’s much simpler to digest,” Taeyeon was trying to come up with reasons to justify Tiffany’s tardiness, and eventually settled on that one. It was much better than getting kidnapped by crazy fangirls or abducted by aliens who wanted to study Earth’s pop culture.


She found herself thinking back on the days when she was known far and wide as the solo artist who brought Hallyu to the far reaches of the globe. At that time Tiffany was still training to be the successful musical actress that she dreamed to be.


It was also during that time that she feared the most for their relationship… a majority of their most violent and usually physical fights happened during that time. So many bruises were given, so many tears shed. And it was all a result of over-blown misunderstandings stemming from misinterpreted feelings and mismatched intentions.


Not to mention the past rumors of their taboo relationship that used to dominate headlines and forum topics. The viral spread of delusional words twisted with irrational hatred from an unappreciative person threatened to ruin both of their careers, and their lives. Those six months of waiting for those venomous claims to die down were the longest, unforgiving six months they ever had. Imagine waking up to hate mail both digital and snail, needing two bulky bodyguards go to with you to the convenience store just so you’d be safe from thrown beer bottles and crumpled newspaper balls, and having to switch apartments routinely just to avoid attracting the attention of an angry mob or two.


Perhaps the cruellest and most painful thing that happened to Taeyeon during that time was seeing Tiffany broken like a discarded mannequin. During those six months she was still a trainee with only a few weeks left of rehearsals before her debut stage. Then the rumors began spreading their poison. Without even knowing why, she was kicked out of her agency like a wet puppy. She hadn’t even begun to wonder why that happened when she went home that day and found her apartment in ruins. The walls were covered with insulting vandalism written in red spray paint, all her curtains, her bedsheets, and most of her clothes lay on the floor, viciously ripped apart by a knife or any other blade, and most, if not all of her appliances were reduced to pieces of junk.


Tiffany came by to Taeyeon’s apartment at night since she couldn’t possibly sleep in what used to be her unit. When the little girl heard Tiffany’s secret door bell code, she immediately rushed towards the door in order to greet her precious one with a wide smile and a suffocating hug. Then she saw the dead, blank eyes and the expressionless face that had all life away from it.


The moment she saw her Taeyeon, something inside her finally snapped. Her face quickly contorted into a l