It was a tentative Taeyeon who made her way into the bar after Sunny dropped her off. Tentative because she wasn’t sure if Tiffany had been serious about the name-calling they talked about in the morning. On one side of her mind, she held on to a strand of hope that Tiffany had been kidding. But the other side, she had to admit that Tiffany was not afraid to carry out the deal they had made.

“Hey,” she said to Hyo and Seo who were already in the booth when she arrived.

They greeted her back and fell into ordinary chatter as they prepared for their first set of the night. Sooyoung arrived shortly after and they had the same round of greetings and subsequent conversation.

At this point, Taeyeon was feeling hopeful. She had a chance to make it up on stage before Tiffany came by. Maybe the mana was busy being a mana. Maybe she had forgotten about it. Maybe . . .

“Hi, how are y’all feeling tonight?”

Taeyeon’s hopes were dashed as Tiffany’s smiling face popped into their booth. Her band members gave Tiffany wide smiles and positive replies while she kept very quiet in her corner, pretending to be invisible. Maybe, just maybe, Tiffany wouldn’t see her and go away without embarrassing her.

Unfortunately for her, it was not to be.

“Break a leg, idiotae!” said Tiffany, perfectly audibly, just before leaving the booth.

All eyes fell on Taeyeon and she almost groaned out loud. “What are y’all looking at?”

“Looking at you, idiotae,” said Hyo, looking as though she were on the verge of collapsing into crippling laughter.

“She can call me whatever she wants but not you.”

“Whatever you say, idiotae.”

Sooyoung fell onto the seat laughing and Seo was dying of laughter so severe that none of it could be heard. Taeyeon threw the nearest coils of cables at them and got out of the booth to get away from her incorrigible bandmates. Damn it.

o|v

All through the night, Tiffany held back from irritating Taeyeon after the initial greeting. But the moment the band was done with their final set, she popped by the stage and flashed her brightest smile.

“Great job tonight, girls,” she said to them as they packed their equipment. All the band members gave her the thumbs up but one. That one band member was trying to sneak off the stage by herself but Tiffany grabbed her arm and helped her down the steps. “Don’t be an idiot, Tae,” she chided the singer. “Let me help you.”

“Yeah, idiotae, let our wonderful manager help you off the stage,” Sooyoung teased.

Taeyeon turned around. “I said, y’all don’t get to call me that.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Cos you’re not my mana.”

Heat rose to Tiffany’s cheeks and she smacked Taeyeon’s arm. “I’m not your mana. I’m your manager and you should be smart enough to know what that means.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I have the power to dock your pay.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Try me.”

Taeyeon was quiet after that.

“Do you want some water?” she asked the singer after depositing her on the seat.

Taeyeon pouted and shook her head.

“Why are you sulking?” When Taeyeon didn’t reply, she jabbed the singer with her elbow. “Regretting it already?”

“I have no regrets.”

Tiffany grinned. “Great. I’m having fun calling you idiotae and I only just got started. It’d be a waste if this game were to end so soon.”

“This is not a game.”

“It is to me.”

Taeyeon opened to retort but her band members returned just then.

“Are you sending our useless rocker home again?” asked Hyo.

Tiffany nodded.

“You’re too nice to her. Don’t spoil her or you’ll suffer the consequences.”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be on my side,” Taeyeon protested.

“We’re all on our manager’s side, you idiotae,” Sooyoung chirped. “Haven’t you figured it out by now?”

“You’re all ing traitors.”

Seo touched Taeyeon’s arm and said earnestly, “You shouldn’t behave like this. Tiffany is our manager. If you make her angry, she’ll dock your pay.”

Tiffany couldn’t help giggling as Taeyeon stared at Seo, the clockwork cranking to life visibly in her eyes.

“Did you gang up with them behind my back?” Taeyeon asked her.

“What do you think?” Tiffany said with a laugh.

“Don’t you think that’s too much?”

Tiffany detected rising anger in Taeyeon’s tone but she wasn’t about to back down. “I think calling me ‘mana’ is too much too, but you refused to listen.”

“You’ve gone too ing far this time.”

Tiffany blinked, taken aback by the blazing anger in Taeyeon’s eyes and stilled as Taeyeon turned to her bandmates.

“You ing know why I’m angry this time,” the singer growled in a tone that meant business and everyone in the booth fell silent. Then those angry eyes were back on Tiffany. “I’ll go home on my own.”

“Taeyeon,” Tiffany began to say but Taeyeon was already hobbling out of the booth with her backpack on one shoulder. “Taeyeon,” she called again, putting one hand on the singer’s free shoulder.

The singer shrugged her hand off. “I don’t feel like talking to any of you right now. Leave me the alone.”

Tiffany looked back at the other band members for some answer as Taeyeon hobbled out of the booth. “Why is she so angry?” she asked them. Their guilty faces made her more confused. “What’s going on?”

“It’s our fault,” Hyo began saying.

o|v

Tiffany dashed out of the bar with blood roaring in her ears. Hyo’s confession had been unexpected, to say the least. And she wished the band members had told her about it when they suggested it. But the joke had gone wrong and she could only hope it wasn’t too late to make things right again.

“Taeyeon,” she called when she spotted the hobbling singer along the walkway, about to enter a taxi. “Taeyeon, don’t go.”

The singer stood quite still, watching her as she ran. “I told you to leave me alone,” she said when Tiffany got to her.

“I swear, I didn’t know. I really didn’t know. I wouldn’t have played along if I had known.”

“I figured you didn’t know. But I’m still pissed.”

Tiffany grabbed Taeyeon’s arm and closed the door on the taxi. “Let me drive you home, please?” When the singer didn’t reply, she leaned in and kissed her. “Please.”

Taeyeon’s head moved just slightly but it was all Tiffany needed to see. She turned to the taxi driver and gestured her apology immediately, then pulled Taeyeon in the direction of her car.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Taeyeon, once they were seated in the comfort of her car.

“This was supposed to be between us. Just the two of us.”

“But I really didn’t know about your sister and the house.”

“I mean the ‘idiotae’ thing.”

“Oh.” Tiffany twisted her hands around the steering wheel. “I thought I could get the upper hand if I roped them in.”

“Do you really hate being called ‘mana’ that much?”

Tiffany met Taeyeon’s eyes and weighed her feelings. “I don’t like it when you call me that in front of other people. But I might not mind it as much when it’s just us. Like now.”

“So I can call you mana now?”

“Why do you like calling me mana so much?”

“Because that’s how we started.”

“I don’t get how it’s relevant.”

“I called you mana ‘cos when we first met I thought you were looking at my sketchbook. I got angry then things got worse ‘cos I hate managers in general and you seemed to be one of the worst.”

“And?”

“And it turns out, you’re the mana who didn’t give up. You kept running after me.” Taeyeon pointed at her bandaged foot. “This isn’t the first injury I got because of you, remember?”

Tiffany remembered.

“If you hadn’t run after me, you’d never have known I was sketching you and we’d never have gotten over the spat.”

“That’s why you like calling me mana?” Tiffany found it hard to understand Taeyeon’s weird logic.

“It’s like fate. You’re the only manager who isn’t actually a .”

“You say it like your past managers were terrible.”

“Oh, trust me. They were.”

Tiffany quirked a brow. “Just how bad were they?”

“It’s a very long story.”

“Promise you’ll tell me the story. I want to know.”

Taeyeon stared straight at her. “Okay, I promise.”

“Okay. And I sincerely apologize. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know money was such a sensitive issue to you.”

The rock singer bit her lip. “Forget it. I just wanna go home now. I’m ing tired.”

Tiffany couldn’t resist kissing the lip Taeyeon had just bitten. “Alright,” she said with a smile and pulled out of the parking lot.

o|v