Although I had my fair share of Friday nights at bars with groups of college friends (of whom were mostly acquainted solely with Jessica), I probably spent more time in this summer alone at a bar than in my entire life. That was a peculiar thought, wasn’t it? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

              “Did you find the meaning of life yet?”

              I was in the middle of trying to determine the answer to that specific train of thought when Tiffany’s sudden query caught me by surprise.

              “Oh, uh,” I said, recuperating myself, “Almost, I think.”

              Tiffany smiled. “Oh yeah? What is it?”

              I entertained a mysterious smile at her. “What about you? What do you think?”

              I knew what she was going to say. Not word-for-word, but it came to no surprise for me when she replied with, “For me? That’s you.”

              I couldn’t help laughing. What a strange scenario this was; if this was an isolated scene in a movie, I would not blame the audience for mistaking us a couple. Me expecting her to say something that cheesy, her actually saying it, and me laughing in response? Yeah, definitely something straight out of a cheesy romance movie.

              “That doesn’t even make sense,” I told her, “I mean unless you’re talking about yourself specifically or something. But even so, that doesn’t really make sense … I mean, how can I be that?”

              Tiffany responded simply by looking at me, smiling. Feeling pressured to meet her gaze, I stared back at her until a man’s voice called for her.

              “You can Taeyeon, trust me,” she said, twirling around and gracefully gliding to the eager customer.

              I played with my glass, absent-mindedly watching her interact with him. Tiffany was being serious that time? But usually, she teases me about this kind of thing, right? So if she was actually serious, then does that mean she was serious other times as well? Or, wait … what were the implications of her being serious all those other times? Were there any?

              “Agh,” I groaned, placing my hands back down on the bar’s counter in frustration. Women are hard to understand.

              Wait. I’m a woman.

              “Yes, you are.”

              Tiffany’s giggling voice interrupted my thoughts. Oh my god, why did I have to say that out loud? I buried my face in my hands. “You didn’t hear that, did you?” I fearfully asked, voice muffled by my hands.

              “You’re so cute Taeyeon,” Tiffany replied, patting my lowered head.

              “I want to just disappear right now,” I groaned, nevertheless enjoying her warm hand my hair.

              The door’s jingle signified the opening of the door, but I thought it insignificant until I realized that Tiffany cut her response short.

              I lifted my head and turned around while Tiffany made her greeting. “Jessi! You’re here!”

              I found myself grinning dumbly. It was four days ago that Jessica told me to give her some time to think, so the level of excitement I experienced seeing her willingly confront Tiffany was through the roof. No one liked to see her two best friends on rough terms, after all—although it seemed like Tiffany still held no grudge towards the other Korean-American.

              “Sica! Come here!” I greeted her excitedly, patting the empty stool next to me. She gave me a shy grin, meandering over. I wasn’t used to this; I admired Jessica for her confidence, but seeing her this apprehensive was off-putting. Tiffany openly displayed her excitement at Jessica’s appearance, right? That meant that she didn’t hold any disdain or the like towards her; why was she being this cautious, then?

              “Hi Taeyeon,” she said, promptly turning towards Tiffany. In the split second between my greeting and her’s, I could sense the slight pause that signified a fear of speaking. I knew that sensation all too well; I would go to career fairs and plan out a whole speech only to freeze up in front of the recruiter. It was that sort of irrational fear of ‘what if I mess up and embarrass myself’? “Hi Tiffany,” Jessica settled with.

              “What’s with that? What, are we strangers?” Tiffany playfully said, reaching over the bar’s counter and grabbing her hands. Jessica flinched briefly, her shoulder muscles tensing up for the briefest of seconds, but not quickly enough to go by unnoticed by Tiffany. “I don’t bite, I promise,” Tiffany laughed, rubbing the back of her hand.

              “Sorry, I know that. I’m just … I’m going crazy right now, I guess,” she admitted.

              I, who was just watching them, now sat in this silence, started to feel pressure to continue the conversation. “So, what do you want to drink, Sica? Don’t worry, this time, after you get drunk, I’ll record you so that you can remember everything.”

              Jessica turned to face me, immediately placing her hands around my throat. “Don’t you dare,” she said, shaking me.

              I grinned, sticking my tongue out at her. “You can’t stop me~” I said in a sing-song, Tiffany laughing on the side.

              “Ooh I wanna see that. I promise not to spike your drink, but what do you want Jessi?”

              Feeling much more comfortable now, Jessica eyed Tiffany suspiciously. “Well now I trust you a lot,” she commented, “But I’ll just have a water.”

              “We don’t have that. How about—”

              “How do you not have water?” Jessica said, leaning over the counter and scanning the utilities present, “There’s a sink right there!”

              “Oh, that water isn’t meant to be drinkable,” she said dismissively.

              “You’re just making up excuses,” Jessica replied accusingly.

              “That’s what my manager told me, so I have to obey her,” Tiffany said innocently, “May I recommend our special for Friday nights, the—”

              “You’re not getting me drunk, Tiff,” Jessica said. Although she interrupted Tiffany again, this time, the atmosphere was much more light-hearted, “I’ll just have a Sprite.”

              “You’re no fun,” she said as someone else called for her, “I’ll have your Sprite shortly; don’t flirt with Jessica too much, TaeTae,” she said, winking at me before waltzing off.

              I laughed uneasily, trying not to think too much about the wink that almost caused my heart to skip a beat. That was a ridiculous notion: why would Jessica flirt with me? Although I guess I prefer Jessica doing it than a man I’ve never met before; at least, I won’t feel like I’m ruining that person’s day by being socially inept.

              “Oh, what’s this?” Jessica said, using English for some reason. I squirmed in discomfort, feeling Jessica’s gaze on me, “Is Tiffany being defensive of you? Why’s that?” I wanted to reply, but Jessica gave me no chance to do so. “Is there something going on between you two? Are you two secretly dating or something?”

              Tiffany? My girlfriend? As in, like, going on dates with each other? Maybe even doing stuff like moving in together and … oh gosh, was my face turning red? It really didn’t seem bad at all but thinking about such things surely wasn’t good for my health—mental and emotional.

              “Wh-What?” I replied, cursing myself for stuttering, “What does that mean? We’re not—no, we’re not anything,” I hastily replied in English, my Korean accent more prominent than usual.

              “Are you sure? That was a really suspicious response,” Jessica said, switching back to Korean.

              Tiffany saved me before I had the chance to respond. “I thought I told you to not flirt,” Tiffany said, directing anger towards me. Ok, maybe ‘saved’ wasn’t the correct word.

              “I wasn’t doing anything” I protested, “We weren’t talking about anything.”

              “Hmph, that’s something a cheater would say,” Tiffany said, sliding a glass full of Sprite to Jessica.

              “You’re probably not going to admit it, but I’m going to ask anyway: this isn’t spiked with alcohol or anything, right?”

              Tiffany diverted her attention to Jessica, instantly transforming her facial expression from angry to innocent. “No, why would you say that?”

              Jessica, unconvinced, cautiously sipped her drink while keeping her eye on the bartender. Tiffany just continued to smile politely at her, as if expecting something.

              “Well, I don’t taste anything strange yet, so you don’t seem to be lying,” she said, retaining her cautiousness regardless.

              “Why would I lie?”

              It was when Tiffany said those words that Jessica attitude changed. “Tiffany, I’m sorry for calling you a liar the other day. You may have been right, I wasn’t thinking properly at the time and just made a rash decision. I know how much you hate liars, and to call you one knowing that was a bit—was really mean of me.”

              “It’s ok Jessi,” Tiffany easily shrugged it off, “It’s not your fault; you wouldn’t know, but this is just how businessmen work,” she told her, turning around to clean the cocktail shaker she just used. Because of this, Tiffany couldn’t see the worried expression that lingered on Jessica’s face. What was that about, I wonder. “They get corrupted by their own wealth and power and act purely in their own self-interest, especially if they have nothing or no one else to remind them of their humanity. They manipulate people and the public in general like it’s nothing if it can mean just one dollar more revenue.”

              Tiffany’s voice, before which was light, cheerful, and fluffy, suddenly took a dark turn, changing to a more serious, disdainful, rougher tone. I looked over at Jessica once again to gauge her reaction: she looked grim and contemplative, like she was being scolded for wrongdoing.

              I felt like I should say something. However, everything I came up with seemed to be either feel wrong or inappropriate. I’ve seen my fair share of TV shows, mostly because Jessica forced me to sit with her through Netflix marathons, where businesspeople were displayed negatively; however, I always assumed that it was an overdramatization of reality. Maybe those characters were closer to reality than I thought? I wanted to ask, but it felt like that topic definitely fell into the category of “inappropriate things to ask” at the moment.

              “Sorry, I didn’t mean to kill the atmosphere like that,” Tiffany said, setting down the shaker and the wash cloth.

              “You know, speaking of liars, Taeyeon lied to me once,” Jessica said. When Tiffany turned around, Jessica’s facial expression returned to normal. “I like going to karaoke, so when I became friends with her, I asked her to come with me,” she started. I knew where this was going, but for some reason, I just let her continue her story uninterrupted, “She would always say ‘no’, though. Her excuse was that she wasn’t confident in her singing and that it wasn’t that good, but I caught her singing by herself in her room once and I got really disappointed. You’ve heard it before, right? Taeyeon’s voice is angelic.”

              I scoffed at that. “It’s not angelic,” I retorted. Tiffany, however, was eager to agree.

              “Yeah, it’s so good! I mean, I’m pretty sure you could make people fall in love with you just by serenading them,” Tiffany said. I felt powerless in the face of Tiffany adding fuel to the fire; it was a bit embarrassing to be complimented like this, especially in the way Tiffany chose to compliment me. However, I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel nice.

              “You know, when I first heard that—Taeyeon singing alone in her room—I thought it was a recording she was playing out loud or something. Taeyeon always uses earphones though, so I found that weird, but when she just suddenly stopped and corrected herself, I knew that it was her,” Jessica explained, “When I barged into the room and accused her of lying, she tried to deny that it was her that was singing, but eventually admitted it.”

              Tiffany looked at me as if I committed a major crime. “Taeyeon, how still lied after being exposed? How could you?” she said, gasping overdramatically, “You can’t just lie like that, Taeyeon.”

              “What?” I protested, “I mean, at that time, I’ve never really sung in front of other people, and I was nervous about doing that,” I said, defending myself.

              “You should have said that then,” she said, turning around in a playful bout of rage. “I’m mad at you Taeyeon, I’m not talking to you anymore.”

              “Faannyy~” I whined, reaching over the counter to attempt to grab her hand, only for her to step away. I ended up collapsing onto the shiny, marble counter surface. “Don’t be mad at mee~”

              “Your aegyo won’t work on me this time,” she said, “As long as I’m not looking at you, you can’t affect me.”

              I frowned, looking desperately to Jessica. She shrugged and gave me an empathetic smile. “Sicaa, I helped you didn’t I? You should help me this time,” I told her, grabbing her arm.

              “But you know, you’ve never actually gone to karaoke with me. If you also go to karaoke with me, then I’ll help you.”

              “Ok fine,” I admitted defeat.

              “Good luck,” Tiffany said stubbornly.

              “Taeyeon’s lie wasn’t that big right? And at least she admitted to it really quickly,” Jessica said in my defense. And although this was all fun and games, something Jessica said caught my attention.

              Was my memory that bad, or did Tiffany mention the fact that we went to karaoke? At the very least, Tiffany admitted to having listened to me sing, so maybe Jessica just assumed that when she said ‘also go to karaoke’ with her.

              It was when I saw the ex-couple collectively freeze that I was forcibly extracted from my thoughts. Anxiety filled my head like an angry swarm of wasps, panic quickly overtaking my body: what did I do? Did I speak my thoughts out loud again?

              “Jessi, why did you say that?”

              So that verified one thing. Still, even if they heard me say that, why would it matter?

              Seeing Jessica’s petrified state shot an immense feeling of guilt into my system, despite not even understanding the exact implications of what I had just done. I desperately racked my brain, trying to understand the scenario that was unfolding before me.

              “I mean, it was what she said, right?” Jessica said, but even I could tell the edge of nervousness in her voice, “I just assumed that you listened to Taeyeon’s singing from karaoke.”

              “Jessi, you know how I feel about liars,” she said sternly. “You said it yourself.”

              She sat in the stool next to me, trying to recollect herself. At this point, the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I was just dropped from a 10-story building. I recognized that this was a problem of mine, but it was incredibly hard to justify this not being my fault. Just as they were making up too … I mean, there were secrets everyone wanted to keep, right?

              I felt terrible. I just wanted to punch myself for opening my stupid mouth. Stupid, stupid, stupid Taeyeon. What have I done?

              “Tiffany, I—” she started, looking up to meet her gaze. She paused briefly, feeling the full effect of her fierce look. I felt the effect of her look, and she wasn’t even looking at me. “—I have a reason, but…” she trailed off, choosing her words carefully, “but I know you don’t accept excuses. I’m really sorry, Tiff; I knew that you went to karaoke with Taeyeon.”

              “How?”

              Tiffany’s inquiry was straightforward and to the point. A gnawing sense of worry started building up inside me: could I fix this somehow?

              “Tiffany, you have to understand first that a lot of time has passed between when … well, that time and now. In middle school and high school, I did love you, but after all this time—”

              “Jessi, are you making an excuse?”

              Jessica sighed. Before Jessica opened to reply, I interrupted. “Tiffany, although I might not have known Jessica for as long as you have, from what I’ve seen, she always has a reason for something. You should try to understand her situation,” I begged her.

              “TaeTae, I appreciate your efforts to fix our relationship and I love you for that, but this is between us,” she said, softly smiling at me, very much like a mother forgiving her child for knocking over an expensive vase. “Jessi, let me just explain this to you. Trust is like fine china: once you break it, you can never fix it again. You can glue the pieces together and try to weld them together, but in the end, it’ll never be the same. Do you understand this? I learned this from the very man you’re working for, so you should take care to heed my words well.”

              Jessi quietly hung her head in shame. I didn’t know what to think, honestly: did I betray Jessica? But on the other hand, was Tiffany correct? If we had drawn this out, would it have been worse if Tiffany found out a month from now as opposed to just now? I’ve known Jessica longer than I’ve known Tiffany, but it just felt wrong to side with the person I’ve been friends with longer simply because of that. In addition, as twisted as it was, I was curious myself as to her answer to Tiffany’s interrogation.

              “There’s no avoiding it now, I guess,” she said, almost too quietly to be heard. Perhaps noticing this, she raised her voice to a clearly audible level, “It’s as you suspect. I’m working as a spy for your fa—for that man.”

              “You—Jessica Jung, is that what you’ve been doing? How can you do this in good conscience? Do you feel no guilt? Lying by omission is just as bad as straight up lying, if not worse. If you told me from the beginning, I wouldn’t even be mad at you—you know me. So why would you do that?”

              Jessica quietly stood up, pulling out a few bills from her wallet and setting it on the counter.

              “Sica, wait—”

              My attempt to stop her failed, Jessica turning tail, muttering a quiet ‘sorry’ before exiting the bar.

              Tiffany, on the other hand, closed her eyes and took a few breaths. She just stood there, routinely taking deep breaths before exhaling slowly. Once again, for some reason, I chose to remain with Tiffany, watching her from my seat from the other side of the counter with a twisted knot in my chest.

              “Fany, I’m sorry,” I said quietly, playing with the base of the glass Jessica left behind.

              She smiled softly again, which made me feel a little better. “Are you blaming yourself again?” she said, “Don’t do that. It’s simple, really. That man employed Jessica and corrupted her in the process. I don’t know how justified my anger towards Jessica is, but at least we know the truth now. I guess all we have to understand is this: why is she spying on me?”

              While thinking, I made sure not to speak my mind, taking another sip of my drink as I contemplated this: Jessica never specified who she was spying on, did she?

So … we have to talk.

School resuming is taking more of a toll on my writing time than I thought. I’ll probably have to stick with a biweekly update schedule, with updates coming out on Sunday nights/Monday mornings (possibly). I know there are some people who look forward to each and every update, and I really feel guilty and feel like I’ve failed to meet your expectations of me. I’m sorry :c

As to the story, what about that, huh? What do you think about Taeyeon’s final thought? Do you think it has merit, that Jessica could be spying on someone else that’s not Tiffany?

Hope you enjoyed, and as always, thanks for reading! :D