I could feel nothing else. My auditory, aromatic—all my senses were whisked away. All I could feel was her lips, her soft, warm, plump lips, pressed firmly against my lips, smothering them. I could taste the lipstick she had asked me to put on earlier.

              My whole body was coursing with jolts of lightning: my chest, my arms, every part of my body was tingling. An immense feeling of something—a mixture of shock, elation, something else—swelled in my chest. I didn’t know if my tiny body could handle it; it felt like I would just explode at any moment. My usually active mind had completely shut down, my consciousness growing hazy.

              Tiffany’s hand, which apparently were on my cheeks, slid down to my neck, her other still supporting my head and pressed her lips further against my lips. I sharply inhaled through my nose, ignoring my screaming lungs, begging for fresh oxygen. I could only sit there, arms limply hanging at my sides, completely and utterly paralyzed.

              Even when she released me, I couldn’t move. However, after a quick breath of air, Tiffany connected our lips again, and my heart did three more flips inside my chest.

              The way her velvety lips were moving, massaging mine; the way her hands were firmly grasping my head and neck, but not too hard as to be painful; her tongue, which occasionally graced my lips, giving me a shock every time it did so; it was a complete sensory overload. I slowly relearned how to use my body, my arms planted on Tiffany’s legs before moving to around her back, my lips trying to follow her movements but desperately failing. I, somehow, could feel her smile against the kiss.

              Some time later, she broke the kiss once again, and as she did so, fresh air surged into my body, returning power to my limbs and feeling to my senses once again. My eyes slowly opened to reveal Tiffany sitting on my side, smiling ear to ear. My heart did another jump; if this happened every time Tiffany did something, would I be dead before long?

              “I think I could kiss you all day, but then I wouldn’t get to look at your adorable face.”

              My face erupted in heat. I looked away, my heart still racing a million miles a minute, the feeling of her lips lingering on mine. It would be a lie to say that I didn’t think about her lips when I was applying her lipstick, but to actually feel them on my own lips … was an entirely separate thing. I was convinced that I could be a semi-competitive runner if I could willingly put my body in that state, which was really something from someone who generally avoided cardiovascular-strenuous activities.

              “Um, you should finish your lunch,” I stammered, staring intently at my lap, knowing my face would erupt in a hot geyser of steam if my gaze landed on her lips again.

              “Are you sure you don’t want some? Should I feed you?”

              I shook my head violently. “No, I don’t—” here I was again, backing away. I mean, it’s not like I still needed to ‘pursue’ Tiffany or anything, but—no, wait… “Wait,” I said upon the realization, lifting my head to look at Tiffany, if for no reason than because it would otherwise feel improper, “I never heard—I mean, you never answered my confession.”

              Tiffany’s chuckle reverberated about the residence, its tone carrying a magical echo to it. “I’m sorry; would you do me the pleasure of being my girlfriend?”

              Hearing the words in my head and hearing the words with my actual ears were two completely different things. For example, in my head, my face didn’t burn up as much as it did when I heard her say it. I nodded shyly, once again cursing my passivity.

              “I-It’s not your pleasure, it’s mine,” I retorted, immediately facepalming afterwards. That was another one of my prepared lines in the case that things actually turned out well, but of course, I ended up botching it; it was supposed to be ‘the pleasure is all mine’ or something that relayed the fact that the relationship benefitted me more than her. Instead, it came off as challenging and argumentative and sounding like I was refuting her words.

              Fortunately, whether it was that she decided to look past it or simply didn’t notice, Tiffany didn’t comment on this, choosing to simply smile as her response, shortly thereafter resuming her meal.

              Not wanting to disturb her meal time, I sat in silence and watched her finish eating. Her eyes would, for the most part, be trained on me, and I took this opportunity to force myself to maintain eye contact. I wondered why I suddenly found such difficulty in such simple tasks with her; was the realization of my crush on Tiffany that impactful? Wait, if she’s my girlfriend now—

              . Wait. Tiffany—Tiffany—is my girlfriend … she’s my girlfriend, right now? Meaning, we’re in a relationship…? Well yeah, of course Taeyeon, that’s what her question was and what I nodded my head to.

              For the nth time in those few hours, my heartbeat explosively increased. Oh my god, Tiffany’s actually my … what do couples do? My face grew exponentially warmer as my mind trailed off.

              They send ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ texts to each other … they go on dates and hold hands in public … they kiss each other … they send each other pictures—pictures … they share their first experience—

              I shook my head vigorously again, only then realizing my hand wasn’t covering my mouth. I looked in horror to Tiffany, reaffirming that my mouth was closed; Tiffany wore an amused smile, her gaze still locked onto me.

              “What are you thinking about?” she mused, setting her chopsticks down, indicating that she was done eating.

              I shook my head again. “I-It’s nothing important,” I told her, reaching for her bowl. She quickly grabbed it and extended her arm out of my reach. I frowned, reaching for it again, only for Tiffany to extend her arm even more. “Stop teasing me,” I whined, leaning towards her a little more, but to no avail.

              “Ah, your pouting is just about the cutest thing in the world,” Tiffany squealed, wrapping her other arm around my neck. “You want to do the dishes, right? I’ll let you do it, but you have to do one of two things: tell me what you were thinking, or you have to give me a kiss.”

              My lungs squeezed together, my eyes widening. I retreated, my mouth open but nothing coming out. I quickly diverted my gaze to the table. Don’t look at her lips again Taeyeon, don’t do it.

              “Wha—kiss—I can’t—” I helplessly stammered, my heart picking up the pace again. Maybe agreeing to being Tiffany’s girlfriend wasn’t the best idea after all; I might die of a heart attack by the end of the week. Which, considering there were only two more days in this week, was a serious problem.

              “Well?”

              “I-I was thinking about…” I trailed off, wondering if I was actually going down this route. It’s not that the kiss wasn’t the most exhilarating thing in my life, but initiating the kiss just seemed utterly impossible. My heart would probably literally explode before I could do it. Just the act of thinking about it caused a sudden, significant decrease in my ability to enunciate words. “Um, i-it was aba—about, um…” was I really going to tell her that I was thinking about … well, doing that?

              “It’s ok if you don’t want to tell me.”

              Relief washed over me like a tsunami, but only for a moment.

              “You can just kiss me instead.”

              I couldn’t stop myself. My head automatically swiveled to her lips, and when my eyes locked onto the plump, pink tissue, the memory of our kiss not too long ago resurfaced, and I felt my poor heart work itself even more.

              Tiffany’s lips curled up into a sly smile, puckering her lips for me teasingly. An overwhelming dominant amount of my mindspace was overrun with the amazingly soft sensation of her lips on mine, a thought of responding to her dilemma lingering in the depths.

              After an unclear amount of time later, I finally was able to regain control of my body, looking away from her and shaking my head. “I—I don’t know,” I said dumbly.

              “How about this third option?”

              I readily shook my head, not even considering that this was Tiffany—Tiffany—I was dealing with.

              “I’ll kiss you, but in any way I like.”

              I felt an involuntary gasp escape my lips, standing up while I still had control of my body. Taeyeon, get your mind out of the gutter RIGHT NOW. Please, just don’t think about that—don’t think about Tiffany French kissing you, or feeling you up as she—

              “I-I’ll just tell you,” I announced, interrupting my own thoughts by forcing words out of my mouth. The effect of this was that my tone was exceptionally shaky, like I was about to cry. I didn’t mind though—anything, anything, was better than letting my mind wander even more. “I-I was thinking about … um, realizing that we were actually, you know, actually a c-couple and trying to think of what couples do and—well, yeah.”

              I stopped myself before I could stammer my way through accidentally revealing everything I was thinking of.

              Tiffany sat in her chair for a few seconds, smiling brightly. “You’re so cute, Taeyeon, I’m glad I can call you mine.”

              I turned away, which in hindsight, was pretty ridiculous. I mean, I was already blushing the whole time, what use was there in trying to hide it? I seriously needed to learn to control myself if I was going to be around Tiffany, especially as her girlfriend.

              The other reason my turning away was ridiculous was because I needed to collect the dishes from the table. I shyly turned back and received the bowl from Tiffany, who afterwards helped me clear the rest of the empty dishes from the table.

              “Let me help~”

              “Fany, it’s ok, I’ll do this. Think of it as an apology.”

              She made a confused noise. “Hm? For what?”

              “For not meeting you for the last few days.”

              This time, she giggled. “Ah, right. It’s ok, what’s important now is that you’re here.”

              “Let me do the dishes, Fany-ah. I’m going to get mad,” I threatened.

              “Really? What would you do if I didn’t listen?” she continued, placing the dishes on the counter to the side of the sink, her left hand gently caressing my waist. She walked up uncomfortably close behind me, such that I could feel her s against my back, placing her lips just centimeters away from my ear. “Would you punish me for being a naughty girl?”

              My whole body shivered uncontrollably, my lungs tied in knots; I tried to distance myself from her, but considering I was already standing in front of the sink, I didn’t have much space to work with. “Um, I don’t—I’m not—um, please?” I stammered feebly.

              “Hmm,” she hummed, wrapping her other arm around my waist, pulling me into a back-hug, pressing her—her chest against my back even more. Just when I thought my face had a chance to recover, it flared up in force again. “I’ll let you do that, but let me stay like this,” she said, resting her chin on my right shoulder. “I promise to not interfere.”

              My breath hitched, her soft cheek pressed firmly against the right side of my jawline. “I-I think it’ll be hard to do the dishes if you’re like this,” I told her.

              “Good luck,” she replied simply.

              I sighed, steeled my nerves, and reached for the dishes, making sure to soak them all before applying soap to the sponge.

              Surely and steadily, I finished cleaning the dishes, Tiffany keeping her promise and just watching. I was a little surprised that she didn’t try anything, but then again, given how much she valued trust, I suppose her keeping a promise wasn’t that surprising.

              When I finished, Tiffany released me. “What do you want to do?”

              Tiffany led me to the living room, sitting me down on the couch. “Eventually, I want to tell my friends and we can go to them for suggestions. For now, let’s just spend some time together until I have to go to work.”

              “I want to introduce you to my parents too,” I told her, eyeing her open hand and deciding to take the initiative, grabbing it. She squeezed my hand, looking at me with what looked like surprise in her eyes, surmising it was a response to my words and not to grabbing her hand. “Yesterday, I told them that there was a woman that I might like and they told me to bring her home,” I explained. Maybe it was just me, but the surprise vanished from her face as I said that. Was it surprise? Maybe it was fear? Of what?

              “Are you sure?”

              I was more certain this time: her voice was steady, her facial expression was confident, but the hand that was holding mine twitched, squeezing my hand just enough that I could feel it. However, could I really be sure of it? Maybe it was just a random muscle spasm: it happened to everyone, surely Tiffany was the occasional victim to such an occurrence as well.

              “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll love you,” I told her reassuringly, turning her hand around and patting the backside of it with my free hand.

              “It’s no—How can you sure?”

              Was Tiffany about to say ‘it’s not that’? Well, it didn’t necessarily have to be those words, it could have been something else. Not wanting to jump to conclusions, I ignored it and replied.

              “Yeah! My dad even made a joke about—” I cut myself off right there. Best not to say that, especially to Tiffany. “—he and my mom are really caring, and we spent a lot of time yesterday talking about you. I even told them your name, but I don’t think they expected us to be, um, together already,” I continued, still finding myself shying away from the word. Get a grip, Taeyeon. Tiffany is your girlfriend, accept that already. “When do you want to do that, though?”

              I didn’t even realize how excited I sounded until Tiffany looked at me, a smile growing on her face as she did so. “Gosh Taeyeon, why is your smile so infectious?” she scolded me playfully, “I get it, we can go whenever you want.”

              “Ah, thank you!” I exclaimed giddily, clasping her hands in my own, “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

              “How about today, then? Do you just want to watch a movie before I go to work?” I nodded, prompting her to grab the remote. “What type of movie do you like watching?”

              “Do you have enough time?” I inquired, glancing at the Hello Kitty clock we picked out.

              “We can watch a short movie,” she replied, “like an older one or something. Do you know any good old, American movies?”

              “Oh! How about American Psycho?”

              Tiffany hit my arm. “Yah, isn’t that a scary movie?”

              “It’s not that scary,” I laughed, “you know the old movies, they can’t really do scary.”

              “Still…”

              Wait—Wait, was this…? Was this a situation in which I could be in control, for once? Maybe not today, but I definitely should convince her to watch scary movies with me. The thought of Tiffany clinging to me in fear was incredibly endearing to me: even the face that Tiffany was making now was cute.

              “Ok, let’s do that next time. You pick this time,” I told her, shuffling to the back of the couch.

              I let out a content sigh as Tiffany made her selection, sitting back with me, still hand-in-hand. Tiffany teasing me and giving me constant heart attacks wasn’t something I was all for, but this, I could live with.

Hey guys, shorter chapter this time around. Next few chapters will be more fluff :3

I’m going to be honest with you all though … I’m not sure how well I can do fluff. I’ve never been in a relationship before and am not really the type of person that … acts ‘fluffy’? I guess, if that’s how you’d call it? Yeah, basically, in real life, I’m like a generally calm person. So hopefully I can do well … hehe

Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!