I went to Sun&Moon Bar as per usual Friday afternoon, hoping to discuss with Tiffany what Jessica told me yesterday regarding meeting up with him again—Jessica being our only method of direct communication with him, as we discovered on Tuesday—but instead found Tiffany’s manager behind the counter.

              She waved as soon as she saw me. “Hey, you’re Tiffany’s girlfriend right? Were you looking for her?”

              I nodded, my shyness seizing me, clamping my mouth shut. It was such a simple thing to just say ‘Yes’, but somehow, I couldn’t say it. It was ridiculous because it’s not like she was a total stranger either, although, admittedly, the only times I’ve talked to her was when Tiffany was around. In fact, this was the first time I was inside this bar without Tiffany, and now that was the case, I felt noticeably more reserved and anxious.

              “She called in earlier and requested her shift to be moved to a later time, but I told her she could just take the day off since the girl works so hard,” she explained as I took a seat at the counter out of politeness, “Honestly, normally, I wouldn’t let any of my employees call me the day of and request a shift change two times in one week,” I instantly recognized the other time being earlier that week when we had the picnic; and I was wondering why Tiffany was spending the Tuesday afternoon outside of work, “but bless Tiffany’s soul, she deserves it.”

              The way Tiffany’s manager spoke of Tiffany was clearly indicative of how fond she was of my girlfriend. It honestly warmed my heart, but I still couldn’t help but feel a little jealous, which again was absolutely ridiculous. Was no one else allowed to treasure Tiffany? In fact, wasn’t it better, the more people that treasured her?

              “Oh ok, thank you,” I said, getting up from the seat uneasily. It felt bad to arrive and leave so quickly, but I came to the bar with the express purpose of speaking to Tiffany face to face. Now that she wasn’t here, and given how anxious and stressed I felt in this situation, it took a lot out of me to not just bolt.

              “You don’t have to feel bad Taeyeon, you can leave,” Tiffany’s manager laughed, cleaning the cup that was in her hand and placing it somewhere on the other side of the counter, “take care!”

              “Thank you,” I bowed before departing, quickly sending a text to Tiffany, asking where she was and if she was ok. She replied almost immediately.

              ‘Aww, do you miss me? 😘 I’m OK! I just have some business to attend to. I’ll repay you with dinner later today! Meet me at the mall near your house at 7 😘’

              I smiled as I digested her text. The way that Tiffany texted was so adorable and the way she used emoticons always made my heart do a couple of somersaults inside my chest, which may or may not be because I was imagining Tiffany kissing me, on the cheek or otherwise.

              Later that day, Tiffany informed me of the restaurant we would be eating at, which I arrived at about ten minutes early. Sure enough, as I scanned the restaurant from the window pane facing the rest of the mall, I found Tiffany seated at a table. This time, what stopped me wasn’t a stranger interacting with her, but rather, her facial expression.

              By now, I’ve seen her undergo many different emotions: while the one I was the most used to was her open, content, generally happy-seeming facial expression, there were also those of shock, frustration, guilt, anger, and sorrow. However, out of all the faces I’ve seen of her, the blank, empty facial expression she was wearing scared me the most.

              Even if I learned to not expect Tiffany to be perpetually happy-go-lucky as she normally was around me, I at the very least surmised that Tiffany was a very expressive person. Apart from the times where she deliberately controlled her facial expressions to tease me, I could get a general understanding of what she was feeling from studying her. However, this time, I couldn’t detect anything: she didn’t seem happy, nor worried, nor confused, nor shocked, nor tired, nor sorrowful, … nothing. Even when a waitress came up to her table to ask her something, the smile Tiffany gave her was lifeless.

              Why was she able to do that? Maybe she was just meditating in a weird way …  but out in public? That didn’t seem likely. Up until now, I have never considered Tiffany’s outward emotions to be disingenuous, so it couldn’t be that she was just always acting—either that or Tiffany was the worlds’ greatest actress.

              What scared me the most, though, were the implications of this observation: if she was normally like this when not around her friends or with me, then it felt my duty to never leave her side again. One topic we covered in one of my psychology classes was mental health disorders, and I couldn’t help but link this situation to depression. Could it be…?

              When I thought about it, it seemed possible, given all that Tiffany was put through compounded on the fact that she had no one to turn to spelled out a recipe for disaster. If that was the case, then it was also my job, as Tiffany’s girlfriend, to help her. With a newly found determination, I stepped into the restaurant.

              However, as soon as I did so, my eyes landed on the Tiffany I was used to seeing: the smiling, happy, excited, expressive Tiffany.

              “Over here, Taeyeon!” she excitedly waved at me. I giggled, noticing how she received looks from the other customers and how she just ignored them. Wait; maybe this played a part in everything?

              I shoved those thoughts aside, smiling back and making a beeline for the table she’s claimed. “You’re looking as pretty as ever! I missed you,” she said as I sat down.

              “You can’t just say that every time we’re apart for 24 hours,” I told her, masking my concern for the moment.

              “Why not?”

              “Well, what happens after I go back—” I stopped abruptly. The words came out without me thinking, which normally would be uncharacteristic of me if I didn’t discover a while ago that being around Tiffany tended coax words out of my mouth without a second thought. Honestly, this topic was something that always perturbed me for quite some time, even if I still had many weeks left in Korea, and incidentally, it was something Tiffany and I never really talked about: what would become of our relationship after I went back to America to finish my last year of college? Now that I knew a bit more of Tiffany’s history, it seemed even more unreasonable for Tiffany to join me back in America, her poor relationship with her father on top of her already established lifestyle in Korea, house and job and all.

              “Actually,” I said shortly after in an attempt to deviate away to a better conversation topic. However, my mind was drawing blanks, so the only thing I could come up with was, “I saw you from the other side of that window,” I said, pointing to the window pane facing the rest of the mall, “and you looked a little sad—well, I wouldn’t say sad, but something seemed wrong. Are you ok?” Great. Perfect. What a great topic to divert to. I’m such a genius. This is just another great example of my unparalleled proficiency in social conduct.

              “What do you mean?” Tiffany replied innocently.

              Well, if we were on this topic, I might as well try to get to the bottom of it. I just hoped that the events that transpired this week only made Tiffany more open to speak about herself and not less so. However, I could understand if she decided that she revealed enough already; if she felt at her limit, it was unfair of me to press Tiffany past the brink.

              “It’s just … something seemed wrong. Like you were thinking about something, maybe? I can’t really describe it, but it’s not how you usually look like. When the waitress came to your table, you gave her a really empty smile, too, so that worried me,” I explained, desperately hoping I wasn’t misreading or misunderstanding something.

              “Oh, so you saw, huh?” she replied, chuckling sheepishly, “Don’t worry too much about it…” she trailed off for a brief second. I could already imagine her next words: ‘I was thinking about you’. Why was I always setting myself up for these situations? “…I was just thinking about earlier today.”

              Those words caught me off guard. I was expecting Tiffany to tease me as usual so much that hearing something different come out of her lips startled me; I almost asked why she didn’t, but fortunately, caught myself in time.

              “And what was that?” I continued, hoping my hesitation with her response wasn’t obvious.

              “Hm…you’ll know soon,” Tiffany responded mysteriously.

              “What’s with that? Just tell me~”

              Tiffany broke out into another smile, reaching over to pat my hand. “Even if you use your aegyo like that, I won’t tell you~” she replied in a sing-song tone.

              I frowned. “So it had to do with me?”

              “Maybe,” she said, although I could pretty much figure out from the tone of her voice that I was on the dot. However, just knowing that whatever she was doing earlier today was about me didn’t really say much.

              “Oh! By the way, I heard from Jessica that your dad reserved another private room in some other restaurant for next week Wednesday.”

              Tiffany nodded. “Jessi told me that as well, although I haven’t ever heard of the restaurant my dad proposed. Which is weird considering how long I’ve been living here,” she mused.

              “Oh, did you get Sica’s phone number too?”

              “No, I talked with her today.”

              “Ooh, so you were meeting with her?”

              An ‘oh-’ expression appeared on Tiffany’s face. “Um … yeah, I was,” she admitted. Why did she look like that? Was she not supposed to tell me? Maybe the thing she wasn’t supposed to tell me involved Jessica, somehow? “Have you ever been here before?” Tiffany inquired, attempting to maneuver the conversation away from the topic.

              I obliged. “I’ve seen it before and heard about it, but I’ve never been inside it before,” I admitted.

              “Oh? Why not? This restaurant is really popular, I heard, especially among high schoolers. You never even came here during high school?” I shook my head, my brain specifically picking up the words ‘I heard’ and wondering if Tiffany ever came here herself, the answer of which seemed to be in those two words: no, she hasn’t. It made me both happy and sad at the same time: happy that she hasn’t been taken on a date by someone else to such a famous restaurant, but also sad that she never came to this hotspot with any friends. “What? Why not? Wouldn’t your friends or suitors take you there often?”

              “What do you mean ‘suitors’!?”

              Tiffany smiled innocently. “What? Did I say something weird?”

              “Do you really have to ask?”

              “I don’t think I said anything particularly strange,” she said in such a sincere manner that I hesitated. I could tell Tiffany wasn’t teasing me this time, as there wasn’t a single trace of her normal teasing smile or demeanor that she carried about her when she would normally do so. Maybe I was just missing something … I mean, just taking a few psychology classes doesn’t make me a master of reading facial expressions, as much as I wished that it were true.

              “Well, I mean, I only had one friend in high school, and she was a year younger than me,” I admitted, trying my best to not sound too down about it considering what Tiffany’s expectations of my high school life seemed to be. My mind briefly flashed to the whole ordeal with Leeteuk and Yeseul which I quickly shoved aside.

              “What? Really? No way … wait, really?” I affirmed her doubts with a nod. “Wow … what has the world gone to…”

              “What? What’s that even supposed to mean?” I inquired, her outrageous statement eliciting a chuckle from me.

              “I mean, I can’t believe that no one would’ve wanted to be friends with someone as pretty as you in high school.”

              “I wasn’t that pretty—I almost never talked in school and certain people disliked me, so I just kept to myself and focused on my studies,” I explained, immediately feeling the pang of guilt for being so vague about it despite Tiffany opening up so much earlier this week.

              “Well, I’ll just have to love you enough to compensate for your school days then, won’t I?”

              I found my face burning up in response to the unexpected attack. I looked down, grabbing the menu. “Um, let’s order,” I said, barely managing to not stammer.

              Tiffany giggled. “You’re cute, TaeTae.”

              The restaurant lived up to the previously built up hype surrounding it in my high school years; although the food still took some time to get to us due to how packed the place was, the side dishes were top quality—something I never imagined myself deliberating about, considering how vanilla they usually were—and the quality of the food served matched that of the restaurant Tiffany’s father and us visited.

              After Tiffany successfully wrestled the bill out of my hands and paid for the whole thing herself, we departed from the restaurant, but not before Tiffany offered to stroll around. I agreed, partially because it felt like a good idea to exercise a bit after eating that much, but mostly because I wanted to stick close to Tiffany more.

              While I definitely wasn’t as enthusiastic about shopping as Tiffany was, I was glad we decided upon this course of action when something caught the corner of my eye.

              “Oh Fany, let’s go there!”

              My girlfriend’s eyes followed my finger and discovered that I was pointing to the entrance of a dimly lit arcade, the music blaring from the speakers audible despite being a good distance away.

              “Oh, that arcade?”

              “Yeah!” I responded, bursting with excitement.

              Tiffany giggled at my excited response. “Just like a kid, so cute.”

              “Who are you calling a kid? I’m older than you, you know!”

              “Yet you look young enough to be my younger sister.”

              “No I don’t!”

              “You know, my manager asked me how I was related to you before; she, at first, thought that you were my younger cousin or something.”

              I couldn’t come up with a reply, defeated. “Well, I mean, you can’t blame me, I have fond memories of arcades,” I explained.

              “Oh really? Was it with friends or—” she said, turning to look at me.

              “You already used that joke, Fany,” I reminded her, exasperated.

              “Ah, you’re right…”

              “…Anyway, let’s go!” I pulled her into the vast arena of arcade games. Perhaps because it was verging on Friday evening, but almost every machine was in use. I, for a second, hesitated, wondering whether or not this was a good idea after all. However, being reminded that Tiffany probably didn’t come to these places much reignited my motivation—after all, places like these were among my few oases in my middle to high school years. Tiffany didn’t need to know that, which probably meant I should pull back a bit on my usual strategies to get onto the games I wanted to play on crowded days. “Since you bought dinner, I’ll pay for the coins,” I told her, pulling the wide-eyed Tiffany to the token machine. “What, were there no arcades where you lived?”

              She shook her head. “There were, I just never went to them,” she replied.

              “Why not?”

              She shrugged. “I’m not really sure, honestly. I guess other things interested me more; shopping, trying out new cafes, karaoke, stuff like that.”

              Hearing that made me a little depressed, honestly. Those were such girly, multi-person inclusive activities to be enjoying; meanwhile, my favorite past times were playing games by myself, reading books in the library by myself, and watching movies by myself. The most girly thing I did was drawing and coloring, which was also something I did by myself and never shared with anyone but my parents, Hayeon, and Jessica occasionally.

              “Ok, well I guess I have to show you around then,” I said, colleting the tokens from the machine.

              Almost immediately after that, from the corner of my eye, I saw a group leaving the racing machines. My instinct kicked in and I bolted for them, quickly claiming two seats before turning to meet a bemused smile from Tiffany.

              Oh, great job Taeyeon. That was really embarrassing. Wasn’t I supposed to be hiding my familiarity with arcades?

              Tiffany made her way over, carrying a smile that gradually morphed into an amused one. “You’re cute, TaeTae,” she chuckled, taking the other seat I claimed.

              “Well—I, uh, whenever I came here, the racing games were always fun whenever I came here, and I always, um, well, wanted to, or dreamed of playing this with someone, or more like a boy—a significant other,” I stammered my way through that entire mess of a sentence, tip-toeing atop the glass shards of topics I didn’t want Tiffany to bear the burden of knowledge of.

              “R-Really now?”

              “Yah, don’t tease me like that!”

              Tiffany laughed. “How else should I tease you then?”

              “Just don’t tease me,” I suggested.

              She pursed her lips, tapping them in an I’m-thinking motion before replying with, “Nah, it’s too fun to see your reaction.”

              I frowned, reaching over to reclaim the tokens I placed on her machine only for her to snatch them first. “Let’s get started,” she said, inserting the tokens into the machine.

              “Hmph,” I huffed in reply, masking my overwhelming anticipation with a reluctant acceptance of the situation. “I’m not going easy on you,” I warned her, picking the car I normally used without a second thought before looking over to her screen.

              “Do they seriously not have a pink one?” Tiffany wondered out loud, inspecting each choice carefully. Wait, , I just did it again didn’t I? Thankfully, Tiffany didn’t seem to notice, but I should really be more careful next time. “Ah, this one! Ok, I’m ready~”

              In the ensuing race, I tried not to be too obvious about my experience with the game, intentionally driving off-road a few times, as much as it hurt my pride and soul to do so, but ended up finishing first anyway. Tiffany, who seemed at first to be extremely driven by her competitiveness, eventually gave up after the first lap and decided to just have fun, finishing last. Feeling bad for her, I decided to switch to the whack-a-mole game. Fearing that I would again accidentally give away my experience at arcade games if I played it myself, I stood to the side and coached Tiffany at it; however, while her reflexes weren’t bad, her hand-eye-coordination was lacking. About half of the time, she would whack the space next to the mole, causing the machine to take the brunt of the swing as opposed to the intended target. Not only that, but she sometimes would make contact with the mole, and due to how old the machine was, it wouldn’t register Tiffany’s hits and she would have to strike the mechanical mole two or three times until it disappeared back into its slot. Tiffany didn’t seem to mind, which was amazing to me because of the competitive fire in her eyes at the start of the racing game.

              When my turn rolled around, I didn’t have to try nearly as hard in other games in hiding my skill since I had the same problem as Tiffany: I wasn’t a particularly strong person, this especially being the case in middle and high school, so every time I attempted this game, I would end up frustrated by its sensitivity, or lack thereof. I still ended up performing better than Tiffany though, since my reflexes were just naturally better than her’s; however, it didn’t take long for me to get frustrated with this game again, so before it made me outburst, I suggested we do something else.

              “Oh, that!” Tiffany excitedly pointed to the jackpot, drop-the-ball-on-a-spinning-wheel game. I learned to stay away from those as someone who never won the jackpot in such games throughout my entire life, but the glint in Tiffany’s eyes put me on edge.

              “That’s not as fun to play with though,” I told her, convinced that she had some scheme in mind.

              “Let’s make it fun then,” Tiffany suggested, pulling me along. “Let’s do this: whoever wins the jackpot gets a kiss from the other, ok?”

              I shook my head ardently, immediately recognizing my disadvantage due to my terrible luck with these types of games, not to mention the embarrassing aspect of kissing Tiffany on the cheek in public. The risk wasn’t worth it, no matter how enticing the reward seemed. “I’m bad at these types of games…”

              “Maybe today will be your lucky day then! Ok, then how about this: if I win, I get a kiss on the cheek from you, but if you win, you get one request of me.”

              All my logic and reasoning disintegrated on the spot. I mean, how bad could it be? It was just a kiss on the cheek; close friends do that all the time, so what’s wrong with it happening between a couple? Plus, I could just peck her and be done with it—and all that would be if Tiffany won. Surely there was no way my unlucky streak would continue even now, would it? It’s been so long since I’ve played something like this after all—maybe my luck reset during my time in America.

              “Ok.”

              “Yay! No taking it back, ok?” Tiffany said, inserting a token into the machine. After a few seconds of careful alignment, she pressed the ‘release’ button, causing the bouncy, rubber ball to shoot down from the transparent tube, ricocheting off the slowly rotating wheel. “Come on, get in there,” Tiffany urged the ball, shaking the machine with both hands as the ball danced atop the holes on the wheel. “Go there—go there—yes…!” Tiffany’s voice rose in excitement while my heart just about stopped as the ball approached the ‘jackpot’ hole, its arc getting smaller. “Just a bit more, come on!” Tiffany cheered the ball on as I stood next to her, frozen on the spot, watching with bated breath.

              As the ball neared the hole, the constriction in my chest got tighter. No way … no way … after all those times I failed, Tiffany was just going to succeed in one try like this?

              “Go in! Go in!” Tiffany cheered, her hands now off the glass walls of the machine, the ball now rolling along the wheel.

              Was I going to have to kiss Tiffany on the cheek? How should I do it? Should I just throw away my pride and go on my toes? Would Tiffany be nice enough to lean down a bit for me? Oh my god, how was I going to do this?

              In the longest second of my life, the ball crawled along the wheel, dipping into the jackpot hole for a brief second before popping right back out and landing in a ‘10’ hole.

              “What? No way! That’s cheating, how come? It literally went in for a brief second too, what the heck?” Tiffany protested as I breathed a sigh of relief.

              “My turn~” I said, taking Tiffany’s spot and inserting another token.

              That was the closest anyone came to winning, though. We spent the rest of our coins at that jackpot machine, but in the end, all that we were rewarded with was a bundle of tickets. After trading them in for some candy, just as we were departing from the arcade, a familiar face caught the corner of my eye.

              I instinctively turned to verify, and sure enough, I was right: Leeteuk, opening the door to a box karaoke with his hand on Yoona’s back, who disappeared into the small space, followed quickly by Leeteuk. Wait, I thought they broke up; did he lie? Did they get back together? Maybe they were just going there as friends?

              “What’s wrong, Taeyeon?”

              I turned to meet Tiffany’s worried gaze on me. But, for some reason, I just replied with, “Oh, it’s nothing. I thought I saw someone I knew,” I told her.

              “Ah, ok.”

              As we walked further and further away from the arcade, the guilt ate away at me. Why did I lie to her just now? Every time I worried about Tiffany’s view of me after figuring out I lied to her, she always dismissed it; however, I couldn’t just assume that her patience and kindness was infinite. If I wanted to maintain a good relationship with Tiffany, with my girlfriend, I shouldn’t just hide secrets like this for too long. “Uh, actually, Tiffany?”

              “Hm?” she slowed down and turned around to meet my gaze. Despite my previous conviction to finally tell her the truth, there was something about the way she looked at me that lodged my words in my throat. A million excuses consequently flooded into my brain: I didn’t want to say something like this in public, right? What if Leeteuk and Yoona could somehow hear me? What if someone else who knew me heard me?

              “Um, sorry,” I started, the doubt that crept into my mind now overtaking my mouth’s functionality, “I have a secret that I want to tell you about…” my voice became smaller and smaller as I spoke, my body tensing up in preparation for Tiffany’s response as I diverted my gaze towards the ground, “…but I don’t think I’m ready to tell you yet. I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me,” I apologized again, just about murmuring the last few words.

              However, amazingly, Tiffany’s simply responded by wrapping her arms around me and giving me a quick hug, patting my head after releasing me. “Aww, you don’t have to apologize. How many times do I have to tell you that I could never get mad at you?”

              “You mean it?” I inquired, looking up cautiously to meet her gaze.

              Tiffany broke out in a huge smile, squealing and hugging me again. “Oh my gosh you’re so cute, Taeyeon!”

              I was caught of guard by her sudden attack, not noticing the fact that we caught the attention of some passersby until after she released me. I bit my lip, managing to prevent myself from blushing this time.

              “Take your time Taeyeon, I’ll love you no matter what~”

              I opened my mouth, my mind drawing blanks. She never failed to make me realize how lucky I was to have met her—or rather, to have been able to reunite with her. Maybe that’s where all my luck went.

Whew, new chapter is finally out! :D

I actually had fun writing this chapter, not sure why it took me an extra day to write it. Anyway, sorry for not updating recently! :c but now that finals are done, I’ll have just over a month to write to my heart’s content! My tentative plan is to write all the chapter before I have to go back to school in like 1.5 months (for summer classes), so hopefully I’ll be able to do that.

After that, if anyone’s interesting, I’m planning on finishing up the planning of the sequel to ‘The Garden of Hesperides’ while writing a short story (~9 chapters) that I had in mind since a few months ago, then after that, I’ll finally start the sequel.

What do you guys think of the chapter? What do you think Taeyeon’s secret is? (I’m going to be honest, if you want to make a more ‘educated’ guess, you’ll have to consult the tail end of chapter 25)

P.S. check out my facebook page https://fb.me/affkesujo; if you want notifications as soon as something new gets uploaded or updates on my process on the newest chapter, then go ahead and give it a like/follow! :D