Why was it so cold?

               When I felt my outstretched arms swiping at open air, I frowned. That was strange. Where was she? I opened my eyes, and instead of being greeted by the sight of a peacefully sleeping Tiffany or an already awake one wishing me a good morning and making her usual cheesy comment about how ‘beautiful I looked’, what I instead found was an empty spot next to me on the bed.

               “Fany?”

               My groggy voice filled the seemingly empty bedroom, my hands attempting to wipe away the tired visage from my face. I looked around and confirmed my suspicions; Tiffany was nowhere to be found.

               “Fany?” I repeated, a little louder this time, peeling the blanket off my body. “Tiffany? Where are you?”

               I peered into the bathroom and the kitchen but found no sign of her; instead, what I found was a cute note left on the counter. ‘Sorry Taeyeon, I forgot to tell you but I need to be at work early today. I left breakfast on the table; see you after work! Love you <3’

               I was suspecting it, but the confirmation that Tiffany had already departed for work left me with a sour disposition. I had so many plans for today—we would make breakfast together, maybe watch an episode of the TV show Tiffany had shown interest in lately if we had time before I would drive her to work. Then, after classes were done and I finished my schoolwork at the library as I normally did, we would go out for dinner and go out to buy a small birthday cake and celebrate at home, maybe play some type of game or watch a movie before ending the day.

               But above all, what disappointed me the most was that Tiffany didn’t even make mention of my birthday in her note. Did she forget? But wait, maybe it was that I never even told her? Was she doing that thing where she pretended to not remember it was my birthday to surprise me? But Tiffany was too much of a doting girlfriend to do something so mean. It must’ve been that I failed to mention it to her, or maybe I told her the wrong date.

               Arriving at that conclusion barely did anything to improve my mood though. Throughout the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, because the more I did so, the more it didn’t make sense that Tiffany would just forget. Heck, she even remembered my first words to her on our reunion in South Korea, in that bar where she was working as a bartender; something like my birthday should be trivial to her. And there probably wasn’t a way she would’ve gotten the date wrong because Tiffany was the type of person who planned for such things ahead of time. That wasn’t just a feeling either, it was something she proved when she planned the entire day for our 200-day anniversary.

               But … maybe Tiffany just didn’t want to plan something for my birthday? Did she finally realize how troublesome it was to be my girlfriend? Maybe she was finally getting tired of me? Did she not bother to even mention my birthday because she was getting sick of me? Or maybe she forgot because of how little she grew to care about me?

               The thoughts plagued my mind the entire day, something that was apparently so obvious that when I met up with Jessica after classes, it was the first thing she pointed out.

               “Happy Birthday, Taeyeon! I—oh, what’s wrong?”

               “Hm? What do you mean?”

               Jessica smiled that pitying, knowing smile that indicated to me my attempt at a poker face failed. “I’ve been your friend for how long? Come on, you can’t fool me.”

               I sighed and shook my head, the weight of it suddenly feeling a lot heavier. My eyes fell onto the ground, my neck craning as my hands squeezed the straps of my backpack. “I don’t know … this might sound immature, but … but Tiffany left early for work today without even wishing me a ‘Happy Birthday’, and when I tried texting her, she replied that she was busy at work and couldn’t reply.”

               I lifted my head to look at Jessica only to be met with a different kind of knowing smile, one that I recognized immediately: it was the look that Tiffany and Jessica shared all too often back in South Korea, much to my chagrin, except this time it was accompanied by a much more jovial smile. “I see.”

               “You know something!”

               Jessica’s expression suddenly changed, pursing her lips and shrugging her shoulders. “What do you mean?”

               I scoffed, hitting her shoulder lightly. “Yah! Tell me!” I whined, frowning pointedly.

               Jessica laughed, grabbing my hand and patting the back of it. “You know, maybe your aegyo would’ve worked on me when I was still in love with you. But—actually, never mind.”

               “What? What is it?”

               Jessica shook her head in response to my continued pressing, stopping and swinging her backpack around her body. “I got you a present,” she proclaimed, pulling out a fancy, leathery case out of her backpack.

               I felt my eyes shoot wide open at the sight of the expensive-looking black box, feeling the softness of the encasing material in the palms of my hands after Jessica handed it to me. “Wow, this looks expensive…” my voice drifted off with the warm Californian early-spring wind, opening it to find an even more expensive-looking purple pen laid neatly inside a red, velvety mould. I gasped again, picking the pen up delicately and holding it up. The sunlight shot its radiant beams through the beautiful see-through material of the writing utensil, light-purple rays streaming onto my face. “Oh my gosh, it’s so pretty!”

               “I know you’ve been trying to keep track of emotions you’ve been feeling in a diary, and I figured I could help incentivize you by giving you a pen you’d enjoy using.”

               “Wow … I might actually start writing more in there with this—wait, don’t switch the subject!” I hastily put the pen back in the box and closed it, looking at the now bemused Jessica. “You know something about Tiffany! What is it?”

               Jessica shook her head, holding her hands up defensively. “I don’t—well, let me just ask you this. Do you trust her?”

               “Yeah, of course.”

               Jessica nodded, content. “Well, then that should answer it.” With that, she started walking, leave me standing there, no less confused than before. Answer it? Answer what? That I should trust in Tiffany? To do what?

               “Wait, Sica! That doesn’t answer anything!”

               That was the most I could get out of her though; although my mood improved slightly because of that, it wasn’t by a whole lot. We parted ways a few hours later, a string of insecurities still running amok inside my head—so much so that I barely noticed Tiffany’s shoes already in the shoe cupboard when I arrived home. However, when I did, I felt my heart jump into my throat.

               It wasn’t abnormal for Tiffany to be home before me—in fact, she made it a point to always get home first. Maybe seeing her shoes was a good sign that nothing changed? But what if Tiffany just came home early because she arrived at work early, and it was nothing to do with me? But worst of all—what was going to happen now? Was Tiffany going to announce her declining feelings for me? Was she about to break up with me?

               Just the thought paralyzed me, a tight tension building up between my ribcages. I felt my chest heave more and more as the squeezing feeling being applied to my lungs demanded the need for more oxygen, but I never seemed to have enough.

               “F-Fany?” My shaky voice echoed inside the quaint house, my feet dragging themselves forward one painstakingly slow step at a time. “A-Are you home?”

               But Jessica, who seemed like she knew something, told me to trust in my girlfriend. Not that I knew what that meant. If I could trust Tiffany do to anything, it was to find some obscure, outlandish, erted way to compliment me. But why would she do that if she didn’t even bother to wish me a ‘Happy Birthday’ this morning? Jessica never lied to me though, and if she knew that Tiffany was about to break up with me, she wouldn’t look so happy. What was it then? What was it that I should trust Tiffany to do?

               I almost didn’t dare check each room of the house, but my curiosity got the best of me. As if I was walking about inside a horror attraction, I, with extreme paranoia-induced precaution, peeked into the various rooms of the house, but to no avail. The living room, the dining room, the kitchen, all were devoid of Tiffany.

               “Fany? Where are you?” I tried to steel my voice a bit more, but what came out was far from what I intended. I turned the door of the bathroom slowly and pushed it open, peeking in head-first, but still nothing.

               “Fany? Are you—”

               My jaw dropped onto the floor after opening the door to the bedroom, finding the woman I was looking for sitting on our bed, legs splayed to the side and her hands resting on her honey thighs, clad in nothing but a purple ribbon tied around her body, just barely covering her erogenous zones.

               “Happy Birthday Taeyeon,” her husky voice flowed straight into my ears, filling my face with a warmth I haven’t felt in a long, long time, “Your birthday present is me.”

               I stood there like an idiot, my face burning up and my heart pumping so loud I feared Tiffany would be able to hear, thinking how sinful it was for me to be looking at Tiffany like this but unable to get myself to stop drinking in the nose-bleedingly sight before me.

               The smile on the seductress’s lips widened, presumably at my dumbfounded, flustered reaction. “Do you like it?”

               My mind was assaulted with a tsunami of imagery, the process overloading my brain. I felt like I couldn’t even think properly, my lips drying from being parted for so long. Was she … but no, Tiffany said before that she wasn’t ready, right? But was she doing this now because she wanted to convey to me that she was? … Wait, was I ready?

               That thought suddenly sent me into a panic, no less because I started to imagine what that might be like. I’ve felt Tiffany’s, well, well-endowed assets against me before, but never when she was as bare of clothing as she was now. But what about me? What did I have to offer her? Or more importantly, what about her? What if I was misinterpreting her intentions? After all, one way Tiffany showed her affection for me did involve, well, slightly erted actions. But it was never to this level.

               It was only after those few seconds of internal monologue that I realized how idiotic I must’ve looked and made the rash decision to not to jump to conclusions. “I-I-I-I-I, um, I don’t—I, uh, ye-yeah—wait, I mean, I do—I—put on some clothes, you’ll get a cold!”

               Tiffany only giggled in response. “You’re so cute TaeTae. You don’t have to feel bad about looking at me; I’m all yours.” Those last three words almost did it. When those words, absolutely dripping with suggestive allure, reached my ears and were processed to by my brain, I felt an intense shudder run through my entire body. A terse gasp escaped my lips, my legs taking a few steps towards her on their own before I caught myself.

               “,” I muttered, feeling my face explode in another fit of heat, turning my head away in what felt like the only method I had left to force myself from continuing to look at her. However, even as my eyes landed on the wall beside me, images of Tiffany’s lewdly covered body flashed before my eyes. “.” I didn’t want to push Tiffany into doing something she wasn’t ready to do. Stop this, Taeyeon. Control yourself.

               “…Do you like your present?”

               Tiffany’s voice interjecting my thoughts was the thing I needed to remind myself of my toils the entire day. “I thought—” I turned my head to look at her only to snap my head back to the side, momentarily forgetting the state of relative undress Tiffany was in. I felt my face undergo another eruption of red, but I trudged forward nonetheless, embarrassment laced inside my voice, “—I thought you forgot because you left this morning without even saying anything.”

               “Aww, I’m sorry babe,” Tiffany cooed. I heard shuffling on the bed, and before I could process what that meant, I felt her warm hands wrap around my head and being pushed into her bosom. A shrill squeal erupted through closed lips, so much heat emanating from my face that I nearly felt like fainting. “Let me make it up to you.”

               God her voice was so irresistible. Especially so up close. My eyes were tightly shut, as were my lips, but I would be lying if I were to say that I didn’t have the urge to undo that tension. Unwilling to risk anything, I just let out a muffled mumble, weakly fighting against Tiffany’s hands gently pressing my head into her cleavage.

               This felt dangerous. This felt seriously dangerous. I needed to control myself, before—wait, before what? Before I … but if I did that, wouldn’t that mean…

               Suddenly, that feeling of needing to hold back transformed into a horribly anxious one. What was I thinking I would do? There was no way I would be able to please her, much less please her well enough to make her forget her past traumas. Or maybe she was like me the time I did this for her, trying to trick myself into thinking I was ready when in reality, Tiffany admitting she wasn’t ready led to me breathing a sigh of relief.

               “I-I thought you forgot…” my voice came out in an unintentional vibrato, “Or, that you did remember but you didn’t care about me anymore…”

               I could feel Tiffany’s demeanor shift from a sensual teasing one to a warm and comforting one. “I’m sorry Tae, I should’ve at least said something to you this morning. I just wanted to get to work as early as possible so I could come back as early as possible to plan everything.”

               I shook my head. “It’s my fault for being so insecure—”

               “Noo, don’t say that,” Tiffany interjected, rubbing my arm soothingly. Strangely, I could feel the tension that was building inside my chest slowly unravel with each rub, each breath releasing the ordinary mixture of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor but also bits of that uneasiness and fear. “What’s important is that we’re together now, right?”

               Feeling her hug me more tightly and feeling Tiffany’s—feeling Tiffany press more firmly against me ignited my face again. “Um, you should put on some clothes first.”

               She whined but let go and trudged into the bathroom. I had to make an extremely concerted effort not to let my eyes wander to her retreating figure, only made harder when she jokingly noted, “I spent all this time preparing my gift only for it to get rejected…”

               When I heard the bathroom door close, I joined her on the other side of the closed door, sitting down and leaning against it. She ‘spent all this time’ … was she just using it as a figure of speech, or did she really spend a lot of time on it? What would she have spent the time on though? Mentally preparing herself? That was what I spent the most time on when I did the same thing for her, after all.  Did that mean … no, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions like that. “Sorry, I wasn’t ready…”

               The shuffling on the other side of the door paused momentarily, Tiffany’s warm voice interrupting the brief silence, “And…?”

               In the many months I spent as Tiffany’s girlfriend, one thing that never ceased to amaze me was her ability to read my mind. For someone who liked to keep my troubles inside my own mind, it might ordinarily be annoying if it wasn’t Tiffany who wielded that ability: Tiffany, who almost single-handedly pulled me out of the hole of missing self-confidence I was in prior to meeting—or, reuniting with—her. Tiffany, who helped me overcome my trauma of relationships from high school. Tiffany, who was unconditionally loving and caring and supportive. Tiffany, who showered me with so many compliments daily that I barely had time to think negative thoughts about myself. Tiffany, who … who was just Tiffany. And that simple fact was enough to give me the confidence to tell her the truth that I normally might’ve hidden from others, even other significant others, as weird as it was to consider myself dating anyone else. “And I wasn’t sure if you were really ready, because the last time I did this for you, you mentioned how you wouldn’t be ready for, um, well, it until a long time.”

               The shuffling of clothes resumed on the other side of the door, a few seconds of silence befalling the house before Tiffany replied, “Yeah, that was really hot.”

               I felt my face erupt into another hot spring geyser of embarrassment. “Fany!”

               Tiffany’s twinkling, echoey laugh pierced through the wooden separator between us. “I’m sorry, but in all seriousness, I prepared this gift as a way to hint to you that I was now ready for .” The mention of the jarring word caused me to cringe in embarrassment. Don’t think about that, Taeyeon. Ooh god, don’t—definitely don’t think about that. That was too dangerous of a thought to be pondered on for too long. “I’m coming out now,” Tiffany warned, giving me the cue to remove myself from the door. I stood up as the door swung open, revealing a fully clothed Tiffany. The plunging neckline of her top drew my eyes to it, realizing I was looking at her cleavage after Tiffany herself noticed. “Are you sure you aren’t ready yet?”

               My face exploded into another burst of redness. “I-I-I-I’m sorry!” I stammered helplessly, diverting my eyes and creating some distance between us. But with every step I took to distance us, Tiffany took another one to close it. “I didn’t mean to, I—” wait, what was I about to say? Admit that my mind was still on the thought of her curvaceous figure? “—I, I, I was just, um, just—my eyes just landed there—” that just sounded stupid. Stupid, stupid Taeyeon. There was no way that Tiffany would buy that. But I was quickly running out of time, seeing as how we somehow managed to do this awkward slow chase into the living room. “—I mean, um, it wasn’t that I was, you know, I wasn’t trying to—” I was cut off by my own squeal as leg hit the armrest of the couch, my backwards momentum vaulting me over it and onto the leathery material of the three-person seat.

               I quickly recovered from the brief fall but was met with another heart attack at finding Tiffany having joined me on the couch, hovering a few inches over me. “Do you want to accept your gift right here and now?”

               Something between a squeal, a sigh, a scream—I don’t know, a warbled mess of sound—escaped my lips in response, my heart leaping to my throat. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, all I could do was look at Tiffany’s playful, suggestive smirk, feel her silky-smooth arms entrapping mine, inhale her warm, comforting scent. “I-I-I-I-I—”

               Never before did I feel such relief as when my idiotic stammering was cut off by the jarring sound of the doorbell. A prominent frown befell Tiffany’s face, her reluctantly climbing off the couch and shouting at the door, “Coming!”

               I took a few seconds, calming myself down before joining Tiffany at the door, which swung open to reveal Jessica and her boyfriend with a sizable bag in hand. “Jessi!”

               “Hi, did I come at a good time?”

               “No, definitely not.”

               “Ah, I see from how red Taeyeon’s face is that she was in the middle of receiving her present?”

               “What?” While some childish part of me flared up in jealousy over Tiffany talking about dressing herself in only ribbons to another girl, the bigger part of me was simply flabbergasted. So this is what Jessica was talking about when she said I should trust Tiffany? “No!”

               “If you could give us some time and come back later that’d be great.”

               I was seriously getting the feeling of déjà vu, especially upon seeing Jessica grabbing John’s hand and starting to retreat. “Ah I see.”

               “Where are you going?”

               “Should I give you an hour?”

               “An hour—why would we need an hour?” The sentence left my lips before I realized what I was saying, the realization only making my face all the redder.

               “Maybe two?”

               “Two?!”

               “Alright, see you in two hours!”

               I dashed out of the apartment and grabbed Jessica’s hand, stopping her from taking the tentative retreating steps she was taking. “No no no, come in, I insist.”

               Jessica obliged, giggling alongside Tiffany as she entered the residence, John all the while holding a bemused look on his face. I could see why the couple got along so well; their sense of humor was almost identical, and he took Jessica and Tiffany’s antics in stride.

               “We brought over assorted fruit and some soju to celebrate,” John announced, setting the bag onto the island table in the kitchen, “and here’s my birthday present to you,” he continued, pulling out a rectangular gift-wrapped box from the bottom of the bag.

               “Oh!” I remembered back when John first approached Jessica while I was eating lunch with her, how he addressed me and made light conversation with me while most other people wouldn’t do much more than greet me, and how that left with me such a big impression that I ended up wing-womaning for a complete stranger. Thankfully, it turned out to be a great choice as Jessica seemed much happier these days with John as her boyfriend. “Wow, um, thank you so much! Do you mind if I unwrap this right here?”

               “Of course, go for it.”

               When I did, my jaw dropped.

               “Yah, you—Jessica!”

               I dropped what clearly were insoles stored inside the box and reached over to hit Jessica, who was giggling profusely.

               “What?”

               “Don’t pretend to be innocent! I know you were the one to tell John to give me this!”

               “But, I mean, don’t you need them?”

               Tiffany, who was also smiling along, interjected, “Taeyeon’s height is perfect, she fits perfectly inside my arms.”

               While Tiffany’s arms wrapped around me in a warm embrace, Jessica fake-puked in reaction. “Ew, get a room.”

               “We were, but you guys so rudely interrupted us.”

               “Fany!”

               Jessica, however, giggled. “Right, sorry.”

               “Go ahead and look at the box again though, Taeyeon. There’s something else in there.”

               I followed John’s advice and took another look at the box to find a gift card at the bottom for a free couple massage. “A friend of mine works at this message parlor and it’s pretty good. Jessica and I visited it and we both enjoyed it a lot, so I figured you and Tiffany should go try it out for yourselves. Free of charge.”

               “Oh! Wow, thank you!” I cringed at myself for having the same reaction to him again but tried not to show it too much on my face. Being socially awkward was such a pain sometimes. “That sounds fun, when do you want to go Fany?”

                When I turned to her, she had an envelope held in both hands. “I wanted to do something more extravagant and give you the birthday you deserved, but I don’t really have the money.” I shook my head, feeling the onset of tears already starting from seeing the soft, loving expression in her eyes. “But for now, I hope you’ll accept this.”

               “I don’t want to,” I whined, accepting the sealed envelope nonetheless, “I feel like I’ll cry…”

               Tiffany wrapped an arm around me, a warm breath of comfort causing my body to shudder in content. I felt my eyes closing briefly in content, the frown disappearing from my face. “It’s OK, I’m here for you.”

               I took a few seconds to revel in the warmth of Tiffany’s proximity to me, opening my eyes a moment later, taking another deep breath and unfolding the letter before me. In the corner of my eye, I saw Jessica whispering something to John. “I’ll give you all some space,” John summarily said, excusing himself. Jessica stood up as well but stopped at my request.

               “Sica, stay. Is that OK, Fany?” Tiffany nodded, and after John was far enough away, I started reading.

               “Dear Taeyeon.”

               “Yah Taeyeon, you can’t already be crying after reading two words,” Jessica interjected, a burst of laughter erupting from the three of us.

               “Sorry, sorry.” I took another breath and shook my head. Get yourself together, Taeyeon. You can do this.

               “Taeyeon. Kim Taeyeon. My Taeyeon.

               “My personal angel. My light at the end of the tunnel. My happiness, my joy, my pride, my world, my love. I always tell you that this is what you are to me, and knowing you, I bet you wonder why that is. You think that you’re undeserving of such flattering titles,” Again, I marveled at how Tiffany was able to so precisely read my mind, even through a letter, “but that’s where you’re wrong. They aren’t flattering titles; they are simple fact.

               “In the months I resided in Korea, I was barely existing. Unfulfilled but unable to pick myself up; discontent with my life but too unmotivated to do anything; unhappy and feeling like I deserved it … sick of life but too afraid of dying.” I felt barely able to read the last sentence. An irrational fear gripped me, as if saying the words would manifest those emotions into my loving girlfriend. Feeling her warm, soft arm wrap around me and seeing her warm smile paired with a pair of sparkling eyes gave me the reassurance to continue.

               “But you were like a breath of fresh air. I recognized you immediately, as you still look about as much of a baby as you did back in elementary school—Hey!” Tiffany giggled at my protest.

               “If you continue pouting like that, I’ll have no choice but to kiss you~” she teased me, tapping the very pouting lips she affectionately referred to.

               I felt a smile sprout on my face despite the onset of tears in my eyes and was about to respond when I remembered Jessica was also in the room, so in the interest in not wasting her time, I continued reading.

               “I recognized you immediately, as you still look about as much of a baby as you did back in elementary school. And in that brief first exchange we had, I could immediately tell that you hadn’t changed at all, and that this ideal I held inside my head of you wasn’t fantasy at all but was just the person you are. That realization gave me polarizing feelings: on one hand, I was ecstatic to be reunited with you; but on the other, I was terrified. Terrified of you finding out about my past, about who I had become, about all the ugly things that I had done—so when you seemed not to remember me, I actually felt extremely relieved.

               “But you showed me that I had no reason to feel that way. When you learned about this secret I had been hiding, about my first job I was pushed into, instead of casting me aside like I feared you would, or even chastising me or expressing disappointment in me, you embraced me with open arms.” I took a few seconds to calm myself down, desperately biting my lower lip in an attempt to hold back the tears welling up in my eyes. “You didn’t hesitate one bit. You were exactly the warm, loving, forgiving, caring person that I fell in love with as a child, and again as an adult.

               “When I barely had a reason to live, you gave it to me. When—” I sharply inhaled, a shaky breath escaping my system. “—When I was at my most scared, you comforted me.” My chest felt tight, like it was a damp sponge being squeezed dry. Each breath I took shook my entire body, tears already falling freely down my face. My vision turned blurry, my voice unstable, but I pushed forward nonetheless. “When I was forced to confront my father, you encouraged me to make the right choice. Everything good about my life is because of you. You: Kim Taeyeon, my angel, my savior, my girlfriend. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined a more perfect girlfriend, yet here you are, in front of me.

               “Sometimes, I wonder what I’ve ever done to deserve you. But then, I realize that it’s not as important as seeing your smile, hearing your laugh, feeling your arms around me, watching your cute face when you’re working hard, and of course enjoying your adorable, beet-red face when I’m teasing you. It only makes me want to be a better girlfriend and treat you better, so maybe one day I can feel like I actually deserve to have you.

               “Thank you for bearing with me all these years. I love you.

               “Ti-Ti-Tiffany—Tiffany Hwang.” I immediately burst into an open sob as I finished off Tiffany’s signoff. “H-How can you say that?”

               “Say what?”

               “I-It’s not me who was bearing with you,” I continued, my voice muffled by my face being pressed into Tiffany’s shoulder, her arm wrapped around my shoulders, gently rubbing my back, “It’s you who has been bearing with me this entire time.”

               “Well, ‘bearing with you’ has been nothing but a pleasure for me.” Despite her clear attempt to hide it, her soft voice laced with unintentional vibrato told me that she was crying too. “I love listening to your problems, I love telling you all your amazing qualities, I love how considerate you are, I love reassuring you that I love you—there isn’t one thing about you I don’t love.”

               “But…” I started, trailing off after realizing how unhelpful the thing I was about to say was.

               Did Tiffany love this about me too?

               I felt my facial features scrunch together in an attempt to fight off the intrusive negative thought. Even if she was exaggerating—

               “I love this about you too. About how humble you are, how I can supplement your lack of self-compliments by overwhelming you with them. Because then, I can freely compliment you whenever I want and not feel like I’m burdening you.”

               I felt a need to respond but didn’t know how. Surely there was something that Tiffany was missing. How could she develop such a good response to that? And moreover, how was Tiffany so capable of reading my mind?

               Before I had a chance to reply, Jessica chimed in. “…Man, if John doesn’t write me as good of a letter for my birthday, I’m going to break up with him.”

               The comment from Jessica caused the three of us to erupt into another fit of laughter. That comment was the exact reason why I wanted Jessica to stay: I figured things might come to this, and I wanted someone in the room who could ease the atmosphere back into normalcy. “You can go get him Sica, I feel bad that we pushed him somewhere else for so long.”

               If John noticed the redness around my eyes, he didn’t comment on them—something I was thankful for, as they probably were impossible to miss. The rest of the evening went by tear-free, ending the night by playing a slew of various card games John introduced to us.

               That night, as the two of us lay in bed, I finally gave Tiffany the reply that I had been holding back until we were alone again, having finally thought of it.

               “Would you love me if I were a man?”

               Tiffany giggled, causing a smile to form on my face as a result. “I would turn straight for you, Kim Taeyeon. Then we could have babies … what names would you want, if we could have our own children?”

               “I was thinking maybe Jimin or Minjeong.”

               “What about English names … like Irene, or Katie?”

               “Maybe one day, when we’re ready, we can go and adopt a child.”

               I could feel Tiffany smile as she pressed her face into the back of my neck, her arms wrapping around my stomach. “I’d love that.”

In light of the comments that this story has been getting recently (which were incredibly shocking to me seeing as this story concluded … 3 years ago?), and frankly because of how darn wholesome the comments are and how much they warm my heart and almost make me want to cry, I’ve decided to whip up this extra chapter!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but this story will always hold a special place in my heart as it’s the first story I’ve ever published on this site. It isn’t the first story I completed, but the other story was so messily done (for those wondering, that ‘honor’ goes to a story I titled ‘Motivation’) that I think I can basically consider this story my first completed one, especially one written with the planning style (as in, the method in which I use to map out my stories) I use now.

Maybe in another three years we’ll get another extra chapter :D or maybe earlier, if I can think of another chapter idea. Or maybe you guys have one…? If you do, make sure to leave it in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do with it!

Again, thank you so much for having read this story, and hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it! <3