To Taeyeon, her first few weeks at school flew by in an instant. They morphed from a dreadful, harrowing experience to one that was, in many facets, novel and refreshing. American culture was fascinating and different from Korean culture, and learning about it was far more interesting than the drab, easily absorbed material she was exposed to at school. The main conduit for her learning was Tiffany, who was more than willing to educate Taeyeon on the things that she was unaware of. As Diamond Bar was located in the Los Angeles County area, the people behaved (according to Tiffany) much the same as Los Angeles city residents.

    “So your accent… it’s unique to this area?” Taeyeon asked the younger girl one day as they met up before Biology.

    “Of course, silly,” Tiffany teased, poking the blonde on the forehead. It was a habit that Tiffany had gotten into recently, one that would seem odd to anyone else. But for some reason it made Taeyeon feel warm inside, similar to the feeling she’d gotten when being hugged by her father as a child.

“There are tons of different accents in the U.S., just like how there’s a bunch of different accents depending on what region of Korea you’re from.”

“Oh, duh, I should’ve known that…” the blonde grumbled, kicking herself for appearing stupid in front of Tiffany.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Tiffany said with one of her magnificent eye-smiles, wrapping an arm around Taeyeon’s shoulders as they walked, the shorter girl instinctively melting into her best friend’s form, as if she was built to be in that position, “America’s a confusing place sometimes.”

“Tell me about it…” Taeyeon had replied with a tired sigh.

Taeyeon’s mother noticed her daughter’s change in attitude before Taeyeon herself did, noting her eagerness to go to school one morning as the blonde finished cooking breakfast at six:

    “This is the fourth day in a row you’ve woken up before me,” her mother observed as she stepped into the kitchen, still clad in her pajamas.

    “I just can’t get back to sleep nowadays,” the blonde replied as she turned off the stove and scooped the scrambled eggs she’d made onto a plate, “I don’t know what it is.”

    “It seems like you’re excited to go to school,” the older woman said, “You don’t even complain about having to take the bus anymore. You practically fly out that door.”

“Well actually,” Taeyeon said, remembering something she’d been meaning to bring up to her mother for awhile, “I mentioned to Tiffany that I still took the bus, and she said that she could start driving me to school. She said I was on her way anyways. I’ll still have to take the bus in the afternoon since she has cheerleading practice, though.”

“Wow, you and this Tiffany girl are getting very close,” Taeyeon’s mother helped herself to some of the food her daughter made, sitting at their dining room table and flipping on the morning news, playing from the small TV at the corner of the kitchen, “I feel like you never stop talking about her.”

“Well, uh…”

For some reason, Taeyeon found that she was a bit ashamed of this fact. She wondered why. It was normal to quickly make a best friend, especially in her circumstance. And besides, there wasn’t much else to talk about that had happened at school; her grades were as exceptional as always, she didn’t join any clubs or get involved with any extracurriculars, and her classmates were as annoying as they always were. Besides the fact that Americans spoke English, it wasn’t much different than Korean high school, in social and hierarchical terms. So of course she’d think of the most interesting thing to talk to her mom and aunt about: Tiffany Hwang.

“She’s my best friend. Of course I talk about her a lot,” Taeyeon finished after a full two seconds of stammering.

“If you say so,” her mother responded slyly, sipping her coffee.

    Before Taeyeon had the opportunity to ask her what she was implying, the older woman spoke again, this time with her voice free of sarcasm.

    “You can go with her in the mornings, if you’d like. Just make sure she’s a safe driver.”

    “I will!” Taeyeon replied, beaming.

    And so, Taeyeon and Tiffany drove to school together from then on.

    Tiffany drove a porcelain-white, chariot-like Cadillac. Taeyeon found it fitting for the honor-student-slash-head-cheerleader. On that first day, Taeyeon sat on the front steps to her apartment complex, tapping her foot against the cement until the younger girl pulled up. Tiffany gave a brisk wave from across the street as she parked, and the blonde hurried over, sliding into the leather-bound interior of the car with sparkling eyes.

    “Wow, Tiffany,” she remarked, inspecting the high-tech center console, “This is your car?”

    “Yep,” the younger girl said as she threw the car into drive, “My parents got it for me for my seventeenth birthday.”

    She spoke as if it were a simple, nonchalant fact. To Taeyeon, it didn’t feel stuck-up or conceited, but more casual, as if it were something Tiffany didn’t want to focus too much attention on.

    “That’s cool. My parents got me socks for mine.”

    Tiffany laughed, covering as she turned off of Taeyeon’s block and onto the main road.

    “So, unnie,” Tiffany said, “When are you going to be tutoring me in pre-calc, huh? The material’s starting to get tough.”

    “As soon as you want,” the blonde replied, “Not like I have anything better to do, right?”

    “No way. A cutie like you, you’re probably going on dates everyday after school.”

    Taeyeon was forced to turn and look out the window in order to hide her reddening cheeks.

    “You know that I barely talk to anyone but you,” she said with a shy giggle.

    “Is this your way of asking me out, Taeyeon?” Tiffany’s inflection took on a lilt that sounded half-serious, but the older girl chalked it up to her imagination.

    The air in the car grew thick, as if there were some unidentifiable heaviness in it. Taeyeon sensed her body tightening itself in anticipation, now very aware of how close she was to Tiffany, specifically their hands, which both rested on the cupholders in the center console between them.

    “Duh,” the older girl replied, turning away from the window, “Maybe a candlelit dinner?”

    “As long as we can find some time to review polar equations,” Tiffany chuckled.

    The space between the two girls cleared, tension relieved by the harmless joke. Taeyeon experienced a sense of detached longing that puzzled her.

    The remainder of the drive was innocuous, with the usual, school and life-centered conversation popping up between the two.    

The differences in school schedule between America and Korea (attending classes from seven in the morning to two-thirty in the afternoon rather than six to six) gave Taeyeon a large chunk of freetime that she utilized mainly for studying and laying around at home. Eventually, she grew tired of this, and took to walking around her new neighborhood and admiring the scenery. Although the city she lived in was densely populated and heavily urbanized, there were spots of nature that did exist, such as the rather large collection of greenery located behind her apartment complex. It required her to slip between the two fences surrounding the neighboring properties, which, combined with the scorchingly warm Los Angeles weather, left her sweaty and out of breath, though to her it was worth it. She would walk through the woods and think about things, her dirty sneakers treading against the earth as she went, the sound of cars honking their horns in the distance providing a contrasting backdrop to the leaves and grass around her.

She mentioned this in the passing to her new friend group at lunch one day.

“Wait, so when you’re bored you just go out and walk around the woods?!” Sunny demanded, as if offended.

“Yeah,” Taeyeon said with a shy shrug, “There aren’t many areas like that in Korea, so it’s cool to have somewhere so… untouched right by where I live. Like, I know it’s not untouched, but it’s nice. I enjoy it.”

“That has to get old,” Sooyoung quipped, “Why don’t you hang out with us instead? We’re usually free after practice.”

“Oh yeah, you should!” Sunny said, suddenly bouncing with energy, her voice raising several octaves.

“Whoa, calm down, Sunny,” Tiffany said as she arrived, holding her lunch tray, laden with an extra chocolate chip cookie that Taeyeon already knew was for her, “What’s going on?”

“Sooyoung was suggesting that Taeyeon should hang out with us after practice,” Sunny gave Tiffany a look that was both mischievous and veiled, one that the latter girl either didn’t notice or didn’t acknowledge.

Taeyeon, who had come to the conclusion that Sunny was quite the eccentric person, still had no clue what the younger girl’s enigmatic, badly concealed expressions meant, only that they were aimed at Tiffany alone.

Tiffany turned to Taeyeon and smiled, handing her the plastic-wrapped cookie as if it were the most casual thing to do. She’d gotten into the habit of “accidentally” buying an extra one ever since Taeyeon had mentioned how much she enjoyed the school-made chocolate chip cookies.

“Okay,” Tiffany said, practically forcing the cookie into Taeyeon’s hands, “We usually finish practice around six, though.”

“That’s fine,” Sooyoung said offhandedly, “One of us can just pick her up.”

“It should be alright. As long as I’m home by ten or so. My mom’s pretty relaxed when it comes to those things.”

“Good, then Tiffany can pick you up,” Sunny said with another of those creepy stares.

Tiffany nodded, a half-smile playing on her lips, one that, if Taeyeon wasn’t mistaken, represented shyness.

“Sounds good to me,” Taeyeon agreed, already munching away at her cookie.

The blonde floated through the rest of her day in a content mist, grinning through her classes in spite of their innate drabness. Upon receiving confirmation from her mother that it was alright for her to hang out with Tiffany and her friends that evening, Taeyeon’s happiness doubled in intensity. She was still unable to pin the reason she felt so serene, but a nagging, deep part of her mind understood that it had something to do with Tiffany.

Taeyeon’s thoughts insisted on turning themselves back to her best friend at every opportunity. She watched an internal slideshow of shared moments between them, bursts of mundane happenings - passing notes in class, watching silly Twitter videos, trading food at lunch - that were tinged with that strange, gnawing guilt. It was as though there was a fundamental wrongness to the fondness Taeyeon harbored toward Tiffany. It made her wonder if there was. Was her appreciation for her friend’s qualities inappropriate?

Taeyeon returned home that afternoon with anticipatory jitters coursing through her, the kind that made her want to keep moving, doing things, darting around the house in an attempt to expel the anxiety. Thankfully, her mother wouldn’t be home until after Tiffany picked her up, so the older woman needn’t see Taeyeon’s near-panicked state. She showered, re-applied a fresh coat of makeup, and sprayed on her favorite perfume. The hours ticked by with unyielding sluggishness. She tried to study, but was unable to focus for more than a few minutes at once. She tried to watch TV, but there was nothing on that was able to capture her attention. She tried to eat, but her appetite was nonexistent.

Within seconds of the clock striking six, when the sun had begun kissing the western horizon, she received a text. Her heart jolted up into as she read it:

“From Tiffany: Hey, how do you feel about getting some ice cream with me, Sooyoung and Sunny? I can pick y