i.

When Tiffany first joins SM, she's all pink shoes and pink bracelets and no filter. She's also loud, with her eye-smiles and giggly laughter and flailing arms. She's the first to greet the other trainees in broken Korean and the rowdiest during breaks. She's the one who has you slinking back into your seat at the local movie theater, her first night out with you and Sooyoung, because she laughs too loud at the unfunny jokes and cries all messy and hard during one of the breakup scenes.

You spend the first few weeks of Tiffany's (much noticed) presence tolerating her. Barely.

When she begins to throw smiles at you during dance practice after a green-haired Hyoyeon tells her you're from San Francisco, or when she casually pulls out a seat next to you at the dinner table like you invited her, or when she insists on putting five heart emoticons by your name in her contacts because you're her "special american friend," it takes a special kind of patience not to roll your eyes at the effort.

You're not sure how you end up falling in love with someone who embodies everything you despise in a person, but you do, and the realization makes your mind reel.



ii.

It's two days shy of her seventeenth birthday when your heart decides to open a hole just big enough for Tiffany to worm her way in.

It's two days shy of her seventeenth birthday when you hear muffled sobs on the way to the bathroom and stumble upon Tiffany hunched over in the corner of a deserted dance room.

She's crying, messily like at the movie theater, except even messier and even harder with snot smeared to her chin and red rings around her eyes. It scares you when you see her chest heave up and down.

When you walk up to her catiously and caress her wrists and let her lean a head against your shoulder, she tells you with a tearful urgency how lonely she is. How she goes back home at night and hates how bare the walls are and how her clothes don't smell the same. How she can't relate to her roommate Taeyeon from Jeolla-do who sleeps too early and studies too much.

How she misses her mom so much it burns her whole body.

"Call her?" You ask, eyes boring into hers.

"I wonder," she starts, looking up at the flourescent lights, "if there are phones in heaven."

How she can't help but love you most, because you remind her of home when nothing else does.

In retrospect, you should have figured it out sooner.



iii.

It just happens, like friendship always does, except this, this is new to you.

Tiffany still smiles at you during practice, but you smile back now. She doesn't pull out a seat next to you because you pull it out for her.

It's the little things.

Like how sometimes she sneaks you out of practice for greasy pizza at the crappy 24-hour store downtown. "A taste of home," Tiffany likes to say. Or how you've planned out movie dates at the dollar theatre on Fridays because school ends earlier and singing session begins later.

It hits you one day, how english falls so comfortably off your tongue when talking about hot actors and cracking stupid jokes in bouts of laughter (and if there's one thing you notice, it's how you laugh a whole lot when you're around Tiffany, the bubbly girl without much of a filter.)

It never quite hits you how much you miss home, home in California, because your whole family's here and you still eat mac and cheese and watch Gilmore Girls with Krystal.

But it's different, with Tiffany around.

Like you found a piece of home in her.



iv.

You don’t really realize how you feel - until it hits you like a ton of bricks.

On a day where practice ends earlier than usual, Tiffany teaches all the trainees how to play spin the bottle, the ‘American movie’ game as everyone had called it, and for some reason you feel your heart start pounding against your chest - hard.

You feel hot.

When the bottle lands on you and her, Tiffany ends up kissing you on the lips inside one of the storage closets.

“I...” Tiffany starts, “I mean, that was kinda nice. I mean, like, we’re not like...”

“Shut up” You cut her off, eyes wandering on the shadows of the other girls’ face, “Just.”

Tiffany stares into your eyes.

“Just...”

You want to scream. Instead, you bite your lip.

“I think I like you”

It comes out your mouth quickly and confidently - like you didn’t only a minute ago just come to the realization that you were in love with your best friend. Your loud and annoying best friend who also happened to be the most caring person you’ve ever known. Your dear American friend that got on your every nerve yet managed to nestle her way into your heart.

Your lovely miyoung.

“I love you, actually.”

Tiffany stares at you, silently for a while.

“Jess...” she says, softly and tenderly, “I love you, too”

You hesitantly brush a finger against hers.

“Like, actually?” you want to make sure, “you love me, in that way?”

Tiffany doesn’t respond, instead leaning forward for a another kiss. It’s a sort of weird combination of hesitance and passion. It’s quick and a little bit messy - but oh so very right. Like somehow, this was the answer you needed all this time.