A/N: This story runs on two different timelines. One when Tiffany is older, where she is referred to a 'Stephanie', and the other where she is younger and referred to as 'Tiffany'. Each section jumps back and forth between timelines. Apologies for the confusion.

autumn leaves: part 1

Stephanie is turning thirty-two next week.

She acknowledges this and stares at the piano keys, black and white - unlike life. She presses down and the note chimes through the empty house. Where exactly has my life gone, is her thought.

It’s gone to Nichkhun and Ben, to writing and breathing, to being alive but not living.

Her hand drops to her lap and her head hangs low.

She strikes a key. It’s a warm, yellow day. If only her mood matched the weather.

Stephanie is turning thirty-two next week. She’s almost certain that Nichkhun is planning a surprise for her. She knows because Nichkhun is an open book and she is an author who spends more time reading than she does writing.

She strikes another key, and plays out a song that she played when she was nineteen years old and in love with someone she shouldn’t have been.

* * *

Nicole spoke too fast. She watched the pace at which her lips moved, and found herself smiling as they made their way down the corridor.

She was glad. California was different from how she remembered and completely different from Seoul all together. She definitely would’ve been more lost than she already was if wasn’t for Nicole and her tendency to talk too fast.

Tiffany was nineteen, and had been there for three days, breaking her bones to fit the sun streaked, relaxed ways of California. She was still rather stiff though, and the sound of English being spoken in every which way as she walked was still rather foreign to her.

They stopped outside Tiffany’s class.

“This is you.” Nicole said. They were early. “Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I can’t meet up with you after class. I have dance rehearsals. But you know the way back, right?”

Tiffany nodded with a smile. “Of course I do.” No, she didn’t.

* * *

Ben has eyes like his father. Big, wide, bottomless. Kind and caring. Stephanie gets tangled up in them sometimes.

As he colours with his chunky pencils that are too big for his small hands, she watches, smiles. Ben is the sun in her forever-greying sky. She hopes, desperately, that he turns out like Nichkhun.

Her eyes flicker away. On her laptop screen the cursor blinks at her accusingly. Where is she going? This idea will never work. If it hasn’t been working for the past year, then it definitely won’t start working now.

She pushes the laptop away and ruffles Ben’s hair as she passes.

“What do you want for dinner, Benjamin?”

“Pizza!”

She pulls a carton of apple juice out the fridge. “We had pizza yesterday.” She listens to him sigh as she pours into two cups.

“But Youngjae says his parents give him pizza all the time.” He mutters.

“Who’s Youngjae?” She plops down beside him.

He takes the cup in his two hands and gulps down messily. “He’s my friend.”

“I’ve never heard of him.” She wipes the residue away from the corner of his mouth.

“That’s because he just joined our class. He’s new.”

Stephanie drinks down the rest and heads toward the sink. “Maybe we can invite him around to play one day.”

“Yeah!”

She chuckles softly as she rinses out her cup.

The jingling of keys is heard not too far in the distance, and right on cue the front door opens and she hears familiar footsteps near.

“Hey, Benji.” There’s a smile in his voice. Nichkhun sets his briefcase onto the counter. Without missing a beat, he leans in and kisses Stephanie gently on the cheek. “Hello, beautiful.”

“Hey,” Stephanie smiles as he moves away. She watches him drape his jacket over the nearest chair. “How was work?”

Nichkhun unclips his brief case.

“Same old same old. Nothing new.” He shrugs.

Stephanie exhales, realising how tiring this complacent cycle is becoming.

* * *

Tiffany didn’t know wh