After changing, Taeyeon invited Tiffany over to her place to delve deeper into the topic over some refreshments, since they were not busy at work and didn't have to stay overtime like they normally do. 

On the way back, Tiffany had the sense to divert their conversations to more light hearted topics and Taeyeon was very appreciative about that. She was distracted, however. She had told this story before but had never been able to sustain friendships after due to judgement and Taeyeon was wondering how much she should reveal so as to not lose Tiffany as a friend. She was in such deep thoughts that the journey home seemed so much shorter and in what felt like a blink of an eye they have arrived. 

"Would you like any drinks? Water? Cider?"

"A coke would be wonderful thanks."

"Of course, why did I even ask," Taeyeon chuckled, knowing the other's obsession with the soft drink. "Make yourself at home," Taeyeon said before she disappeared into the kitchen to get some refreshments. 

Tiffany took the chance to look around the apartment. It gave off a really cozy atmosphere with its black and white theme and was pleasantly surprised that she liked how it was furnished even though it lacked her favorite color pink. 

Taeyeon returned with some snacks and drinks for the both of them and as they sat down on the couch, she felt Tiffany trying her best not to look at her tattoo, probably wanting Taeyeon to be comfortable before talking about things. Taeyeon knew that she should start her story before it gets too late because even though Tiffany stays nearby, they still have to work tomorrow. She sighed before picking up her tea and sipped on it before she started. 

"It took me a very long time to decide on this tattoo and its placement actually, and I've only gotten it earlier this year before I quit my previous job," Tiffany sat up with interest upon hearing this but decided not to say anything to interrupt Taeyeon's train of thought. 

"I knew that I wanted something in relation to the semicolon project, but didn't want it to be so openly obvious, especially to my family. So I started researching different images on the internet with hidden semicolons in it. I came across the pictures of the panda and the heart separately and found myself connected to them. I used to like pandas a lot as well, which makes it even better. I discussed with an artistic friend to position it as one tattoo, making the panda look shyly at the heart, wishing that one day it can find true love as well.”

Tiffany gaped at the thought flow that was behind the tattoo. Many of her other friends who are inked just tell her that they like how it looks beautiful and want it to express themselves with it. Never has she heard one with such a story and she had a feeling it is going to get deeper than this.

“As I mentioned just now with regards to the problems I have, these 2 symbols seem to represent them just right in my opinion. I requested for the heart to be in blue, because it represents my depressed state. The panda represents my anxieties and how I feel with regards to life sometimes, wanting to avoid all contact with the world with my head turned to the side.”

Taeyeon looked up at Tiffany to find her still intrigued with the story. She knows that the latter is still curious and didn’t pause too long before she continued.

“There are two reasons why I placed it on my upper inner thigh. Firstly is because it is easier to hide it from people when I want to and meet grooming expectations at work, given the standards of our industry.” Tiffany nodded in agreement but made no comment.

“Second is because of the cause of my mental instabilities that the tattoo represents,” Taeyeon took a deep breath before looking down at her glass to continue her story. 

“I was by my first boyfriend when I was 17. It wasn’t even a pretty love story and I was young and stupid, being manipulated by emotions and that guy was very good at it. 9 years have passed since then and I can talk about it without breaking down, even joking about it. However, I still get random flashbacks when I’m emotionally stressed which leads me to my anxiety attacks. I don’t talk about it so often because people tend to look at me with pity, then be very careful around me which makes me frustrated because all I want is a peaceful life.”

Tiffany tried her best to control her emotions and expressions so that it doesn’t affect Taeyeon, conscious about her feelings and feeling bad for her. She looked on as the latter yawns and settled into a more comfortable position, looking like she’s going to fall asleep. 

“Counseling doesn’t help because all it does is to make me look back and think about how I feel about it. It may sound very serious and seems like I’m avoiding it because within a very short period of time it seemed to everyone that I was doing alright already. But all I wanted was just to move on from it, so I faked it til I made it. I’ve made peace with myself and looked forward, but why does it not apply to others about my life? Why does everyone still assume that my anxiety attacks are because of the past? The incident is what started the instabilities, but they are definitely not the reason why it still happens, at least not most of the time. I’ve made peace with myself, why can’t others make peace with what happened to me as a step I had to take in life? Now every time I feel bad about myself, I excuse myself to the toilet, sit down and stare at my tattoo. It calms me down and remind myself that I am enough, and I don’t have to please the world. I just don’t want anyone to look at me like I’m weak...”

As Taeyeon reached the end of her rant, she started to slowly lose consciousness to sleeps and murmured her last few words. Tiffany looked on and felt even worse for her friend, before shaking her head and clearing her mind, telling herself that this is exactly what Taeyeon didn’t want. 

Tiffany then tried to wake Taeyeon up and asked her to sleep in her room, in which the latter groggily obeyed. She then tucked her friend into bed, wished her goodnight before leaving the apartment and locking up, determined to look over her friend more and let Taeyeon feel comfortable in her presence from that moment on. 

A/N: I'm actually on medical leave and wrote in the middle of the night again. Apologies for the errors and thanks for reading. Thanks to sleepingprince & LockLoyalist for taking the time to comment as well. Yes it's my own tattoo. It's not the first time I'm writing a fanfic based on my own life, but at least I finished it, unlike the last time. Feel free to chat up with me if you want to, if not, thanks for dropping by. I actually just wanted a place to archive my thoughts. Tiffany in this story is like my inner angel, imagining what the most ideal situation is when I tell someone about this story in person, which I only did once and got a disapproving look (my family is kinda conservative so I only told my aunt whom I'm close to but still, to her the tattoo is unnecessary) and I only gave her half the details. Sorry for the long rant, wishing every one have a nice day.