Tiffany frowned as she looked on at the sight in front of her.

It started off as gentle, almost hypnotic, back-and-forth rocking, then accompanied once in a while by flapping hands while the low humming has been constant — she can’t tell what was being hummed though since she’s listening to music through her headphones but the humming was obvious since she can clearly see the slightly pursed lips.

Happening in between all of those and her once in a while observation is typing by two other pairs of hands to their own laptops.

Then, Taeyeon tugged at the collar of her own white t-shirt, looking irritated for a second, before supposedly going back into coding a part of the front end of their system. Tiffany can’t be sure. She’s in charge of the other part.

The rocking, the flapping, and the humming continued on…

…until Taeyeon tugged at the collar of her own shirt again, but harder this time. It looks like she wanted to rip it off of her skin.

Still, that was only for a fraction of a second and Taeyeon’s immediately back to typing, so Tiffany went back to her own work too, all the while ignoring the throbs radiating from her sore wrists.

Ah, damn. The id for the rows of the forms is all the same.

Tiffany pressed a button on the wire of her headphones and the music immediately stopped. Sliding it down her neck, she noticed that the room was very quiet aside from the typing noises so she softly called out to Taeyeon.

“Hm?” Taeyeon responded to indicate that she heard since her eyes were still glued to her own screen.

“I’m going to change the id in the editing forms of the scorebook. They’re all the same. What’s the format again?” Tiffany asked.

At that, Taeyeon cursed under her breath but since it was quiet in her room, the word pretty much bounced around, “I knew I was forgetting something during that copy and paste.”

Tiffany watched as Taeyeon tugged at the collar of her shirt again but, instead of letting go, she kept her two fingers hooked, then just let it dangle. Tiffany immediately noticed that the revealed skin is actually whiter in complexion against the skin of Taeyeon’s neck — which she thought was impossible in the first place given that the girl looks like a light bulb when wearing jackets with the hood up — and that she had a harder time ripping her eyes off of those protruding collarbones.

Wow, that’s actually pretty y. Ah, damn it. Focus! And look away! I’m looking at her like some kind of creep!

“Oh, and don’t worry. I’ll change the ids since that’s my part and all,” Taeyeon spoke up again, her two fingers still hooked on her collar, with her gaze now directed at Tiffany before moving to the space between the girl’s eyebrows.

Even if it was only for a second, in the face of those amber eyes, with its translucent golden color and russet tint, Tiffany was reminded of just how beautiful Taeyeon really is. Sure, their entire class knows of this fact along with neighboring sections and other nosy, curious engineering courses in their building but, for some reason, she thinks this is the first time she actually saw it. And was affected by said beauty just as much. Other times, it was just “Oh, she looks pretty today” or “Hey, that color suits her” and such. Now, it’s more like, “Wow” and “Her eyes are like gems”.

If Tiffany was to sum it up using a few words, it’d be her being unable to look away for a few more seconds than usual.

“Tiffany?” Taeyeon called out when the other girl seemed to be spacing out.

To Tiffany’s credit, she managed to look sheepish enough for Taeyeon not to ask further, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Anyways, I said I’d be the one to change the id of the editing forms. Go and take a rest. You’d been working on the forms since you woke up,” Taeyeon insisted…

…and Tiffany’s heart skipped a beat.

She wasn’t exactly sure why she felt really giddy that Taeyeon acknowledged her hardworking personality but that didn’t stop her heart from fluttering, which was weird since she had always been hardworking and that part of her wasn’t really anything special.

Worse, the ‘heart skipping a beat’ and ‘literal fluttering heart’ moments have been happening a lot more frequently. But she’s not entirely sure just when it started; she’s already in the middle of it all by the time she paid attention. The only other thing she knows is that it happens whenever Taeyeon is around. As far as she could remember, her whole being didn’t react like this towards her current group mate.

So, what caused the change?

“Taeyeon, really, I could do it. You’re busy on your own part anyway. Come on, you’re coding the editing part of the scorebook which starts from 1.1 to 7.5. Or maybe you don’t believe in my typing skills?” Tiffany asked with a grin while making sure her gaze sticks to the girl’s eyes and not anywhere lower — damn y collarbones. And since she was sitting on the front row seats, she saw, with startling clarity, the way Taeyeon’s eyes lighted up in amusement when she chuckled.

Twinkle, twinkle little star~

“I believe in your typing skills,” Taeyeon paused to chuckle again — Tiffany is beginning to love the sound — but her amusement was quick to be replaced by a concerned frown, “but I know your wrists are hurting.”

The silence was the only reply Tiffany could give. Well, that and the throbbing of her wrists as if in affirmation; happy to finally be noticed since the owner of the arms they’re attached to had kept on ignoring them for hours now.

How did she—I was sure I was hiding it well.

Too stunned to say anything right away but also scared that Taeyeon might think she had crossed some kind of line and had made the situation worse than it actually was, she was beyond thankful when Sunny participated to the conversation, “You sure about that?”

Taeyeon didn’t miss a beat in answering, “Yep.”

And there was something about the way Taeyeon had answered, probably at how fast or at how sure she sounded like when she did so, that just tugged at Tiffany’s heart. Something, other than blood, that caused her heart to skip a beat, again. The same something that also caused her heartbeat to escalate a bit faster for today too.

Seriously. The girl just noticed what I was hiding, that’s all! Yet I’m acting as if she had just told me she loves the color pink too! What is wrong with me today? Maybe it’s the all-nighters? It has been weeks since I got some proper sleep. Ugh, mom’s going to kill me.

“How could you tell, Tae? That’s another person’s wrists, not yours,” Sunny continued to ask, seemingly intrigued by her best friend’s attentiveness to another person. It’s not like Taeyeon doesn’t generally care about others but she had never been fond of strangers either.

Then again, Taeng does have a knack for noticing the weirdest things.

At the question, Taeyeon perked up like a puppy proud of returning the ball it had caught, “Oh, well, it’s just that she wasn’t typing as fast as she did last night.”

Sunny took a second to reply after noticing that Tiffany’s gaze had become clouded at the sight of Taeyeon acting like a puppy as if she had gone deep into her mind and has left reality for a moment. But she shrugged it off since it wasn’t the first time someone was mesmerized by Taeyeon’s beauty, “Well, maybe she was just thinking today. She is the one creating the design of the web pages. Maybe she got stuck on a certain part.”

“Nah. She definitely knows. I mean, it’s Tiffany we’re talking about. She’s a genius, but she’s also definitely tired,” Taeyeon concluded with a tone that left no room for denial.

“I guess you’re right,” Sunny eventually agreed.

Meanwhile, Tiffany was overwhelmed by the amount of trust these two people are putting in her (she could be pretending! And what they’re working on is their final project, not an assignment!) and that Taeyeon saw so much in her (a genius, she said!) even though their current relationship is best described as interaction between strangers at best.

What’s more, Taeyeon had looked at her, even if most of her gaze was indirect, with startling clarity in her amber eyes that she would have to be blind to not see the sincerity in them, though she knows she could easily hear it in the blonde’s words too if her vision decides to go away for the day.

All of these gave Tiffany these feelings she can’t accurately describe. They’re as elusive as they are frustrating, like butterflies fluttering about; you know they exist but you’re not sure where they had previously come from before landing on your nose, and even then you can’t hold them since they’ll fly away the moment you move. They’re just there and you have no idea what to do or if you should really do anything.

Well, my hiding about my wrists isn’t really that big of a deal, at least not to me. I just didn’t want to trouble anyone or hinder the progress of our project, that’s all. Besides, this isn’t the first time I’ve done so. I’ve hidden a lot of things, so often it’s second nature to me now. I’m also used to people not noticing a single thing, yet there’s Taeyeon; my classmate of four years now. Had she always noticed these things? Then again, maybe she just noticed now since we aren’t in the same group all that often. Still, even my own group of friends doesn’t notice anything.

This time, when her heart fluttered again, Tiffany fully embraced the emotions that swept through her, no matter if she could describe said emotions or not, and let a smile bloom.

“Thanks for the break, Taeyeon,” Tiffany whispered after noticing that the two best friends had already gone back to work.

When Taeyeon momentarily stopped typing to flash her another chin-dimpled grin with her gaze sweeping past Tiffany’s pupils, Tiffany knew then and there something about herself had changed; hopefully, the change is good.

Now, amidst the weird, nameless feelings-turned-emotions, she could finally identify excitement to be one of them.

The peace gradually returned to the room as Tiffany stretched her wrists from time to time, Taeyeon taking a short break from her work to wear a bigger, softer shirt and her headband, and Sunny declaring to herself that she actually likes this development, especially after she saw the way Tiffany tried to not melt Taeyeon’s soft, cuddly form in her big shirt and held back hair with her staring, only to fail, but Sunny also told herself that she’ll keep mum about it as she went about with her work. Ugh, normalizing tables are the worst!