She passed out in the taxi. The purr of the engines was too irresistible. She only remembered being out in the cold for a few minutes before going back into the warmth. And when she woke up, because she felt her stomach heaving, she rolled off a leather sofa and fell on a fluffy rug.

She tried to get up- only managing to get on all fours and tried crawling to the bathroom. Except, she didn’t really know where the bathroom was.

She heard quickening footsteps.

"Taeyeon?"

"Eurhg" she managed to reply.

"Are you going to be sick?"

"Eurgh"

"Okay, it's pretty close."

She was dragged through the rug, then through some warm wooden floor, before feeling a cold tiled surface underneath her sweaty palms. She was reminded of the tiles on that convenience store.

"Okay, I’m going to lift you on the count of three."

"1..."

"2…"

"3..."

The next thing she knew, she was surrounded by white light and a cool ceramic surface pressed against her forehead.

Was she dead?

Then her stomach heaved.

"It’s alright, I’ve got you."

A cold pair of hands cupped her face from behind, brushing away the loose strands of hair in the process.

"There we go. Get it out. Jesus Christ, I can’t believe those two let you drink you so much. And you, you should totally know better than just drink neat spirits…"

She finished vomiting. burnt. Her vision was blurry from the lights and tears and her head was swaying.

"Sorry" she croaked.

"Don’t be. Better?"

"Not really"

"Taeyeon, on the count of three I’m going to lift you up and we’ll go back to the sofa"

"No" Taeyeon tugged on Jessica’s sleeve.

"No? Then, what do you want to do?"

"Can I lie down here?"

"Sleep on my bathroom floor?!" replied Jessica, distraught.

"It’s cool"she added "and close to the…"

Jessica was about to refuse, when Taeyeon shot up and searched for the toilet bowl.

***

She woke up a few times, hand always reaching out for the toilet, before plummeting back to the floor. At some point, Jessica placed a cool cloth on her forehead and eyes, hoping that that would make the intense nausea she was feeling go away. It was as if someone had chopped up her body into pieces and thrown into a mixer. Even her liver hurt.

When the dizziness finally subsided, she managed to sit up.

Jessica was sitting precariously on the edge of the bath-tub, flicking through the Korean edition of ‘Cosmopolitan’.

"Sports drink’s near the sink with two painkillers- 800mg in total. I’m guessing you don’t want anything to eat" Jessica said distractedly, as she concentrated on a particular spread.

"Eugh, no. And I don’t ever want to drink again either"

"Make sure you finish that sports drink though. Lost minerals and all that"

"Thanks" she answered groggily "Time?"

"Ten- in the morning"

"So early?" she asked in shock.

"You didn’t really sleep much, nor could you really. Until you got that junk out of your system and even then- I so would not want to be in your shoes today"

"Stupid vodka"

"Yeah, well be glad you threw it out though. If all of that had actually properly entered your system, you'd have woken up on a hospital bed"

She reached for the bottle and gulped down the pills.

"Nice bathroom, by the way"

"Thanks" Jessica put her magazine down "you’ve made quite a good use of it. Come to think of it, you’ve never been here, right?"

"Nu-uh"

‘Must have been Yuri then. So how much do you remember?"

Taeyeon groaned

"Everything. ing everything"

"Even harassing a random stranger?"

"WHAT?"

"I’m guessing you might have forgotten that part" her friend chuckled "I left for a bit because of those two" she looked at Taeyeon’s haggard face "three idiots, met a friend from college and then came back to find you. But you weren’t there and Hyoyeon and Yuri just stood there, with their tongues lolling, mumbling, and I quote, ‘ing bucket-face idiot ungrateful left us’"

Taeyeon’s jaw dropped.

"They said that about me?"

"It’s no big deal. Hyo calls me similar things when she’s sober and Yuri is really weird when she’s drunk. I don’t think they’ll hold a grudge." Jessica smirked. "After I finish them, they won’t be able to even hold their piss"

"Ewwww"

"Yeah, so I went around looking for you, since Hyo has said you left and I saw you- you were slumped against this random girl for a-more-than-socially-acceptable-amount-of-time and  like, a second later you were hugging her-"

"That was Tiffany!"

"So I-what?!"

"Tiffany, the cashier girl. The one that was all over my brother"

" Tiffany?"

"Yah, Jessica, weren’t you listening to what I just said?!"

"B-b-but why were you hugging her?" her friend gaped at her-

"BECAUSE SHE WAS SOFT!"

"…right. That explains everything" Jessica retorted.

"I was really drunk, and I just leaned into her. I didn’t know who she was at that time until I looked at her face"

"Wow, Taeyeon the player. Forget about not knowing names, you take it to the next level!"

"Okay one, she’s a girl and ew. Two, it’s not a situation you can joke about. I fell down once we recognized each other"

"She recognized you?"

"Yeah, didn’t you see her?"

"Actually" Jessica pondered "I didn’t get to see her face. It was more like, by the time I got to you, you were on the floor and obviously I was paying attention to you, so I didn’t really look around and then I pulled you up and I just saw your bro instead. It’s like they switched places or something. Creepy stuff."

"You didn’t see her face?"

"Nope. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have recognized her. I’ve only seen her from the second floor, remember?"

"So then-"

"Then Jiwoong appeared and was all ‘Taeyeon this taeyeon that’ and I was all ‘Taeyeon fine, Taeyeon okay’ because Taeyeon had decided it was a great time to nap"

"Sorry"

"Meh, I slapped you afterwards so it’s okay"

"Yeah, that I do remember. But then, Jiwoong didn’t see me with her did her?"

"I don’t think so. 'cause I’m sure he wasn’t there when I got to you. It was like, bam, straight after you were up- fortunately for you"

"He sounded really nervous though"

"You could hear us?"

Jessica’s tone turned to ice.

"Erm, yeah, I was conscious a-"

"and you decided to act like a moron and pretended to be asleep?"

"Erm no" Taeyeon replied hastily "no, no, no, its not like that, it was teetering, that’s right bordering consciousness. Anyways" she added, eager to placate Jessica's mood "he sounded really nervous about me and Tiffany"

"Yeah" the girl reminisced "he did ask if you knew her, but I thought it was because he was nervous about you getting arrested for bothering people- again. I guess he was nervous about you knowing about them. Together and that"

"Oh, he better be. Jessica?"

"Nope, you’re not dragging me into your sibling revenge, Taeyeon"

"No, it’s not that. What makes you say she’s Korean-American?"

"Just the way she dances."

"The way she dances? That’s it?"

"Yeah, it just looked very obnoxiously American to me. Why?"

Taeyeon snored in reply.