Before Time's Up

(pt2)

    It took a while for Taeyeon to recover, but it was a surprisingly short amount compared to what Stephanie expected. After that night, the night of the break-up, Taeyeon and Stephanie spent every free minute they had together. It felt just like back in college when they called and texted so much, despite seeing each other every single day at the dorm and spending as much time together as possible, that both their parents scolded them several times for their skyrocketing phone bills. Except, this time, there were no boyfriends to make some spare time for.

   And it seemed as if Taeyeon was getting significantly better not only by the week or the day but by the hour as she and Stephanie returned to their ‘inseparable power couple’ selves; yes, even their friends called them a ‘couple’ jokingly, without knowing how Stephanie longed to hear those words in a different context and how her heart wanted to jump out of her chest every time Taeyeon called themselves that.

   Wives. A couple. Inseparable. Lovey-dovey.

   They were all easy things to joke about. But to actually look behind those words and see if there was really some truth behind it… That was the hard part to do.

   But Stephanie was determined.

   Everything, everything seemed to have changed ever since her trip back from LA. And at the same time, everything was also the same. The same looks, same words, same touches. But somehow, it felt like they both, yes, Stephanie thought, that they both knew they couldn’t hide much longer behind the safety net of the playful tones they used when they said “Maybe we should just get married to each other.” “Yeah, maybe we should.” or “No, I honestly think you look the iest like this.” or “Hey, she’s mine, hands off, shorty!”

   Years and years of doing it and it became a habit that they couldn’t shake off. Yet the meaning, the hidden meaning behind the words was always covered up by the fake sarcastic tone.

   A few days after the break-up, Stephanie felt that Taeyeon was fine enough to be ‘interrogated’ about why she avoided her for days before the incident. Taeyeon replied that she needed some time to clear her head and make a decision. Why she couldn’t be a part of that, Stephanie wasn’t sure.

   But one thing she was sure of: it was a different game they were playing now.

   Or better yet, maybe they weren’t playing at all anymore. Rather, they seemed to just let things happen the way they would happen. Stephanie decided to go with the flow and from the way she felt, Taeyeon appeared to be doing the same thing.

   So when she felt like it, Stephanie would throw caution to the wind.

“You know, if I could only live with you for the rest of my life… ”

“What then, you’d throw your slippers at me every day? That was a really nice way to wake me up, you know. Very gentle and caring.”

“Well, I could be gentle and caring all the time but where’s the fun to that?”

“Oh, I’m glad you enjoyed it, Miss, I’m never sleeping in your bed again in this lifetime.”

“Tch. As if. I know you love sleeping with me anyway.” No playful tone. Just stating the facts. She also purposefully stared into Taeyeon’s eyes.

   It took a moment for Taeyeon to make a comeback.

“I know you love sleeping with me, too. Does that mean I can wake you up with a slipper thrown at your face next time you do?”

   Their affectionate moments and heart-to-heart conversions have surely increased in number, too, Stephanie noticed, and she simply felt less of a need, or maybe ability, to hold back, as Taeyeon appeared to become more and more open by the day as well.

   And there were those strange, strange moments, unexplainable by rational reasoning, when it felt almost too obvious—

   For example, there was that thing that happened when they went to Jeonju. They were both petting a cat together when Stephanie’s hand had accidentally brushed against the side of Taeyeon’s. It should have been no big deal but Stephanie wanted more. So she aimed to ‘accidentally’ touch Taeyeon time and time again and she was pretty sure that Taeyeon was doing the same thing. It was a weird dance of mutual grazes and obvious intentional accidents, yet Stephanie had been lusting for any kind of contact for the entire day, lusting for contact more and more as the days passed by, even though she always thought it couldn’t get bigger than how it already was.

   Before their cat-petting would have turned into some kind of a never-before-known game of footsies… except with hands, and out in the open, they were interrupted by Taeyeon’s cousin and they both let go of the ‘cat’ immediately.

   Another time, it was Taeyeon’s reaction to her actions that sent her mind into a frenzy.

   Stephanie arrived home late one day, and her battery died just a few minutes before she found out she’d have to deal with one of her defendants late into the night.

   When she got home, Taeyeon was not in her own bedroom, where she usually slept, but was waiting for Stephanie in her bedroom, on her bed, a demanding look on her face.

   Stephanie found it a little strange but she didn’t say anything about it. Taeyeon in her bed was one of the best things she could hope for at the end of the day. “Hey, sorry to have kept you waiting, my battery died and no-one was in the office anymore to lend me a charger.”

“Hmm,” was all Taeyeon replied.

   Stephanie’s mind was still on the case she was dealing with, it was not exactly a simple one in the first place and it just turned out that there was more truth to the accusations on her defendant than she knew about before. She went to take a shower, not noticing Taeyeon’s sour expression.

   When she came back and started to get prepared for bed, Taeyeon sat up too, and started questioning her.

“What took you so long?” She obviously wasn’t talking about the shower.

“Uh, remember the trial we were practicing for just the other day?” Taeyeon nodded. “Well, it just got a little more complicated. The guy’s been threatened so now he decided to confess some stuff he had denied or never even mentioned to me before. It’s not looking very bright for him at the moment.”

“We did a news segment about the case today. We had some footage about court from before.”

   Stephanie put away the bottle of body mist and climbed under the covers, turning to Taeyeon. “And?”

   Taeyeon’s intense gaze pierced her own eyes. “You two looked close.”

   ‘What?’ “Huh?”

“He’s a handsome guy too,” her hand traveled onto Stephanie’s waist and her lower back.

“What are you talking about, Taeyeon?” Her heart wanted to burst through the constricts of her body.

“You’ll tell me if you like someone again, right?” She squeezed.

   ‘Holy sh—’

“I already do, Taetae,” Stephanie replied, out of breath. She was ready to confess. To get it all out in the open in that moment. With Taeyeon looking through her like that, her breath almost tickling Stephanie’s sensitive, burning lips, hand on her back, a finger already having slipped under her loose pajama top—

   Taeyeon gulped. “Is it him?”

   Stephanie could only shake her head slowly.

“Someone I know?”

   Nod.

   ‘How does my chest still contain this rampage?’

   Taeyeon nodded back, examining Stephanie’s expression.

   ‘It’s you, it’s you Taeyeon, it’s been you since we were two silly hormonal kids living a world apart from each other, I like you, I love you and I’m madly and deeply in love with you,’ Stephanie wanted to say but she couldn’t.

   She waited for Taeyeon to ask the next question because she was uncharacteristically and hopelessly tongue-tied and she knew that there’d be one question that would loosen her tongue and end this near-heart attack state of hers.

   But that question never came.

“Goodnight,” Taeyeon said instead, and she gave one last squeeze to Stephanie’s waist as she placed a kiss on her flaming cheek, then turned around and soon fell asleep while Stephanie spent hours trying to calm down her racing heart and stop her million miles per hour thoughts as she tossed