"T-turn r-righ-t. Yeah, we're here."

So i'm here, we're here, at this grungy motel in the shunned corner of this town ( Even more than the rest of the it already is). It's the only resting stop near here for 15 entire blasted miles. Tiffany planned to go to this motel earlier on, she said that it looked decent on its website, thus she chose it. I read the date that post was posted on. It was about six years ago. Grime, dirt and filth can build up quite a lot in six years, so explained on the walls and practically everything else on this plot of land here. I pay the cabby and exit the vehicle in a rush, taking all of our luggage with me. Tiffany, too, jumps out with a squeal. But she did it for another reason.

"Eeep! We're finally here! It looks so cool!"

Just as she says that the execrably ear-piercing sound of thunder fills the sky, nearly damaging my ear drums. However, my first instinct for some reason was to cover up her ears.

"Thanks, Jessi! That was really loud for thund- Ahh!"

Oops, didn't do it that time. Maybe I should run right now, maybe she'll chase after me and we'll get out of the place. Or maybe we'll just enter and I'll bear the consequences of bringing up the topic of my hometown.

Tiffany and I briskly walk into the motel with me dragging in all the bags, nearly making it to door by the time it started drizzling. We told the receptionist our names and she gave us our room key, room key 95, with what seemed to be a sneer on her face.

“Sorry but our lift has broken down. Please use the stairs instead. Sorry for the inconvenience,” she said as if she was forced to (she probably was).

The receptionist points at the stairs with its railing covered with dust before resuming her pathetically boring work in her pathetically boring workplace which is very much pathetic.  How pathetic of me. We journey up the extensive amount of stairs and I plonk down onto the floor, tired from all the work similar to that of a worker in a sweatshop.  Tiffany looks at me listlessly.

“What?”

“Come on, It mustn’t be that hard.” Curse their inordinately long work hours, she’s not tired but I feel like a rock, a lump of sweaty, regretful, disorganized rock.

“Yah! Why are you daydreaming on the floor? Do it elsewhere! Hehe! Get up!”

Can’t I just lay here? Tug, tug, she tugs at my arm and tries to pull me up but I don’t think that it would be too possible. I hear her groaning and for me to move but I just want to lay here. The carpeted floor is cold, I like cold. But the warmness of her hands is tempting me, testing me, to get up and enter the hotel room. Fine, I say, she wins, but only for this one time.

“Come on, lazy cat!” Do I resemble a cat?

The wretched key enters the keyhole and she opens the door in one swift action. Meanwhile, I most literally drag the luggage into the okay looking room and rest my burned out legs on what I consider the least springy and comfortable bed I have ever encountered thus far. It feels like I’m on cardboard, mildly smelly cardboard to be exact. As Tiffany hears my dissatisfaction about this mattress, she reaches into her handbag, takes out her perfume and sprays the sweet scented stuff onto the bed where I lay, including me.  Perfume smells great but tastes horrible.

“PLLLLLPh! Eww!”

“Who told you to taste it?” Now, now, don’t need to be defensive.

“I-I…Well…”

“I thought so. At least the room smells less abhorrent than it did before. ”

“It might kill me!”

She ignores that and carries on exploring around the motel room, peeking into every crack and corner she can find. She opens the cupboard, the cobweb-covered, nasty little wooden furniture, and makes a noise similar to that of a dying baby whale; slightly cute but mainly funny. Oh how I laugh and laugh and laugh till I feel a soft, fluffy impact against my skin. A pillow fight? Don’t mind if I do! I take the pillow and slam it against her face, and later, vice versa.

“Can we please stop it now? The cupboard is a spider’s haven.”

She points to the web-infested cupboard and does her heartbreakingly cute pout. Oh what the heck, fine, I’ll clean it out for you, Princess Tiffany. Standing up, I take from my pocket a packet of tissues and try to head for the bathroom but the second I whip the tissue packet out, she blocks me.

“Do you really think that it will work?”

“What do you have planned in your head?”

She rolls her eyes and jabs my forehead with her finger.

“This is a hotel, they will surely have room service.” Oh really? A ‘hotel’ with such a cupboard will have room service?

Despite my inner urge to say ‘of course there wouldn’t be room service’, we run down the stairs again and reach the ground floor. We take our time to walk to the reception counter and just as we were about to reach there, Tiffany noticed that the receptionist was sleeping and alerted me about it.

“Simple. We just wake her up.”

“Psh…You do it then.”

I inch towards the sleeping woman, with skin as white as a sheet, quite worryingly. I slowly start to tap on her shoulder with one finger, then two, then the entire hand and now I think I would be better off just starting to slap her back. She is as deep in sleep as I usually am, and that says something because I sleep like a rock. Great, now I’m more of a rock than I thought. I turn to Tiffany and mutter.

“What now? She’s not waking up…”

“We could pour cold water on her.”

“No, that’s way too cliché.”

“Cliché? Jessica, we’re trying to wake her up not film a freaking movie!”

“True.”

She rolls her eyes and drags me to the nearby water cooler with the rolled up paper cups that look like cones, yeah, those kinds of water coolers. Except, this time, there is no water in it and it’s not even plugged into a socket. We then began a finding frenzy for a water cooler with actual, sterile water in it. We bumped into each other a few times but finally we found one, although it was not plugged in. We plugged it in any way and waited for it to get cold before we collected the ice-cold water and carefully brought it back to the receptionist.

‘You know, I just realized that there is a convenience store across the street.” I was caught off guard.

“Well, never mind, we got the water so let’s pour it on her.”

Tiffany went with the classic ‘three, two, one go!’ sort of thing and so with her fingers, she showed the numbers. Three…Two…One!

I just realized how stupid of an idea that was. The bespectacled lady screamed in horror as she waved her hands in the air, as if she was drowning in a body of water. Tiffany and I look at her in terror, our eyes meeting and somehow saying ‘let’s get out of here!”. Tiffany speeds up the stairs in a flash while I, with my god awfully lousy stamina, take about three minutes before I can reach our level. I feel like plopping onto the floor again, just lay down spread out like a starfish, but no, Tiffany pulled me into our room and locked the door behind us.

“Jessi, I think it’s time to say our last words.”

“Tiff, please stop over-reacting, we won’t die, we’ll just burn under her wrath and get third degree burns that we’ll have to live with for the rest of our lives.”

“That seems like a fate worse than death.”

“Oh really? I- You know what? Never mind, it is a fate worse than death…”

My heart’s pounding, palpitating, like the beat of a drum, it hammers against my lungs, and my entire body is shaking like it would be during an earthquake. I look at Tiffany and she looks at me while we try to fend off the fuming receptionist who is currently trying too hard at putting the key into the hole. I hear it clinking and pinging against the metal of the door knob till the unmistakable sound of it going through enters both of our ears and we push against the door even more.

“Jessi, no matter what happens to us, you should know that I like you very much.”

“Gah!” No time for final words Tiff, she’s going to come in!

It’s like tug-of-war but instead of pulling, it’s pushing. But for some reason, this receptionist woman has been working out in the gym a lot lately by the feel of it.  My knees are like putty and considering that I sweat like a pig, I feel drenched. My stamina’s not good, hell, I remember my teacher grading my report card’s Gym score and I got an E. It was fantastic.

Pushing out the last of my energy, I slowly reach for Tiffany’s hand and pull her towards our luggage in one quick move while the woman dressed in an awkward juxtaposition of sweatpants and a blazer stomps her feet, as if she is an elephant. We hurriedly barge out the door and ran down the stairs. Tiffany hit her head against the clear doors of the motel but for now, all I care about is hailing a cab. And I do so, I get a cab, the cabby from before had been sleeping in his taxi all along.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital? Is there internal bleeding?” 

She looks at me and stares at me like she’s judging me inwardly.

“How would I know if I’m bleeding internally?”

“If you feel faint.”

“The blood doesn’t come out, it stays in.”

“You still might feel faint, I don’t know, I’m not a doctor!”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital, Jessi, I’m fine!”

The cabby looks back at us and clears his throat and then he coughs. Tiffany and I halt the conversation and stared back at him questioningly.

“Well, where the hell do you guys want to go?”

“The beach…?”

Within the blink of an eye, the man clad in a food-stained white wife beater and some outrageously sagging jeans stomps onto the gas pedal and the cab accelerates forward, taking us to the beach which Tiffany inadvertently chose as our destination.  I, with my mouth wide open, look at her with a mix of astonishment and stupor. She looks back at me, flashes me a nervous smile and shrugs.

“What are we going to do at the beach? We can’t camp there! There is just sand there, there isn’t any-“

She shuts my mouth with her hand and whispers into my ear that it’s going to be okay and that we would find a way, somehow, to spend the rest of the day there as it is getting close to sunset and that she feels far too lethargic to find another hotel.

“But what if it rains, Tiff?” I say through her hand over my lips, making the sentence itself sound muffled.

She shrugs again and lets her hand fall back onto her lap. And suddenly, I feel her head being rested on my shoulder, with the sound of her sighing against my eardrums and the feel of it tingling against my bare skin.

“I don’t know, don’t you have an umbrella?”

I utter a ‘no’ and she sighs again, this time wrapping her arms around my waist as she drifts off into deep slumber upon realizing that the journey would take more than ten minutes by the look of it. Resting my head on my hand, I think of a way that I can solve such a thing if I will rain tonight. Did I bring any sort of waterproof item like a waterproof blanket or mat of some sort? Well of course I didn’t, I didn’t even bring an umbrella.

The abundance of trees pass my eyes and fade into the distance whilst another chunk of trees appear, it’s like a child playing with puzzle pieces of trees, he’s fixed some pieces in, but for the time being, there’s a sudden block of land with close to no vegetation. Palm trees then appear and I know now that we’re quite near to the beach. Looking down at Tiffany in all her quiet and peacefulness makes my heart want to fan-girl so much right now. I can’t believe how amazing she is in real life.

***

“It’s twelve dollars, eighty-five.”

The money drops into his hand and he counts the notes and coins with eager eyes as the satisfaction of getting more cash perks his interest.  He gives me the ‘ok signal’ and asks for us to scram, what delightful service. Tiffany, awakened by the movement of my body, releases her arms around me and stretches like a cat would.

We get out of the taxi and head to the trunk of the car, opening it and heaving our luggage out.  In unity, we slam the trunk lid back and rush to the beach. In all of its sandiness, I feel lucky that we have both decided to wear sneakers here. Otherwise, we would definitely trip in some high-heels, especially in my case.

Truthfully, I’ve never been to this beach for about seven to eight years, so maybe that’s why the memories of me being here are fuzzy. Sure, there are some bottles and candy wrappers and plastic bags littered here and there, but other than that, this place is quite a paradise compared to the rest of this town.

“It’s beautiful here.”

She announced to the clouds of which she stares at, arms wide, head cast up to the sky. They are of a melodious blend of orange, red and a hint of yellow coming from the sun that is setting slowly, but surely, on the horizon.  The light bounces off her skin, creating the illusion that she’s sort of like a star or an angel that has just fallen from heaven. Well, she is my light. She just makes my heart flutter so much looking at her like this. I feel like I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I admit that my bias list of SNSD has changed, putting Tiffany at first place. I think that it’s partly because of those Taeyeon incidents earlier on though.  It’s like she’s becoming a living nightmare for me. For now, I’ll just focus on Tiffany.

“Come on, it’s going to get dark.”

Holding onto her hand, together we find a spot on the beach, just under a palm tree with gigantic leaves swaying around with the wind, and place our luggage against the tree trunk.

“Are we really going to sleep here? There might be big red ants crawling about and on the tree trunk.”

I shake my head and roll my eyes.

“Do you want me to tell you some facts about when you sleep?”

She backs away a little and places both her hands in front of my face.

“No…No more information needed. Sooyoung, a.k.a the weird fact fanatic, has already told me about the amount of insects we eat while we’re asleep, and about head lice. Which are both disgusting but in this case…Fine.”

 I can’t help but chuckle and she hits me playfully as she makes that ‘tsk-tsk’ sound.

“So do we both agree on sleeping under this tree?”

She nods and settles down under the tree. She pats the area of sand beside her, motioning for me to go over there and sit down while she gazes into the horizon, admiring the skies that have turned into a deep purple-red colour. Following her instructions, I sit down right next to her and rest my throbbing head against her shoulder.

“Do you feel okay?”  She asks while placing the back of her hand against my forehead.

“It feels like you’ve got a fever,” she continues.

“It’s okay, just as long as you’re fine.”

She sighs deeply but decides not to reprimand me for saying that. But I care for you more, Tiffany. What will happen if you get the flu or a headache? Then we’ll be two sick cats and baby whales, and I don’t think that that’ll be quite nice.  I do the same for Tiffany, just in case, you know, feel her forehead and neck, things like that. Thank God she’s okay.

“Yup, you’re fine.”

Just then, she turns her head and gives me a peck on the cheek.

“Oh…” What is going on?

“You’re so sweet, thank you.”

She collapses onto my lap and starts playing with my hair, a yawn escaping .

“Jess, I’m hungry.”

“Well so am I.”

“Did you bring any biscuits?”

I shake my head and hear her sigh for the umpteenth time today, but I feel her pain. My belly’s craving and I feel weak, she probably feels almost identical to how I feel right now. This time, I play with her hair and comb her locks with my fingers. She looks up to me and smiles. I’m not at all irritated by it, as a matter of fact, even if she smiles for every single minute of every single hour of every single day for the rest of her life, I’ll never get tired of it, never.

I try closing my eyes to go to sleep. I’m trying to count the sheep, to imagine a magical land of unicorns and whatnot but it’s not working. I open my eyes and look around the beach, the night sky with all of its stars, then at Tiffany who is staring at me like a puppy.

“I can’t sleep,” she says sluggishly.

“Neither can I. ”

Again, I shut my eyes and I do so tightly, perhaps now I can finally sleep if I force it upon myself to. Wait, is it supposed to be the opposite?  Am I supposed to not think about anything too hard and then I’ll be able to drift off to dreamland? Wait…I feel a gentle breeze blow against both of my sides. Both. Where’s Tiffany gone to? As I gradually open my eyes, Tiffany comes back to me with one of those jackets she brought here. Looking to my far left, I now realize that Tiffany has taken the jacket from her hot pink luggage, one with an insane amount of leopard spots, and has decided not to pack everything back into the thing. Now it has some random accessories and toiletries dangling out of it. Oh well, I’ll reserve that chore for tomorrow.

Tiffany drapes the warm jacket over the both of us and giggles lightly, thinking that I am still asleep. In an attempt to trick her, I close my eyes tighter and pretend that I’m sleeping, even trying to mimic my usual breathing sounds, noises and movements, to which I find very much unusual.

“I know that you’re still awake, stupid,” she says teasingly as she hits my shoulder.

“Is it that obvious?”

“You snore when you’re asleep. So I’ll know when you’re asleep. And besides, It’s a very distinct type of snore. You seriously sound like a cat when you’re snoring! It’s like you’re purring! You’re so cute when you sleep!”

She rests her head on my shoulder and wraps her arms around one of my arms and now there’s this surge of emotions in me. Oh gosh, this feels so weird and yet so right. It’s tough trying to describe this certain feeling, it’s not one that I usually feel when I hyperventilate once I get the news of an SNSD member’s new photo shoot or self-taken picture, but it’s definitely not love, I think. This truly enchanting girl makes me experience such perplexed emotions, it’s a little bit scary. I’m not in love with her, right? I’m just crazily obsessed with her.

“Wanna talk till we sleep?”

“About what?”

She points her finger to herself and shrugs. I think I get what she’s trying to get across.

“Yeah, I guess my fan girl self is really showing.”

She hugs my arm a tad bit tighter and chuckles oh so adorably, her eyes just looking at mine like an expecting child longing for a cookie in the cookie jar. I mean, if I were her, I would be very much anticipating people’s questions. Her life must be so eventful compared to mine, which is Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events summarised, translated into a foreign language, translated yet again, toned down and diluted to the point of no return, which is finally put into a stained and tattered exercise book.

But I’m really afraid of what her reaction might be. Why is it that the most interesting questions always have a high chance of hurting someone? In this case, I have the ultimate urge to just ask her about what she thinks about the notable incident that happened right smack in the middle of SM Town.

“So…How do you feel about the gang that…you know? Threw those stuffs at you?”

She must remember that incident way much clearer than I do after watching that awful, disgusting video of a member of an anti-SNSD group filming their terrifying hate act. 

It was right during their performance of their ever famous song, ‘Gee’, when it happened. It was all going well up till that point of time, every single member of Girls’ Generation seemed to be having fun and smiling as bright as ever, dancing their popular but quite ridiculous looking crab dance-move. And it all went down since the girls stopped their dance and broke up, each member walking to their appointed locations, still singing the chorus of Gee. 

I can still remember that face she made when they poured the deep red paint all over her, the red liquid frightening her to bits, she immediately took to crying it out, her tears mixing with the wretched oil paint. Why would anyone do such a thing to her? She didn’t do anything wrong! All she did was perform in a girl group called Girls’ Generation, she didn’t hurt any one of them! Those people were sick, they still are sick, demented, retarded, all of the words in the dictionary that contain the meaning of hatred, I felt that right after watching the video. I still do. All of her fans and sensible people of this world would probably feel this too. 

And to make matters worse, their gang threw down a bag full of scrunched up paper, but this time with pig’s blood splattered on them. They contained rants and mindless blabbering about why they hated SNSD, or Tiffany in particular. I just want to make them pay so much.

“I…I guess I forgive them.”

What? How can she do such a thing when they’ve scarred her for life?

“I know what you’re thinking, Jess. Why is she so forgiving? I…I just want to move on. Now, they’ve been given time in jail and I’ve gotten the help and attention I needed from my girls, the psychologist and Sone. All is well. But I just can’t handle the stress from the media anymore, and the bodyguards? They creep me out. I’m getting paranoid because of them. I just want to leave it all.”

“But-“

“Jessica, there are no buts. I am terrified about seeing blood now, but otherwise, I’m not harmed by them or their words on those stupid letters. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words, they’ll never hurt me. The red paint pouring is really gruesome and sick, though.”

How does she laugh it all off? I mean, she’s even laughing at what’s happened before now. She’s too perfect. I guess what I said about that phone is really prophetic, she’s absolutely perfect, in my eyes. She’s perfectly imperfect, if that makes sense.  Heh, just thinking about that phone makes me smile like a freak. That phone’s gotten me so far, this far, this far with Tiffany by my side. That lock screen picture is now my most favourite one of her, the one with her and her nerdy glasses.

“But Tiff, you still like singing, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

I rest my head on her head and stare off into the nothingness, particularly because it’s midnight.

“Can you sing Forever for me?”

“But why?”

I can’t help but shed a tiny little tear of joy.

“It’s my favourite song. It reminds me of my love for Girls’ Generation, and for you.”

“Aren’t we the same thing?”

“Well, don’t tell the rest but you’re my favourite. And, no matter what journey you embark on, what path you take, what step you make, I’ll always be a fan of SNSD, of you. I’ll always be your number one fan.”

She doesn’t say another word, but she begins humming the tune of the beginning of Forever, the loveliest ballad I’ve ever heard in my life. And now, the loveliest member of Girls’ Generation is singing this to me. I feel like it’s too good to be real, it has to be a dream. Her voice sounds far too angelic to be real, this up close to her. I feel like I can listen to her sing till the sunrise, maybe even later than that.

“지쳐있던 가슴이 다시 숨쉬고

My exhausted heart beats once again

가난해진 마음이 빛을 찾았어

My weak heart has found light again

영원토록 이렇게 너의 손잡고 같이 걷고 싶어

I want to hold your hand and walk like this forever

우리 둘 만의 세상에 사랑하는 내 사람과 함께

Together with the person I love in a world just for the two of us

…

아주 오랜 시간이 흘러 지나서 (아주 오래 지나서)

Even if a very long time passes (A long time passes)

너와 나의 모습이 조금 달라도 (조금 달라도)

Even if you and I become a bit different (A bit different)

영원토록 이렇게 너와 둘이서 꿈을 꾸고 싶어

I want to dream forever with you like this

나의 소원이 되어준 나의 믿음이 되어준 너와

The one who became my miracle, the one who dreamed with me, with you

…

오랜 세월이 흘러도 영원히 너와 꿈꾸고 싶어

Even if a long time passes, I want to dream forever with you”

***