A/N- I don't even know why or how I added *that* middle part in, but I did and I am still greatly confused with myself.

“Wake up sleepyhead!”

Presumably Tiffany shakes me and I stir, toss and turn. I don’t want to wake up. I just want to stay in this pleasingly comfortable position, lying beside her with a velvet jacket over us, warm, dazzling sunshine bouncing off our skin. Now I get why they say she has milky white skin, oh how white her skin is, especially in this lighting! Unable to help myself, I touch her face and trace the outline of her cheek and jaw.  She takes her hand and puts it over mine, slowly taking it off, yet she’s blushing so madly.

“Come on, we need to get going. You don’t want to stay here for the rest of this trip, do you?”

As I’m shaking my head, she pinches my cheek and pulls me into a hug for no real reason.

“Why do you keep hugging me for no reason?”

She squeezes me tighter, with more force and rubs her cheek against mine as my heart skips a beat.

“Because you’re so cute and huggable! Now let’s go!”

As I had promised myself yesterday, I stand up and drag myself to where the luggage is, kneel down and pack in all the items that were left all around the place. Now I might sound erted but I think I saw her bra. I think I just blushed though, so did she see me blush? Oh gosh, why does the image of it keep popping up in my mind? But it was so cute-the kind of bra you would expect a sweet young teenager to own- it was baby pink with heart prints and pink laces…Aw, Tiffany’s just so cute and adorable, her inner self doesn’t reflect her outer appearance that much. Well, there’s the cheerfulness and bubbly her, but other than that, it’s mysteriously far from the same. I like that, for some apparent reason, it gives the image of her a little boost.

“Jessi, can we go now? I want to find us a good hotel.”

Nodding in a hurried manner, I scamper off to Tiffany’s side with our luggage. As soon as I bump into her, I link arms with her and stare at her. She pinches my cheek and snickers, and as we’re walking off to the nearest path, she questions me about why I was running to her so hurriedly.

“I saw a crab and it was side-walking its way to me. A crab bit my toe once and it hurt tons.”

She hugs me again and without saying anything else, she holds my hand and swings it back and forth, like an untroubled kid would, lost in the gulf of naivety, caring more about what happens in the moment, not caring about the future, just focusing on the present, the now, just like the me of the past. I should tell myself to not think too deep, I fear that it’s unhealthy for me to think like such too often.

“Jess, to be honest, when I first came here, I thought that it was kind of a mess. A sort of ‘ghetto’ neighbourhood if that’s what they call them, I only hear about it in shows so I don’t know much about it. But now, I realize that it’s the neighbourhood that you were raised in so it must be good.”

It’s hard not to smile at her compliment, especially since she probably thinks that I’m nice. Me? Liked by the actual Tiffany Hwang? Am I really liked by this classy, spontaneous dying baby whale-angel-goddess girl? Well, now, this cute little angelic whale goddess is sniffing my hair and it very slowly, oh how greatly weird she is, in a very good way though.

“Your hair smells so sweet and feels so soft… You should be in a shampoo commercial, really. Oh and are you feeling better now?”

“Yeah, we better find a hotel soon though.”

Our conversations we have range from mystical creatures to for some reason, geography, as we step over the Styrofoam cups and plastic scraps, although I think that she doesn’t seem to pay attention to those things. Maybe speaking to each other has blocked that part of her mind telling her ‘Tiffany, you fool, you’re stepping on junk for Christ’s sake!’

To me, we’re walking at the speed of a metre per minute, pathetically enough. The watch on my wrist could be lying to me right now, because its hands are moving so weirdly and inconsistently, much to my indifference. Then again, has the sun stopped? It doesn’t look like it’s moving at all, though it would usually follow me around everywhere. Now the only thing that’s following me is Tiffany, and I prefer her much more than the sun.

Sure the sun gives me life, but so does Tiffany. The sun gives us radiant light and nurturing warmth, and I think that Tiffany does it better. Sometimes, I think that Tiffany is the personification of life, of happiness and its boundlessness.  

Perhaps I’m getting hallucinations, getting delusional and getting a little drunk on joy. I should really stop thinking profoundly, I might bump into something whilst I’m in my train of thoughts. We pass the little shops with liveable abodes on the top of them. I remember when I went into one of these shops, particularly the one with red and white stripes and a large flashing sign on it that said ‘Jo’s Coffee’. I can see now that it still is in business, although now it just says ‘J_’s Co_fe_’.  I-

“Woah! Tie your shoe, Jess!”

I nearly fall down but she catches me just in time, like in those cheesy Korean TV dramas. Whispering a ‘thanks’, I start tying my rainbow laces that are now not really colourful, they are stained with years’ worth of grease and or dirt, I loved walking around in the woods when I was young.

“Wow, these windows sure are messed up, huh?”

I stop tying my show and look right up at the cracked glass, but in no time I feel a sharp pain in my knee, followed by the feel of warm blood down my shin. Shifting my feet and hearing the sound of glass scraping against each other, I come to  realize that while I was tying the laces on my sneakers, that I had pressed my now aching knee against the window’s broken glass. Because of safety reasons of course, I kick away the fine-edged shards and move them towards the large green trash bins near the alleyway.

“Aye, those varmits, ain’t got no morals, none o’ that s__!”

Unexpectedly, the crude voice of an old man arrives and soon does his figure. His pot belly’s evident and his flaky scalp disgusts me every single time, but yeah he’s okay personality wise.

“Jessi, are you okay? You’re bleeding…”

Tiffany bends down and takes a good look at my knee and then stares up at me, expecting an answer. I feel nothing now, oddly enough. It is like she is serving as a sort of pain-reliever. What is this kind of, this kind of phenomenon? Impossible, it can’t be that I’m-No. No, it must be because I was living in, to an extent, solitary confinement for the later half of my life. And now, as shown in earlier cases, I’m just really, really happy that someone is here for me.

“Ah, no, it’s okay.”

Or maybe it’s because I have such a strong passion, an urge, a near need to be a fan of someone, or in this case, these eight girls. And fans always are happy to see their own idols, is it not true? Then I am but the same, a fan, just a hard core fan of a girl group. I’m just a great fan of Tiffany, and my love for her is only up till that level.

If so though, would any other fan blush as greatly as I do when she touches me? Her fingertips, now cold from our overnight stay at the beach, lightly touch my knee, she makes a sound of fright as she pulls the glass shard out of my flesh, lest my cut becomes deeper with every move I make. A sound of the glass being thrown away, also near the garbage, tells me that she’s done and the coldness of her fingers once again meet my skin as she holds my hand and pushes me forward, wanting me to go into the old man’s shop.

Why? I ask her and she asks if I had zoned away, into a distant fairy land of some kind. Yes, I answer and she smiles back at me, leaving me in awe. Most people, especially the people around here don’t really accept ‘the crazies’, as they call them. ‘The crazies’ consisted of people who zone off, those who are unusually happy, those who commit suicide and last, but definitely not least, homouals. I wonder why though, they accept people who take drugs, smoke, get depressed, get pregnant at an early age but…Why couldn’t they have accepted the other qualities or more likely the opposite that seemed so much more natural? I mean all of these things are natural, all orthodox but…Is being gay that wrong?

Not that I am, I’m not. My parents took care of that. And I don’t want to go back.

Truly, I fear my own mind, it’s making me zone off way too much. Why zone off when you have a profound goddess next to you, so near to you, so close. And the way she smiles, like she is doing so right now, it makes me feel intense emotions, just not love. Well, not love in that way of course, but God, if I were a boy, I’d marry her in a heartbeat.

“Why do you look so sad, huh? Come one, let’s look at the vintage televisions! They look so cool!”

She scurries over to the section by the corner, with mahogany shelves all full of old TVs, some even with years’ worth of dust covering their entire screens. Like a toddler, Tiffany sits down cross-legged and starts fiddling with the TVs, turning their rusty knobs and pushing the grey-coloured buttons. Her fascination with the century-old electronics continues as she innocently tilts her head and asks the yawning shopkeeper-

“Mister, may I switch this television on?”

In spite of her polite request, the sour-faced man rudely makes a hand motion while swearing under his breath. Cheerfully, Tiffany switches on the TV, the one with an actually new, polished wooden finish to it, and pats the ground beside her as she turns her head round to look at me.

“Jessi! It’s on! Let’s watch some shows together!” Oh how child-like she is, one can’t simply frown in her happy presence.

“Okay, wait up!”

Coincidentally, once I sit down, the TV’s audio turns out right and the visuals, which were far too blur to even understand what was going on, turns out clear. A sharp sound of the TV just killed a small part of me and Tiffany noticed it like the attentive person she is, so she my hair, however, her eyes are still glued onto the TV. 

“Jess, your hair is really something.”

Through all of these comments she has made, anyone can concur that she just loves hair, touching hair, smelling hair, quite frankly, I have only learnt this fact today. Never really showed this quirk of hers on air, never really showed a lot of the perky things I know about her now on air.

I can’t comprehend this relaxed feeling I have now, the way she my head, her finger’s tips when they end at my neck like the most tender velvet, how the swirling motions sate my soul, my eyes close gently, not fully aware of the blasting music coming from the speakers.

“You are really like a cat, you know? The cutest cat I’ve ever seen…” Did I just land a compliment from her?

“What? Me, cute? No…”

“Oh my God! That’s what Taeyeon keeps saying…You two are cute, okay!”

Taeyeon…The girl from another league, she is the beauty while I am Frankenstein, born hideous, remaining hideous till the day I heave in my last breath , not even transforming into a charming, alluring creature that I’ve always wanted to be.

“I’m not, I’m not even close.”

These thought are like a burden, I know I’m not ugly, I can’t be, but most of the time I act on impulse and I always have the urge to proclaim to the world that I am ugly, shamefully. I know where they came from, they were written in me years ago, but every time I shun myself and my true thoughts, I feel that they’ve been made seconds earlier.

I don’t want to lose Tiffany, I don’t want to lose Tiffany, I have to keep her, I have to keep her near me, beside me, no…I have to learn the principle of space. People need space, right? Some air to breathe.  Others left me when I insulted myself, and if Tiffany’s the majority, she will leave me if I continue on like this, acting like I’m manic-depressive. I might be Bipolar actually, I should check WebMD sometime soon, but without Tiffany watching me. Who would want to be with a person addicted with learning medical terminology and definitions? 

“Aye! Why not you girls either buy somethin’ or scram!”

“No, it’s just that we were looking for a good hotel we can go to and we-“ Before she finishes, the geezer pops up and cuts her off.

“Listen, there ain’t no decent motel or hotel within a ten mile radi-radii or something ‘round ‘ere. So beat it and go somewhere else on you’s honeymoon.” Tiffany distinctly blushes and I quickly correct him.

“No, we’re just friends…” He folds his arms and glares at me and then at her, like a copper inspecting the both of us.

“Yeah…”

“So-So do you know any place around here where we can like stay at?” The man points upwards and his eyes soon follow to the direction of his index finger.

“Up ‘ere. I got a spare, nice king bed for the lovebirds. But only if you’s got the right ‘mount of doe. How much is in that there wallet of yours?” Ah, the classical money man , even Tiffany agrees with that annoyed look on her face. Her gorgeous face that just overflows with hotne- I should stop now.

“Old man, we’ll pay you fifty per night.”

“Seventy or you’ll get-“

“Fine. Tiffany, let’s go up.”

“Aye! Not without me you sl-“

Oh no he didn’t just try to call us the s word! The only thing to do is shoot him a deep, dark, soul-consuming glare. Any more than that and we’re through and out on the mangy streets trying to find a pleasant hotel that still doesn’t exist! I can hear Tiffany stomping up the stairs, with anger boiling up in her, probably wanting a release valve but it won’t come soon.

“So here’s your room and don’t make no loud noises at night, ya hear?”

The irritatingly bold and bald man shuts himself up, walks away and closes the door behind him. The nerve of some people! Well at least he gave us a room that’s quite okay, sure there’s a few unsightly stains of who knows what here and there on the grungy wallpaper but it’s still workable.

“So what do you think, Tiff?”

“It’s okay, it has a big window and-“

“One bed”

“Yeah, and a wooden closet and-“

“One bed”

“Yeah…And a great dresser and-“

“One. Bed. How- How are we supposed to sleep in this?!”

“By sleeping in it. Jeez Jess, first you close your eyes and count the cute little sheep that jump over a single wooden fence and-“

“I KNOW BUT THERE’S ONLY ONE BED FOR THE BOTH OF US!”

Tiffany bites her lip and shuffles closer to me, pulling me into a hug, then, she pulls away and lifts my chin up. Damn her pretty brown eyes, they look so good on her. Well, they appear in nearly half the entire female population, but she’s unexplainable to put it right. And her lips that look so plump and-

“Hey, my eyes are up here. Jessi, it’s okay if we sleep together. I’ve done it many times with Taeyeon.”

My heart’s on the ground. I don’t know why but this girl makes me question myself sometimes. I used to think that her and Taeyeon looked cute together, that they might even be together, but now when I think of anything of the sort, I feel envious, even jealous of Taeyeon and her strong, lasting friendship with Tiffany.

“Okay...”

This girl, this girl that makes my heart feel like it’s on a rollercoaster. It’s high up now as she looks at me with her beautiful, beautiful eyes. I feel undeserving when I look at them, they look too beautiful to be defiled by my eyes.

“Jessi, don’t be down. “

And just like that, she kisses my cheek. Did I tell you of how undeserving I am of Tiffany? She’s just so perfectly imperfect and so touchy-feely. Not that I’m complaining. I can’t help but blush just as I do every other time she makes me feel, well, special? Am I special to her?

“Oh, Soo’s calling! Sit here, Jess! I’m sure she wants to hear from my favourite fan!”

Fan? The rollercoaster’s going down again. What can I do? I’ll just sit down next to her. Nervously, I don’t even know why but I just feel like doing it, but I rest my head on her shoulder and wait for her to answer the call.

“Ti-Tiffany?”

“Yeah, Soo?”

I hear the sniffles, the coarse voice. Sooyoung. Is she in any trouble? As if trying to communicate in some kind of telepathic way, I look to Tiffany and she gives me the same look that I give her- a look of confusion. Sooyoung is usually the up-beat girl, the cheerful princess of Girls’ Generation, isn’t she? Well why is she crying?

“Y-Yuri and I had a fight again…”

“Oh…”

Sooyoung is dating Yuri, Tiffany mouths to me. Oh my God, is this real? Well of course it is, it came straight from Tiffany’s mouth, but I always thought that Sooyoung was the straightest girl in SNSD. Turns out that I’m wrong and turns out that Yuri lives up to her unfortunate name.

“S-She said that I wasn’t paying enough attention to her…But I pay the same amount of attention to her as I do with Yoona! And now Seohyun’s raging around the dorm because I gave Yuri and Yoona cake, but not her! I thought that she was health conscious so I didn’t buy it for her...Oh, Tiffany, what do I do now? ”

Tiffany jabs the speaker button and stares back at me. I understand very clearly why she is doing so. Probably because my jaw has dropped so low it has reached the inner core of the earth and bounced back up again. Sooyoung. Is. Dating. Three. People.

What in the hell is going on?!

“Soo, I told you that this would happen sometime soon. There will be consequences once you start a freakin’ harem!”

“I know but I love all three with all my heart, and it would hurt me till the death if I lose any one of them! I love my three. Is it that wrong to love three people simultaneously? God works in mysterious ways, is it wrong that he had blessed me with enough love for three beautiful women?”

“Look Soo, you need to know that love with multiple people don’t work out, and you’re with three women! Do you know how much emotional build-up that will add up to? Soo, I know you love all three, but so do I. I love all seven of you, but I don’t go around dating all of you. I love you Soo, and I want you to be happy. So please, fix all of this at your own pace, on your own. Goodbye.”

“But-“

She hangs up and falls back onto the bed, with her hands covering her face, her phone just beside her limp legs. I crawl to just beside her but with my upper body still upright, and I kneel down and caress her cheeks and her hair, all with one hand. Just because it feels like the right time to do so.

“What’s wrong Tiffany?”

Tiffany immediately sits up, takes her pillow, squeezes in tightly in her arms and screams into it, the pillow’s fluffiness muffling the noise. She lifts up her face and I face her with her bloodshot eyes and dishevelled hair hurting my heart with each passing second.

“Sooyoung’s dating Yuri, Yoona and Seohyun. But a few months after she started this love square, everything’s been going down.”

“So she is in a relationship with all three? How? And how are the ‘triplets’ coping with it?”

She looks down at my hand on her thigh, and as I’m expecting that she’s uncomfortable with it there, I try to take my hand back, but she takes it and squeezes it as if she would break down completely if not for the contact.

“Yeah, she basically takes turns like two times a week for each girl, but lately, she just flips the schedule and gathers all of them into her room , a.k.a. our room, and just talks with all of them in there. It’s confusing actually.  And as you could hear from Seohyun in the background, they very much dislike it.”

“But they all love Sooyoung?”

“Yeah, Yuri and Yoona love her more than themselves and Seohyun…she just very much likes her. She’s very needy for love, you know? Anyway, recently they’ve started this huge fight among themselves and it’s like a warzone, the dorm. You don’t know how much Taetae cried because of this.”

It’s tighter, her grip on me. Ever since she mentioned Taeyeon.  It hurts again.

“Wait…Taeyeon cried?”

“Yeah…You know you remind me so much of her. She’s weird, you’re weird. She’s very sensitive, you’re the same. You have low self-esteem, she has it too, even though you both are so beautiful.  Once she even said that her voice . I mean, what? She has the voice of a goddess! She-“

Guess I shouldn’t have mentioned Taeyeon. A month ago, I would’ve loved any conversation about Taeyeon, her dorky-ness, her amazing voice, anything Taeyeon would put a smile on my face. Now Taeyeon makes me frown in grey sorrow and displeasure.

No. One true nine, remember? I’m a sone, I have to love all of them! I just hate it when Tiffany talks about Taeyeon, about how they slept in one bed together, about how Taeyeon is amazing, about how her first kiss was Tae-

No. Her first kiss isn’t Taeyeon! It was just a dream, just a silly dream that I had last night.

Gosh, do normal fans have this kind of feelings toward their idols? They do, right? Nevertheless, I have this feeling inside of me that just give me the thought of wanting Tiffany, no, needing. That I need Tiffany.

Jessica, stop thinking like some teen during puberty! So maybe you are feeling that way, but that doesn’t mean that you’re gay. You’re not gay, Jessica. Okay, so maybe a bit but not fully gay! Everyone is a bit homoual on the inside, right? It’s okay to think of that soft as silk hair that looks golden in the sunshine, her eyes that tell me so much, her perfectly structured nose, her lips that just scream ‘kiss me’ and just everything about her that make me go insane. 

Her kissable lips, those kissable lips with baby pink lipstick on that make me feel so many feelings that I want to crash down to the nth time today.

I can’t help it. I need it.

In one swift move, I lean in and kiss her with closed eyes. Please let this be a dream.

Her lips. They feel like heaven, a heaven that I have touched, sweet, sweet heaven. Her lips that are as soft as marshmallows, as warm as every one of her hugs, as filled with emotion as any other scene in the movies.

And she doesn’t show any signs of resentment. Instead, she puts her arms around my necks and pulls me in for another and as the kiss is nearing its end, I feel the sides of her lips curve up into a smile.

“Thanks, I needed that. Kisses always make me feel happier. Especially long ones, I’ve never had them for a long time.”

What?

“Taeyeon said that she didn’t want to give the rest of the members the impression that we were dating. And like that, she stopped kissing me for long periods of time, like you did just now. She gives me short, second-long kisses now. I miss her old self.“

Kill me. Now.

***

A/N- Yeah, I was probably high on sadness writing this.