Jessica's POV

"Smoking," I say, walking over to where Taeyeon are perched, "is a disgusting habit."

She merely rolls her eyes, as if I've said this a million times - which I have, but it has obviously not affected her choice of pastimes - and blow a puff of smoke my direction.

I find Taeyeon in the last place I look for her. It used to be an old joke - why is something always in the last place you look for it? Because you stop looking when you find it - but I mean it quite literally when I think about looking for her. During my off period I search the school for her, starting in the classroom she's supposed to be in and proceeding from there, despite knowing that this is where I'd locate her.

Here, skipping class to smoke on the roof. It's where she always is and I'm not quite sure why I keep expecting something different.

I carefully sit down next to her, letting my feet dangle off the edge. This is dangerous, I think to myself, not for the first time.

Taeyeon quirks an eyebrow in my direction. "Don't you have a class to be in?"

"You know this is my off period." I scrunch my nose in disgust as the cigarette smoke invades my senses. "Don't you have a class to be in?"

She snorts, like I've said something funny.

I let the silence settle without replying to her non-answer. It wouldn't do any good, because we've had that conversation too many times to count and yet she's still here smoking cigarettes and skipping class.

Leaning back on my hands, I use the silence as an opportunity to just watch her. I rarely get such a chance as far too often we spend this stolen time squabbling over something or other. But what a picture she make in the midmorning sunshine. Her milky skin glows in the daylight and I fight the urge to run my fingers over the soft expanse that peeks through where her tank top is riding up her back. Denim-clad legs dangle off the edge of the roof, uncaring of the precariousness of the situation. A light breeze plays with the black hair that cascade down her back. Full lips smeared with lipstick clutch that damned cigarette between them.

The whole picture has an air of carefree defiance that she wears so well.

Her eyes, made smoky by thick lines of eyeliner and shadow, catch my gaze and I know that she knows that I've been checking her out. A corner of lifts in a smirk, as if to say 'I caught you.'

Instead of rising to the bait, I turn my eyes to gaze at the fluffy cl