Landlocked: confined completely, or almost completely, by land

It wasn’t long before the other members were up and the dorm was buzzing again. Actually it wasn’t so much buzzing as everyone complaining of a headache from the night before. Only Tiffany, Jessica, and of course, Taeyeon survived the night, just barely. But these three girls were caught in their own rough waters even if Tiffany was completely unaware of it.

After being walked in on by their best friend, the kid leader and the ice princess had taken to avoiding each other again. They were now wide awake and out of dream state. Neither was sure as to where exactly their conversation was leading but they were now “sober” enough to realized that they might have been caught in quite the compromising position, or at least that was what they thought. At this point, Taeyeon was feeling a little embarrassed at the confession that she was making before being so abruptly interrupted while Jessica had shut herself out once again. She couldn’t let herself be vulnerable again, it was too pathetic and she had way too much pride, at least before she unwittingly decided to let her feelings out the evening before.

So the girls were caught in a deadlock.

“Who’s shouting?!  Stop shouting!” grumbled Sunny who was trying to recover from her hangover in the corner of the dorm living room.

“No one’s shouting Soon Kyu… except you… so SHUSH!” Yuri who was lying on the couch with sunglasses on warned the aegyo queen.

“Sooo… I’m assuming that none of you are helping me…” Jessica commented as she looked around the room at the helpless souls whom she had so foolishly believed would keep their promise of helping her out.

“Well I’m heading out… Stay another day?” Sooyoung reminded everyone, probably the least hung over of all the girls considering she had a schedule to attend to.

“No, no… It’s fine… I’ll manage,” the eldest American replied.

The tallest girl gave everyone a quick wave and headed out.

“You’ve got me… and TaeTae… and uhm, Hyo are you good or are you dead too?” the younger American corrected.

“Yes… yes… I’m in…” the dancing queen managed to pull herself together enough to answer.

“Uhm… actually I, uhm…” Taeyeon started.

“Taeyeonie?! You’re not trying to ditch us are you?” Tiffany gave the eldest member a rare death stare that basically made her question a rhetorical one.

“No, no… Of course not! I’m glad to help…” the kid leader laughed nervously. She was hoping she didn’t have to help, especially now that it would only be the four of them, because it would be difficult to avoid Jessica.

Even though neither had said a word to each other since, they had a mutual understanding that neither would speak of what happened earlier that morning. Despite desperately wanting to finish their conversation earlier, both had withdrawn back into their shells and neither had the guts to just come right out and just admit what they really, truly felt and just tell the other what they really wanted instead of just beating around the bush.

“Oh, uhm, if you’re busy then it’s okay, I’ll manage…” Jessica said to Taeyeon as coolly as she possibly could, pretending as if she didn’t mind. Even though she was avoiding the kid leader, she still wanted Taeyeon to tag along. She knew it was unreasonable of her, even ludicrous but sometimes it was difficult to control her feelings.

“NO! I mean… no… I’m not busy at all… sooo yeah…” Taeyeon spat out incoherently. Unbeknownst to Jessica, Taeyeon’s need to be around the ice princess was growing more apparent for no specific reason. She was only avoiding the girl because she was embarrassed for the time being.

“Assa! This is going to be a fun day…!” Tiffany exclaimed.

“Okay, seriously… No offence, kids, but could you keep it down? My head is throbbing like nobody’s business…” Sunny whined.

“I thought we were the ones who would suffer the most…” Jessica said to Tiffany, to which the younger American gave a short giggle and slapped the elder American on the arm.

Neither American noticed but the kid leader’s eyes were fixated on them. They weren’t just fixated, they were projecting… projecting Taeyeon’s wish for an imaginary force field to separate the two girls who were overly affectionate. But then, she came back to her senses and wondered why she wanted that. Things were getting way too complicated in just under a day.

“How did all this happen overnight?” Taeyeon sighed to herself.

“Sica-ya, I’m really sorry… I feel terrible for feeling terrible… I should have loaded up on water before I went to bed. But as we all know, last night was a bit of a blur after a while… You and Fany were a riot though. I haven’t seen you that loose in some time…” Yuri still managed to tease the ice princess despite looking like she got hit by a bus.

“What?! When?! No way… Hyo and Sunny were the two biggest riots…” Tiffany protested on behalf of the two Americans. “Sica was totally moping and lost in her own world…”

“Yah! Thanks a lot for making me sound so pathetic!” Jessica huffed and pinched her best friend in her side.

“Well, that’s how you were behaving…” Tiffany squealed from the pain in her side but refused to give in.

Jessica continued to playfully poke the eye-smiling girl.

“She wasn’t that bad… It was only in the beginning but then she completely loosened up and became FunSica instead,” Hyoyeon defended Jessica.

“I second that…” Sunny added, still zombie-like.t

“See… I was totally fine…” Jessica said smugly.

“Fine, fine… Sorry… You were in a really cuddly mood last night though…” Tiffany said out loud as if it wasn’t really something out of the ordinary.

“You didn’t seem to hate it…” Jessica giggled, triggering a giggle fit between the two Americans.

However, they were interrupted by a synchronized “WHAT?!” from Yuri and Taeyeon just a few seconds later.

Jessica turned to look at Yuri who had bolted upright while Tiffany turned to look at Taeyeon. Then they looked at each other and finally switched to look at Taeyeon and Yuri respectively. Meanwhile, Sunny and Hyoyeon just stared at each other in puzzlement.

“Sica! How could you…?! You’re mine!” Yuri broke the awkward silence first.

Jessica laughed in response, knowing that Yuri was just being silly. But what the ice princess didn’t realize was that Soshi’s black pearl was giving Tiffany a hateful look under those sunglasses that she was wearing. No one else realized it but the younger American was also staring back but with a slightly guilty expression. But it was only a second because she immediately turned back to Taeyeon and walked up to the kid leader and gave her a hug.

“You’re not jealous are you, TaeTae?” the eye-smiling girl whispered into the eldest member’s ear.

“Of course not… Why would I be?” Taeyeon whispered back. She was quite sure why exactly they were whispering but it felt like they needed to be hush hush about it.

“You know there’ll always be something between us… Or at least I know I will always feel something for you…” Tiffany admitted to the kid leader. She wasn’t trying to make things awkward between them, she was just stating a fact. They were first and foremost best friends after all.

Taeyeon did not deny it either. She knew it was the truth. It would be almost impossible to completely sever the connection that she had with Tiffany. But that did not mean anything. Sure she still loved Tiffany, of course she did. However, it wasn’t the same kind of love that she had for the eye-smiling girl when they were together. No… That feeling was long gone. The love they had for each other was just… what it was. It was difficult to explain or express. Somewhere in between best friend, sister and lover... Or rather somewhere outside those lines.

“I’m really not, Fany… Don’t worry…” the kid leader reassured her best friend. But the fact was, she did feel something… displeasing… when she thought of the two Americans, in bed together, even if it was just innocent stuff. She didn’t even realize it but her hands were clenched in tight fists for some unknown reason. It wasn’t Tiffany, she knew that for sure. So it must have been…

“Sica…? Why does it bother me so much…? Fany’s always like that with me too but it doesn’t mean anything… Does it…?” Taeyeon was just about to rip all her hair out in frustration. She did not need any of these unwanted feelings and unnecessary drama.

“Yah, yah… Stop joking around you kids! Sica needs to move and I need some food…” Sunny said, bringing everyone out of that bizarre moment.

“Sunny’s right, we should get moving… Don’t want to have to delay this any longer…” Jessica agreed.

“Damn it, Soon Kyu! We could have dragged this on so that she wouldn’t leave…” Tiffany whined.

“Oh, stop it… It’s going to happen sooner or later… I’ve already made my mind up,” said the ice princess.

“I’m hoping for it to be later… much, much later…” the mushroom protested.

“Aigoo, aigoo… Stop being so clingy Fany-ah…” Yuri sigh but it wasn’t really a sigh. There was a slight hostile undertone to how she said it.

“I’m just kidding… Lighten up people… Gosh!” Tiffany rolled her eyes.

“Anyway… Sica, where do you want us to start?” Hyoyeon asked, tired of just waiting around.

“Well, most of my stuff is already packed so all we have to do is bring them down to the car and load them up,” Jessica explained.

“Too bad Yoongie isn’t here, we could really use a man’s help…” the dancing queen laughed.

Jessica chuckled along. It wasn’t meant to be an insult or something negative but Yoona was always quite handy when it came to heavy lifting despite her skinny frame.

“TaeTae… Why are you so quiet?” Tiffany asked Taeyeon since the kid leader wasn’t participating in the banter.

“Huh? Oh, me? Uhm… I’m… I just… I’ve just had a few things on my mind… sorry…” Taeyeon mumbled.

“You’ve been acting strange since you got back,” Tiffany pointed out.

Taeyeon wasn’t quite sure how to respond without drawing more attention to the fact that she was, in fact, completely out of it and that her mind was fill with the thought of the ice princess. So she just shrugged.

Jessica looked towards Taeyeon and knew exactly why she was being quiet and acting oddly. And despite having tried to avoid her, the ice princess did not look away when her eyes met those of the kid leader’s. And for the first time, the eye-smiling girl noticed something she hadn’t before, that perhaps she had walked in on something earlier that morning.

Tiffany gasped, quickly followed by clasping her hands over .

“What?” Yuri asked, the first to suspect something.

“Oh, uhm, I thought I saw a spider!” Tiffany lied, rather convincingly because the other girls looked around to see if there really was one. She silently let out a sigh of relief. But now that she noticed it, everything became a little suspicious. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was that was going on but she was sure there was definitely something… something between her two best friends that they weren’t telling her.

Despite proclaiming their inability to help Jessica move earlier in their conversation, Sunny and Yuri both participated in moving Jessica’s belongings, although they weren’t really that much help considering they kept whining about their headaches. Surprisingly there wasn’t really that much stuff to move and they managed to fit everything into 2 cars; Jessica’s and Hyoyeon’s. Jessica excused the two hungover girls from having to go along but when it came time to decide who was riding along with whom, something interesting happened.

“I’m riding with Hyo!” Tiffany called out even before anyone else said a word. Since she had interrupted something earlier, she figured that she should let the two girls have their time even though she was itching to find out what exactly they were on about.

“What?!” both Jessica and Taeyeon exclaimed when they realized that they would be stuck in the car alone for the duration of the drive, which to be honest was just about 15 minutes away but the thought of how awkward it would even if it was just for 15 minutes was nerve-racking.

“Uhm, I can ride with Hyo if you want to ride with Sica,” the eldest member offered her best friend. In this case, she would rather Tiffany have her moment with Jessica… or did she because the moment she said it she instantly wanted to take it back.

“No, no… I’m mad at Sica for leaving so I’m riding with Hyo” the mushroom pouted.

“That doesn’t even make sense… If you’re mad at her, why are you helping her move?” Hyoyeon asked.

“Shush! I have my own reasoning… Just because I’m mad doesn’t mean I’m not a good friend…” Tiffany answered, confident of her own logic. “Come on… Let’s go…” She pushed Jessica towards Taeyeon with enough strength that the elder American stumbled into the arms of the kid leader. Then she quickly got into the passenger side of Hyoyeon’s car.

“What the…?! What’s wrong with Fany?” Hyoyeon thought out loud to no one in particular and then got into her car as well. She started the car and rolled down the window. “Hey, we’ll get going first. We’ll see you there,” she told the two other girls and then headed off.

“Uhm… I guess we’re riding together…” Taeyeon said to Jessica as they were the only two left standing by Jessica’s car, the ice princess still being held by the eldest member.

Just then, Taeyeon realized that she still had her hands around Jessica and quickly let go. Instead of reacting to it, Jessica decided to pretend as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Jessica cleared . “I guess so… Get in…”

“What was that about…?” Hyoyeon asked as she drove out of the parking spot and towards their destination.

“Ohmigod, you noticed too?!” Tiffany was a little surprised yet relieved as well that someone else had noticed so she could talk about it.

“What do you mean notice? You’re acting really strange… it’s pretty obvious…” Hyoyeon replied.

“Me? No, I meant… Uhm, nevermind…” the mushroom felt a little disappointed that her hopes were dashed so quickly.

Tiffany was still wondering what it could be that her two best friends were up to. Could they be having an argument? No, if they were, it would have been obvious and they wouldn’t have needed to do it in secret. Unless, of course, they were arguing about something that HAD to be kept a secret. The thought of that only made her more curious.

“Hey, Hyo… Has Sica been acting strange to you lately?” Tiffany asked. Perhaps she could dig out some information from Hyoyeon that she could use to piece together this mystery.

“Strange? No, not really… Not that I’ve noticed. Why?” Hyoyeon answered with her own question.

“So she hasn’t seemed like she was having some problems or something?” Tiffany pried some more.

“Uhm… she seemed a little more reserved than usual, but only just a little… Do you know something?” Hyoyeon felt as if Tiffany was behaving just a little suspiciously.

“No, I just thought Sica had been a little odd recently but I guess it’s just me…” Tiffany was now unsure if she was just imagining something out of nothing. It seemed like she was the only one who thought that there was something odd going on, so perhaps she was mistaken. She decided to let it go… for now…

The space in Jessica’s BMW never seemed so small. The air was so dense that both girls felt as if they were being suffocated and they had only just left the dorm. Both girls sat in silence and Jessica drove the short distance to her home. Taeyeon felt so uncomfortable that she wasn’t even sure what to do with her hands, so she unconsciously tapped her fingers on her lap which Jessica could see from the corner of her eye.

“Nothing happened, you know…?” the ice princess finally said midway through the drive.

“Huh?!” the kid leader wasn’t expecting to be spoken to so her mind was elsewhere.

“I just… Nothing… I don’t even know why I’m talking about it or why it matters…” Jessica muttered.

Taeyeon took a deep breath and collected herself. “Sica…”

“Uhm, yes…?” Jessica hesitated.

“Listen, can we… return to the conversation where we left off? I can’t take this any longer… It’s driving me crazy…” Taeyeon let out.

“What’s driving you crazy Taeyeon…? Go ahead, tell me if it really bugs you that much…” Jessica was definitely curious but she didn’t want to sound too eager.

“Is it just me then? Wasn’t it you who started this? I was perfectly fine yesterday until you made that confusing speech of yours. But now I’m a mess… I’m a mess, Sica, and I don’t even understand why!” Taeyeon couldn’t help herself at this point. Being alone with Jessica, with no other members around, not one else around, this was really her chance to clear the air… or whatever it was that she was really trying to do.

“Taeyeon… You’re being weird… Could you please stop speaking in questions and riddles?! Yes, I admit it, I did start this and I’m sorry. Life was better when I just kept my mouth shut. Please, please just forget what I said. It’s not important and I’ll get over it. So just… just… Just pretend that last night didn’t happen, okay?” Jessica told Taeyeon, complete exasperated at the situation that should never have happened.

“I… I can’t… I can’t forget about it. It’s literally all I can think about now, Sica… I don’t know what’s happening. Earlier, when you and Fany were talking about the night before… I… I…” Taeyeon rambled on, high on adrenaline and no longer feeling embarrassed.

“I told you, nothing happened…” Jessica repeated what she had said earlier.

“Yes… well… I know nothing happened… and yet, I feel like this…” the kid leader mumbled under her breath.

“Feel like what, Taeyeon?” the ice princess asked, evidently having heard precisely what the other girl said.

“You said to forget it, so let’s just forget it…”

“No. Tell me… What did you feel…?”

“I hated it, okay?! Even when I found you two together this morning, it made my stomach churn. It just… I just… UGH!”

“Why? Because it’s your precious Fany? Don’t worry about it… Fany and I don’t have the kind of relationship you two have…”

“And what kind of relationship might that be, pray tell…” Taeyeon asked sarcastically. She knew what Jessica was about to say because everyone was so sure that she was together with Tiffany.

“You know what kind of relationship I’m talking about… You two have never announced it but it’s not like it’s been that big of a secret. We all knew… I don’t know why you two hide it from us…” Jessica replied.

Neither girl was even sure if the other understood what exactly was going on. Jessica kept insisting to herself that Taeyeon was upset with her because of Tiffany while Taeyeon wasn’t sure why she was so upset in the first place, although at this point she was extremely agitated by Jessica’s apparent inability to comprehend her at all. In fact, it seemed like the tables had turned where Taeyeon was now the one who was unleashing her emotions on Jessica who was now cool as a cucumber.

“You all THINK you know… but you don’t…! You don’t even know… There’s nothing going on between Fany and me, not anymore… Not since a while ago… but everyone thinks they know better… You all just assume… UGH! Fany is JUST my best friend, okay?!” Taeyeon yelled out.

Jessica was stunned, shocked, immobilized, unable to full grasp what Taeyeon had said because it was literally the most unexpected thing that Taeyeon could have said. It was true, that they had all assumed but they were all so sure, everyone was, it was something that didn’t need affirming or at least that’s what everyone thought.

“So… you two aren’t…?” Jessica asked.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! Fany and I have been over for a while now. She still my best friend and I love her but not in that way anymore, Sica… So let’s not make her and excuse. This is about us… You and me… Sica… I think I might…” Taeyeon explained.

“We’re here…” Jessica announced, cutting Taeyeon off.

The kid leader had been so preoccupied with her argument with the ice princess that she didn’t even notice that they had arrived at their destination.

“I think Hyo and Fany are already here. I see Hyo’s car. I’m just going to let them know we’re here…” the American told the other girl as she undid her seat belt and reached for the door handle.

“Sica, wait… Can you please just listen to the rest of what I have to say?” Taeyeon pleaded with the ice princess knowing that if she didn’t say what she wanted to say then, she might lose her courage to say it later.

“I don’t see them… They must be waiting inside… I’ll just go tell them we’re here and I’ll be right back, okay? I promise, I’ll be right back… Taengoo…” Jessica told Taeyeon, sounding a little distracted but in fact she wasn’t quite ready to hear what Taeyeon had to say… She was… afraid…

And before Taeyeon could protest, Jessica was out of the car and gone, leaving Taeyeon to wait for her return.

“Ohmigod! I can’t believe this! They’re not together?! But… they… I don’t understand… I was so sure… They were so obvious…”

Jessica had used every ounce of her will to keep herself calm in the car but now that she was out of Taeyeon’s sight, she clutched her chest as if her heart was about to explode and that she was about to lose it. But somehow she managed to pull herself to the doorstep of the home and rang the doorbell. She had yet to collect her set of keys so she was relegated to having to wait for someone else to get the door for her.

The moment the door opened, Jessica was greeted by a familiar face but one that she wasn’t expecting.

“Kryssie! You’re here! I thought you wouldn’t be home for a few days…” Jessica exclaimed in excitement.

“Why? Don’t you like it that I’m home early?” Krystal playfully pretended to be offended by what her sister had said.

“Shut up, stupid! I’m so glad you’re home!” Jessica cried as she flung herself at her baby sister who was taller and slightly stronger built than she was.

Krystal caught her elder sister and hugged her tightly. Because of their conflicting schedule, they hadn’t seen each other much for the past 2 months and the two sisters had always been very close, and they had missed each other desperately even though they called and texted each other often.

“I actually came home just yesterday night. Mom and dad told me you delayed moving home so I told them to just keep my being home a secret so I could surprise you… By the way, Tiffany unnie and Hyoyeon unnie are waiting for you inside,” Krystal told Jessica.

“Right, tell them I’ll be right in. Taeyeon is waiting for me in the car so I’ll just go get her real quick, okay?” Jessica pecked her sister on the cheek and sauntered back out to the car where she had left Taeyeon...

Fanart by Jelly

HAPPY 26th BIRTHDAY KIM TAE "Taengoo" YEON!!