Taeyeon took out the clean sheets and spread them on her mattress. Vanilla scented detergent. Why had she bought that instead of that green detergent that smelled like pears?

They both smelled sweet. But this time, she thought vanilla was better.

She tucked in the sheets and she wondered about her life. She remembered when she had asked a question, ‘’what is life?’’

She still wondered though. The same question everyday. Loneliness had gotten the best of her and she didn’t taste life like she used to. Too many obstacles to climb over, too many setbacks and too much unnecessary things that happened to happen over the years. Things that she thought only happened in movies.

She remembered asking her mother one day, ‘’what is life?’’

Her mother ironed her fathers white shirt and took a breath.

‘’life is what you make of it.’’

That wasn’t the answer she was looking for. So she stopped asking the question out loud, and instead used her own thoughts to try and put the pieces together to form the answer but it never came.

She decided to stop.

But then curiosity got the best of her and more questions popped up in her head.

‘’What is love?’’

‘’What is time? Can you reverse time?’’

Her hand was always up to ask a question from her teachers in school, but they never gave her the right answer either.

Neither did books give her the answer she was looking for so eagerly. People always provided simple and dull answers.

Taeyeon smoothed out the sheet and started putting the pillow cases on her feather filled pillows. Vanilla scent. It was so much better.

Nobody had the right answer and she grew hopeless. If life is what you make of it, why did her choices bring her to a miserable one?

Why was it always her and not the person who had nothing to lose. Taeyeon thought she had lost it all but she still had her heart and she thought, "someone will come and take care of it"

But what if they would never come?

Taeyeon hated choosing. But she didn’t have to make a choice when she picked the vanilla scented detergent at the store.

When she had to choose between following her own dreams and fulfilling her parents expectations, she had weighed her options carefully.

Her dream was to paint and her parents wanted her to be a doctor. A surgeon perhaps. Something like that. Taeyeon thought she would be getting a good career from being a doctor. She would save lives but she would also have to witness death.

She would be successful but when she looked at her hands, they should be able to stay stable to be a surgeon. They only stayed stable whenever she had a paintbrush in her hand and an empty canvas in front of her.

She didn’t have to choose, this time the answer was obvious.

The questions always came up whenever and countless of times during the day.

Why do we make choices?

She put the pillows in place and sniffed the air. She really liked it.

It was too familiar. Like a dejá vu.

Taeyeon had heard the loud voice echoing in the hallway and for the first time, she missed a thought when she saw the red haired girl talking to their professor outside the auditorium.

The american exchange student. Who happened to sit next to her during the lecture about pre historical architecture and art. Renaissance. Da Vinci. Michelangelo.

Vanilla.

Taeyeon missed a thought again and she took another whiff, more vanilla.

Again and again she silently sniffed and she looked at the red haired girl. Another dejá vu.

Why had she chosen vanilla?

The questions no longer replayed in her head as the red haired girl called Hwang Tiffany broke the bubble she was living in and created another bubble where they both were in. Just them. She stepped into her life, leaving the questions unanswered but this time it didn’t bother Taeyeon.

She washed her face with ice cold water and watched how the water dripped down her face and her neck.

She leaned forward, examined her eyes under the fluorescent light above the mirror and thought of Tiffany. She watched how her pupils dilated in a millisecond at the thought of the girls dashing smile. And then she remembered reading somewhere that when you think of someone you love, your pupils dilate.

So did she love Tiffany then?

She followed every contour of her own face and watched in slight amusement as she kept thinking of Tiffany from every perspective she had witnessed the girl. The smiles, the laughs, the sad expressions, angry expressions. And she witnessed her own pupils dilate at every thought.

One day she remembered her questions again while they were having lunch and she decided to ask Tiffany, "What is life? What is love?"

Tiffany popped a french fry in and looked back at her with one eyebrow raised. And then she began to explain, it went on and on and Taeyeon was more and more pleased as the girl spoke each word.

Tiffany was so close to her and when their eyes met, Taeyeon saw the pupils dilate. Just like her own.

She finally got the right answers.

Excuse the randomness.

I hope you guys enjoy this one anyway<3

Happy TaeNy day!