The Color of Courage
Title: The Color of Courage
Pairing: Sooyoung/Tiffany; one-sided!Sooyoung/Changmin
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama
Sooyoung wasn’t too happy when the college prefect pointed out her new room.
The first thing that crossed her mind when she saw it was that it looked like a swollen tooth along the rows of prettier doors on the second floor of the university dormitory. Smeared with splashes of maroon-brown, pale pink, and charcoal black on its lower right, a product of a clumsy Chemistry student who was the room’s first occupant, its scarred surface stands out among the flawless white-washed doors in the lobby. Nevertheless, she knew she does not have any choice. So she took out her keys and opened the door only to let out an even louder groan with the sight that met her eyes.
The left side of the room, which she assumed was hers, was categorically bare except for a simple-looking bed, a lone cabinet, and a rickety study table perched near the wall. It was, in the deepest sense of the word, the ultimate picture of plain and boring. However, what made the groan leave her throat was the apparent flamboyancy of the side opposite hers. The standard dormitory bed was transformed into a huge fiery pink blob of blankets and pillows. Cut-out pictures were plastered on the face of the poor cabinet and the study table housed what might be a battalion of stuffed toys. There were also a number of things, Sooyoung was willing to bet her scholarship, that were not part of the usual dormitory showcase. There were two fluffy slippers, a huge bean bag, one huge wooly mat, and nine more stuffed toys propped on the bed. It would have not been that repulsive if not for the fact that everything was pink.
She breathed a sigh and put down her bag on her bed. Her eyes scanned the room and it landed on the wall opposite hers. She was amazed that she haven’t noticed the first time she observed the room - but then it could be because she was not wearing her glasses - the huge glittery cutout letterings pinned on the wall. Even without meeting yet the person who gave her quite a ‘warm welcome’ regardless of her presence, she knew she had to be a little extra patient when dealing with her. The girl with an obsessive love for pink and a name which screams foreign exchange student: T I F F A N Y.
Sooyoung’s guess was not a far cry from reality when she met Tiffany late that afternoon. She is arguably fixated with the color pink and she is on a foreign exchange program for six months. What she didn’t expect though was the fact that she was a full-blooded Korean.
“My parents transferred to LA back in the days so I was born and raised there. I haven’t visited Korea since ever so I do know not the language that much. My father told me about this foreign exchange program and he said maybe I can try it and that’s why I got here.” She talked in English with a fluency that was expected of American-bred teenagers. “The foreign exchange program can be extended and I might stay longer than I intended if I want to - which I would love to, by the way because Korea is so pretty - but that would mean that I have to excel this semester, which is really tiring for me because, as you can see, I’m not really fond of studying.” She spewed words out of her mouth as if tomorrow will never come.
Sooyoung could only nod her head. She was glad that her hobbies included watching HBO TV series and Hollywood movies or else she wouldn’t understand what the girl was saying. To their credit, educated Korean teens have a fair grasp of the English language. They can comprehend basic English but the difficulty lies on their sentence construction - because really, who doesn’t get confused with tenses and all those grammar stuff? She can fairly understood Tiffany but she thought it would be really helpful if the American girl could slow down her talking a few notches.
Tiffany continued talking and before the curfew bell has rung, she had told her at least half of her life story.
“It was really nice meeting you, Sooyoung. I hope my talkativeness didn’t scare you because really girl, it’s so darn difficult looking for someone who’s willing to stay in this room. I mean, yeah, our door could make use of some BB cream for doors or something but this room is huge, don’t you think? Plus, we have the largest window and the cutest bathroom. You know, your side of the room is kinda bare, do you want me to help you pretty it up? Gosh, this will be fun!” she rattled on even after Sooyoung had turned off the light.
“Oh, and what are you taking up again? Is it Korean literature? Oh my gosh, girl, you have to tell me all those folklores and legends because I am really ignorant about our country. You have to teach me those deep Korean words too because I’m tired of looking like an idiot whenever I talk to old people. And oh, I have to introduce you to my babies too! You see those nine bunnies there, they’re my guardians.” And the sound of Tiffany's talking droned on and on, lulling Choi Sooyoung to sleep.
---
“Really? She did that?” The sound of laughter. “I would love to meet this roommate of yours. I have to meet the only person who grabbed the Choi Sooyoung’s attention the first time they met each other.” Changmin looked visibly cheerful as he chatted with Sooyoung on a bench beside the university fields one sunny Tuesday. “Min, whoever will meet her will surely talk about her. She’s… I don’t know, I can’t explain it.” She looked at her childhood friend and sighed.
“I guess you were just surprised. Should we say that you have now been a victim of culture shock?” the tall, lanky guy teased his friend.
“Maybe.” Was the short reply. A moment of silence. “I like her, though. I think she’s interesting.”
The young man nodded in agreement. Sooyoung said nothing and continued eating the tuna sandwich they have bought in the school cafeteria. It was a few minutes before the bell signifying the start of afternoon classes rang that Changmin stood up from his seat and took something out of his bag.
“I forgot to give you this the last time we saw each other.”
Sooyoung stared at the plastic handphone accessory on Changmin’s hand. It was pink.
“The young student I was tutoring gave this to me and I can’t say no so I just accepted it.” He explained. “I know you like pink so I’m giving this to you.” He smiled at her.
She looked at her friend and gave a short laugh. “Min, I don’t think I could like pink anymore. Not with my roommate being so obsessed with it.” She stood up and took the accessory from his hand. “But I’ll take this. You don’t mind if I give it to her, do you?”
She tucked the toy into her pocket, missing the surprised look that crossed the boy’s face. She looked up to see him smiling again.
“Of course, Soo. As long as I don’t have to keep it.” He helped sling her bag on her shoulder before picking up his own. “Who knows what my fraternity mates will say if they saw that pink thing on my bag?”
---
“Oh my gosh! You are the sweetest!” Tiffany threw her arms around Sooyoung after the girl gave her the toy. “But it’s so cute! It’s such a cute little puppy!”
She talked on and on and on and the tall girl could only smile in reply.
---
It was not the last time the American girl would say her thanks to her roommate. For every week, Sooyoung would give Tiffany something that is pink. A paper crane, a notebook, a pen, a toy, a flower. The younger girl who wasn’t so interested on communicating with her English-speaking roommate at first was starting to change. She opened up more, giggled a bit longer, laughed a little louder, and smiled a lot wider. One particular night, two weeks after they pushed their beds together to the center of the room, Tiffany asked Sooyoung a question she had long wanted to ask.
“Syoong, why are you so kind?”
They were lying on their backs making shadows with the palms of their hands as Tiffany’s lampshade shone bright pink against the ceiling.
“Am I?”
“Yeah…” she replied softly. “You were always nice to me and you always give me your pink stuff.”
The younger girl laughed softly. “It’s my reward to you for being a good student. Can you hear yourself now? You can outtalk anyone with your flawless Korean.”
“You’re teasing me. You know I don’t speak that well yet.”
“Well… yeah, but your improvement is amazing.” She then rolled on her side and faced the older girl. She looked at her outline, the pink rays glimmering against her pale skin. “You are amazing.”
Tiffany mimicked her movement. She looked back at her and softly replied. “You are amazing, too.”
The pink flimsy curtains billowed against the passing breeze and a slice of moonlight flooded the room. It mixed with the pink light emanating from the lampshade creating a shade of colors against the bare wall.
That night, Sooyoung slept on with her arms wrapped around Tiffany, her last memories before she drifted off to sleep were a pair of soft, pink lips and the faint scent of pink strawberry chapstick.
---
"You were ‘together’ now?” Changmin scratched his eyebrows thoughtfully as Sooyoung filled him with the happenings of her life.
“I don’t know.” She said softly. “We didn’t speak about it again but… it’s different now.” She heaved out a sigh and looked at the rustling leaves of the tree above them.
“What do you really feel about her?”
His voice was calm and yet prodding at the same time. “Was it like Yuri?”
She looked at her friend and said nothing for a while. “I… I don’t know, Min. Yuri was different. I never had the courage to tell her. But this time… this time, I know Tiffany feels the same way too.”
Changmin looked at her sympathetically and smiled a thin smile. “I hope you won’t get hurt again.”
She looked at him with a gentle smile on her face. “I hope so too, Min.”
“You know I’m always here for you, right?”
She looked at him and smiled. “I know.” She then stood up and gathered her belongings. “Thank you for this, okay? I have to go now.” She walked away with light heart and a pink pen on her pocket.
---
When Tiffany walked out of their room few days after July, she was met with the sound of hushed whispers. She noticed a group of girls on the hallway casting weird glances at her. She beamed shyly at them but was appalled when they didn’t return the smile. Instead, the whispers fell and was replaced by clear, audible lines.
“I heard that Korean Lit major wasn’t very fond of her at first. She must have poisoned her with her American ways.” It was delivered in fluent vernacular lingo.
“I think that’s the reason why nobody wants to room with her. It’s so obvious that she’s gay and that she’s just using her feminine fascination for pink to hide it.”
Tiffany thought these girls must have known about her difficulty of the Korean language which is why they do not make an effort to talk softly even with her presence. Too bad they didn’t catch up with the latest news that she’s now able to understand each word perfectly.
“How can her roommate be so dense?”
“Or maybe, her roommate was already gay all along.”
“But she’s always hanging out with the frat boy.”
“I still think her roommate is gay.”
“Gosh, what’s wrong with these people! I’ve learned to accept that they allow people like that in this school but could they just keep them off the dormitories! Who knows what they’re doing when we’re taking baths!”
Their words hit her like gunshots but she continued pretending that she didn’t understand one word. She smiled, albeit weakly, at them before she walked out of the hall. The tears started pouring the moment she stepped out of the building; the last line she heard still playing on her mind as she walked to her class.
“Poor American bitch, she knows nothing.”
---
What had transpired on that hallway did not reach Sooyoung’s ears. Tiffany tried sporting her usual cheer but the dimness in her eyes remained clear.
Her usual chattiness was reduced to monosyllabic statements. The younger girl noticed but she didn’t press on. Until the silence stretched longer and the room started to feel unfilled of the usual laughter that once filled it.
Somehow, something changed. Tiffany distanced herself. She giggled lesser, laughed a little softer, smiled a bit weaker.
“Hey, are you okay?” Sooyoung asked the older girl one night. “You seem sad these past few days. Maybe this will cheer you up. I saw this at the boutique stall and I thought that you might like it.”
It was a pink colored-anklet.
“Thanks.”
It was all that she said. And Sooyoung was left to herself wondering what had changed it all.
---
“I don’t understand where we went wrong. I thought she likes me too.” Her vision blurred of the tears that were reluctant to fall.
They were back on their favorite bench that Sunday. Changmin was leaning against the tree watching her.
“Maybe she’s just having a bad time.” He replied calmly.
“I don’t know, Min. It’s been weeks.” She looked at him with sad eyes. “What should I do?”
The boy said nothing and instead sat right next to her. “I don’t know too. Give her space, perhaps?” He then cupped her face in his hands and smiled pensively while looking directly into her eyes. “You know, at times like this, I wonder why I’m still putting up with you.”
His statement made her chuckle. “Will you help me win her back?”
A long but comfortable silence. “Min, do you still want to meet her?”
“I’ve changed my mind.” A short pause. “I might stop helping you if I see the girl you’re fawning for in person.” He looked at her and smiled. “Here, take this.” It was yet another pink earring.
“Changmin!” she gasped in surprise. “Where do you get all these?”
“Remember back when we were in grade school?” He held her hand and put the accessory on her palm. “You cried when our teacher gave you the yellow balloon instead of the pink one?” the young man chortled at the memory. “You ranted all afternoon when we were going home about why you deserve the pink-colored things. You said that you like pink not because it’s a pretty color but because it is the color that reminds you of courage.”
“And you argued with me saying that it is red that is the color of courage.” She smiled as she reminisced. “Not pink.”
Changmin smiled wide and held her hands tightly. “And you said that it’s pink because it’s the color stuck between red and purple. It was too light to be any of the two; not too fierce to pass as red and not to royal to be purple. It was too light and it lacks the ferocity of the other colors but it still got itself a name. Pink.”
The girl breathed out a soft sigh and looked at their connecting hands. “It amazes me, Min, how you still remember those things.”
“Of course I would. You, somehow, impressed me back then.” He gave a soft laugh and untangled his fingers from hers. “You cheeky little kid!”
She laughed softly before replying in an even softer voice. “But everything changes. I don’t like pink anymore.” She closed her fist on the earring.
“No, it doesn't.” Changmin took something again from his pocket and showed it to the girl.
“Here.” It was the same as the earring she was holding in her hands. “This one’s for you. Keep it.”
She looked at the accessory on her hand and then to the man in front of her.
“Thanks, Min. You’re the best.”
The boy chuckled as he stood up from the seat. “I know.”
“Your future girlfriend is very lucky.”
The boy said nothing and just smiled simply at her in return.
---
That night, Tiffany Hwang found herself staring at the pink earring that her roommate has brought for her. She bit back the bitter feeling on her mouth for the overpowering guilt of a secret deed that she has done during her previous days of isolation. The younger girl looked visibly happy to talk to her again so she lent her ear earnestly to her stories.
“Syoong, this would be the last gift you’d give me, okay?”
“Why? Don’t you like pink? Look, I have mine too!” she said enthusiastically. “It’s like a couple earring.”
The air froze after the word left her mouth. The silence hovered above them for a long while until Tiffany broke it.
“That guy. That tall, cute boy you always hang around with. Who is he?”
Sooyoung looked at her in confusion. “Fany?”
The older girl smiled at her teasingly. “You know, the frat boy. The one you were with last Sunday under that oak tree.”
“Oh.” She said upon realizing. “Changmin. He’s my childhood friend.”
Tiffany smiled widely and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I’ve always observed you two during lunchtime.”
“I thought you have classes around that time? Why didn't you talk to us?” she barged her with questions.
Tiffany said nothing and instead smiled a mysterious smile.
“Syoong. I think he’s in love with you.”
Silence. Thicker albeit less awkward than the previous one. Sooyoung kept mum, her gaze landing on the creases of Tiffany’s pink bed sheet. Her eyes made its way back to the older girl’s face to see that she was still smiling. Whether that pure cheer she had on is a mask she had expertly put, Sooyoung is not sure.
“I know.” Came her soft reply.
For a moment, she thought Tiffany’s smile faltered. “You do?” It was a question of innocent curiosity.
“He told me before. But I was…” she thought of Yuri; of how it was then back when she was a bit more cowardly than she was now. “But I didn’t accept it. He didn’t take it wrongly though. Which is why we’re still friends.”
Tiffany chewed on her bottom lip before replying with a tone of finality. “I think you look good together.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“No, promise.” She looked at the earrings on her hand and mumbled softly. “You should be with him.”
“What are you saying?”
“I just think you look good together.” She looked at her with a glint of sadness in her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with stating the truth.”
“Stop it.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s you that I like!”
Tiffany let out a hollow laughter. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do. And I know you feel the same way too!” she felt her voice rise as she spoke.
“How can you be so sure?”
“You kissed me!”
“It doesn't mean anything.”
Sooyoung blinked furiously as she scrutinized Tiffany with her gaze. “You’re lying.”
“Let’s stop this.” The older girl turned on her heels and started walking to her side of the bed but Sooyoung was fast to hold her arm before she can do so.
“No. Let’s talk about this!”
“Lower your voice. You’d wake up the people on the other room.” Tiffany said through gritted teeth.
“I don’t give a damn about them.”
“Aren’t you scared of what -”
“No, I’m not.” She held her arm tighter. “Tiffany…”
“Sooyoung…” she said softly. “We can’t be together.” She pried her arm gently from her grasp. “It’s late. Let’s go to sleep.”
Sooyoung looked at her retreating back as she went back to her side of the bed. The younger girl heaved out a fat sigh, too tired to argue anymore. She gathered her pillows around her and said softly to no one in particular. “Let’s talk about it next time.”
Before other words were shared, Sooyoung turned off her bedside lamp leaving Tiffany’s pink lampshade sole authority to light the spacious room. She turned on to face the older girl only to see her back facing against her. She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep unaware of the tears rolling on the other girl’s face as she sobbed silently into her pink blanket.
“There would be no more next time.”
---
The usual morning breeze fluttered the curtains of the large window and prodded her sleeping form. Sooyoung woke up with a sense of hope within her only for it to drain out of her body when she saw the blank wall opposite hers. She sat straight and looked at her surroundings, panic and dread sinking into her mind as she absorbed the scene in front of her.
The glittery letterings and the paper cutouts were gone. So were the wooly mat, bean bag, and the army of stuffed toys on the study table. The perpetual pink bed beside her has vanished to be replaced by a simple-looking cot. She blinked back the tears as she stood up and walked towards the study table. With shaking fingers, she read the letter perched on top of the solitary pink box placed atop the desk.
“I’m sorry Sooyoung that I am not as brave as you.”
She opened the box and stared at the bundles of pink items arranged neatly inside it. A paper crane, a notebook, an anklet, a toy, dried flowers, pens, bracelets, and a pair of earrings.
A sob fell out of her mouth as she sank down on the floor.
---
Forty-five minutes away from the university dorm, Tiffany Hwang was half-listening to the safety precautionary methods the flight attendants were reciting before take-off. She studied the ticket she hastily booked the other day right after she made a trip to the Academics division to say that she will not continue on the exchange program. She put the piece of paper inside her bag and her hand made contact with the little figure of a pink puppy attached to her handphone. Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment before a look of understanding crossed her features and a thin smile formed on her lips.
“It was nice meeting you but you deserve someone else. Maybe someday we will meet again.”
She took a huge breath and wrapped her sweater tighter around her body. The flight attendants have long taken a seat on their designated areas as the pilot’s voice filled the cabin and the plane’s engine roared into life. Tiffany took one last look outside the window and let a tear roll down her cheek as she watched the remaining pink afterglow of dawn vanish completely into the white morning light.
A/N: Oh look my first yuri pairing! xD I know it sucks (and I'm not really sorry for inserting ChangSoo there hehehe) For Tot and Louise. ♥