Reunion 2/2
I'm back. And so is Reunion. But it's huge... Don't look at it as text diarrhea.. just.. go with it.
Reunion
Yoona’s body soap and the scent of light cigarettes seemed to rest on her breath each time she exhaled. Tiffany sighed again, her fingers fidgeting at the collar of her sweater. Yoona wasn’t somebody one could forget overnight. She wasn’t the sort of person one could forget in a year. Or two. Or twenty.
But that kind of person was waiting for her at her door, smiling like she meant it, and smelling intoxicating like cigarettes fishing her back in. Tiffany shifted her position on the dead log and glanced down at her watch. It was nearing midnight.
Jessica was quietly waiting, her palms down and her hands down at her sides. Her pale slender arms seemed to glow green under the serene beam of the moonlight.
“Something’s not going well for you,” Tiffany looked up at Jessica who half whispered out her words. But Jessica wasn’t looking at her, her eyes only lined the hollow night sky above them.
“What?”
“I look at you and you’re not doing well.” Jessica finally made eye contact with Tiffany. But Tiffany ducked her head, scared that Jessica’s big round eyes would look right through her.
“I don’t know where you’re talking about,” Tiffany almost didn’t want to hear her reply.
“You’re crying,” But she answered anyway. Tiffany bit her lower lip. Jessica interlocked her index finger with Tiffany’s ring finger, her thumb lightly brushing over Tiffany’s white bent knuckles.
“No. I’m fine.”
She was fine. Totally fine. It was just the uphill trek up the mountain path, the long days at work. She was just tired. But as much as she wanted to keep up the façade, she wasn’t fooling anyone, and certainly not herself. If the inside of her head was a battle, she was losing it. And another flash of Yoona underneath the sheets, another sigh full of her cigarettes was enough to well her eyes with something warm and wet.
The bottom of her lip scrunched up, her nostrils flared, and finally Tiffany bared her teeth in a silent cry, slapping her free hand against her eyes to smother the tears back into her eyeballs. Jessica lacing her fingers with her own didn’t help either.
“I’m not fine, I’m not fine. I’m not fine at all,” Tiffany turned her head away from the blonde, her hand gripping Jessica’s hand sternly as if it was her own heart. “I am… So, not fine.” The last thing she wanted to show Jessica was her face covered in tears and snot so she kept looking towards the spaces between the woods away from where Jessica was sitting, even when the fireflies began filling up the air around them and dance in the corner of her eye.
“You’re not fine,” Jessica studied Tiffany’s trembling shoulders, cocking her head to the side in wonder. She then brought Tiffany hand on her lap with both of her hands, her head turning towards the fireflies. Jessica’s face broke into a smile that reflected off the golden showers of light. “You’re not fine, Tiffany. But that’s okay.”
Tiffany never did bring herself to look at the fireflies that night, but Jessica didn’t mind all that much. And while words had escaped from the both of them that night, Jessica’s green tinted fingers laced with Tiffany’s was all that needed to be shared. Tiffany marvelled at the contact, at the sheer warmth, and how the firm grip seemed to remind her of the word, “promise”. She only hoped that this one wouldn’t be broken.
-
“Jess.”
Tiffany’s head was perched on Jessica’s shoulder as they watched the glistening slow motion roller coaster rides of hundreds of fireflies above their heads.
“Hmm?” Jessica hooked her pinkie finger with Tiffany’s index finger. Tiffany reciprocated the mutual affection she had for the blonde as she burrowed her head against Jessica’s shoulder.
“Tell me something about you.”
“Like what?”
“Like how your day went, what you did. What you’d say if I confessed.”
Jessica turned her head and dug her nose in Tiffany’s hair as she cocked an eyebrow. “Confess what?”
“Confess that I like you.”
It might have been just a trick of the eye, but Tiffany swore that she saw the fireflies uncannily tilt out of their usual pattern of orbit as soon as her last sentence left her lips. But her attention was soon taken away by the sharp intake of breath heard just above her head.
Silence enveloped both of them, and for the first time in over a couple of weeks, Tiffany felt uncomfortable in the silent presence of her companion; and had the unbearable urge to shift her position. She could have sworn that at least 15 minutes had passed by with neither of them uttering a word.
“Jess? I like you.” Tiffany clenched her eyes shut, listening to the rush of blood and the pounding of her heart in her ears.
Jessica’s only response was to mash her bottom lip and cautiously whisper out, “Let’s just watch the fireflies.”
It could have been a devastating blow to her ego if Tiffany had any in the first place. After what had happened with Yoona, she was veritably crushed with self hate, and the word “esteem” felt foreign in her mouth. But even without an ego, it still hurt to hear the sorry tone of rejection from the one person responsible for piecing her back up. Her lips felt chapped and it felt like she took a hearty munch out of a bag of fertilizer. Regarding Jessica’s slender fingers and their ethereal glow contrasting over her own darker, balled up hand, Tiffany sighed out her woe and closed her eyes again.
It was only a little heart breaking that Jessica didn’t even spare her a few words of consolation.
-
The stench of alcohol whooshed towards Tiffany each time Yoona opened her mouth to call out her name. Tiffany, exasperated, clapped a firm hand over the inebriated girl’s mouth and half carried her into the apartment. Shutting the front door with her foot and waiting until the automatic lock clicked in place, Tiffany dragged Yoona’s body and her clumsy feet towards the living room couch and launched her towards the cushions.
“You are such a douche.”
Tiffany shot Yoona an electric glare, which quickly softened as Yoona looked as if she was in actual whisky induced PAIN, and ran her fingers through her long locks behind her ear as she hastily pulled them up in a messy bun. Slipping off her long coat, she threw the garment over the kitchen chair, and helped Yoona sit up to undress her.
“Tiffany. Ma Chérie.” The smell of whisky wafted immediately to Tiffany face, and her expression shrivelled into one of distaste.
“Ma Chérie your face,” Tiffany grumbled out as she pulled on the sleeves of Yoona’s sweater. When the woollen clothing was off, Yoona chanced the brief time when Tiffany wouldn’t be holding on to her wrists and clasped both her hands around and over Tiffany’s jaw. Tiffany wanted to slap herself when she felt her heart shift inside her chest, the familiar sensation of Yoona’s touches forcing her to relive the better days of their relationship.
It was only when Yoona had brought her lips to the corner of Tiffany’s mouth in a chaste kiss that Tiffany had hit her shoulders back, flinging the dainty hands off her face. Snapping out of the trance Yoona knows so well to put her in, Tiffany unceremoniously grabbed a foot and aggressively pulled off a sock.
“I hope you violently vomit,” Tiffany spat out in an unsympathetic voice. “Vomit so HARD that you throw up your own pancreas.” Tiffany pulled off the other sock and threw the pair into a corner. She would throw them in a basket later.
“C’est possible,” Yoona crumpled like a sad little plastic bag on the sofa, curling into a ball. Her tear stained face was the only clue to her distress as she closed off the windows to her soul. “Mais je t’en prie, ne dit plus le mot ‘vomit’. It is, how you say, hard, to keep mind off vomit, if you keep repeating it.”
Dragging a wasted French-Korean into her apartment at 3 in the morning was not Tiffany’s usual routine, that is, before Yoona had left her indefinitely. But it was horribly difficult trying to be indifferent to the stir of emotions when Yoona, sitting at her front door with her big doe eyes and a broken smile, looked up from her knees to lock eyes, begging in broken English to take her back. It was ironic that the very person who had broken her was now begging to be pieced back.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
Tiffany breathed out, almost pleading, at the pathetic mess on her sofa. Yoona gazed up towards the woman before her before clenching her eyes shut again.
“How can you say that?” Yoona replied with her head hung between her hands and murmured out. “I love you.”
Tossing a blanket over Yoona’s face, Tiffany huffed as she bristled at the declaration and went in to her room, slamming the door behind her.
-
It took two more tries in confessing her undying affection for Jessica for Tiffany to feel worse than when Yoona left her. It wasn’t anything Jessica did or said. She actually didn’t say anything. It seemed as if she was trying her best to ignore Tiffany’s call for attention to her feelings. Her often pinched expression was seemingly trying to get Tiffany to understand how she’s in the middle of complicating things. However, Tiffany didn’t understand what there was complicate.
“You’re making me upset.”
Tiffany sighed as she unravelled her fingers out of Jessica’s grasp. Jessica’s pained expression at her comment didn’t help much. But from her point of view, she had the shorter end of the stick, and Jessica had no right to make that face at her.
“I’m sorry.”
A lone firefly swooped down between their faces and twirled in place before gliding out of view behind Jessica’s ear. Tiffany sighed yet again and brought her fingertip to her brow, pressing and easing the tension.
“Sorry for what?” Jessica bit down on her lower lip and brought her own fingers to the place where Tiffany was mashing with now the ball of her hand.
“I don’t understand your question,” Jessica had barely finished her words before Tiffany slapped the blonde’s hand away from her face. The space between her brows creased and the hand that slapped Jessica’s away was open, palm facing towards Jessica, separating the two of them.
“Are-are you joking?” Tone and volume of her voice was raised and Tiffany’s chest clenched at a sudden memory of her doing the same thing to Yoona. She was making the surrounding air so thick that it could suffocate them.
“What’s wrong?” The unfamiliar tone Tiffany took with her made Jessica uncharacteristically back away. The fireflies began to swirl more rapidly, skating through the thick oxygen, one behind Jessica’s shoulder, one by her temple, and one by the corner of her lips. The colour gold reflected the smooth pockets of tears in Jessica’s eyes.
“’What’s wrong?’ Everything! I told you that I loved you, I confessed and you turned me down. And you know what? I can live with that- but the fact that you still look at me, watch me with those eyes while you’re touching me, my hand, my face, just everywhere! And you speak, you say things. You say things and I melt, I practically gush. How can you not see that?” Tears spilled and Tiffany, embarrassed of her outburst, hung her head against her propped up knees.
Few seconds stretched into a minute before Jessica said or did anything. Tiffany was about to just up and leave, before Jessica’s slender fingers found themselves buried beneath Tiffany’s mound of hair. “I can’t say if what I’m feeling is love. I’m not so sure. But I get the feeling that it’s the closest to it I’m going to get.”
Tiffany looked up to meet Jessica’s eyes, and was surprised to see that her face was breathtakingly close to her own. She gulped down the anxiety as she studied Jessica’s eyelashes. “Jess?”
“I love you,” Jessica replied swiftly, in her special way of speaking-in half whisper. And after a quarter of a second, Jessica brought her lips down upon Tiffany’s, heart pounding everywhere, in the chest, in the ear, in the two hands that held Tiffany by the jaw and in the two hands that grabbed the hem of Jessica’s sweater. Even with their eyes closed, it was as if they could see the erratic dance of the speckles of fireflies.
But Tiffany’s heart dropped to her stomach as they pulled apart and saw the golden tears stream down Jessica’s face. And her surroundings seemed to dissipate into a vague tunnel vision as her vision zeroed in on Jessica’s lips uttering simple but crushing words.
“But I can’t be with you.”
Tiffany let her eyes flicker close at the finality of the blonde’s statement. Relishing the feeling of two warm palms cradling her face, she brought her own hands up to them, blanketing them. The softness of her skin made her want to cry. So she did.
“I wish I could go back to when I first came here. When I was alone. Without you. Before I ever saw your face.”
When Tiffany opened her eyes again, her heart wrenched at the sight of more glistening tears leaking out from Jessica’s eyes.
“You don’t understand,” Tiffany couldn’t help but frown at Jessica’s words. “I was always here.”
-
The next day, during the afternoon, when Tiffany was haplessly trying to usher Yoona out of her apartment for good, she felt the floor shift underneath her. Tiffany tried to voice out the weirdness of it all, or to flail around or just do anything, but found she couldn’t do anything as the world went black.
“T-Tiffany? Tiff??” Yoona held the unconscious girls in her arms, realizing too late how Tiffany’s clothes clung to her like a wet mop, how her pale face shined under the sheen of cold sweat. Yoona wiped down the bullets of sweat from Tiffany’s temple and felt for a temperature with the back of her hand. She gasped as Tiffany’s body was practically on fire.
After fruitlessly searching for a cell phone in the apartment, Yoona groaned out her exasperation.
“Shit! Shit!!”
Yoona, in blind panic, sat Tiffany up and fashioned both her arms around her neck and scooped her up in a piggyback. “Tiffany! Please!!” Surprisingly strong and agile with practically dead weight on top of her, Yoona ran for the closest clinic she knew she had see a couple of times around the neighbourhood.
Tiffany felt her body being rattled with each stride Yoona took, and briefly willed her eyes open. Her whole world was shaking as she realized that she was on Yoona’s back, more specifically, a running Yoona’s back. And that she was sweating all over her.
Maybe it was the temperature, or maybe it was because she knew somehow that she wouldn’t be watching the fireflies anytime soon. But Tiffany could have swore that she saw a crew of fireflies whoosh through the streets beside them, glowing and warm. Before she could make sense of their presence though, the grotesque heat on her brows pushed her lids down to a close.
-
When Tiffany opened her eyes again, it was on top of an unfamiliar bed and beneath two fleecy sheets. An IV was taped into place on her right hand, and her the other was gripped firmly between Yoona’s two cool hands.
Yoona, holding Tiffany’s hand and pressing it against her forehead, was whispering out prayers in French.
“…Yoong.”
Her voice sounded like a dead cat. But that didn’t faze Yoona as her head snapped up at the sound to see Tiffany staring straight back at her.
“Tiffany,” Yoona’s voice wasn’t any better. Tiffany let herself smile a little at Yoona’s relieved expression mixed with big balls of tears and silent weeping. Yoona felt like her tongue was the size of her fist as she gulped down dry saliva.
“Ca va?” It was pathetic, and they both knew it.
“I don’t know. I’ve been better.”
Yoona gulped a few more times before she continued. “The doctor… Il m’a dit que… you, uhh, stress, dehydration. You will be healthy in… few days.”
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“No, no… I’m sorry- I am sorry,” Tiffany felt Yoona’s grip tighten. “For, for everything.”
And it left a bitter taste in her mouth as Yoona let out a quite sincere looking “I love you”, and her heart skipped a few beats in reply. She wondered if Jessica was wondering where she went.
-
It was a week after she was discharged from the hospital before she could persuade Yoona to let her trek back to the place on Taeyeon’s map. It was unsettling how antsy a person could get without watching a swarm of bugs with lights in their butts, but Tiffany was adamant. And Yoona was desperately trying to get on Tiffany’s good side, so she couldn’t oppose for too long.
Tiffany wondered if Jessica was already there, like she always was, her back to the mouth of the swamp sitting on top of the dead log.
And it was almost eerie how Jessica was there, just like Tiffany had pictured her before arriving, the blonde hair bunched to the side while her gaze pointed towards the night sky. Tiffany didn’t make any efforts to hide her footfalls, and wordlessly sat down next to the blonde on the log. Jessica glanced to the side with a warm smile, meeting Tiffany’s presence with a silent hello. She wasn’t the only thing to greet Tiffany back though. The fireflies began to light up one by one, gliding, sliding, dancing with a fervor Tiffany had never witnessed before. It was a nice welcome back present.
“You came back.”
Jessica’s way of speaking, that breathy but quiet method tickled Tiffany’s earlobe. The sound of her voice and the gentle shower of golden light mesmerized her in place.
“Mm-hmm.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Tiffany turned her head from the fireflies to Jessica’s glowing eyes, and smiled. “I love the fireflies.”
Her heart soared when Jessica proceeded to give her that biggest and the most endearing smile she had ever seen the blonde wear before replying with, “I love you too.”
-
It was almost surreal the next night, when Tiffany came bounding in the swamp to an empty log. The blonde hair, the glowing eyes, the scent of pine were all absent. It was weird to think that Jessica would have her wait instead of the other way around, because Jessica was always there for her, before her. Tiffany studied her surroundings for a hint of the blonde’s presence without much success.
She let out a long breath as she took a seat at her usual place, leaving Jessica’s usual spot untouched. It was only logical that sometimes Jessica could be late as well. But her train of thought was broken by the usual concerto of fireflies, beaming and shining one by one until the entire night sky was drenched with gold. Tiffany’s jaw slackened at the extraordinary sight, the fireflies had certainly outdone themselves. Their movements were swift but graceful, silent but speedy as if a silent hand was conducting them into action. They effectively filled the hollow absence of the space beside her, hanging down into a pianissimo then rising high with a powerful crescendo.
But then there was one peculiar firefly that came dangerously close to the tip of Tiffany’s nose. Tiffany wonderingly stretched her finger out towards the lit up bug, and was startled to witness the bug welcome the contact and readily sit on a knuckle.
“Wha…”
Tiffany cradled the bug lovingly, transferring it to an open palm. The firefly didn’t make any moves to leave the warm contact, and left Tiffany in awe as it continued to burn brighter than any other fireflies present at the swamp.
And it was that same prolonged moment when an astounding revelation dawned on her- Jessica wasn’t late at all.
Instinctively, Tiffany clapped her other hand over the firefly, trapping it, before getting to her feet and running for home.
It finally all made sense.
-
Yoona watched Tiffany watching a lone firefly swaying inside an emptied out jam jar. Tiffany had her head propped up with her two open palms, and was almost longingly watching the bug fly aimlessly inside the glass.
Yoona sometimes doesn’t get Tiffany and some of the things she does, just like she doesn’t get English. But in that moment, with all the lights turned off, her head propped up with her two open palms, watching a moving firefly in their living room, it was the most calm and relaxed state she had seen Tiffany- ever. It was almost therapeutic, reveling in the beauty set by the golden glow reflecting against Tiffany at all the right angles.
It was a stupid and rash decision to leave Tiffany in the first place. She knew she was pretty, and she thought she could get away with turning away from a nice girl in an arrogance that there were plenty of nice girls willing to love her. It only took a few months to figure out that most nice looking girls she knew had ugly insides- just like herself. And as hard as it was to admit at first, she was at her best self when she was with Tiffany.
If there was one thing she absolutely abhorred, it was hypocrisy. And she legit cringed each time she came across a snooty girl with nothing to offer more than a pretty face and empty promises. So when she found that she was becoming that snooty girl, she decided to go back to the best thing that ever happened to her. She decided to grow up.
Growing up is never easy though. But she was Yoona fucking Im. She can do anything she set her pretty mind to. And right now, as she sipped on her mug of decaf while watching Tiffany watch the firefly, she was pretty sure she was falling so deep, she would never come back out until Tiffany pushed her out.
-
When Tiffany woke up the next morning, she was met with an empty jam jar. She felt her stomach churn.
-
The scene was vaguely familiar, while Tiffany sat on the couch, contemplative about something, and as Yoona sat at the border between the living room and the verandah, smoking. However, this time, both of them were fully clothed while Yoona sneaked a couple of glances of Tiffany.
“Stop smoking,” Yoona jumped at the sudden remark, then proceeded to stare at Tiffany and then to the cancer stick she fashioned between her index and middle finger.
“Uhh??”
Only then Tiffany looked up to meet Yoona in the eyes.
“And you don’t flirt with anyone else, it doesn’t matter whether I know you’re doing it or not. You just don’t.”
“Tiffany?”
“And this time around, YOU make the coffee every morning.”
Yoona rubbed out her cigarette on the ashtray as she felt her lips stretch into a wide uncontrollable smile.
“And one last thing,” Yoona gathered herself up to kneel down in front of Tiffany, looking up to meet her eyes with a sparkling gaze.
“Anything.”
“You tell me that you love me. Every day.”
Yoona cradled Tiffany’s jaw line with a hand, stroking the skin in contact with her thumb. “I love you.”
“Well I don’t,” Yoona’s smile faltered, nonetheless, Tiffany continued. “Not yet. So you better work hard.”
“Oui, t’inquiète.” Yoona then slowly moved up close, up to where she could count each eyelash batting on the flickering eyelid, and captured Tiffany’s lips in a soft and slow moving kiss.
-
I hope you like Reunion as much as I liked writing it. Take care now.