TWELVE

“Hello?”

I held back my laughter. Tiffany’s vain attempt to mask the hoarseness present in her voice by adding pep to her greeting wasn’t enough to mask the fact that she just woke up.

“Good morning Fany, did you just wake up?”

Tiffany’s digitized chuckle came from the other end. “So it was that obvious, huh?”

Laughter erupted from my lips. “Sorry for disturbing your sleep,” I apologized, settling onto my bed.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, pausing briefly to shuffle around, presumably to sit up on her bed, “How are you?”

Huh … for some reason, that seemed like a strange thing to say in this situation. Was it? Maybe it was just me, who normally had to proactively think about speaking in social situations; being faced with situations in which my brain wasn’t working fully usually meant completely forgetting about any and all conversational norms.

“I’m doing—… well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about something,” I admitted, “But if you still wanted to sleep, then I can always call you back.”

“Noo,” she pouted in her husky voice, “I’m awake, it’s ok. What did you want to talk to me about?”

I was slightly apprehensive about taking Tiffany’s offer but ended up taking her word. “Can I come over right now?”

“Huh?” That was probably the second time I’ve ever heard Tiffany flustered. It was kind of cute, honestly. “Right now?”

“Yeah,” I said, jumping off my bed, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Wait!” That was the last thing I heard as I hung the phone up.

I grinned to myself, imaging Tiffany running around her apartment frantically, flustered. It was immature of me, but I relished that the situation was flipped. Plus, I couldn’t deny the exciting prospect of Tiffany being the one off-kilter instead of me for once.

Twenty minutes later, I was knocking on Tiffany’s door.

“Taeyeon?” her muffled, panicked voice came from the other side of the door.

“Yeah it’s me. Don’t worry about makeup, I’ll love you even if you don’t have it on,” I replied, mirroring her words from when she came to visit me. I grinned giddily; as expected, it was really fun being on the other side of the teasing.

“Wait a second,” her still distant voice called out, “I’m not even recognizable right now.”

“Yah, then what did that make me?” I fumed playfully.

“Well you actually look pretty without makeup, but—”

“Fany, you know I don’t like you because of your appearance, right?” All sound emanating from her apartment abruptly stopped. All sound—words from her mouth, shuffling from her feet—everything suddenly ceased. “Plus, you did this to me first,” I added.

I stood there for a few moments in an almost eerie, complete silence. “I haven’t seen you in a week, at least let me make myself presentable,” she eventually replied.

I lowered my head at that.

In the last week, I tried texting her, calling her, even staying at the bar until it was her shift. No matter what I did though, Tiffany was distant; every time I tried to approach her, she would politely decline as if I was a stranger, whether it was in the form of curt replies to my texts or simply smiling and bowing her head in apology to me in person.

It was my fault, wasn’t it? It was because I made an assumption about her that I genuinely believed. I, of all people, should know better than to do that: to disillusion myself into presuming to understand one’s person on the fragile basis of a few days. Had I just realized this and not burden Tiffany so immensely to always live up to her happy, energetic, bubbly self, perhaps she wouldn’t have shut herself off from me so much.

Over the week, I even began to fear that Tiffany started to dislike me. Maybe the smiles she gave me those times at the bar were out of obligation than sincere friendliness. Maybe I didn’t deserve such an amazing friend like Tiffany after all. Maybe a socially inept person like me couldn’t mesh well with someone like Tiffany.

As I heard her footsteps approach the door, I calmed myself by taking a deep breath. Remember Jessica’s words from yesterday: be confident in myself. If I just act friendly to her, maybe she won’t have a choice but to reembrace me as her friend. I shouldn’t let her out of my grasp so easily.

I nodded, taking a deep breath and fist pumping to myself. I can do this.

Wait … act friendly to her? How do I do that?

The door swung open.

“Taeyeon, come in,” she said, pulling the door open and quickly turning away from me.

“Fany! Are you running away from me?” God, what was I saying? “You won’t hug your friend after not seeing her for a week?” Was I being too cheesy? There was no way I wasn’t being too cheesy, right? But was I doing this correctly?

“Give me a few more minutes—” Tiffany started to head back into the bathroom, but it was at that moment I made a split-second decision: I quickly closed the gap between us, reaching for her hand and lightly pulling her towards me. In what could only be described as a startled state, Tiffany stumbled in my direction, her back still facing me. Figuring that turning her around was impractical, I brought my arms around her waist, wrapping them comfortably around her in a back hug.

“I missed you,” I told her, resting my face against her back. Tiffany stood there for a few seconds, her only response being to cover the back of my hand with her palms.

“O-Oh. I missed you too,” she replied. Biting my lip was all I could do to stop myself from squealing; was that the second time I’ve heard her stutter? Why was it so cute? Maybe I should hug her more often. I definitely needed to hug her more often.

“How much longer do you have?”

“You mean for makeup?”

I nodded against her back, realizing a few seconds later that she wasn’t able to see me. “Yeah,” I responded, hoping that Tiffany didn’t feel me nodding somehow.

“Ten minutes?”

I released my embrace. “Ok, I’ll wait in the living room then,” I told her.

When I took my seat on the couch, I looked back to see Tiffany still standing where I left her. “What’s wrong Fany?”

“Ah, nothing, I was just … um, I’ll be back soon,” she said, quickly turning her face away and rushing to the bathroom.

I frowned. Why was she like that? Someone as naturally pretty as Tiffany didn’t have the right to act like that, especially in front of someone like me.

I leaned back, swinging my head up to the ceiling. As I did that, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention: a familiar branch impeding my view of the apartment room.

I jumped up and turned around; sure enough, at the other end of the couch stood the very pseudo-plant at the furniture store Tiffany decided to buy the other day. My curiosity peaked, I looked around and quickly found the Hello Kitty clock neatly sitting on top of the TV. How she managed to get that so high up was beyond me. Maybe she had a male friend help her?

The thought of Tiffany alone with a man unsettled me, so I decided to move on from that topic, carefully inspecting the rest of her living room and kitchen for fun little surprises. When Tiffany emerged, I was looking at the refrigerator magnets stuck onto the smooth, metallic surface. “Fany, I think my house has the same refrigerator,” I told her, facing her.

“Oh, it’s so nice isn’t it? Honestly, there’s more space than what I know to do with,” she said, chuckling a little.

If nothing, hearing that gave me hope. Maybe Jessica was right, and Tiffany wasn’t avoiding me because she started hating me.

“I noticed the plant and the clock, too,” I said, motioning towards them.

“Oh yeah,” she said, following the direction of my gesture, “They’re cute.” The comment just hung in the air; I could just about see the chat bubbles appear around us filled with nothing but ellipses. I just sat on the couch, drumming my fingers on my leg, desperately trying to think of something to say. The weather? It’s pretty average, though. Plus, that’s way too awkward to say; how about— “Oh, your outfit is pretty cute,” Tiffany suddenly said.