TWENTY THREE

The knock on the door propped me onto my feet.

“Coming!” I shouted, shuffling to the door, peering through the peephole of my door. Sure enough, there Tiffany was, standing on the other side of the door. My heart started palpitating, a smile creeping onto my mouth as I went to open the door. It’s only been a day, but I felt like I would never get used to seeing Tiffany and remembering that she was my girlfriend.

“Taeyeon!” Tiffany exclaimed excitedly as the door swung open, “Oh my gosh, you look so cute!”

Another thing I felt like I would never get used to was her constant barrage of compliments. Not only was it embarrassing, but it never sat well with me: they didn’t feel like they belonged to me. If it wasn’t Tiffany, who I always trusted to be honest with me, I probably would have just disregarded the comment as an obligatory, polite remark.

“Ah, thanks,” I replied shyly, again reprimanding myself for doing so. Taeyeon, get a grip; if Tiffany is to be my girlfriend, I’ll have to stop being this shy, fumbling lovestruck idiot. “You’re also pretty as always,” I replied, managing to not stammer at all.

Tiffany beamed as she walked through the door. “Aw, thanks! Are you ready?”

I hesitated; I didn’t want to disappoint Tiffany, but at the same time, I was apprehensive about going out in public. I didn’t have concerns while in the privacy of our homes, but being in a place where others could see us, especially if Tiffany was going to initiate a lot of skinship, caused enough discord in my head to cause me to stop.

“Um, actually, not yet,” I said, calling upon my brain to create an excuse to stall, “I want to, um, fix my makeup first,” I told her, turning around to walk to the bathroom.

“Ah, are you scared of how other people will see us, a gay couple?”

I froze, my chest swelling with fear. Would she be angry at my lie? Should I try to rectify it? Would that make things worse? God, why was I so bad at … everything?

“Don’t worry about them, I’ll protect you,” she said, grabbing my arm. My face suddenly started burning at those words: I had always imagined my significant other saying those words, although admittedly I never imagined a woman saying them. It was a strange mix of emotions swirling inside me: bashfulness, fear, and guilt.

Own up to it, Taeyeon. Communication is important in a relationship: of all people, I should know this well. “Um, sorry,” I said, much more softly than I anticipated. I increased my volume before continuing, “I—I didn’t mean to lie like that, I was just anxious and…”

Tiffany took it upon herself to interject when I trailed off. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Tae,” she said, pulling the arm she grabbed and embracing me from behind, “Small things like that don’t make me angry. It’s … the bigger ones that, I guess, I don’t like,” she said, enunciating her words very carefully for some reason.

I sighed in relief, covering Tiffany’s hands in my own. “Sorry Fany, I’m just so nervous for some reason and…” the following words lodged in my throat. Come on Taeyeon, just say them; this relationship will not turn out poorly. “I don’t know, I don’t want to be—I don’t want to disappoint you,” I said after forcing the words out.

“Aww, I’ll never be disappointed in you TaeTae,” she replied, patting my stomach lightly, “If you just want to stay home all day, I can do that too.”

“No, we should go. Can we just … um, stay for a little bit?”

“Yeah, of course,” Tiffany said, releasing the embrace, disappointment sinking into my body as her warmth left my back. “By the way, where are your parents?”

“Oh,” I responded, leading her to our living room, “they’re meeting with coworkers right now, so I couldn’t go with them.”

Tiffany nodded in understanding, quickly catching on and not pressing further. That side of Tiffany also amazed me: how was Tiffany so adept at picking up social cues?

After more encouragement from Tiffany and calming my nerves down, we got up and headed out. I wasn’t given much time to get used to being in public with Tiffany, however, as Tiffany clung onto my arm like a koala the moment we stepped onto the street. I played it off nonchalantly, reminding myself females who weren’t couples acted like this all the time. It was something I had to actively remind myself since Jessica, having been my only close female friend since elementary school, didn’t initiate skinship as readily as Tiffany did.

“Which couple items do you want, first of all?”

Just the thought of that made me excited; as any girl, I’ve always fantasized sharing couple items with my significant other, but never had the opportunity to do so, despite having been in a relationship before. However, the feeling of anxiety inevitably bubbled to the surface along with the excitement: female friends also get couple items, right? People wouldn’t be too suspicious of us if we got matching accessories or clothing? Even though there was such a big gap between how pretty Tiffany was and me?

Annoyance and frustration towards myself joined the hodgepodge of emotions welling inside me. Why was I like this? Couldn’t I just enjoy my time with Tiffany outside without having to worry about these stupid things? I wanted to just stop those thoughts, but every time I shook them off, they would just resurface a few minutes later. Tiffany deserved better than this.

“What’s wrong?”

Again, Tiffany’s gentle voice casted a soothing spell onto me, dissipating all the anxiety and frustration inside me.

“Ah, I was just—” I stopped, biting back my words. It wasn’t proper to bother Tiffany with this, this was my problem. However, the encouraging look and nod she gave me stripped those thoughts away, and the words flowed of my mouth like water in a creek, “—I was just frustrated at myself for still being anxious about being in public with you.”

Tiffany offered a sympathetic look, hugging my arm more tightly. “Poor Taeyeon, don’t worry about that. I’ll be as patient as you need me to be,” she reassured me.

I smiled, blinking away the tears coalescing in my eyes. Did I deserve such a kind, angelic, perfect girlfriend? How could she have chosen me, out of all the millions of people in Seoul?

I sighed, smiling despite my bottled-up emotions, feeling guilty for betraying her trust, yet fearing even more that realization hitting Tiffany. “Thanks, Fany,” I said, patting the hand that was gripping my arm.

She smiled back, once again providing the inquiry, “So are there any specific couple items that you wanted?”

I thought about it a bit before shaking my head. “I can’t think of anything,” I said, a cheesy response generated in my head right then. Just try it out, Taeyeon, it can’t be that bad. “I want whatever you want.” Ok, maybe it can.

Tiffany chuckled, squeezing my arm lightly in response. “Wow, I didn’t know you had it in you to be cheesy,” she said.

I finally let myself react to my own words, my fingers curling into tight fists. “I know, my fingers are curling at myself too,” I informed her, cringing at myself, “Maybe I shouldn’t say that kind of stuff.”

“Noo, you shoould~” she said, beaming, “It’s really endearing. My heart started racing a bit when you said that; do you want to feel?”

I shook my head when Tiffany started moving my hand up. “No, it’s ok, I trust you,” I told her, flushing slightly.

Tiffany pursed her lips and nodded, letting my arm drop back to my side. I sighed in relief: there was no way I could control my face if she put my hand to her chest.

“I was considering getting phone cases and accessories. Actually, do you also want couple underwear—?”

I hastily covered her mouth with my other hand, my face exploding in pink as I looked around nervously. “Yah, don’t say that in public,” I scolded her, only realizing upon looking around that everyone was too engrossed with their own business to pay us any mind.

Tiffany chuckled heartily after I removed my hand from her mouth. “You’re always so cute, Taeyeon. I come here often enough to know that the people here are too busy to pay attention to other people,” she said, patting the back of my hand reassuringly.

“Sorry,” I said again, ashamed of my rash reaction.

“Taeyeon~” Tiffany said cutely, tilting her head to look at me. My eyes locked onto her automatically, like I didn’t even have a choice in the matter. “I didn’t mean to make you sad~” God, why was Tiffany so cute? It was even hard to stay ashamed of myself in the face of her aegyo. “I won’t do it again, I promise~”

“Ah, no, it’s ok.”

Wait. Why did I say that? Wasn’t it clearly favorable to avoid situations in which Tiffany teases me in public and flusters me?

“Oh, really? Do you secretly like it?”

I felt my face turn a bit pinker at that, mostly because I understood it to be true. I could think contrary to that all I wanted, but in my heart of hearts, I knew I felt comforted from Tiffany’s teasing; it was like reassurance that she still liked—no, loved me.

“Let’s just go,” I told her, figuring my reaction would provide Tiffany a sufficient answer to her inquiry.

After picking out our couple phone cases and accessories—me getting a pink case with a Totoro accessory and her getting a light blue one with a Dukoong accessory, to match the others’ favorite color and character—we set out for a clothing store. However, before arriving, Tiffany brought up something I spent a lot of last night thinking about.

“Actually Taeyeon-ah, when are you going back to America?”

It was something I regretted to think about; even the thought of just taking my bachelor’s degree entered my mind and was only evicted after remembering all the time I spent working towards my master’s degree. Bringing Tiffany to America was clearly not an option, not only because of logistics, but also due the fact that she was banished from America. There weren’t legal implications for Tiffany reentering America, I was sure, but life would probably become really hard if she were to do so, and I wouldn’t want to befall Tiffany to that fate.

“I have a little less than two more months,” I replied quietly.