TWENTY SIX

“Aah—” just as I was starting to whine at my game suddenly being shuffled off the screen, the caller identification screen caused me to shoot up into a sitting position on my bed. “Hi Tiffany!” I greeted her after accepting the call, voice hoarse from not having been used yet today.

“Did you just wake up, Taeyeon?” Tiffany laughed from the other side.

“No!” I whined, “I just haven’t used my voice at all today,” I replied, cautious in exposing my lazy habit to her: she didn’t need to know another one of my flaws.

“I’m almost there, ok?”

I shot out of my bed, the blanket flying off the mattress. “Wh-What? Where?”  And despite being the one asking the question, I had a good idea I knew exactly where she was coming. I silently prayed that it wouldn’t be what I thought it was, but of course, it wasn’t answered.

“Your house, of course. Where else?” she said, adding a musical giggle at the end of the sentence.

“Wait! Wait wait wait,” I said in rapid succession, turning the speaker on and setting it on the nightstand next to my bed. “Can’t you wait for a bit? I’m still in my pajamas.” The words came out of my mouth so quickly, it was only after I started folding my blanket before I realized that I had inadvertently revealed the fact that I was in my bed for a long time.

“What were you doing in your bed all day?” she questioned in a teasing voice. “Were you thinking about me? Oh!” I knew from the way she said that one word that nothing good could come of continuing to listen to her. I smoothed my bedsheet as quickly as I could before running to my phone. “Were you mastur—” click.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Admittedly, I felt guilty for just hanging up on my girlfriend like that, but it was better than the alternative. Plus, Tiffany was used to me interrupting her whenever she wanted to say something suggestive like that.

Tiffany didn’t call back, which I took as a bad sign as it probably meant that she was just minutes away. I grabbed an outfit from my closet and washed up more quickly than I ever have in my entire life; in the middle of applying some light makeup, the doorbell rang.

“Fany, give me just one minute,” I shouted, doing some finishing touches before fast-walking to the door.

I swung the door open without a second of hesitation, and on the other side stood a beaming Tiffany, bag in hand. “Was it satisfying?” was the first thing she asked, which I didn’t grant a reply. She just smiled before continuing with, “Aah, my girlfriend is as adorable as ever~” practically singing the words out as she gracefully stepped inside.

I found myself unable to reply, setting a pair of slippers on the ground for her. Ever since we became a couple, I noticed that Tiffany made it a point to say something like this nearly every time we met. Perhaps it would have been a small thing to someone else, but it meant the world to me: it was a daily validation to me that told me Tiffany still liked me and still wanted to be my girlfriend. Maybe that just came naturally to Tiffany, but her greeting me like that every day saved me just a little bit more from myself.

“What’s in the bag?” I inquired as I walked into the kitchen.

“It’s a surprise,” she replied, setting it down against the sofa in the living room before joining me in the kitchen. The bad premonitions I had about it apparently showed, as Tiffany giggled as I started taking some yogurt from the refrigerator. “You don’t intend to go back on your word, do you?”

“What do you mean?” I continued, hoping dearly it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.

“You promised you would model some lingerie for me, right?”

The tip of my ears exploded in a burst of heat as I shuffled into the kitchen area. “U-Uh, did I?” I said despite very clearly remembering it, and surely enough, now regretting it. What was I thinking? There was only a chance that Tiffany would force me to try on some lingerie in that shop—no matter how likely the possibility was, it still wasn’t the 100 percent chance of making that promise. Stupid, stupid Taeyeon.

“Of course, I intend to hold my end of the bargain too and will be trying them out with you.”

Taeyeon, you absolute genius. You absolute genius. Taking the offer was only logical; in fact, I would’ve been insane to not take the offer. How many people can claim to be as privileged as I to have seen a scantily clad Tiffany in her life?

“Did you eat breakfast yet?”

Tiffany sat down when I turned around to ask her the question. “No,” she replied innocently.

“Fany! You should eat breakfast!” I scolded her, re-opening the refrigerator, “Do you like yogurt?”

Tiffany thought about it for a second before saying, “Only if you feed it to me.”

A laugh escaped my lips in response. “Sure,” I giggled, extracting a cup from the shelf in the fridge. “Do you normally eat breakfast?”

“Not really,” she replied nonchalantly. “I usually wake up late enough that I eat lunch instead of breakfast. Plus, ever since high school, it felt weird eating more than two meals a day.”

I huffed. “Well you aren’t only eating two meals on my watch. Make sure to come here every morning for breakfast, ok?”

When Tiffany didn’t immediately respond, I turned around to look at her. Tiffany was just sitting there, giving me a sort of look of awe, like I had just said something especially significant or profound. For some reason, her gaze suddenly caused an uneasy, self-conscious feeling to stir within me, another blush creeping up my cheeks. “What?”

Tiffany shook her head. “No, it’s just…” she trailed off as she scooted her chair back to stand up. I started to grow a bit more uneasy when Tiffany started walking towards me.

“F-Fany?” I stumbled over my words, feeling the blush overtake more and more of my face. Damn it, just when I was starting to gain such good control over this sort of thing … why was this happening again?

Tiffany stopped in front of me, grasping my hands tightly. I could feel her warm palm against my own, her soft fingers intertwining within my fingers; Tiffany leaned forward in the blink of an eye, and though I knew what was happening, I found myself unable to move. It was like the time was both at a stand-still and in fast-forward: my breath got caught in the back of my throat, my eyes wide open in surprise, my lips slightly parted, my muscles tensed, and an electric shock sending a tingling feeling throughout my entire body as Tiffany’s soft lips touched mine.

However, it ended as quickly as it started, a fact which I found myself disappointed at, followed promptly by embarrassment for thinking such a thing.

“Marry me, Taeyeon.”

Just when I thought that Tiffany’s peck on my lips wasn’t enough, her words combined with the sincere smile on her face caused such an eruption of red on my face, I felt like I was about to pass out at any second.

“Wh-Wha-Wha—” I stammered helplessly, my brain having shut off at this point. I honestly couldn’t tell if she was just joking as she always did or she was seriously proposing to me. It can’t be … but did Tiffany usually look this serious when teasing me? I mean, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t get married in South Korea, we’d have to—

Tiffany giggled, a sound so beautiful that it kickstarted my stalling brain. “I can’t believe you’re so cute, Taeyeon, it should actually be illegal. How could I have gotten you as my girlfriend?”

“No, it’s—” I was promptly cut off as Tiffany quickly leaned in, stealing another peck from my lips before reestablishing the distance between our faces. That action caught me so off-guard that it promptly shut me up, which seemed to be the desired effect as Tiffany gave me one last smile before removing herself from me.

It was only then that I realized what position we were in; I was leaning against the marble counter immediately next to the sink, nearly sitting on it, my arms pushed back with the back of my hands laid out on either side of my body, my heels well above the floor, my toes desperately supporting the rest of my body. It seemed like it was ripped right out of a Korean drama or something … but weren’t those unrealistic?

“Wha-What was that for?” I huffed, turning back around.

“Nothing~” she replied in a sing-song voice. “Can I really come every morning for breakfast?”

“Of course,” I replied, “My parents usually leave for work really early in the morning, so you don’t have to worry about them.”

“Ooh, so you’re telling me to come over to your house when your parents aren’t home?”

“Yah Fany, do you want me to feed you or not?”

“I’m sorry, I take it back,” she answered, dejected.

I pulled a chair next to her and set the two cups of yogurt sprinkled with almonds on the table along with two spoons. “You want the strawberry flavored one, right?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “You know me so well, TaeTae~”

I found myself smiling, setting the other cup to the side. “Here you go,” I said, scooping a spoonful of the yogurt and bringing it to her mouth. Honestly, that I was feeding my girlfriend her breakfast like this was a bit ridiculous to me, but the cuteness of Tiffany’s eagerness drowned out the notion.

After we finished our breakfast, I attempted to stall a bit longer by claiming that I needed to fix up my makeup a bit more, but when Tiffany offered to change my makeup to better suit the clothes— ‘clothes’—that we would be trying on, I conceded and joined her in the living room.

“Ok, so this one’s the first one,” she said, retrieving something from the bag. My heart was pounding against my ribcages, so much so that I feared Tiffany would be able to hear it; however, when she pulled out the two-piece, I breathed a sigh of relief.

It looked like a workout outfit or something: it was essentially a light grey sports bra with a neon green outline, accompanying it something too small to be called ‘shorts’ but too big to be called ‘underwear’ of matching color scheme. Although it was still a little embarrassing, it was much, much better than what I had expected of her. Even if all the other ones were much smaller, I was thankful for Tiffany to start off slowly.