I went to the Sun&Moon Bar as per usual Friday afternoon, hoping to discuss with Tiffany what Jessica told me yesterday regarding meeting up with him again—Jessica being our only method of direct communication with him, as we discovered on Tuesday—but instead found Tiffany’s manager behind the counter.
She waved as soon as she saw me. “Hey, you’re Tiffany’s girlfriend right? Were you looking for her?”
I nodded, my shyness seizing me, clamping my mouth shut. It was such a simple thing to just say ‘Yes’, but somehow, I couldn’t say it. It was ridiculous because it’s not like she was a total stranger either, although, admittedly, the only times I’ve talked to her was when Tiffany was around. In fact, this was the first time I was inside this bar without Tiffany, and now that was the case, I felt noticeably more reserved and anxious.
“She called in earlier and requested her shift to be moved to a later time, but I told her she could just take the day off since the girl works so hard,” she explained as I took a seat at the counter out of politeness, “Honestly, normally, I wouldn’t let any of my employees call me the day of and request a shift change two times in one week,” I instantly recognized the other time being earlier that week when we had the picnic; and I was wondering why Tiffany was spending the Tuesday afternoon outside of work, “but bless Tiffany’s soul, she deserves it.”
The way Tiffany’s manager spoke of Tiffany was clearly indicative of how fond she was of my girlfriend. It honestly warmed my heart, but I still couldn’t help but feel a little jealous, which again was absolutely ridiculous. Was no one else allowed to treasure Tiffany? In fact, wasn’t it better, the more people that treasured her?
“Oh ok, thank you,” I said, getting up from the seat uneasily. It felt bad to arrive and leave so quickly, but I came to the bar with the express purpose of speaking to Tiffany face to face. Now that she wasn’t here, and given how anxious and stressed I felt in this situation, it took a lot out of me to not just bolt.
“You don’t have to feel bad Taeyeon, you can leave,” Tiffany’s manager laughed, cleaning the cup that was in her hand and placing it somewhere on the other side of the counter, “take care!”
“Thank you,” I bowed before departing, quickly sending a text to Tiffany, asking where she was and if she was ok. She replied almost immediately.
‘Aww, do you miss me? 😘 I’m OK! I just have some business to attend to. I’ll repay you with dinner later today! Meet me at the mall near your house at 7 😘’
I smiled as I digested her text. The way that Tiffany texted was so adorable and the way she used emoticons always made my heart do a couple of somersaults inside my chest, which may or may not be because I was imagining Tiffany kissing me, on the cheek or otherwise.
Later that day, Tiffany informed me of the restaurant we would be eating at, which I arrived at about ten minutes early. Sure enough, as I scanned the restaurant from the window pane facing the rest of the mall, I found Tiffany seated at a table. This time, what stopped me wasn’t a stranger interacting with her, but rather, her facial expression.
By now, I’ve seen her undergo many different emotions: while the one I was the most used to was her open, content, generally happy-seeming facial expression, there were also those of shock, frustration, guilt, anger, and sorrow. However, out of all the faces I’ve seen of her, the blank, empty facial expression she was wearing scared me the most.
Even if I learned to not expect Tiffany to be perpetually happy-go-lucky as she normally was around me, I at the very least surmised that Tiffany was a very expressive person. Apart from the times where she deliberately controlled her facial expressions to tease me, I could get a general understanding of what she was feeling from studying her. However, this time, I couldn’t detect anything: she didn’t seem happy, nor worried, nor confused, nor shocked, nor tired, nor sorrowful, … nothing. Even when a waitress came up to her table to ask her something, the smile Tiffany gave her was lifeless.
Why was she able to do that? Maybe she was just meditating in a weird way … but out in public? That didn’t seem likely. Up until now, I have never considered Tiffany’s outward emotions to be disingenuous, so it couldn’t be that she was just always acting—either that or Tiffany was the worlds’ greatest actress.
What scared me the most, though, were the implications of this observation: if she was normally like this when not around her friends or with me, then it felt my duty to never leave her side again. Was she in pain? Was she just contemplative? Maybe I was worrying too much? But, what if I was right? If I could solve her problems simply by being with her, wasn’t that a win-win? Or what if … maybe it’s exhausting for her to maintain her normal façade of joyfulness around me, and she’s just taking a moment to recharge?
No. I shouldn’t think like that. After everything that Tiffany’s laid bare before me, I should trust her more. She wouldn’t do that. Which meant only one thing: I just had to be there for Tiffany more. So, with a newly found determination, I stepped into the restaurant.
However, as soon as I did so, my eyes landed on the Tiffany I was used to seeing: the smiling, happy, excited, expressive Tiffany.
“Over here, Taeyeon!” she excitedly waved at me. I giggled, noticing how she received looks from the other customers and how she just ignored them. Wait; maybe this played a part in everything?
I shoved those thoughts aside, smiling back and making a beeline for the table she’s claimed. “You’re looking as pretty as ever! I missed you,” she said as I sat down.
“You can’t just say that every time we’re apart for 24 hours,” I told her, masking my concern for the moment.
“Why not?”
“Well, what happens after I go back—” I stopped abruptly. The words came out without me thinking, which normally would be uncharacteristic of me if I didn’t discover a while ago that being around Tiffany tended coax words out of my mouth without a second thought. Honestly, this topic was something that always perturbed me for quite some time, even if I still had many weeks left in Korea, and incidentally, it was something Tiffany and I never really talked about: what would become of our relationship after I went back to America to finish my last year of college? Now that I knew a bit more of Tiffany’s history, it seemed even more unreasonable for Tiffany to join me back in America, her poor relationship with her father on top of her already established lifestyle in Korea, house and job and all.
“Actually,” I said shortly after in an attempt to deviate away to a better conversation topic. However, my mind was drawing blanks, so the only thing I could come up with was, “I saw you from the other side of that window,” I said, pointing to the window pane facing the rest of the mall, “and you looked a little sad—well, I wouldn’t say sad, but something seemed wrong. Are you ok?” Great. Perfect. What a great topic to divert to. I’m such a genius. This is just another great example of my unparalleled proficiency in social conduct.
“What do you mean?” Tiffany replied innocently.
Well, if we were on this topic, I might as well try to get to the bottom of it. I just hoped that the events that transpired this week only made Tiffany more open to speak about herself and not less so. However, I could understand if she decided that she revealed enough already; if she felt at her limit, it was unfair of me to press Tiffany past the brink.
“It’s just … something seemed wrong. Like you were thinking about something, maybe? I can’t really describe it, but it’s not how you usually look like. When the waitress came to your table, you gave her a really empty smile, too, so that worried me,” I explained, desperately hoping I wasn’t misreading or misunderstanding something.
“Oh, so you saw, huh?” she replied, chuckling sheepishly, “Don’t worry too much about it…” she trailed off for a brief second. I could already imagine her next words: ‘I was thinking about you’. Why was I always setting myself up for these situations? “…I was just thinking about earlier today.”
Those words caught me off guard. I was expecting Tiffany to tease me as usual so much that hearing something different come out of her lips startled me; I almost asked why she didn’t, but fortunately, caught myself in time.
“And what was that?” I continued, hoping my hesitation with her response wasn’t obvious.
“Hm…you’ll know soon,” Tiffany responded mysteriously.
“What’s with that? Just tell me~”
Tiffany broke out into another smile, reaching over to pat my hand. “Even if you use your aegyo like that, I won’t tell you~” she replied in a sing-song tone.
I frowned. “So it had to do with me?”
“Maybe,” she said, although I could pretty much figure out from the tone of her voice that I was on the dot. However, just knowing that whatever she was doing earlier today was about me didn’t really say much.
“Oh! By the way, I heard from Jessica that your dad reserved another private room in some other restaurant for next week Wednesday.”
Tiffany nodded. “Jessi told me that as well, although I haven’t ever heard of the restaurant my dad proposed. Which is weird considering how long I’ve been living here,” she mused.
“Oh, did you get Sica’s phone number too?”
“No, I talked with her today.”
“Ooh, so you were meeting with her?”
An ‘oh-shit’ expression appeared on Tiffany’s face. “Um … yeah, I was,” she admitted. Why did she look like that? Was she not supposed to tell me? Maybe the thing she wasn’t supposed to tell me involved Jessica, somehow? “Have you ever been here before?” Tiffany inquired, attempting to maneuver the conversation away from the topic.
I obliged. “I’ve seen it before and heard about it, but I’ve never been inside it before,” I admitted.
“Oh? Why not? This restaurant is really popular, I heard, especially among high schoolers. You never even came here during high school?” I shook my head, my brain specifically picking up the words ‘I heard’ and wondering if Tiffany ever came here herself, the answer of which seemed to be in those two words: no, she hasn’t. It made me both happy and sad at the same time: happy that she hasn’t been taken on a date by someone else to such a famous restaurant, but also sad that she never came to this hotspot with any friends. “What? Why not? Wouldn’t your friends or suitors take you there often?”
“What do you mean ‘suitors’!?”
Tiffany smiled innocently. “What? Did I say something weird?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“I don’t think I said anything particularly strange,” she said in such a sincere manner that I hesitated. I could tell Tiffany wasn’t teasing me this time, as there wasn’t a single trace of her normal teasing smile or demeanor that she carried about her when she would normally do so. Maybe I was just missing something … I mean, just taking a few psychology classes doesn’t make me a master of reading facial expressions, as much as I wished that it were true.
“Well, I mean, I only had one friend in high school, and she was a year younger than me,” I admitted, trying my best to not sound too down about it considering what Tiffany’s expectations of my high school life seemed to be. My mind briefly flashed to the whole ordeal with Leeteuk and Yeseul which I quickly shoved aside.
“What? Really? No way … wait, really?” I affirmed her doubts with a nod. “Wow … what has the world gone to…”
“What? What’s that even supposed to mean?” I inquired, her outrageous statement eliciting a chuckle from me.
“I mean, I can’t believe that no one would’ve wanted to be friends with someone as pretty as you in high school.”
2 likes from SadMango and Frostbytewin.