one-shot: not more than friends, my lovers
A/N: …So I was having difficulty writing, and I wanted to word-vomit a drabble to get myself going. But it just kept growing, and I wrote down what I could whenever I had time to write. Silly me, for thinking there wasn’t enough TaengSic to write about, and it would only take a drabble. Minimal editing went on here, as you can see. (Random prompt was random: this picture on Tumblr)
Title: not more than friends, my lovers
Pairing: TaengSic (Taeyeon-biased), and if you squint, you got yourself TaeNy, Dandyu and even SooTae and JeTi, all for the price of one short fic.
Genre: College!AU, fellow foreigners, character/relationship study
Warnings: Possible warning for mention of mental illness (depression).
Running away to find yourself is called going on exchange to Spain.
But Jessica still wants to stay connected to the vast invisible umbilical network that is her friends and friends of friends favoriting her status updates. (Hence the laptop, next to the OJ.)
In the next apartment lives Taeyeon (not pictured). She doesn't want to talk to people. There is no laptop or iPad or even a 3G phone around when she sits on her balcony.
(Taeyeon doesn't even know any Spanish, beyond "Hello, I can't speak Spanish.")
You see, Taeyeon is really running away.
**
"Hello? Hello?? Can you hear me?? Kim Taeyeon, you better not be playing sad songs and sitting in a corner by yourself over there!!"
Sunny is resourceful. Of course she's wriggled Taeyeon's phone number from her father. It only took a week, too.
The truth is, Taeyeon was sitting in a corner of her balcony picking out "Besame Mucho" on her guitar. She doesn't tell Sunny that, but her even silence tells Sunny as much.
**
"Erm, excuse me?" Jessica's reedily-accented Spanish floats over the balcony wall, scaring the beejeezus out of Taeyeon, even though it's a bright and sunny day, and you would expect people to be out and about, like normal people.
Taeyeon likes being up when the sun is shining, like normal people. Not depressed people. She's not depressed, she's not.
"You wouldn't happen to have a frying pan I could borrow, would you..?"
It's a pity that Taeyeon can't understand enough Spanish to comprehend what Jessica means. Or wants, because she's scratched and burnt her new cast-iron pan when she tried to fry an egg, and she figured since--
Taeyoen has tuned Jessica out, but not knowing what she's saying is a good excuse. It'll let Taeyeon shake her head dumbly after Jessica trails away, and Taeyeon's gaze is still fixed on the blinding brightness of Jessica's smooth, burnished hair beneath the sunlight.
That's pretty much how Taeyeon acts around Jessica, for the next couple of weeks.
**
Jessica doesn't try to talk when Taeyeon is silent, but she still thinks Taeyeon's snorting laugh is unattractive.
Even if she knew, Taeyeon wouldn't be able to change herself, anyway.
***
They watch a bullfight one day, and Taeyeon hates it.
That's not a strong enough word. The crowd surrounds them, swallowing up Taeyeon, and she has to go on her toes to see. But even when she sinks back down time and again on to her heels, Taeyeon can't help wanting to see more, to see why the crowd is murmuring louder this time, to bob back up when the crowd roars, red-blooded and thirsty and triumphant.
There is no chance for the bull to escape, and they want it to die before their eyes.
The sun scorches. Taeyeon can feel the sweat beading on her nose.
Fucking humans. Fucking cowards. I hope you all die. Taeyeon can feel it in her heart, a bubbling incoherent hatred for humanity that bring tears to her eyes. They've outnumbered the bull, and it's being worn down for the final blow, thrust after thrust, and then wave after wave of the bullfighter's cape.
Beside her, Jessica bites her lip coolly, shifting her weight between her legs, and looking mildly impatient.
("Grossed out" and "exploitative"; that's how Jessica describes her feelings to her friends in a private message on Facebook. Taeyeon doesn't tell anyone about watching the bullfight, not even her personal journal.)
**
"Koreans stick together."
That's not really why they spend time together. Jessica's Korean is adequate for conversation, but Taeyeon isn't good at opening her heart to anyone.
Instead, it's because Jessica gravitates towards human company. Taeyeon isn't weird, and she doesn't smell. And at least she laughs sometimes.
On the good days, they hit the right vein of conversation and it flows easily through the night. Jessica doesn't tell Taeyeon about feeling too skinny and too fat at the same time, her hair the wrong color to fit in and her achievements too ordinary for her race group in high school. When she got to university, she stopped doing gymnastics. There was no need for that on her C.V. anymore.
Taeyeon is envious of Jessica, and says so. Jessica got to miss the hell that was the college-entrance exam. She skates around the topic of what she wants to do with her life, after she graduates. With a degree in Business like everyone else, what will she do?
Taeyeon dreams of being a make-up artist, or a cafe owner.
Jessica tells Taeyeon about the handful of cafes she frequents around the UCLA area. There's one with live music, and sometimes, they get the right singer and Jessica can listen to soothing covers with her Comparative Cultures readings. That's the cafe that Taeyeon likes hearing about the most, and she presses Jessica gently with questions each time. Did you say they had croissants? It smells of coffee, right? Coffee is a nice smell. Do you sit at the same seat each time?
Jessica grows used to flip-flopping down the dark corridor between their apartments, carrying her laptop.
**
Taeyeon hates the blue days.
The wall is interesting. No, that's a lie, it's not, but it takes all the strength she has to close her eyes.
Taeyeon hates the blue days that make no sense, and the mean, mean reds that make her feel like she has no use at all. Why is she alive, anyway? Why did her parents have her, when she's too useless to be a filial daughter who can actually go for class or even explore an exciting European city during the one time in her life when she's young and free? What's the use of going on?
Taeyeon hates the blue days that loop in her life, but she's scared of the thought, what if it doesn't get better this time?
Sunny has held her hand, and Sooyoung has prayed for her. They tell her, it's chemical, it's biological, it's physical, that it's a cycle like it's always been for Taeyeon, ever since high school and college, and all Taeyeon wants to know is, what if one day, it doesn't go away? What if she's stuck in this endless loop forever?
"I'm sorry."
**
How do you deal with someone lying on her bed and staring at the wall, not wanting to move, not wanting to go out or go anywhere or do anything? Jessica is not equipped for this.
The funny thing is, Jessica isn't exactly surprised. But she's still clueless, anyway.
Jessica sits with Taeyeon, and when it grows dark in the apartment, she turns on the desk lamp. She could turn on the lights in Taeyeon's bedroom, it's true, it's not like Taeyeon will mind, with her head mashed into her pillow and covers anyway. But Jessica feels like this is the one thing she can do, to show she's considerate, because she cares.
"I'm eating your Nutella."
Jessica does just that. She returns with a spoon and a jar of expensive peanut butter-Nutella two-in-one spread that she knows Taeyeon has in her nearly-bare cupboards.
If dinner isn't forthcoming, and it looks like Taeyeon isn't going to move any time past midnight, Jessica isn't going to starve.
It feels like she's sixteen again, so hungry from her self-imposed diet (or was it Coach Lee saying that she could see the roll around her ribs) and sneaking spoons of peanut butter and Nutella from two open industrial size jars, late at night when everyone was asleep and she kept the kitchen lights off, so that nobody would know what she was doing.
Now, she's twenty, and this time, Jessica doesn't eat until she makes herself sick. Krystal would be proud.
**
“You like sad songs.”
Well, bravo, Einstein, but Taeyeon looks up from her guitar, silenced. It’s never occurred to her to say that before, categorizing herself or her repertoire like that.
She’s a girl who likes sad songs. That doesn’t sound as bad as “girl with bad moods”, and so, Taeyeon likes it.
It’s not an uneasy silence, on Jessica’s balcony. The laptop is there, but its top is down, and Jessica is leaning back lazily, hands wrapped around one knee. She has to squint against the sunlight, and it makes her scrunch up her face.
Taeyeon turns back to her guitar. After Bogoshipda is one of her favorites, Those Common Words, I Love You.
Wait ‘til Jessica hears her cover of 4men.
She’s not sure if indulging in these songs helps or hurts her, but Taeyeon finds it easy to understand them.
“…Or how about Kelly Clarkson?”
“…Ok, Taengoo.”
Taeyeon lets the nickname stick, not telling Jessica that only a few other people call her that, Sunny and Sooyoung and Tiffany.
How is her Miyoung doing?
**
Taeyeon finds happiness in just listening to Tiffany’s voice.
It’s nothing mushy like that, just that Tiffany’s voice is happiness, a rich drawling purr that is sparkles and rainbow dust at the top and chocolate cake mixed with chocolate pudding and god knows what else, probably sweet milk tea, at the bottom. It’s unfair, but Taeyeon associates America with the lilt of Tiffany’s accent.
“Yeo~bo~!” And Tiffany sounds genuinely, genuinely happy to hear her voice. Taeyeon can practically picture her eye-smile blooming, in her mind.
“Are you doing well? It’s been such a long time!”
Taeyeon misses being able to talk to someone like Tiffany, so different and yet so understanding, taking everything that Taeyeon tells her into her heart and making it clear that she loves Taeyeon. She loves every fibre of Taeyeon’s being, and she’ll always, always, always be there for her.
She loves Taeyeon for who she is, black days, blue days and all.
Taeyeon misses Tiffany, some days, and when she does, it hits her in her gut.
Why couldn’t Tiffany have stayed in Korea for college?
**
"Aren't you having fun??"
"Yeah. I don't want to go back."
No, she’s not having fun. Her blouse sticks to her back, and shopping doesn’t make Jessica feel happier, today. When she arrives home, she's too hot, and her hands hurt from the strings of too many shopping bags digging into them. Her head has ached all day, and she's sick of shopping, sick of being here and having nothing to do, beyond classes and practising her Spanish on unsuspecting shopkeepers.
Even sightseeing is a chore. Why is she ticking all these boxes off her list, anyway?
"What's the matter, Sica-ya..." Taeyeon's arms are already held out to her, as soon as she opens the door, and sees the miserable expression on her face. Through Taeyeon's old T-shirt, Jessica can feel the warmth of Taeyeon's body as she wraps her in a loose hug.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s okay.”
“I really don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Shhhh. It’s okay.”
Simple comfort is simple comfort. It's been a relatively good day for Taeyeon, her low mood having lifted to a neutral calmness, as it always has before, and now this. Taeyeon feels good, being able to hold someone in her arms, stroking her hair back gently like she would soothe a child. Jessica is like a baby, all smooth skin and incoherent distress and an utterly reliant deadweight in her arms now.
Jessica relaxes, and admits that she feels slightly better, being comforted like this. "Slightly" isn't very much, but it's an improvement. She'll take it.
**
"Accept my friend request!"
"I said I would! I'll get round to it."
Taeyeon realises that she'll think of Jessica too. It's just a matter of time, how long it takes to go away.
"Think we'll keep in touch?"
"..."
Jessica's laughter is just as awkward as Taeyeon's, if she'd care to listen to herself: Taeyeon's is a rolling belly gurgle, heur heur heur heur, while Jessica's shoots up the scale, a sudden ha ha ha! that starts and stops abruptly.
**
"In case...in case you ever want to have someone else to talk, there's a friend of mine you could meet."
Packing to go, to say goodbyes, is so awkward.
Taeyeon perches gingerly on the edge of Jessica's bed, watching her pack, a last-minute whirlwind of indecision that nevertheless manages to get distracted and sit down for a break every few minutes or so.
She hesitates, but she wants to do a little bit of good.
On the floor, Jessica looks up, glad to lift her head from a giant suitcase that is already crammed full of new clothes from Mango and Zara, some of them still unwashed. (Some of them are for Krystal, and a few are for her mother.)
"...If it helps, she goes to school where you live."
**
Tiffany tells Jessica that she’s beautiful, that she loves everything about her and that her body is perfect.
It's what Tiffany does, Taeyeon knows.
Title: not more than friends, my lovers
Pairing: TaengSic (Taeyeon-biased), and if you squint, you got yourself TaeNy, Dandyu and even SooTae and JeTi, all for the price of one short fic.
Genre: College!AU, fellow foreigners, character/relationship study
Warnings: Possible warning for mention of mental illness (depression).
Running away to find yourself is called going on exchange to Spain.
But Jessica still wants to stay connected to the vast invisible umbilical network that is her friends and friends of friends favoriting her status updates. (Hence the laptop, next to the OJ.)
In the next apartment lives Taeyeon (not pictured). She doesn't want to talk to people. There is no laptop or iPad or even a 3G phone around when she sits on her balcony.
(Taeyeon doesn't even know any Spanish, beyond "Hello, I can't speak Spanish.")
You see, Taeyeon is really running away.
**
"Hello? Hello?? Can you hear me?? Kim Taeyeon, you better not be playing sad songs and sitting in a corner by yourself over there!!"
Sunny is resourceful. Of course she's wriggled Taeyeon's phone number from her father. It only took a week, too.
The truth is, Taeyeon was sitting in a corner of her balcony picking out "Besame Mucho" on her guitar. She doesn't tell Sunny that, but her even silence tells Sunny as much.
**
"Erm, excuse me?" Jessica's reedily-accented Spanish floats over the balcony wall, scaring the beejeezus out of Taeyeon, even though it's a bright and sunny day, and you would expect people to be out and about, like normal people.
Taeyeon likes being up when the sun is shining, like normal people. Not depressed people. She's not depressed, she's not.
"You wouldn't happen to have a frying pan I could borrow, would you..?"
It's a pity that Taeyeon can't understand enough Spanish to comprehend what Jessica means. Or wants, because she's scratched and burnt her new cast-iron pan when she tried to fry an egg, and she figured since--
Taeyoen has tuned Jessica out, but not knowing what she's saying is a good excuse. It'll let Taeyeon shake her head dumbly after Jessica trails away, and Taeyeon's gaze is still fixed on the blinding brightness of Jessica's smooth, burnished hair beneath the sunlight.
That's pretty much how Taeyeon acts around Jessica, for the next couple of weeks.
**
Jessica doesn't try to talk when Taeyeon is silent, but she still thinks Taeyeon's snorting laugh is unattractive.
Even if she knew, Taeyeon wouldn't be able to change herself, anyway.
***
They watch a bullfight one day, and Taeyeon hates it.
That's not a strong enough word. The crowd surrounds them, swallowing up Taeyeon, and she has to go on her toes to see. But even when she sinks back down time and again on to her heels, Taeyeon can't help wanting to see more, to see why the crowd is murmuring louder this time, to bob back up when the crowd roars, red-blooded and thirsty and triumphant.
There is no chance for the bull to escape, and they want it to die before their eyes.
The sun scorches. Taeyeon can feel the sweat beading on her nose.
Fucking humans. Fucking cowards. I hope you all die. Taeyeon can feel it in her heart, a bubbling incoherent hatred for humanity that bring tears to her eyes. They've outnumbered the bull, and it's being worn down for the final blow, thrust after thrust, and then wave after wave of the bullfighter's cape.
Beside her, Jessica bites her lip coolly, shifting her weight between her legs, and looking mildly impatient.
("Grossed out" and "exploitative"; that's how Jessica describes her feelings to her friends in a private message on Facebook. Taeyeon doesn't tell anyone about watching the bullfight, not even her personal journal.)
**
"Koreans stick together."
That's not really why they spend time together. Jessica's Korean is adequate for conversation, but Taeyeon isn't good at opening her heart to anyone.
Instead, it's because Jessica gravitates towards human company. Taeyeon isn't weird, and she doesn't smell. And at least she laughs sometimes.
On the good days, they hit the right vein of conversation and it flows easily through the night. Jessica doesn't tell Taeyeon about feeling too skinny and too fat at the same time, her hair the wrong color to fit in and her achievements too ordinary for her race group in high school. When she got to university, she stopped doing gymnastics. There was no need for that on her C.V. anymore.
Taeyeon is envious of Jessica, and says so. Jessica got to miss the hell that was the college-entrance exam. She skates around the topic of what she wants to do with her life, after she graduates. With a degree in Business like everyone else, what will she do?
Taeyeon dreams of being a make-up artist, or a cafe owner.
Jessica tells Taeyeon about the handful of cafes she frequents around the UCLA area. There's one with live music, and sometimes, they get the right singer and Jessica can listen to soothing covers with her Comparative Cultures readings. That's the cafe that Taeyeon likes hearing about the most, and she presses Jessica gently with questions each time. Did you say they had croissants? It smells of coffee, right? Coffee is a nice smell. Do you sit at the same seat each time?
Jessica grows used to flip-flopping down the dark corridor between their apartments, carrying her laptop.
**
Taeyeon hates the blue days.
The wall is interesting. No, that's a lie, it's not, but it takes all the strength she has to close her eyes.
Taeyeon hates the blue days that make no sense, and the mean, mean reds that make her feel like she has no use at all. Why is she alive, anyway? Why did her parents have her, when she's too useless to be a filial daughter who can actually go for class or even explore an exciting European city during the one time in her life when she's young and free? What's the use of going on?
Taeyeon hates the blue days that loop in her life, but she's scared of the thought, what if it doesn't get better this time?
Sunny has held her hand, and Sooyoung has prayed for her. They tell her, it's chemical, it's biological, it's physical, that it's a cycle like it's always been for Taeyeon, ever since high school and college, and all Taeyeon wants to know is, what if one day, it doesn't go away? What if she's stuck in this endless loop forever?
"I'm sorry."
**
How do you deal with someone lying on her bed and staring at the wall, not wanting to move, not wanting to go out or go anywhere or do anything? Jessica is not equipped for this.
The funny thing is, Jessica isn't exactly surprised. But she's still clueless, anyway.
Jessica sits with Taeyeon, and when it grows dark in the apartment, she turns on the desk lamp. She could turn on the lights in Taeyeon's bedroom, it's true, it's not like Taeyeon will mind, with her head mashed into her pillow and covers anyway. But Jessica feels like this is the one thing she can do, to show she's considerate, because she cares.
"I'm eating your Nutella."
Jessica does just that. She returns with a spoon and a jar of expensive peanut butter-Nutella two-in-one spread that she knows Taeyeon has in her nearly-bare cupboards.
If dinner isn't forthcoming, and it looks like Taeyeon isn't going to move any time past midnight, Jessica isn't going to starve.
It feels like she's sixteen again, so hungry from her self-imposed diet (or was it Coach Lee saying that she could see the roll around her ribs) and sneaking spoons of peanut butter and Nutella from two open industrial size jars, late at night when everyone was asleep and she kept the kitchen lights off, so that nobody would know what she was doing.
Now, she's twenty, and this time, Jessica doesn't eat until she makes herself sick. Krystal would be proud.
**
“You like sad songs.”
Well, bravo, Einstein, but Taeyeon looks up from her guitar, silenced. It’s never occurred to her to say that before, categorizing herself or her repertoire like that.
She’s a girl who likes sad songs. That doesn’t sound as bad as “girl with bad moods”, and so, Taeyeon likes it.
It’s not an uneasy silence, on Jessica’s balcony. The laptop is there, but its top is down, and Jessica is leaning back lazily, hands wrapped around one knee. She has to squint against the sunlight, and it makes her scrunch up her face.
Taeyeon turns back to her guitar. After Bogoshipda is one of her favorites, Those Common Words, I Love You.
Wait ‘til Jessica hears her cover of 4men.
She’s not sure if indulging in these songs helps or hurts her, but Taeyeon finds it easy to understand them.
“…Or how about Kelly Clarkson?”
“…Ok, Taengoo.”
Taeyeon lets the nickname stick, not telling Jessica that only a few other people call her that, Sunny and Sooyoung and Tiffany.
How is her Miyoung doing?
**
Taeyeon finds happiness in just listening to Tiffany’s voice.
It’s nothing mushy like that, just that Tiffany’s voice is happiness, a rich drawling purr that is sparkles and rainbow dust at the top and chocolate cake mixed with chocolate pudding and god knows what else, probably sweet milk tea, at the bottom. It’s unfair, but Taeyeon associates America with the lilt of Tiffany’s accent.
“Yeo~bo~!” And Tiffany sounds genuinely, genuinely happy to hear her voice. Taeyeon can practically picture her eye-smile blooming, in her mind.
“Are you doing well? It’s been such a long time!”
Taeyeon misses being able to talk to someone like Tiffany, so different and yet so understanding, taking everything that Taeyeon tells her into her heart and making it clear that she loves Taeyeon. She loves every fibre of Taeyeon’s being, and she’ll always, always, always be there for her.
She loves Taeyeon for who she is, black days, blue days and all.
Taeyeon misses Tiffany, some days, and when she does, it hits her in her gut.
Why couldn’t Tiffany have stayed in Korea for college?
**
"Aren't you having fun??"
"Yeah. I don't want to go back."
No, she’s not having fun. Her blouse sticks to her back, and shopping doesn’t make Jessica feel happier, today. When she arrives home, she's too hot, and her hands hurt from the strings of too many shopping bags digging into them. Her head has ached all day, and she's sick of shopping, sick of being here and having nothing to do, beyond classes and practising her Spanish on unsuspecting shopkeepers.
Even sightseeing is a chore. Why is she ticking all these boxes off her list, anyway?
"What's the matter, Sica-ya..." Taeyeon's arms are already held out to her, as soon as she opens the door, and sees the miserable expression on her face. Through Taeyeon's old T-shirt, Jessica can feel the warmth of Taeyeon's body as she wraps her in a loose hug.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s okay.”
“I really don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Shhhh. It’s okay.”
Simple comfort is simple comfort. It's been a relatively good day for Taeyeon, her low mood having lifted to a neutral calmness, as it always has before, and now this. Taeyeon feels good, being able to hold someone in her arms, stroking her hair back gently like she would soothe a child. Jessica is like a baby, all smooth skin and incoherent distress and an utterly reliant deadweight in her arms now.
Jessica relaxes, and admits that she feels slightly better, being comforted like this. "Slightly" isn't very much, but it's an improvement. She'll take it.
**
"Accept my friend request!"
"I said I would! I'll get round to it."
Taeyeon realises that she'll think of Jessica too. It's just a matter of time, how long it takes to go away.
"Think we'll keep in touch?"
"..."
Jessica's laughter is just as awkward as Taeyeon's, if she'd care to listen to herself: Taeyeon's is a rolling belly gurgle, heur heur heur heur, while Jessica's shoots up the scale, a sudden ha ha ha! that starts and stops abruptly.
**
"In case...in case you ever want to have someone else to talk, there's a friend of mine you could meet."
Packing to go, to say goodbyes, is so awkward.
Taeyeon perches gingerly on the edge of Jessica's bed, watching her pack, a last-minute whirlwind of indecision that nevertheless manages to get distracted and sit down for a break every few minutes or so.
She hesitates, but she wants to do a little bit of good.
On the floor, Jessica looks up, glad to lift her head from a giant suitcase that is already crammed full of new clothes from Mango and Zara, some of them still unwashed. (Some of them are for Krystal, and a few are for her mother.)
"...If it helps, she goes to school where you live."
**
Tiffany tells Jessica that she’s beautiful, that she loves everything about her and that her body is perfect.
It's what Tiffany does, Taeyeon knows.