Relics
Title: Relics
Pairing: Taeyeon/Jessica
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 848
Genre: Angst, Romance
Note: Hello! This is one of the first fanfics I've written and posted here. Please do give me comments, I'll appreciate them!
When nostalgia visits, Jessica tucks her head into the comforts of the old, milky pale white sweater that sits in her brown cupboard at the corner of her room.
The unwashed sweater has its own reminiscent aroma of Taeyeon herself, of the familiar sea salt Jessica used to inhale with Taeyeon by her side on the shore of the beach.
(it smells bad, but it feels too good)
In its loose knitting, Jessica feels the fading memories in her light up again, like bonfires being set ablaze in her veins.
Jessica shuts her eyes and takes a deep, slow breath and in an instant like a time machine, she's transported back there, in the memory that has been pushed aside to a small corner of her hollow heart.
She tastes the sea mist, saturated with a salty moisture, and her feet digs into the soft, dirt yellow sand.
Only this time, she isn't alone.
Between the spaces of Taeyeon and Jessica fills a soothing, damp breeze of the wind. Jessica relishes in it - the surroundings. She tries to memorize how the waves hit against the shore, how white foam gently lines where the waves disappear, the swaying palm trees, the sound of crumpled leaves behind them and the smell of dry refreshing leaves.
"The waves always find its way back to hit against the shore... No matter how many times it's been pushed away."
"Isn't it beautiful?" Taeyeon says, her tone melodic and gentle like the sea breeze that lightly caresses their bodies.
Taeyeon's a deep thinker - Jessica knows and she wishes she could think like Taeyeon does. She wishes she could visit every nook and cranny of Taeyeon's mind, because sometimes, most of the times, she doesn't know what Taeyeon's thinking about.
(But it's what attracted Jessica to Taeyeon in the first place, how the way her mind works isn't like any other. She adores the complexity of Taeyeon.)
"Y-yeah," she manages to stutter when Taeyeon turns and settles her gaze on Jessica and for a moment there, Jessica feels like she could dissolve into the sand beneath them because her heart is fluttering a little way too much.
"It's like me and you. I'll always come back to you," Taeyeon says, her cheeks blushing into a subtle shade of pink.
The butterflies in Jessica's stomach fly faster. She knows how hard it is for Taeyeon to open up, for Taeyeon to express herself but now, when Taeyeon does, she finds herself at a loss for words.
She wonders why Taeyeon keeps to herself all the time because when she speaks, she speaks beauty.
Jessica entwines her fingers between Taeyeon's, her fingertips burning at the touch of Taeyeon's soft skin. She feels an electric current surge through the openings of where her fingertips had burnt.
"You know right? I know I don't speak much but I -" Taeyeon continues, but Jessica knows. Of course she knows. Jessica looks into Taeyeon's eyes and she feels her heart wrench a little at the amount of unspoken affection that hides behind Taeyeon's eyes. She sees how deep they are, how hopeful they are. Her heart aches a little because she thinks she doesn't love Taeyeon as much.
(But she does.)
"As long as you try, Taengoo," Jessica says, her words straight from her heart. That's why Jessica accepts Taeyeon no matter how many times she's been pushed away, no matter how many times the girl beside her locks herself in her own solitude. She loves Taeyeon for who she is.
In the next second she finds herself pressing her lips onto Taeyeon's, gently and soothingly. A kiss that says
You don't have to explain, Taengoo. I know.
A kiss that relishes Taeyeon of all her insecurities, of all her doubts. She kisses harder with the promise that she'll always be there for Taeyeon to come back to, just like the shore. Because between two lovers, sometimes words are unnecessary and actions speak a thousand times louder.
Taeyeon responds the same way, only Jessica feels her insides burn at the tenacity of Taeyeon's passionate kisses.
"I love you," Jessica whispers in between her gasps of breaths, never wanting to leave the taste of Taeyeon's tongue. Taeyeon trembles at the power of the 3 words no matter how many times she's heard it. Little pieces of her heart crumble and fall into Jessica's opened arms.
//
Jessica slowly traces the outline of the cold, unworn sweater since that day on the beach, her fingers moving southwards, downwards, so gently and carefully as if with the slightest wrong movement, the sweater would dissolve and vanish and she would never remember Taeyeon again.
She understands now the beauty of material objects enmeshed with the intangible. She feels Taeyeon, smells Taeyeon, tastes Taeyeon, but Taeyeon's not quite there. The sweater was like a permanent stain left by a lost lover who hasn't quite vanished.
"I hope you're in a better place," Jessica says, her heart a strange mix of heavy lightness, her fingers leaving the sweater and pushing the doors of the wardrobe close.