Fic: Of Life & Love (Part I)
Jan. 21st, 2013 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boxxsaltzTitle: Of Life & Love
Author: boxxsaltz
Rating: PG-13;R
Pairing(s): Jessica/Tiffany
Summary: A tale through life of love found, tested, lost, and the mending of the heart.
AN: beta credits to the lovely Kissos & mldcmx
Part I: Dawn
The lights didn’t help Jessica focus.
They glared off the lens of her camera, creating a flare that would’ve worked for any of her other works, but not this one. She wasn’t allowed that bumper of creative genius when it came to the newspaper. They wanted good quality photos but without the new age, bohemian, hippie vibe.
It was a constraint that Jessica always found herself bumping against. There was hardly life in the flat images she was forced to snap, but in that moment she may have to make a compromise. The glaring lights from the makeshift DJ booth set up in the pool hall were bouncing off the pool’s surface, making it near impossible to eliminate the flare.
She snapped the picture anyway. Her sunbae could deal with the streak of light that went diagonally across the swimmer diving into the pool, obstructing his figure just barely.
It was either the flare, or deal with the bulge in the forest green speedo. Her argument was valid enough for her to be confident in winning against her sunbae’s rants.
Squeezing through the crowd, Jessica clutched her digital camera close while her film camera bounced against her stomach, hanging off the strap. She’d save the images she really wanted to capture for the film. They looked better in the grain of black and white anyway. Using digital was just for school.
A crowd of half-naked swimmers ran past her, racing to the edge of the pool and jumped in. Jessica quickly maneuvered herself away from the splash before it could reach her and ruin her equipment. The campus newspaper paid some, but not enough to replace the memories embedded in that camera.
“Careful,” came a voice amongst the crowd.
Jessica looked up, seeing a pair of smiling eyes looking at her. Her neck snapped left and right, checking to see if it had been another person who had spoken, but everyone else was engaged in the party.
The party for the swim team that had returned with a win at their district swim meet. Boys and girls. But not just the swim team was invited. The entire athletic department had come out to celebrate, filling up the pool hall with people of towering heights who could see clear over Jessica and trampled her more often than not.
“Yeah, you,” said the voice again and Jessica turned back toward the girl, standing with a cup of punch. From what Jessica had heard, the drink was spiked.
From other things she had heard, word around the school, team photos, and hallway name tossing, Jessica knew the girl standing before her in bikini top and black jean shorts was Tiffany Hwang. One of two freshmen picked for their university’s women’s varsity swim team. The other was a boy for the boy’s team, a Lee Taemin, who Jessica knew most of the girls fawned over. She excluded.
She was excluded because, from Jessica’s own observations of the girl standing before her, she had fallen into a sort of admiration for the rookie swimmer that didn’t yet touch that line of obsession. It did, however, sit as being a sort of crush.
Like a celebrity crush. Like a celebrity girl crush that started when Jessica sat in the front of a mandatory math class and Tiffany sat in the back, always on her phone and always giving the excuse of swim practice as to why she missed so much.
That first half of the year had done something to Jessica she’d like to keep to herself. She had always heard people talk about that person you’re just drawn to. Not for reason. Only that something inside of you gravitates toward them, leaving you secretly hoping they’d notice you.
Tiffany never did. Because like celebrities, Tiffany didn’t know she existed, but Jessica knew very well who she was. Working for the newspaper for the bulk of her knowledge. That was her story and that’s what she was sticking to.
“Shouldn’t you have, like, a poncho or something?”
Poncho? Jessica raised an eyebrow at the word then lifted the other when she processed the very distinct pronunciation in Tiffany’s Korean. That’s right. She was there on scholarship. All the way from the States. That explained her comfortable heir in the barely there amount of clothing she wore. Most of the other girls, even swimmers, had at least a one piece with shorts on.
“I forgot my case,” Jessica muttered, scolding herself internally for forgetting to grab the underwater case for the digital.
Underwater shots, even if the paper didn’t use them, she’d be able to tweak them on her laptop later and post for people in other countries to like and comment and rate as if she were a world class photographer and had any sort of talent.
“Oh,” Tiffany lifted her cup to her lips, tilting it back to drink. Jessica watched her, not sure if that was all to the conversation or if Tiffany had more to say.
She for one knew she needed to get to business and take it seriously. She just hadn’t been comfortable enough in the beginning of the night to take so many shots of half-naked boys and scantily clad girls.
“I need to get back to work,” Jessica held up her camera, trying to emphasize urgency.
“Take a picture of me,” said Tiffany. “Is that allowed? That’s what you’re here for, right? The newspaper or something,”
“The newspaper,” Jessica nodded. She wondered why Tiffany didn’t just read the little, stitched in words on the chest of her navy polo shirt.
“Oh, it says right there,” Now she noticed. “Well, can you?”
“I guess,”
“Yes or no?”
Jessica blinked, taken by surprise by her tone. “Yes?”
“Will you make sure it gets in the paper?”
“I can try,” Jessica shrugged. She doubted her sunbae would run a paper with a girl in a bikini top, toned midriff out for everyone to see. Not that it wasn’t tasteful.
The hot pink material was concealing enough and the straps were clasps instead of strings, which would keep it from accidently untying and dropping off. But Jessica didn’t think her top half was the worry.
It was the definition in her muscles. Each line was prominent, showing her strength from being an anchor in relays, and her dedication to the sport. It was the way the V of her abs slanted downward, letting the eye travel straight down past her naval and to the top of her shorts that Jessica knew the boys who did the picture editing would be gawking at, wishing those black shorts were just a centimeter lower….
Much like she was doing then. Wishing for the exposure of more skin aside. She may have an active imagination, but she wasn’t a pervert.
“Did you take it?” Tiffany asked.
“No, sorry,” Jessica fumbled, lifting the camera up to her eye.
Through the lens, she could see those sharp lines, and she was almost sad they wouldn’t come out as good in digital. Had she used film, they would’ve been clearer. Tantalizingly clearer.
“One, two,” she clicked the shutter on three, letting the flash strobe a few times.
“How’s it look?” Tiffany walked over to Jessica, hand grabbing the camera. Jessica gripped it back. “Relax. I’m not going to break it,” the camera was plucked out of her hands and into the uneducated ones of Tiffany.
Jessica bit her lip, eyeing Tiffany as she stared at the picture just taken of her.
“What do you think?” Tiffany turned the camera around so Jessica could see the view screen. “Hot?”
Jessica shrugged indifferently, but the heat on the back of her neck was an indication of how she really felt. “I think it’s good,”
“Tell me the truth,”
Her brow creased. “I am telling you the truth,”
“Right, right,” Tiffany laughed, unconvinced and turned the camera back to her. “How do you- Oh there it is,”
Jessica lifted slightly on her toes to see Tiffany find the review button and begin scrolling through the pictures. Jessica could see her lack of commitment to the project in what little diversity in angles and the repetition of straight forward group shots. Only a few were worthy of true photographic skills.
“These are good,” Tiffany said more to herself than to Jessica. She had gotten into the pictures of the swimming show the teams had put on before the party.
It was like a showcase, showing off each of the team members, naming the MVP, and then making a toast to the coaches while the teams all held their trophy up in the air for all to see.
Those details weren’t important to Jessica. At least not in that moment. She was more concerned with the amount of times she noticed Tiffany show up in the images. Along with the team captains, coaches, and MVPs, Tiffany had just about the same amount. The heat at the back of her neck rose.
“Can I-” Jessica started but was cut off as Tiffany turned the camera for her to see again.
She felt her face flush at the picture snapped of Tiffany, striking a sexy pose – at least what she thought was supposed to be sexy. Jessica found it amusing – at the end of the diving board as the announcer called out her name as rookie of the year.
“Can I get a copy of this?”
“If you come by the office,” she’d give her twenty copies if she could just get her camera back.
“What do you do with all of these?” Tiffany had gotten back around to the beginning of the reel. Jessica thought she’d give it back, but she went through them again. “Delete them, or do you keep them on your computer and look at them when you’re bored?”
“I delete them,”
“All of them?” Tiffany eyed her, suspicion all in those eye-smiling eyes. Jessica hated to admit how much she liked that smile. It was part of the reason she found her lens pointed at her most of the time.
“You have to keep some,” she said, teasingly. “Like this one, maybe?”
Jessica’s eyes widened at the picture of the boy diving in the speedo. She blushed. “Can I have my camera back, please?”
“Sure, sure. Don’t get all upset. I was just kidding,” Tiffany handed the camera back over. Jessica took it, clutching it close. “Sort of,”
Jessica decided not to react to that and pulled out her little notepad and pencil. “Can I get your – uh - name, class, and focus, please?”
Tiffany’s lips pursed, eyebrow cocking in haughty amusement. “I think you already know all of that, don’t you?”
“No? I mean- yes, but, to avoid any typos…” she grumbled lamely.
“Hwang Tiffany, first year freshmen, athletic competition for swimming,” Tiffany sounded off, laughter in her voice.
“Athletic…competition…swimming,” Jessica mumbled, as she wrote everything down.
“Songdo Girl’s Dorm, 2nd floor, room 202,” Tiffany went on and Jessica’s pencil continued to move unknowingly. “My phone number is-”
“Wait,” Jessica caught on.
Tiffany smiled down at her cheeky. “So you can text me where the newspaper office is. How else am I going to get the picture?”
“Right,” Jessica narrowed her eyes, and began to write down Tiffany’s number as she said it. “That’s it, then. Thanks,” she stuffed the notepad away.
“Mhm,” Tiffany smiled again and Jessica looked away from it before she started to think of the many different ways she could bounce the light off her face to really make the glowing smile shine.
“Oh, and, Jessica,” she spun around, catching Tiffany’s smug smile and panicked, hearing her name fall out of those plump lips.
She then remembered that her name was printed on the back of her photography shirt. She could tell her heart to calm down. The chance Tiffany Hwang would’ve known a recluse of a photographer’s name was one in a thousand.
“My right side is my best side, kay?” said Tiffany, winking. Jessica nodded curtly, turning away from her before Tiffany could see the red filling her cheeks.
She hurried back towards the pool to take a few shots, lazily avoiding the splashing.
Maybe she needed a little cold water to cool her off.
-/-/-/-
There were a million different things Jessica could’ve studied. She had a knack for fashion, but she was sure that came more from her keen eye on what was aesthetically pleasing and what looked best on a person. She didn’t possess the drive for most of what truly went into it, and she found runway shows boring.
Even despite her parents influence on her to go into business like her mother or accounting like her father, she didn’t shy from the arts. She was stubborn, it was a known fact, and when she found the old film camera tucked away in a box in the basement, she was sold then.
She didn’t go into it without a backup plan, however. She took up a minor: Advertising. It and photography went hand in hand, and both were still a subject that caused frowns from her family. Except her sister. She was stuck on this singing thing that Jessica knew gave their mother stomach ulcers and their dad high blood pressure just thinking about how the two of them would make it in life.
“Marry a rich man and live the life,” her roommate, a Kim Hyoyeon, had told her one night while drunk.
Jessica did her studying in the bathroom to avoid getting her head knocked by those heavy knuckles of Hyoyeon’s, which always seemed to seek Jessica out whilst intoxicated.
However, as Jessica walked across campus, her destination set on Songdo Girl’s Dormitory on the far, east side of campus, she began to ponder her choice in study.
Had she not decided on photography, she would’ve never been introduced to the newspaper. And without being introduced to the newspaper, they wouldn’t have needed her skills to shoot various events that ranged from boring board meetings to the multiple festivals and activities around the school.
It would not have led her to Room Number 202, knuckles knocking on the wood and standing back two steps waiting for someone to open the door. That someone she hoped – but also hoped wasn’t - Tiffany.
“Annyeonghaseyo,” of course it was Tiffany. She drawled out each syllable, making sure each was heard in that endearing American accent of hers. “Oh, it’s you,”
“Here,” Jessica didn’t take a moment to hand over the disk in her hand. “It’s the picture - er- pictures,” Jessica stuttered, hand still hovering, waiting for Tiffany to take the thing. “I thought you might want some of the others too,”
“How thoughtful,” Tiffany took the disk from her, letting it ring around her finger.
Jessica shifted uncomfortably, unsure of how to dismiss herself from the conversation. “I edited some of them,”
Tiffany frowned. “Did I look that bad?”
“No, you looked- ” Jessica’s lashes fluttered. “I just…I only fixed some coloring and stuff.”
“Well, that’s good,” Tiffany shifted her weight, leaning on the frame of her door. Jessica tried not to notice she was in a pair of short, red shorts and a black, fitted t-shirt. Nothing underneath. “I hate how photoshopped those girls look in the magazines, you know?”
“You don’t need photoshop,” Jessica found her lips saying. She backtracked. “I mean, you didn’t need it,”
A wondrous smile spread across Tiffany’s lips. “Some would say otherwise, but thank you. I can tell you’re a keeper,”
Whatever that meant. “Well, bye.”
“Wait,” Jessica, of course, stopped. Tiffany chewed on her bottom lip, nervousness coming onto her for the first time. Jessica could only assume it was fake. “The relay team is having a practice tomorrow night for the national swim meet. Do you think you could take some pictures for us? You know, for scrapbook material?”
“I don’t know,” said Jessica.
“I’ll bake you cookies,” Tiffany sang. “You do like cookies, right?”
Jessica groaned, hearing one of her many weaknesses offered to her. Cookies and chocolate chip ice cream. They broke all her resolve, every time.
“Do you like sugar?” asked Tiffany, seeing the twinkle in Jessica’s eye. She merely nodded to the question. Tiffany grinned in triumph. “With or without sprinkles,”
“Without,” Jessica mutters.
“Yes, yes,” Tiffany laughed, tapping the CD around her finger against Jessica’s forehead. “You are a keeper,”
-/-/-/-
If Jessica didn’t know better, she’d think Tiffany was teasing her.
No.
Jessica knew better. She was certain Tiffany was teasing her.
Sitting back in her desk chair, sugar cookie between her fingers, she tapped her track pad as she scrolled through the pictures. She made a conscious effort to stray away from just focusing on Tiffany however difficult the task was, knowing Tiffany was an essential part of the relay team and there were only four girls to focus on. Five if she counted the alternate.
She ended up with tons of Tiffany as center focus anyway and quickly deleted a bulk of them to keep from further embarrassment.
Embarrassment like she felt when the team’s captain announced the end of practice only for Tiffany to suggest they take a group photo together.
Jessica had steady hands. She prided herself on that, but as Tiffany stood there, hanging off the shoulder of her captain, dripping in her work out bikini – free of shorts this time – she may or may not have shaken.
But the shake was nothing compared to how she was trembling as Tiffany pulled her over, putting Jessica right next to her, and arm thrown around her shoulder as the coach snapped a picture of the photographer with the team.
“Sorry I got you all wet,” Tiffany had purred as she released Jessica after the photo was snapped.
She had just muttered an, “it’s okay,” and hurried out of there before her face gave away just how wet she had really gotten from that husky voice in her ear.
Jessica swiped her fingers along the track pad, dragging that picture, fuzzy from the coach’s inability to hold a camera steady, and dropped it onto her desktop.
There was nothing wrong with keeping one or two for herself, right?
-/-/-/-
“Yah!” Jessica swiped out, trying to catch her film camera that had just been taken out of her hands.
She hadn’t even heard Tiffany coming up behind her. She had been too focused on trying to capture the little brown and gold bird sitting at the very tip of a branch to pay any attention to her surroundings.
Now that bird had flown away, scared off by her outburst, and made not to return as Tiffany laughed loudly. She’d have to wait for another to complete the last three images she needed for her project. Not that she minded waiting around the campus courtyard for another four hours. Oh, no.
“Give it back, Hwang,” she groaned.
She was done with being overly uncomfortable around the swimmer, though there was still the fact of butterflies in her stomach at that eye smile and the fluttering in her chest at that husky voice. But, you know.
“Just a minute, Jessi,” she emphasized the nickname that took Jessica aback. Tiffany glanced up at her with a smirk, knowing all too well of what that simple name did to her. “Where’s the screen?”
“There isn’t one,” Jessica grumbled, stepping up to Tiffany. Before she could get too close, Tiffany took two strides away from her. “Yah. Give it,”
“Is it film or something?”
“Yes, it’s film,”
“So I can’t do this?” her finger hooked around the button that would open the back and expose everything inside.
Jessica saw her work flash like her life before her eyes. “Don’t you dare, Tiffany Hwang. Don’t you dare,” she didn’t let Tiffany get away from her that time and snatched her camera away, glaring.
“I wasn’t really going to do it,” Tiffany tried. Jessica turned away from her, marching down the sidewalk. “Hey,” jogging steps came up next to her. “Serious. I wouldn’t do that. That would be, like, really mean,”
“Don’t touch my things,”
“What if I asked first?” asked Tiffany, and Jessica stopped bulldozing her way down the sidewalk to give Tiffany a sideways look. “Could I maybe see it? I won’t run away with it or anything. Could I?”
Slowing, Jessica turned to look up at Tiffany’s sincere eyes that matched the whiney tone in her voice. Like a child, begging their mother to let them have the crayons back after they had splayed their artwork all over the walls but crossed their heart, hoped to die, pinkie promised not to do it again.
Sighing, Jessica held out the camera. Tiffany squealed excitedly, taking it from her. “How do I take a picture?”
“You didn’t ask if you could-” Jessica let out an irritated breath through her nose. More at how she let wide brown eyes derail her than at Tiffany’s persistence. “Here,”
She took it back for a moment, reeling the shutter back and placed it into Tiffany’s hands again.
“I just point and shoot?” she asked, examining the camera. Jessica nodded. “Can I see them later after they’re developed?”
“Sure,”
Tiffany’s mouth opened wide in excitement, and she held up the camera, pointing it at random and clicked the shutter. Jessica watched her struggle with the lever to wind the film, but once she got it, she pointed and shot again.
Jessica followed Tiffany as she began to walk down the path, pointing the camera at whatever and snapping. Jessica kept to herself the details on exposure, knowing a lot of them would be either over or under, but that didn’t matter.
“Oh,” Tiffany stopped and Jessica turned to see what had caused the shift.
Sitting on a bench at the end of the trail was a couple, engaged in what must’ve been a heated lip lock. From Jessica’s angle it looked like they were eating each other’s faces.
“Blackmail,” Tiffany snickered and took a picture of the two.
“Don’t do that,”
“Why not?” Tiffany wound the film again.
“Because that’s private,”
“Who makes out like that in the open, if it’s supposed to be private?” Tiffany scoffed. “Anyway, that’s Minho-yah, from the team. I wonder how many iTunes gift cards I could get out of him for this picture…” her voice trailed off as she lifted the camera and took another one of the couple.
Jessica looked back over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching their voyeuristic behavior. When she looked back at Tiffany, the swimmer was holding the camera down, a sad expression filling up normally smiling eyes as she examined the two giggling once they pulled out of the kiss.
“I kissed my unnie, Nicole, once,” Tiffany started, her voice far off, but the subject matter making it dramatically clear. “But then my dad caught us and the next thing I knew I had a swimming scholarship in Korea.” Tiffany laughed. Jessica didn’t see what was so amusing.
“I think it was his doing,” she went on, turning away from the couple to look at Jessica. “I’m grateful, I am, but it’s a little much sending your daughter clear across the world to get her away from a senior crush, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” Jessica said immediately and looked away.
“You never know, Jessi,” Tiffany laughed tonelessly, then sighed. “That’s why I like you,” she paused, and Jessica stiffened until Tiffany went on. “You just take it like it comes,”
Jessica blushed, staring down at her feet to keep from looking up into those knee weakening brown eyes. “Is there any other way to be?” She mumbled.
“With me?” Tiffany said it like she was telling Jessica to be with her. It had her veins freeze but then she realized it was another play of Tiffany’s words as she finished up. “I could probably learn a thing or two about that,”
Jessica willed her heart to stop thudding in her chest, but her effort was futile. The way the wind touched her naked neck as Tiffany pulled her scarf off her to wrap around her own neck didn’t help the already present shudder in her bones.
“Take some of me?” Tiffany urged, pushing the camera into Jessica’s hands. Once it was taken, she took Jessica’s knit cap off her head to tug onto her own head. “Fall fashion shoot!”
Jessica ran her hands over her coffee colored hair, sneering lightly at the items stolen from her. It was wiped away clean when Tiffany posed beside a tree in that wanting to be sexy but more humorous way Jessica found endearing and laughed.
“You’re doing it wrong,” said Jessica.
Tiffany pouted. “Then tell me what to do then,”
Jessica shook her head, shaking off her laughter and brought the camera to her eye.
-/-/-/-
The fumes were always comforting to Jessica.
The way they circulated and wafted through the dark room calmed her nerves and just made her float. Most people would think it was because she was high, but the only way to get any effect off the developing chemicals was to drink them…or shoot them up. But Jessica was sure you wouldn’t survive past the hallucinations before you keeled over dead.
Picking up a pair of tongs, she moved the now developed image from the fixer into a basin of water letting it sit with the others.
It was a picture from the day in the courtyard, taken a little over a week ago from the roll nearly forgotten when Jessica abandoned her assignment topic of birds to something else less predictable.
Lifting up the picture, Jessica blinked a couple times, focusing her eyes through the red light. It was a picture of her looking a little frustrated and a lot flustered. The direction her eyes were pointing, she had been looking at Tiffany, thinking she was taking a picture of the campus but instead had flicked her wrist at the last minute to get Jessica.
Placing the picture back into the water, Jessica ventured to the enlargers where various negatives from the shoot were splayed along the table, waiting to be made into larger images.
Looking through the negatives, she found the picture of Tiffany by the tree. Not the one after Jessica had mumbled a,
“More in the light. And don’t…don’t, uh, stick your butt out like that,” causing Tiffany to laugh, Jessica to flush, and her hands to shake enough to make the image a little bit out of focus.
It was the first one. The one Tiffany had done all on her own. Jessica smiled at the backwards image in the negative and slid it into place to begin creating the final image.
She was just dropping the sheet of paper holding the latent image into the developer when someone knocked on the outside door. Moving the paper to the next basin of chemicals, Jessica walked through the hall that kept any light from getting into the dark room and into the main room made for reviewing film.
The person knocked again and Jessica rolled her eyes. It wasn’t locked. But when she opened the door she knew why they had knocked.
“Oh,” said Tiffany, looking down at Jessica. “I didn’t know if I was going to mess up your film,”
“That’s done in the other room,” Tiffany nodded, walking in after Jessica and closed the door.“Why are you here?”
“To give you your scarf back,” said Tiffany. She walked along the room, looking at some of the pictures other students had left pinned up on the wall. “You weren’t at the newspaper office and someone told me to check here,”
“Did you bring it?”
“The scarf? Yes,” she reached into her messenger bag and handed it over. “Are you working on something?” Tiffany bit her lip as Jessica went to store the scarf in her bag against the wall, nodding. “Can I see?”
Jessica’s back straightened out, looking up at Tiffany. She really wasn’t supposed to let outside students into the dark room, or the developing lab at that. But she had never been good with saying no, and if that saying no was to that biting lip and glittering eyes she never could.
“Sure,” Jessica didn’t bat a lash at Tiffany’s squeal.
She led her back, through the hall, and into red light that spilled over their skin making them look absolutely alien. However, it took nothing away from the absolute glamour of the swimmer who walked curiously around the dark room.
“Are these from the courtyard?”
“Mhm,” Jessica hummed, moving the developing picture into the next set of chemicals. She saw Tiffany messing with the negatives on the table out the corner of her eye.
“Do you have the one of the couple done?”
“Not yet,”
“Wow, these look terrible,” Tiffany laughed quietly to herself then sobered. “Not yours, I meant mine. Yours are all good,”
“Uh huh,” Jessica ignored her as she dipped the picture into the water, clearing off most of the chemicals.
It was when she was lifting it up for her to examine at eye level that she felt a presence behind her, and the sticky, warmness of Tiffany’s breath on the back of her neck as she breathed close by.
Even with the developing fumes, Jessica could smell that fruit in Tiffany’s chapstick. Pear. So unusual, but then again, Tiffany was unusual and Jessica wouldn’t like her any other way.
“Ugh,” Tiffany muttered in slight disgust. “You were right,”
“It’s not so bad,”
“Because you took it,” Tiffany reached an arm over Jessica’s shoulder to point at her face. Jessica’s eyes blurred a moment as her nose was overwhelmed by the scent of cinnamon body lotion. “Look at my face. I’m smiling weird,”
“I think it looks fine,”
“Really?” Tiffany dropped her arm, moving to stand next to Jessica, and her hands on her hips. “What’s good about it?”
Jessica shrugged, placing it down into the water. She looked down at it, watching it float just beneath the surface.
“It has character,”
“Does it? How?”
“I don’t know,” Jessica let out a sigh. “It’s you. You’re just being you,”
“And you like that?” Jessica’s eyes blinked up to meet Tiffany’s. Cotton filled her mouth, drying it out of everything she could or wanted to say to that. “What’s your favorite thing about it?”
“Well,” Jessica swallowed. Suddenly the fumes weren’t as comforting to her anymore. “I like, I mean, your smile. I like your smile,”
Tiffany’s cocked eyebrow fell down as her expression shifted. Jessica didn’t know exactly what it shifted into, all she knew was that it made her look away before her heart could jump out of chest and start dancing all over the swimmer.
“What do you like about my smile?” Asked Tiffany, her voice a shade darker than it had been previous.
Jessica tried not to shiver, but the room was cold, and Tiffany was a step closer to her. “It’s bright,”
“It’s bright?” Tiffany took another step, Jessica felt herself counter away from her. “What else?”
One more step forward. One more counter backward.
“It’s warm?”
“Okay. Bright, warm,” Tiffany hummed, tapping a finger on her lips.
One more step forward. One more counter backward.
“I like…” Jessica swallowed, wishing she wasn’t about to say what she was. But she was. “I like the way one side goes higher than the other…”
Tiffany’s eyebrow went back up and her front step was paused a moment. “You notice that?”
“I notice everything,” Jessica heard it slip out of her mouth. Tiffany grinned.
One more step forward. One more counter backward.
“You know I have a cut on the bottom one? Right in the middle,” Tiffany pointed to the place. Either Jessica was losing her vision or Tiffany was making it up. “How close do you think you’d have to be to notice that?”
“P-pretty close, I suppose,”
“Like this close?”
The air rushed out of Jessica’s nose as her back hit the wall and Tiffany’s hands pressed on either side of her head, trapping her there.
“See it?” A pair of full, pink lips lifted to eye level, forcing Jessica to look nowhere else. “It hurt pretty bad. My sister got in trouble for running with scissors,”
“That’s too bad,” Jessica offered lamely.
“Yeah,” Tiffany shrugged, her eyes dipping down so they met Jessica’s. “But you know what was worse?” Jessica shook her head, swallowing hard as Tiffany feigned the perfect frown. “There was no one who would kiss it better,”
“Oh,”
“Yes, oh,” Tiffany mocked so alluring Jessica couldn’t even feel angry about the teasing. She just felt hot. Too hot and too intoxicated by chemicals and the drug that was Tiffany’s scent and presence.
“I bet you would’ve done it,” Tiffany hummed, dragging a finger along Jessica’s bottom lip. She was too distracted by Tiffany’s face drawing closer that she failed to notice the way the swimmer’s fingers were shaking. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I…” Jessica’s mouth bobbed, her brain short-circuiting as her eyes focused on the lips that were so close. So very close.
Tiffany’s head tilted, eyebrow lifting. “May I?”
Jessica felt her eyes widened. “Yes,” she shuddered, her heart in her throat and her stomach filled to the brim with knots of anticipation.
“Thanks,” Tiffany pecked her lips on Jessica’s nose and pulled away.
Dipping her fingers into the water, she picked up the picture Jessica had just developed and gave it a shake. Jessica watched her, stunned in place and brain too slow to comprehend what had just happened. That she had just been victim to Tiffany’s words all over again.
“I’m going to frame this,” she grinned, her eyes creasing up in that beautiful way. “Thanks again for letting me keep it,”
Blowing a kiss, Tiffany made her way out of the dark room, warm laughter bouncing off the walls.
Closing her eyes, Jessica slid her back down along the way, crimson face in her hands.
Omo.
-/-/-/-
It ended where it began and began where it ended. A party.
A party Jessica was only at because of her status on the newspaper that had gotten her on the week-long trip with the swim team for their national meet.
It was just her luck, really. Her sunbae was caught between two deadlines that required him to stay close to home while the only other trusted photographer who wouldn’t turn the opportunity into one big slacker project had caught a bug that was going around the university.
It was just her luck.
“Or some twisted form of involuntary masochism,” as her roommate had put it.
Being around Tiffany for most hours of the week had felt like torture. The only thing that had her still breathing from the overload was the fact she had brought along one of the new employees, a Choi JinRi, who was mostly in charge of changing out memory cards and holding Jessica’s camera bag.
But Choi JinRi was missing at the moment, leaving Jessica in the stadium’s party room, nursing a bottled water and cradling her camera in her lap.
Her eyes bounced around, searching for the assistant who had run off to gather the rest of their equipment from a locker. That had been nearly half an hour ago, and she wasn’t back.
Taking a swig of her water, Jessica screwed on the cap and attached the lens cap back onto her camera. She had taken enough pictures to fill a swimming pool plus more to glue together and fashion into some real clothes for Tiffany Hwang.
Because Tiffany with her swim team was Tiffany stripped down for all to see. Not only in easy smiles, and heart on her sleeve, but the lack of fabric she wore with them. They all were that way, but Jessica’s eyes found only one person, and her lens gave her away.
Sacrificing good quality pictures during a rather brutal practice where the girls didn’t have to wear the official one piece suits, Jessica had passed her assistant the camera and took a little break away from the pool hall.
She’d just pretend the way Tiffany bent over on the blocks ready to dive in, hand lazily reaching back to tug the hot pink fabric from where it rode up into her ass and winked was all her dirty mind playing tricks.
Weaving through the crowd, Jessica ducked under a beach ball coming her way and accidently bumped into a person causing them to spill some of the drink clutched in their hand.
“Sorry,” she bowed, keeping her eyes down.
“That’s oka- Jessi!”
Jessica stiffened, turning over her shoulder to see Tiffany licking off the punch that had splattered on her hand. And just like every other time she was in Tiffany’s presence, her eyes nearly eye level with those lips now tinted purple from the punch, Jessica’s mind took her back to that…almost kiss.
The memory was embedded in her mind like an image on a negative. She could see it so clearly and feel it so vividly. She could even taste it on her tongue that pear flavor that she never did get a chance to taste, but she had plenty of time to breakdown how its lingering flavor would’ve tasted.
Because Tiffany was always near her, tugging her this way or that. Tossing a damp arm over her shoulder, asking Jessica to snap pictures of them with her lips all close to her ear and hands holding Jessica tight.
She learned that Tiffany used other flavors of chapstick. Flavors like cherry, honeysuckle, peppermint, and one time chocolate that had Jessica smack her lips.
She found that Tiffany’s skin had the permanent warmth and fragrance of cinnamon even after she got out of the pool and toweled off. She found that she loved to tease Jessica into sitting beside her on the bus, in the stands, or at restaurants if only because she could lean her head on Jessica’s shoulder and not once would the photographer complain.
“Hi,” Jessica stuttered and ducked her head trying to hurry out of there.
A hand gripped around her arm. “Where’re you going?”
“To find JinRi,”
“Isn’t she right there?”
Jessica followed her pointing finger to where her assistant was dancing with who she had learned to be Kim Jongin, one of the boy’s fastest freestyle swimmers.
Jessica sighed in frustration. She knew exactly what she’d write to her sunbae about the new assistant.
“I have to go,” Jessica grumbled, irritation getting the best of her. She was worn thin from the week. Tired and drained and worn out.
“Wait,” Tiffany grabbed for her again.
Jessica glared up into brown eyes then faltered at the evident concern in them. She sighed, looking away.
“Hold this,” Tiffany said to one of her teammates, passing her the cup of punch. “Come on,”
Jessica fumbled over her shoes as Tiffany yanked her out of the crowd and out of the party room. Music buzzed a low hum against cement walls, bouncing back into her ears bright and hollow. The smell of chlorine wafted strongly throughout, and Jessica wondered if the smell did to Tiffany the way developing chemicals did to her.
“Where are we going?” Asked Jessica.
Pushing another door, Tiffany led them into the pool stadium that just a couple of hours ago had been flooded with people and cameras and companies and athletes.
It was empty now, only lit by a ghost light that casted a ghoulish glow along the seats. Jessica’s eyes looked up at the large screen hanging at the far end of the stadium that had shown their team’s second place win in the meet.
The images Jessica had captured in that moment were full of so much joy. The smiles and tears she had seen Tiffany shed at such a win had warmed Jessica’s heart. Her finger held down the shutter, capturing each and every frame of it until arms had surrounded Jessica’s neck, hugging her close as Tiffany yanked her into the celebration.
Bringing her eyes back down, Jessica watched Tiffany standing at the edge of the pool. Walking closer, Jessica could see that her eyes were closed, head angled down and gentle smile on her lips.
It was similar to the way Jessica saw Tiffany mutter a silent prayer right before her leg of the relay. There was something spiritual about the way Tiffany took to the water. So easy and fluid and focused. She was one with it, forgetting everything else around her but the water and herself.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Said Tiffany, her voice drifting softly across the surface of the pool like a low fog. “You think you’re nobody, doing laps in your parent’s pool and then you’re here – you’re somebody – and now people know your name?”
She let out a long breath, eyes opening to stare across the water.
“I’ll be in the Olympics one day,” Tiffany gave a low sound in the back of her throat. A mix between a laugh and a sigh. “Then everyone will really know who I am for that and nothing else,” her voice softened; frown pulling at her mouth. “Then I know my dad will be happy.”
Jessica stayed quiet. Her eyes met Tiffany’s that were glossy with unshed tears as she turned to face her. The frown she held turned upwards, reaching her eyes and turning them into crescents.
"Wanna take a dip?" Tiffany smiled, the serenity of her face falling away. "Skinny dip. They always help me when I’m stressed. You looked like you could get away for a while.”
“Msybe,” Away from you, was what Jessica thought but maybe not so much any more.
"Assistant trouble?" Asked Tiffany, sinking down to sit on the edge of the pool, dunking her feet into the water.
Jessica shrugged. “Kind of,” she still didn’t know if their equipment was still in the locker or if JinRi had gotten it. She’d need to check before they boarded the bus and left.
"Come over here,” Tiffany waved a hand. “I won’t push you in. Promise,”
Setting her camera down, Jessica padded over to the pool, and eased herself down to sit next to Tiffany. Letting out a long breath, Tiffany leaned her head down to rest on Jessica’s shoulder.
She had learned not to react to the action the night at the restaurant when she had tensed up and Tiffany’s fingers started to play with the fringe on her cut off shorts winding Jessica up even more.
“I’m really sorry,” Tiffany muttered.
Jessica lifted an eyebrow, feet kicking slightly in the water. “For what?
“For teasing you,” Jessica’s shoulders went rigid
Tiffany laughed, lifting her head up. "If you're this easy now, I can't imagine how you'd be in…" Tiffany allowed her voice to trail off. Jessica blushed under those eye smiles, and a pair of knuckles knocking her gently in the head. "You really scare me, Jessi,"
“Why?” Was the only thing she could manage to squeak out at the way Tiffany grinned smug and haughty like she had figured out a huge secret and was dangling it over Jessica’s head.
"You're just so easy to tease," she said, laughing quietly at the way Jessica couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to look confused or shocked. She settled for both. "But that's only because I don't think I could stand seeing anyone else flirting with you."
Jessica scoffed, but it sounded more like a strangled cough than anything. "No one flirts with me,"
"You're really clueless, huh? Maybe I worked too had this week," Tiffany shook her head. Jessica just stared baffled. "Oh, come on! Taemin couldn't keep his eyes off you this entire week. And Kai was making bets with Minho to see who could ask you out first." Tiffany frowned. "You might think no one notices you, Jessica, but they do. I do,"
Tiffany gave an empty laugh, looking out along the pool. For the first time Jessica saw the swimmer’s cheeks tint themselves a light shade of pink.
“I got a little carried away, but it was…I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable isn’t really the word,” Jessica mumbled. There were other things. Flushed, frustrated, flustered...
"I guess I shouldn't have teased you so much,” she admitted, sheepishly biting her bottom lip. “Maybe then you'd take this seriously,"
"Take what-" She was cut off when lips touched hers.
They were only there for a moment. Only as much as a breath of a second before Tiffany pulled away, snickering shyly and covering her face like a little girl embarrassed.
Jessica blinked. "Oh,"
"Oh," Tiffany mocked, peeking from between split fingers.
"Oh, you…Oh," Jessica's cheeks flushed, her mind catching up with her heart, catching up with her body that began to burn and buzz and flutter. “You…?”
“Yes, me,” Tiffany smiled, dropping her hands away from her face to grab one of Jessica’s that was balled into a fist in her hand. Jessica allowed her to uncurl her fingers and slide her own warm ones between them.
"I was scared too, you know?" Tiffany blushed lightly. "In the dark room I wanted to kiss you then, but I was so scared…I wasn't really joking when I told you about my dad and why I'm here." Tiffany let out a long breath after a short chuckle.
She tugged on Jessica’s hand, drawing her closer. Jessica held her breath as her forehead rested against Tiffany’s, putting their eyes level with one another’s. For once, Jessica didn’t see that playful little girl in them. All she saw was genuine fear and shy love.
"Help me not be scared?" Tiffany whispered, her breath tickling Jessica’s face.
"I don't know how to do that,"
Tiffany smiled softly, her free hand coming up to cup Jessica’s face in her sweaty palm. "Just say yes,"
Tiffany leaned forward pressing their lips back together. Jessica let her eyes flutter shut, responding in the way she allowed her lips to shape with Tiffany’s.
She didn't find a reason to say no.
Part II
Author: boxxsaltz
Rating: PG-13;R
Pairing(s): Jessica/Tiffany
Summary: A tale through life of love found, tested, lost, and the mending of the heart.
AN: beta credits to the lovely Kissos & mldcmx
Part I: Dawn
The lights didn’t help Jessica focus.
They glared off the lens of her camera, creating a flare that would’ve worked for any of her other works, but not this one. She wasn’t allowed that bumper of creative genius when it came to the newspaper. They wanted good quality photos but without the new age, bohemian, hippie vibe.
It was a constraint that Jessica always found herself bumping against. There was hardly life in the flat images she was forced to snap, but in that moment she may have to make a compromise. The glaring lights from the makeshift DJ booth set up in the pool hall were bouncing off the pool’s surface, making it near impossible to eliminate the flare.
She snapped the picture anyway. Her sunbae could deal with the streak of light that went diagonally across the swimmer diving into the pool, obstructing his figure just barely.
It was either the flare, or deal with the bulge in the forest green speedo. Her argument was valid enough for her to be confident in winning against her sunbae’s rants.
Squeezing through the crowd, Jessica clutched her digital camera close while her film camera bounced against her stomach, hanging off the strap. She’d save the images she really wanted to capture for the film. They looked better in the grain of black and white anyway. Using digital was just for school.
A crowd of half-naked swimmers ran past her, racing to the edge of the pool and jumped in. Jessica quickly maneuvered herself away from the splash before it could reach her and ruin her equipment. The campus newspaper paid some, but not enough to replace the memories embedded in that camera.
“Careful,” came a voice amongst the crowd.
Jessica looked up, seeing a pair of smiling eyes looking at her. Her neck snapped left and right, checking to see if it had been another person who had spoken, but everyone else was engaged in the party.
The party for the swim team that had returned with a win at their district swim meet. Boys and girls. But not just the swim team was invited. The entire athletic department had come out to celebrate, filling up the pool hall with people of towering heights who could see clear over Jessica and trampled her more often than not.
“Yeah, you,” said the voice again and Jessica turned back toward the girl, standing with a cup of punch. From what Jessica had heard, the drink was spiked.
From other things she had heard, word around the school, team photos, and hallway name tossing, Jessica knew the girl standing before her in bikini top and black jean shorts was Tiffany Hwang. One of two freshmen picked for their university’s women’s varsity swim team. The other was a boy for the boy’s team, a Lee Taemin, who Jessica knew most of the girls fawned over. She excluded.
She was excluded because, from Jessica’s own observations of the girl standing before her, she had fallen into a sort of admiration for the rookie swimmer that didn’t yet touch that line of obsession. It did, however, sit as being a sort of crush.
Like a celebrity crush. Like a celebrity girl crush that started when Jessica sat in the front of a mandatory math class and Tiffany sat in the back, always on her phone and always giving the excuse of swim practice as to why she missed so much.
That first half of the year had done something to Jessica she’d like to keep to herself. She had always heard people talk about that person you’re just drawn to. Not for reason. Only that something inside of you gravitates toward them, leaving you secretly hoping they’d notice you.
Tiffany never did. Because like celebrities, Tiffany didn’t know she existed, but Jessica knew very well who she was. Working for the newspaper for the bulk of her knowledge. That was her story and that’s what she was sticking to.
“Shouldn’t you have, like, a poncho or something?”
Poncho? Jessica raised an eyebrow at the word then lifted the other when she processed the very distinct pronunciation in Tiffany’s Korean. That’s right. She was there on scholarship. All the way from the States. That explained her comfortable heir in the barely there amount of clothing she wore. Most of the other girls, even swimmers, had at least a one piece with shorts on.
“I forgot my case,” Jessica muttered, scolding herself internally for forgetting to grab the underwater case for the digital.
Underwater shots, even if the paper didn’t use them, she’d be able to tweak them on her laptop later and post for people in other countries to like and comment and rate as if she were a world class photographer and had any sort of talent.
“Oh,” Tiffany lifted her cup to her lips, tilting it back to drink. Jessica watched her, not sure if that was all to the conversation or if Tiffany had more to say.
She for one knew she needed to get to business and take it seriously. She just hadn’t been comfortable enough in the beginning of the night to take so many shots of half-naked boys and scantily clad girls.
“I need to get back to work,” Jessica held up her camera, trying to emphasize urgency.
“Take a picture of me,” said Tiffany. “Is that allowed? That’s what you’re here for, right? The newspaper or something,”
“The newspaper,” Jessica nodded. She wondered why Tiffany didn’t just read the little, stitched in words on the chest of her navy polo shirt.
“Oh, it says right there,” Now she noticed. “Well, can you?”
“I guess,”
“Yes or no?”
Jessica blinked, taken by surprise by her tone. “Yes?”
“Will you make sure it gets in the paper?”
“I can try,” Jessica shrugged. She doubted her sunbae would run a paper with a girl in a bikini top, toned midriff out for everyone to see. Not that it wasn’t tasteful.
The hot pink material was concealing enough and the straps were clasps instead of strings, which would keep it from accidently untying and dropping off. But Jessica didn’t think her top half was the worry.
It was the definition in her muscles. Each line was prominent, showing her strength from being an anchor in relays, and her dedication to the sport. It was the way the V of her abs slanted downward, letting the eye travel straight down past her naval and to the top of her shorts that Jessica knew the boys who did the picture editing would be gawking at, wishing those black shorts were just a centimeter lower….
Much like she was doing then. Wishing for the exposure of more skin aside. She may have an active imagination, but she wasn’t a pervert.
“Did you take it?” Tiffany asked.
“No, sorry,” Jessica fumbled, lifting the camera up to her eye.
Through the lens, she could see those sharp lines, and she was almost sad they wouldn’t come out as good in digital. Had she used film, they would’ve been clearer. Tantalizingly clearer.
“One, two,” she clicked the shutter on three, letting the flash strobe a few times.
“How’s it look?” Tiffany walked over to Jessica, hand grabbing the camera. Jessica gripped it back. “Relax. I’m not going to break it,” the camera was plucked out of her hands and into the uneducated ones of Tiffany.
Jessica bit her lip, eyeing Tiffany as she stared at the picture just taken of her.
“What do you think?” Tiffany turned the camera around so Jessica could see the view screen. “Hot?”
Jessica shrugged indifferently, but the heat on the back of her neck was an indication of how she really felt. “I think it’s good,”
“Tell me the truth,”
Her brow creased. “I am telling you the truth,”
“Right, right,” Tiffany laughed, unconvinced and turned the camera back to her. “How do you- Oh there it is,”
Jessica lifted slightly on her toes to see Tiffany find the review button and begin scrolling through the pictures. Jessica could see her lack of commitment to the project in what little diversity in angles and the repetition of straight forward group shots. Only a few were worthy of true photographic skills.
“These are good,” Tiffany said more to herself than to Jessica. She had gotten into the pictures of the swimming show the teams had put on before the party.
It was like a showcase, showing off each of the team members, naming the MVP, and then making a toast to the coaches while the teams all held their trophy up in the air for all to see.
Those details weren’t important to Jessica. At least not in that moment. She was more concerned with the amount of times she noticed Tiffany show up in the images. Along with the team captains, coaches, and MVPs, Tiffany had just about the same amount. The heat at the back of her neck rose.
“Can I-” Jessica started but was cut off as Tiffany turned the camera for her to see again.
She felt her face flush at the picture snapped of Tiffany, striking a sexy pose – at least what she thought was supposed to be sexy. Jessica found it amusing – at the end of the diving board as the announcer called out her name as rookie of the year.
“Can I get a copy of this?”
“If you come by the office,” she’d give her twenty copies if she could just get her camera back.
“What do you do with all of these?” Tiffany had gotten back around to the beginning of the reel. Jessica thought she’d give it back, but she went through them again. “Delete them, or do you keep them on your computer and look at them when you’re bored?”
“I delete them,”
“All of them?” Tiffany eyed her, suspicion all in those eye-smiling eyes. Jessica hated to admit how much she liked that smile. It was part of the reason she found her lens pointed at her most of the time.
“You have to keep some,” she said, teasingly. “Like this one, maybe?”
Jessica’s eyes widened at the picture of the boy diving in the speedo. She blushed. “Can I have my camera back, please?”
“Sure, sure. Don’t get all upset. I was just kidding,” Tiffany handed the camera back over. Jessica took it, clutching it close. “Sort of,”
Jessica decided not to react to that and pulled out her little notepad and pencil. “Can I get your – uh - name, class, and focus, please?”
Tiffany’s lips pursed, eyebrow cocking in haughty amusement. “I think you already know all of that, don’t you?”
“No? I mean- yes, but, to avoid any typos…” she grumbled lamely.
“Hwang Tiffany, first year freshmen, athletic competition for swimming,” Tiffany sounded off, laughter in her voice.
“Athletic…competition…swimming,” Jessica mumbled, as she wrote everything down.
“Songdo Girl’s Dorm, 2nd floor, room 202,” Tiffany went on and Jessica’s pencil continued to move unknowingly. “My phone number is-”
“Wait,” Jessica caught on.
Tiffany smiled down at her cheeky. “So you can text me where the newspaper office is. How else am I going to get the picture?”
“Right,” Jessica narrowed her eyes, and began to write down Tiffany’s number as she said it. “That’s it, then. Thanks,” she stuffed the notepad away.
“Mhm,” Tiffany smiled again and Jessica looked away from it before she started to think of the many different ways she could bounce the light off her face to really make the glowing smile shine.
“Oh, and, Jessica,” she spun around, catching Tiffany’s smug smile and panicked, hearing her name fall out of those plump lips.
She then remembered that her name was printed on the back of her photography shirt. She could tell her heart to calm down. The chance Tiffany Hwang would’ve known a recluse of a photographer’s name was one in a thousand.
“My right side is my best side, kay?” said Tiffany, winking. Jessica nodded curtly, turning away from her before Tiffany could see the red filling her cheeks.
She hurried back towards the pool to take a few shots, lazily avoiding the splashing.
Maybe she needed a little cold water to cool her off.
-/-/-/-
There were a million different things Jessica could’ve studied. She had a knack for fashion, but she was sure that came more from her keen eye on what was aesthetically pleasing and what looked best on a person. She didn’t possess the drive for most of what truly went into it, and she found runway shows boring.
Even despite her parents influence on her to go into business like her mother or accounting like her father, she didn’t shy from the arts. She was stubborn, it was a known fact, and when she found the old film camera tucked away in a box in the basement, she was sold then.
She didn’t go into it without a backup plan, however. She took up a minor: Advertising. It and photography went hand in hand, and both were still a subject that caused frowns from her family. Except her sister. She was stuck on this singing thing that Jessica knew gave their mother stomach ulcers and their dad high blood pressure just thinking about how the two of them would make it in life.
“Marry a rich man and live the life,” her roommate, a Kim Hyoyeon, had told her one night while drunk.
Jessica did her studying in the bathroom to avoid getting her head knocked by those heavy knuckles of Hyoyeon’s, which always seemed to seek Jessica out whilst intoxicated.
However, as Jessica walked across campus, her destination set on Songdo Girl’s Dormitory on the far, east side of campus, she began to ponder her choice in study.
Had she not decided on photography, she would’ve never been introduced to the newspaper. And without being introduced to the newspaper, they wouldn’t have needed her skills to shoot various events that ranged from boring board meetings to the multiple festivals and activities around the school.
It would not have led her to Room Number 202, knuckles knocking on the wood and standing back two steps waiting for someone to open the door. That someone she hoped – but also hoped wasn’t - Tiffany.
“Annyeonghaseyo,” of course it was Tiffany. She drawled out each syllable, making sure each was heard in that endearing American accent of hers. “Oh, it’s you,”
“Here,” Jessica didn’t take a moment to hand over the disk in her hand. “It’s the picture - er- pictures,” Jessica stuttered, hand still hovering, waiting for Tiffany to take the thing. “I thought you might want some of the others too,”
“How thoughtful,” Tiffany took the disk from her, letting it ring around her finger.
Jessica shifted uncomfortably, unsure of how to dismiss herself from the conversation. “I edited some of them,”
Tiffany frowned. “Did I look that bad?”
“No, you looked- ” Jessica’s lashes fluttered. “I just…I only fixed some coloring and stuff.”
“Well, that’s good,” Tiffany shifted her weight, leaning on the frame of her door. Jessica tried not to notice she was in a pair of short, red shorts and a black, fitted t-shirt. Nothing underneath. “I hate how photoshopped those girls look in the magazines, you know?”
“You don’t need photoshop,” Jessica found her lips saying. She backtracked. “I mean, you didn’t need it,”
A wondrous smile spread across Tiffany’s lips. “Some would say otherwise, but thank you. I can tell you’re a keeper,”
Whatever that meant. “Well, bye.”
“Wait,” Jessica, of course, stopped. Tiffany chewed on her bottom lip, nervousness coming onto her for the first time. Jessica could only assume it was fake. “The relay team is having a practice tomorrow night for the national swim meet. Do you think you could take some pictures for us? You know, for scrapbook material?”
“I don’t know,” said Jessica.
“I’ll bake you cookies,” Tiffany sang. “You do like cookies, right?”
Jessica groaned, hearing one of her many weaknesses offered to her. Cookies and chocolate chip ice cream. They broke all her resolve, every time.
“Do you like sugar?” asked Tiffany, seeing the twinkle in Jessica’s eye. She merely nodded to the question. Tiffany grinned in triumph. “With or without sprinkles,”
“Without,” Jessica mutters.
“Yes, yes,” Tiffany laughed, tapping the CD around her finger against Jessica’s forehead. “You are a keeper,”
-/-/-/-
If Jessica didn’t know better, she’d think Tiffany was teasing her.
No.
Jessica knew better. She was certain Tiffany was teasing her.
Sitting back in her desk chair, sugar cookie between her fingers, she tapped her track pad as she scrolled through the pictures. She made a conscious effort to stray away from just focusing on Tiffany however difficult the task was, knowing Tiffany was an essential part of the relay team and there were only four girls to focus on. Five if she counted the alternate.
She ended up with tons of Tiffany as center focus anyway and quickly deleted a bulk of them to keep from further embarrassment.
Embarrassment like she felt when the team’s captain announced the end of practice only for Tiffany to suggest they take a group photo together.
Jessica had steady hands. She prided herself on that, but as Tiffany stood there, hanging off the shoulder of her captain, dripping in her work out bikini – free of shorts this time – she may or may not have shaken.
But the shake was nothing compared to how she was trembling as Tiffany pulled her over, putting Jessica right next to her, and arm thrown around her shoulder as the coach snapped a picture of the photographer with the team.
“Sorry I got you all wet,” Tiffany had purred as she released Jessica after the photo was snapped.
She had just muttered an, “it’s okay,” and hurried out of there before her face gave away just how wet she had really gotten from that husky voice in her ear.
Jessica swiped her fingers along the track pad, dragging that picture, fuzzy from the coach’s inability to hold a camera steady, and dropped it onto her desktop.
There was nothing wrong with keeping one or two for herself, right?
-/-/-/-
“Yah!” Jessica swiped out, trying to catch her film camera that had just been taken out of her hands.
She hadn’t even heard Tiffany coming up behind her. She had been too focused on trying to capture the little brown and gold bird sitting at the very tip of a branch to pay any attention to her surroundings.
Now that bird had flown away, scared off by her outburst, and made not to return as Tiffany laughed loudly. She’d have to wait for another to complete the last three images she needed for her project. Not that she minded waiting around the campus courtyard for another four hours. Oh, no.
“Give it back, Hwang,” she groaned.
She was done with being overly uncomfortable around the swimmer, though there was still the fact of butterflies in her stomach at that eye smile and the fluttering in her chest at that husky voice. But, you know.
“Just a minute, Jessi,” she emphasized the nickname that took Jessica aback. Tiffany glanced up at her with a smirk, knowing all too well of what that simple name did to her. “Where’s the screen?”
“There isn’t one,” Jessica grumbled, stepping up to Tiffany. Before she could get too close, Tiffany took two strides away from her. “Yah. Give it,”
“Is it film or something?”
“Yes, it’s film,”
“So I can’t do this?” her finger hooked around the button that would open the back and expose everything inside.
Jessica saw her work flash like her life before her eyes. “Don’t you dare, Tiffany Hwang. Don’t you dare,” she didn’t let Tiffany get away from her that time and snatched her camera away, glaring.
“I wasn’t really going to do it,” Tiffany tried. Jessica turned away from her, marching down the sidewalk. “Hey,” jogging steps came up next to her. “Serious. I wouldn’t do that. That would be, like, really mean,”
“Don’t touch my things,”
“What if I asked first?” asked Tiffany, and Jessica stopped bulldozing her way down the sidewalk to give Tiffany a sideways look. “Could I maybe see it? I won’t run away with it or anything. Could I?”
Slowing, Jessica turned to look up at Tiffany’s sincere eyes that matched the whiney tone in her voice. Like a child, begging their mother to let them have the crayons back after they had splayed their artwork all over the walls but crossed their heart, hoped to die, pinkie promised not to do it again.
Sighing, Jessica held out the camera. Tiffany squealed excitedly, taking it from her. “How do I take a picture?”
“You didn’t ask if you could-” Jessica let out an irritated breath through her nose. More at how she let wide brown eyes derail her than at Tiffany’s persistence. “Here,”
She took it back for a moment, reeling the shutter back and placed it into Tiffany’s hands again.
“I just point and shoot?” she asked, examining the camera. Jessica nodded. “Can I see them later after they’re developed?”
“Sure,”
Tiffany’s mouth opened wide in excitement, and she held up the camera, pointing it at random and clicked the shutter. Jessica watched her struggle with the lever to wind the film, but once she got it, she pointed and shot again.
Jessica followed Tiffany as she began to walk down the path, pointing the camera at whatever and snapping. Jessica kept to herself the details on exposure, knowing a lot of them would be either over or under, but that didn’t matter.
“Oh,” Tiffany stopped and Jessica turned to see what had caused the shift.
Sitting on a bench at the end of the trail was a couple, engaged in what must’ve been a heated lip lock. From Jessica’s angle it looked like they were eating each other’s faces.
“Blackmail,” Tiffany snickered and took a picture of the two.
“Don’t do that,”
“Why not?” Tiffany wound the film again.
“Because that’s private,”
“Who makes out like that in the open, if it’s supposed to be private?” Tiffany scoffed. “Anyway, that’s Minho-yah, from the team. I wonder how many iTunes gift cards I could get out of him for this picture…” her voice trailed off as she lifted the camera and took another one of the couple.
Jessica looked back over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching their voyeuristic behavior. When she looked back at Tiffany, the swimmer was holding the camera down, a sad expression filling up normally smiling eyes as she examined the two giggling once they pulled out of the kiss.
“I kissed my unnie, Nicole, once,” Tiffany started, her voice far off, but the subject matter making it dramatically clear. “But then my dad caught us and the next thing I knew I had a swimming scholarship in Korea.” Tiffany laughed. Jessica didn’t see what was so amusing.
“I think it was his doing,” she went on, turning away from the couple to look at Jessica. “I’m grateful, I am, but it’s a little much sending your daughter clear across the world to get her away from a senior crush, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” Jessica said immediately and looked away.
“You never know, Jessi,” Tiffany laughed tonelessly, then sighed. “That’s why I like you,” she paused, and Jessica stiffened until Tiffany went on. “You just take it like it comes,”
Jessica blushed, staring down at her feet to keep from looking up into those knee weakening brown eyes. “Is there any other way to be?” She mumbled.
“With me?” Tiffany said it like she was telling Jessica to be with her. It had her veins freeze but then she realized it was another play of Tiffany’s words as she finished up. “I could probably learn a thing or two about that,”
Jessica willed her heart to stop thudding in her chest, but her effort was futile. The way the wind touched her naked neck as Tiffany pulled her scarf off her to wrap around her own neck didn’t help the already present shudder in her bones.
“Take some of me?” Tiffany urged, pushing the camera into Jessica’s hands. Once it was taken, she took Jessica’s knit cap off her head to tug onto her own head. “Fall fashion shoot!”
Jessica ran her hands over her coffee colored hair, sneering lightly at the items stolen from her. It was wiped away clean when Tiffany posed beside a tree in that wanting to be sexy but more humorous way Jessica found endearing and laughed.
“You’re doing it wrong,” said Jessica.
Tiffany pouted. “Then tell me what to do then,”
Jessica shook her head, shaking off her laughter and brought the camera to her eye.
-/-/-/-
The fumes were always comforting to Jessica.
The way they circulated and wafted through the dark room calmed her nerves and just made her float. Most people would think it was because she was high, but the only way to get any effect off the developing chemicals was to drink them…or shoot them up. But Jessica was sure you wouldn’t survive past the hallucinations before you keeled over dead.
Picking up a pair of tongs, she moved the now developed image from the fixer into a basin of water letting it sit with the others.
It was a picture from the day in the courtyard, taken a little over a week ago from the roll nearly forgotten when Jessica abandoned her assignment topic of birds to something else less predictable.
Lifting up the picture, Jessica blinked a couple times, focusing her eyes through the red light. It was a picture of her looking a little frustrated and a lot flustered. The direction her eyes were pointing, she had been looking at Tiffany, thinking she was taking a picture of the campus but instead had flicked her wrist at the last minute to get Jessica.
Placing the picture back into the water, Jessica ventured to the enlargers where various negatives from the shoot were splayed along the table, waiting to be made into larger images.
Looking through the negatives, she found the picture of Tiffany by the tree. Not the one after Jessica had mumbled a,
“More in the light. And don’t…don’t, uh, stick your butt out like that,” causing Tiffany to laugh, Jessica to flush, and her hands to shake enough to make the image a little bit out of focus.
It was the first one. The one Tiffany had done all on her own. Jessica smiled at the backwards image in the negative and slid it into place to begin creating the final image.
She was just dropping the sheet of paper holding the latent image into the developer when someone knocked on the outside door. Moving the paper to the next basin of chemicals, Jessica walked through the hall that kept any light from getting into the dark room and into the main room made for reviewing film.
The person knocked again and Jessica rolled her eyes. It wasn’t locked. But when she opened the door she knew why they had knocked.
“Oh,” said Tiffany, looking down at Jessica. “I didn’t know if I was going to mess up your film,”
“That’s done in the other room,” Tiffany nodded, walking in after Jessica and closed the door.“Why are you here?”
“To give you your scarf back,” said Tiffany. She walked along the room, looking at some of the pictures other students had left pinned up on the wall. “You weren’t at the newspaper office and someone told me to check here,”
“Did you bring it?”
“The scarf? Yes,” she reached into her messenger bag and handed it over. “Are you working on something?” Tiffany bit her lip as Jessica went to store the scarf in her bag against the wall, nodding. “Can I see?”
Jessica’s back straightened out, looking up at Tiffany. She really wasn’t supposed to let outside students into the dark room, or the developing lab at that. But she had never been good with saying no, and if that saying no was to that biting lip and glittering eyes she never could.
“Sure,” Jessica didn’t bat a lash at Tiffany’s squeal.
She led her back, through the hall, and into red light that spilled over their skin making them look absolutely alien. However, it took nothing away from the absolute glamour of the swimmer who walked curiously around the dark room.
“Are these from the courtyard?”
“Mhm,” Jessica hummed, moving the developing picture into the next set of chemicals. She saw Tiffany messing with the negatives on the table out the corner of her eye.
“Do you have the one of the couple done?”
“Not yet,”
“Wow, these look terrible,” Tiffany laughed quietly to herself then sobered. “Not yours, I meant mine. Yours are all good,”
“Uh huh,” Jessica ignored her as she dipped the picture into the water, clearing off most of the chemicals.
It was when she was lifting it up for her to examine at eye level that she felt a presence behind her, and the sticky, warmness of Tiffany’s breath on the back of her neck as she breathed close by.
Even with the developing fumes, Jessica could smell that fruit in Tiffany’s chapstick. Pear. So unusual, but then again, Tiffany was unusual and Jessica wouldn’t like her any other way.
“Ugh,” Tiffany muttered in slight disgust. “You were right,”
“It’s not so bad,”
“Because you took it,” Tiffany reached an arm over Jessica’s shoulder to point at her face. Jessica’s eyes blurred a moment as her nose was overwhelmed by the scent of cinnamon body lotion. “Look at my face. I’m smiling weird,”
“I think it looks fine,”
“Really?” Tiffany dropped her arm, moving to stand next to Jessica, and her hands on her hips. “What’s good about it?”
Jessica shrugged, placing it down into the water. She looked down at it, watching it float just beneath the surface.
“It has character,”
“Does it? How?”
“I don’t know,” Jessica let out a sigh. “It’s you. You’re just being you,”
“And you like that?” Jessica’s eyes blinked up to meet Tiffany’s. Cotton filled her mouth, drying it out of everything she could or wanted to say to that. “What’s your favorite thing about it?”
“Well,” Jessica swallowed. Suddenly the fumes weren’t as comforting to her anymore. “I like, I mean, your smile. I like your smile,”
Tiffany’s cocked eyebrow fell down as her expression shifted. Jessica didn’t know exactly what it shifted into, all she knew was that it made her look away before her heart could jump out of chest and start dancing all over the swimmer.
“What do you like about my smile?” Asked Tiffany, her voice a shade darker than it had been previous.
Jessica tried not to shiver, but the room was cold, and Tiffany was a step closer to her. “It’s bright,”
“It’s bright?” Tiffany took another step, Jessica felt herself counter away from her. “What else?”
One more step forward. One more counter backward.
“It’s warm?”
“Okay. Bright, warm,” Tiffany hummed, tapping a finger on her lips.
One more step forward. One more counter backward.
“I like…” Jessica swallowed, wishing she wasn’t about to say what she was. But she was. “I like the way one side goes higher than the other…”
Tiffany’s eyebrow went back up and her front step was paused a moment. “You notice that?”
“I notice everything,” Jessica heard it slip out of her mouth. Tiffany grinned.
One more step forward. One more counter backward.
“You know I have a cut on the bottom one? Right in the middle,” Tiffany pointed to the place. Either Jessica was losing her vision or Tiffany was making it up. “How close do you think you’d have to be to notice that?”
“P-pretty close, I suppose,”
“Like this close?”
The air rushed out of Jessica’s nose as her back hit the wall and Tiffany’s hands pressed on either side of her head, trapping her there.
“See it?” A pair of full, pink lips lifted to eye level, forcing Jessica to look nowhere else. “It hurt pretty bad. My sister got in trouble for running with scissors,”
“That’s too bad,” Jessica offered lamely.
“Yeah,” Tiffany shrugged, her eyes dipping down so they met Jessica’s. “But you know what was worse?” Jessica shook her head, swallowing hard as Tiffany feigned the perfect frown. “There was no one who would kiss it better,”
“Oh,”
“Yes, oh,” Tiffany mocked so alluring Jessica couldn’t even feel angry about the teasing. She just felt hot. Too hot and too intoxicated by chemicals and the drug that was Tiffany’s scent and presence.
“I bet you would’ve done it,” Tiffany hummed, dragging a finger along Jessica’s bottom lip. She was too distracted by Tiffany’s face drawing closer that she failed to notice the way the swimmer’s fingers were shaking. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I…” Jessica’s mouth bobbed, her brain short-circuiting as her eyes focused on the lips that were so close. So very close.
Tiffany’s head tilted, eyebrow lifting. “May I?”
Jessica felt her eyes widened. “Yes,” she shuddered, her heart in her throat and her stomach filled to the brim with knots of anticipation.
“Thanks,” Tiffany pecked her lips on Jessica’s nose and pulled away.
Dipping her fingers into the water, she picked up the picture Jessica had just developed and gave it a shake. Jessica watched her, stunned in place and brain too slow to comprehend what had just happened. That she had just been victim to Tiffany’s words all over again.
“I’m going to frame this,” she grinned, her eyes creasing up in that beautiful way. “Thanks again for letting me keep it,”
Blowing a kiss, Tiffany made her way out of the dark room, warm laughter bouncing off the walls.
Closing her eyes, Jessica slid her back down along the way, crimson face in her hands.
Omo.
-/-/-/-
It ended where it began and began where it ended. A party.
A party Jessica was only at because of her status on the newspaper that had gotten her on the week-long trip with the swim team for their national meet.
It was just her luck, really. Her sunbae was caught between two deadlines that required him to stay close to home while the only other trusted photographer who wouldn’t turn the opportunity into one big slacker project had caught a bug that was going around the university.
It was just her luck.
“Or some twisted form of involuntary masochism,” as her roommate had put it.
Being around Tiffany for most hours of the week had felt like torture. The only thing that had her still breathing from the overload was the fact she had brought along one of the new employees, a Choi JinRi, who was mostly in charge of changing out memory cards and holding Jessica’s camera bag.
But Choi JinRi was missing at the moment, leaving Jessica in the stadium’s party room, nursing a bottled water and cradling her camera in her lap.
Her eyes bounced around, searching for the assistant who had run off to gather the rest of their equipment from a locker. That had been nearly half an hour ago, and she wasn’t back.
Taking a swig of her water, Jessica screwed on the cap and attached the lens cap back onto her camera. She had taken enough pictures to fill a swimming pool plus more to glue together and fashion into some real clothes for Tiffany Hwang.
Because Tiffany with her swim team was Tiffany stripped down for all to see. Not only in easy smiles, and heart on her sleeve, but the lack of fabric she wore with them. They all were that way, but Jessica’s eyes found only one person, and her lens gave her away.
Sacrificing good quality pictures during a rather brutal practice where the girls didn’t have to wear the official one piece suits, Jessica had passed her assistant the camera and took a little break away from the pool hall.
She’d just pretend the way Tiffany bent over on the blocks ready to dive in, hand lazily reaching back to tug the hot pink fabric from where it rode up into her ass and winked was all her dirty mind playing tricks.
Weaving through the crowd, Jessica ducked under a beach ball coming her way and accidently bumped into a person causing them to spill some of the drink clutched in their hand.
“Sorry,” she bowed, keeping her eyes down.
“That’s oka- Jessi!”
Jessica stiffened, turning over her shoulder to see Tiffany licking off the punch that had splattered on her hand. And just like every other time she was in Tiffany’s presence, her eyes nearly eye level with those lips now tinted purple from the punch, Jessica’s mind took her back to that…almost kiss.
The memory was embedded in her mind like an image on a negative. She could see it so clearly and feel it so vividly. She could even taste it on her tongue that pear flavor that she never did get a chance to taste, but she had plenty of time to breakdown how its lingering flavor would’ve tasted.
Because Tiffany was always near her, tugging her this way or that. Tossing a damp arm over her shoulder, asking Jessica to snap pictures of them with her lips all close to her ear and hands holding Jessica tight.
She learned that Tiffany used other flavors of chapstick. Flavors like cherry, honeysuckle, peppermint, and one time chocolate that had Jessica smack her lips.
She found that Tiffany’s skin had the permanent warmth and fragrance of cinnamon even after she got out of the pool and toweled off. She found that she loved to tease Jessica into sitting beside her on the bus, in the stands, or at restaurants if only because she could lean her head on Jessica’s shoulder and not once would the photographer complain.
“Hi,” Jessica stuttered and ducked her head trying to hurry out of there.
A hand gripped around her arm. “Where’re you going?”
“To find JinRi,”
“Isn’t she right there?”
Jessica followed her pointing finger to where her assistant was dancing with who she had learned to be Kim Jongin, one of the boy’s fastest freestyle swimmers.
Jessica sighed in frustration. She knew exactly what she’d write to her sunbae about the new assistant.
“I have to go,” Jessica grumbled, irritation getting the best of her. She was worn thin from the week. Tired and drained and worn out.
“Wait,” Tiffany grabbed for her again.
Jessica glared up into brown eyes then faltered at the evident concern in them. She sighed, looking away.
“Hold this,” Tiffany said to one of her teammates, passing her the cup of punch. “Come on,”
Jessica fumbled over her shoes as Tiffany yanked her out of the crowd and out of the party room. Music buzzed a low hum against cement walls, bouncing back into her ears bright and hollow. The smell of chlorine wafted strongly throughout, and Jessica wondered if the smell did to Tiffany the way developing chemicals did to her.
“Where are we going?” Asked Jessica.
Pushing another door, Tiffany led them into the pool stadium that just a couple of hours ago had been flooded with people and cameras and companies and athletes.
It was empty now, only lit by a ghost light that casted a ghoulish glow along the seats. Jessica’s eyes looked up at the large screen hanging at the far end of the stadium that had shown their team’s second place win in the meet.
The images Jessica had captured in that moment were full of so much joy. The smiles and tears she had seen Tiffany shed at such a win had warmed Jessica’s heart. Her finger held down the shutter, capturing each and every frame of it until arms had surrounded Jessica’s neck, hugging her close as Tiffany yanked her into the celebration.
Bringing her eyes back down, Jessica watched Tiffany standing at the edge of the pool. Walking closer, Jessica could see that her eyes were closed, head angled down and gentle smile on her lips.
It was similar to the way Jessica saw Tiffany mutter a silent prayer right before her leg of the relay. There was something spiritual about the way Tiffany took to the water. So easy and fluid and focused. She was one with it, forgetting everything else around her but the water and herself.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Said Tiffany, her voice drifting softly across the surface of the pool like a low fog. “You think you’re nobody, doing laps in your parent’s pool and then you’re here – you’re somebody – and now people know your name?”
She let out a long breath, eyes opening to stare across the water.
“I’ll be in the Olympics one day,” Tiffany gave a low sound in the back of her throat. A mix between a laugh and a sigh. “Then everyone will really know who I am for that and nothing else,” her voice softened; frown pulling at her mouth. “Then I know my dad will be happy.”
Jessica stayed quiet. Her eyes met Tiffany’s that were glossy with unshed tears as she turned to face her. The frown she held turned upwards, reaching her eyes and turning them into crescents.
"Wanna take a dip?" Tiffany smiled, the serenity of her face falling away. "Skinny dip. They always help me when I’m stressed. You looked like you could get away for a while.”
“Msybe,” Away from you, was what Jessica thought but maybe not so much any more.
"Assistant trouble?" Asked Tiffany, sinking down to sit on the edge of the pool, dunking her feet into the water.
Jessica shrugged. “Kind of,” she still didn’t know if their equipment was still in the locker or if JinRi had gotten it. She’d need to check before they boarded the bus and left.
"Come over here,” Tiffany waved a hand. “I won’t push you in. Promise,”
Setting her camera down, Jessica padded over to the pool, and eased herself down to sit next to Tiffany. Letting out a long breath, Tiffany leaned her head down to rest on Jessica’s shoulder.
She had learned not to react to the action the night at the restaurant when she had tensed up and Tiffany’s fingers started to play with the fringe on her cut off shorts winding Jessica up even more.
“I’m really sorry,” Tiffany muttered.
Jessica lifted an eyebrow, feet kicking slightly in the water. “For what?
“For teasing you,” Jessica’s shoulders went rigid
Tiffany laughed, lifting her head up. "If you're this easy now, I can't imagine how you'd be in…" Tiffany allowed her voice to trail off. Jessica blushed under those eye smiles, and a pair of knuckles knocking her gently in the head. "You really scare me, Jessi,"
“Why?” Was the only thing she could manage to squeak out at the way Tiffany grinned smug and haughty like she had figured out a huge secret and was dangling it over Jessica’s head.
"You're just so easy to tease," she said, laughing quietly at the way Jessica couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to look confused or shocked. She settled for both. "But that's only because I don't think I could stand seeing anyone else flirting with you."
Jessica scoffed, but it sounded more like a strangled cough than anything. "No one flirts with me,"
"You're really clueless, huh? Maybe I worked too had this week," Tiffany shook her head. Jessica just stared baffled. "Oh, come on! Taemin couldn't keep his eyes off you this entire week. And Kai was making bets with Minho to see who could ask you out first." Tiffany frowned. "You might think no one notices you, Jessica, but they do. I do,"
Tiffany gave an empty laugh, looking out along the pool. For the first time Jessica saw the swimmer’s cheeks tint themselves a light shade of pink.
“I got a little carried away, but it was…I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable isn’t really the word,” Jessica mumbled. There were other things. Flushed, frustrated, flustered...
"I guess I shouldn't have teased you so much,” she admitted, sheepishly biting her bottom lip. “Maybe then you'd take this seriously,"
"Take what-" She was cut off when lips touched hers.
They were only there for a moment. Only as much as a breath of a second before Tiffany pulled away, snickering shyly and covering her face like a little girl embarrassed.
Jessica blinked. "Oh,"
"Oh," Tiffany mocked, peeking from between split fingers.
"Oh, you…Oh," Jessica's cheeks flushed, her mind catching up with her heart, catching up with her body that began to burn and buzz and flutter. “You…?”
“Yes, me,” Tiffany smiled, dropping her hands away from her face to grab one of Jessica’s that was balled into a fist in her hand. Jessica allowed her to uncurl her fingers and slide her own warm ones between them.
"I was scared too, you know?" Tiffany blushed lightly. "In the dark room I wanted to kiss you then, but I was so scared…I wasn't really joking when I told you about my dad and why I'm here." Tiffany let out a long breath after a short chuckle.
She tugged on Jessica’s hand, drawing her closer. Jessica held her breath as her forehead rested against Tiffany’s, putting their eyes level with one another’s. For once, Jessica didn’t see that playful little girl in them. All she saw was genuine fear and shy love.
"Help me not be scared?" Tiffany whispered, her breath tickling Jessica’s face.
"I don't know how to do that,"
Tiffany smiled softly, her free hand coming up to cup Jessica’s face in her sweaty palm. "Just say yes,"
Tiffany leaned forward pressing their lips back together. Jessica let her eyes flutter shut, responding in the way she allowed her lips to shape with Tiffany’s.
She didn't find a reason to say no.
Part II
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
brilliant.
Date: 2013-01-21 08:48 pm (UTC)manhi manhi kamsa and keep it up! :')
no subject
Date: 2013-01-21 10:11 pm (UTC)I really like how Tiffany is such a teaser but she has her own issues to deal with it and to be strong like that and to be the one to make the 1st move was throwing caution in the wind.
Jessica mind must have overloaded but if I were her I wouldn't mind getting teased by Tiffany. :)
no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 05:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 05:13 am (UTC)At times in the fic, though, you kinda lodge your point of view in. N'om sayin? Like, I dunno if you do it on purpose, and I def won't bother skimming through this monster to find what I'm specifically talkin about, but yee. I often hear your voice in my head too, especially when they go "Oh" or "Uh huh" or just the sarcasm and mocking. I see you in your characters. e_e herp derp ;-;
Pls gimme the next parts. I promise not to let anyone else read ahead. It could be like another secret, meaningful event between us. It'd be perfect, yeah?
no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 06:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 06:21 am (UTC)But only part one, you attribute your readers with more patience than some of us possess!
really liked this!
Date: 2013-01-22 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 08:16 am (UTC)oh-kay. that. was. brilliant!
like the others say, where have u been?
ur write is awesome.
i mean i knew there would be something on b/w jeti, but at a point, it really seemed plausible that tiff is just teasing jess ya know.
but i knw tiff aint that cruel.
i liked how u made the confession to be really sincere, and how tiff is actually pleading for help.
it kinda tells me that tiff has indeed fallen in love w jess, and that this time ard, she isnt gonna be scared to fight for what she has w jess.
its nice that she mentioned what happedn previously w nicole.
she's sharing things w jessi, which kinda means, she wants to fight whatever is coming together.
:)
heee, sorry for such a lengthy one.
thanks again!
xoxo.
:D
no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 08:17 am (UTC)I'm just drawn to you and your fresh characterizations, they're really lovely to peel away layer by layer and explore. I love that we're starting to see the genuine, shy Tiffany beneath the confidence and bravado. And let's be honest... Jessica is such a cute baby, I just wanna squish her LOL. I especially love that she takes pictures and lets her photographs speak in lieu of her, oftentimes subconsciously. <3
Eagerly awaiting the next part~ Oh and I found a few minor things, I'll just point it out because that's what I do as an OCD reader
freelance betaLOL"'Well,' Jessica swallowed. Suddenly the fumes weren’t as comforting to her anymore. 'I like, I mean, *your* smile. I like your smile,'"
no subject
Date: 2013-01-22 09:53 am (UTC)teaser!tiffany is forever my weakness so you could imagine how much i went wqdfdkjlas while reading this. this was so pinking good! lmao. plsplsplspls post the next chapters soon!! (and i hope to see more of teaser!tiffany, or maybe teaser!jessica as revenge? heheheh)
good job author!!
<3
Date: 2013-01-22 11:24 pm (UTC)...STILL, great story writing. Keep it up.
Re: <3
Date: 2013-01-24 07:33 am (UTC)Re: <3
Date: 2013-01-24 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 06:58 am (UTC)I literally felt like I was the one being teased by Tiffany. Un. Fair. It's like being dragged across the street and you can't even fight back. Sigh and it's so easy to visualize Tiffany as a tease.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-25 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-25 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-25 02:43 am (UTC)Ayo Sea Salt
Date: 2013-01-25 09:09 am (UTC)loooool omg I agree with Ali, at some parts of the fic I hear your voice saying those lines because they're so you ;]
and I keep hearing your voice in my head LOL
swimming ;-; I don't know what to say about that xD booooooo at my inability.
I loved Tiffany's teasing looool its so amusing
and Jessica's situation >:[
I love this a lot <3
no subject
Date: 2013-01-27 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-28 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-03 10:05 pm (UTC)They are together now???
Tiffany <,< is something doesnt click here.
I like it a lots, This so guuuud
Im such a slow reader T,T
*goes and read more*
no subject
Date: 2013-04-12 12:26 am (UTC)The best piece of writing I have seen for JeTi 8D
I can definitely think of Tiffany as a tease Lololol <3
Fxluvforever
Date: 2015-04-27 07:36 am (UTC)I've never been so affected by an online story before, and I doubt I will be since.
It's so beautiful, so tragic.