Work Text:
Whether we’re together or apart,
We can both remove our masks,
And admit we regret it from the start.
- One Direction, Over Again
- Yoona
It had been a lunch. In a private room in a private restaurant with a price point that pretty much guaranteed discretion. The Shinee boys were next door.
And in this room had sat Yoona, Yuri, Seohyun, and Taeyeon. A rare mini reunion amidst their packed schedules and workload that weighed their shoulders down beyond rationality. They reminisced and discussed about what was happening with their lives, gorging on small amounts of food laid out on big dishes.
When they were about to say goodbye, Taeyeon had approached Yoona with a slip of paper in her hands, evidently nervous with the way her teeth were sinking down on her lower lip and her eyes darting everywhere but the taller woman. For some reason, Yoona knew this wouldn’t be anything good.
“When you see her next time, can you give this to her?” Taeyeon had requested, unceremoniously shoving the paper into Yoona’s fingers and deliberately not naming anyone.
Yoona had never spoken about the fact that she had resumed contact with Jessica barely two months after her departure, but she supposed it wouldn’t be surprising. She loved Jessica-unnie and she had been one of the loudest dissenters when Kim Youngmin announced her sudden exit.
It didn’t take long for Yoona to realize exactly who Taeyeon was talking about, and she had felt a sense of anger – long suppressed after realizing that there was nothing that she, of all people, could do about the situation – surging within her.
“Unnie,” she whispered, pressing her voice down, her lips thin.
Taeyeon had closed her eyes, a painful sort of frown lingering at the edges of her irises. “I know,” she whispered back. “You can call me a coward for not reaching out to her directly, and I am. I’m fully aware of that.”
Yoona had had bottled up vicious words for Taeyeon, Tiffany, and Sooyoung, since that fateful September night, when they had so unceremoniously made an announcement that would break the group beyond repair as if it was everyday news.
She had only kept them in because Seohyun had been sobbing next to her and she could clearly see the ache lingering at the frown of Taeyeon’s lips. She kept those words in and stored them in a box in her stomach, waiting for an opportunity to just tell them exactly what was on her mind.
Now…was not the opportunity. Not yet.
The paper sat in her bag for the next two weeks as she bustled between destinations and airports, almost forgotten. It was only when she met Jessica at her apartment for a movie night that the memory of Taeyeon’s request surfaced to her mind again.
Throughout the movie, that paper felt like it was burning through the expensive material of her purse. Still, she wasn’t even sure if she should reveal its existence at all.
“What is it?”
A lot of people would call Jessica slow or unaware of her surroundings, except anyone who truly knew her. Jessica saw and observed all, especially when it came to people she cared about, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that she noticed Yoona’s weirdness.
Yoona licked her lips, fidgeting with the stem of her red wine glass. She sighed and reached into her bag, brandishing the slip of paper, handing it carefully to Jessica. “Taeyeon-unnie asked me to give this to you,” she whispered tentatively, looking away from one of her favorite people in the world.
Next to her on the couch, Jessica was distinctively quiet, staring at the paper between Yoona’s fingers. Yoona breathed a sigh of relief when the older woman gingerly took the paper and unfolded it, reading the words hastily scribbled across them.
She only looked up when she heard sniffling, witnessing the way Jessica’s eyes had reddened but no tear had dropped. She clenched her jaw, wondered whether she should push Jessica to talk about it or let her pretend to be as strong as she wanted to show the outside world.
“What – what is it?” she couldn’t help asking, given that she didn’t try to peek at it the whole time she had it.
Jessica licked her lips and cleared her throat, folding the paper back together again. Yoona didn’t miss the way she had carefully folded it according to its creases, as if it was the most precious thing in the world.
“Lyrics. Just lyrics,” Jessica whispered.
There were still ignored texts and emails sitting in Yoona’s phone, all asking the same question that she had no answer to. Or was forbidden from answering. Or was under contractual obligation to lie to if she felt the need to respond.
Was Jessica booted out of Girls’ Generation?
Yoona didn’t reply, because even she couldn’t land on a definite answer itself. She spun the explanations that Sooyoung and Tiffany had offered her while Taeyeon had remained firmly silent. She had witnessed the way the company had treated Jessica. She didn’t know the answer, so she didn’t reply to any of the texts and emails.
Still, now, as she was watching the way her favorite older sister was holding back tears and acting like everything was fine, she had to wonder when Taeyeon would stop hurting Jessica. Part of her wanted Jessica to simply forget about everything, maybe even Yoona herself, if only so she could actually live her life without past attachments, without carrying that look on her face again.
- Yuri
It had taken a pair of shoes, a ticket to the movies, and a promise on her great-grandfather’s grave for Soojung to relinquish the contact. The whole thing was worth it, even though Soojung had afterwards mentioned that Jessica didn’t actually put a gag order on her new number.
She knew that Yoona had beat her to the chase by months, but Yuri was, perhaps, a little less brave. A little more afraid. A hell of a lot guilty for the part she played in the whole fiasco that almost sank Girls’ Generation. Or the part she didn’t play, like shaking sense into Taeyeon before she tilted the lives of nine girls upside down.
The first thing she had texted Jessica was an apology. Three paragraphs. Littered with grammatical errors because Yuri’s fingers had been trembling and Tiffany wasn’t there to fact check. Tiffany hadn’t even been aware that Yuri was reestablishing contact with Jessica until almost a year in.
Eventually, Tiffany found out, and that meant Taeyeon would find out as well, because the two of them kept no secrets, even though Yuri was the one dating her. Actually, Yuri wasn’t even sure what they were at this point – the taller woman had been reasonably mad at the part Tiffany played in the whole thing, and they hadn’t properly sat down to talk things through after that time Yuri slammed the door on her.
“Can you do me a favor?” Taeyeon asked one night, on a rare night that they were both at the dorm, too tired to make it back to their respective homes.
“Sure,” Yuri replied, because more than a year had passed, and they were still Girls’ Generation – incomplete, but still.
Taeyeon brandished a slip of paper from the back pocket of her jeans and sat down next to her on the couch, leaving it dangling between her fingers as they relaxed in the quiet living room. “Give this to –” Taeyeon cut herself off, her breath stuttering. She swallowed audibly and seemed to take a moment before flashing Yuri a pleading expression. “Give this to her, please.”
Many may have said that Yuri wasn’t the smartest person in the group. She was the silliest, getting up to the most ridiculous antics for comedic effect, whether on or off camera. Whatever. It was her silliness that convinced Tiffany to kiss her in the first place.
But she wasn’t exactly that stupid. Not when it came to things that really mattered. And she could tell this mattered. She could tell that Taeyeon had something important to say, only not knowing how to say it.
Despite the time that had passed, there remained some sense of resentment within Yuri towards the leader. Sure, she loved her – she loved all the girls – but Jessica had been one of her closest friends, and this woman had practically ripped her way, regardless of the fact that Taeyeon was inarguably the one who had loved Jessica the most.
It was that look in Taeyeon’s eyes – pitiful and sad, ever present after September 2014 – that convinced Yuri to just take the paper and nod in acquiescence. Taeyeon had sighed in relief and retreated to the bedroom she used to share with Yoona and Sooyoung.
“She’s trying,” Tiffany said when Yuri had called her later that night.
“She could try harder,” Yuri snapped.
That conversation descended into another bout of whispered argument before Yuri couldn’t take it anymore and hung up.
Coincidentally, Jessica asked whether she wanted to have lunch the next day. And Yuri would never say no to Jessica unless necessary. At this rate, Yuri felt like she would do anything for Jessica, if only to alleviate the guilt that had been anvil in her chest for the past year and more.
They met in an isolated restaurant a couple miles away from the city center, because Jessica valued her privacy more than anyone else within the group – then again, she wasn’t in the group anymore.
The thought still hurt Yuri, like a needle that would never leave unless time could be turned back again, but more than a year had already passed.
Their conversations revolved around just about anything – from their love lives to their careers – but the two of them steered away from the one big elephant that had only grown and grown in the past year.
Yuri would love to talk about it, but it had been the one request Jessica had made when they finally reconnected. To not talk about that big eight-person elephant. And it had been hard enough to wrangle Jessica’s new contact information from Soojung, so Yuri wasn’t going to risk it.
“Are you okay?” Jessica finally asked.
The younger woman hesitated for a bit. A long while, actually, as she sipped and sipped on her coffee, pondering on the argument with Tiffany last night and that fucking look on Taeyeon’s face when she had given her the paper.
Oh, screw it.
Yuri quickly but surely shoved the paper in Jessica’s direction. Practically letting it float in the air before it landed next to Jessica’s dish.
“Um, Taeyeon gave this to me last night. Wanted you to have it,” Yuri murmured, eyeing the paper as if it was poison.
Jessica wasn’t exactly surprised. At least, she didn’t seem like it. Her expression was the epitome of her nickname – icy and enigmatic – as she stared at the paper as well. Gradually, she picked it up and read whatever was written on it.
Suddenly, it came to Yuri.
This whole thing had felt familiar – not a first-person experience kind of familiar, but like she had heard it somewhere before. She recalled Yoona telling her about this. About Taeyeon and a paper and an inability to speak Jessica’s name. And she cursed the leader for being a fucking coward.
- Sunny
“Sunny-seonbaenim.”
“That’s – oh, Soojung-ah.”
A flash of uncertainty and discomfort flashed across Krystal’s face at the affectionate name. It was well known throughout the world that the name was only reserved for people closest to Soojung, like Jessica and her parents and her groupmates and – well, once upon a time – the girls from Girls’ Generation.
And yet now, Krystal wasn’t comfortable with Sunny calling her that. And yet now, Sunny was a senior, rather than a sister.
Sunny would be lying if she said she wasn’t hurt by the subtle demotion. Still, she had to respect this woman. This woman she had practically watched grow from a girl, only because her sister used to be Sunny’s closest friend until she pretty much disappeared from the face of the earth.
“Sorry, Krystal,” Sunny corrected, forcing a smile across her lips. “What can I help you with?”
The younger woman hesitated, playing with the soles of her feet as she pondered. Sunny was patient as she stood at the door of the practice room, because if she couldn’t talk to Jessica anymore, the least she could do was be patient with Jessica’s sister.
Finally, Krystal sighed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling momentarily before meeting Sunny’s eyes again. “Thank you. For what you said on radio last week,” she said weakly.
Sunny’s eyes widened. She would have thought that Jessica and Krystal would avoid all things related to Girls’ Generation after that horrible night. She hummed in appreciation and smiled wider.
“I suppose – well, if you want to talk to unnie –”
“I do,” Sunny quickly interjected, not even bothering to mask her desperation – she had been trying to get in touch with Jessica for eons, but it also wouldn’t be fair to ask Yoona or Yuri about it. “I do,” she repeated softly.
“Okay.”
And that was how she managed to get Jessica’s new contact. She could only snort when Jessica had answered her call with a blithe about time, because of course Krystal would snitch right after. No one could break the Jung sisters apart.
They started with drinks – alcoholic ones, because they used to be buddies like that – because Sunny and Jessica were well aware of the fact that this conversation needed more than sobriety and sense. Drinks improved to coffee. Then lunch. Then dinner. Then all of them together.
Sunny apologized and received a pair of off-label sunglasses in return. She bought Jessica her favorite white wine from Italy and got a pair of jeans in return. It was Jessica’s way of showing forgiveness – gifting clothes.
No one knew that she had reestablished contact with Jessica, not even Sooyoung. She kept it close to her chest with occasional texts and subtle drinks in discreet locations. It felt…safe to keep it to herself. Jessica Jung was a whole ticking time bomb that she wasn’t ready to ignite within the group yet.
However, no matter how much she tried to hide it, Taeyeon somehow found out that Sunny was talking to Jessica again. And she pulled the same shit she did with Yoona and Yuri. If it wasn’t for the fact that Sunny was front-row audience to Taeyeon’s emotional feats after the breakup, she would have crumpled the paper up and thrown it back in the older woman’s face.
“You’re a coward,” Sunny still called her out after pocketing the slip of paper.
Taeyeon smirked. Not in a good way. She shrugged in acquiescence, murmured a thank you, and went back into her room. That was what she did nowadays. Hide in her room. Wallow. Pretend as if she hadn’t been responsible for the lack of stars in Jessica’s beautiful eyes.
She didn’t know if Yoona and Yuri ever tried to find out the contents of the papers Taeyeon had given them, but Sunny was self-admittedly a nosy bitch and she needed to know what the hell was so important that Taeyeon would emerge from her hermit shell to complete.
The light I saw in my dream that contained heaven, I try drawing you.
Sunny gave Jessica the paper the next time she saw her at a bar that Hyoyeon DJ-ed, and she certainly didn’t miss the way Jessica’s eyes had lit up for just a fraction of a moment under the disco light before it went back down. She didn’t think much of it. The two of them were always so unnecessarily complicated.
The next month though, Taeyeon released a song – Drawing Our Moments – and she decided that yes, Taeyeon was a coward indeed.
- Seohyun
Here was how the maknae of Girls’ Generation got back in touch with the woman who used to iron her school uniforms and jot down precise notes on her English homework: she barged right into it.
She wasn’t even ashamed to admit it, even though this was not something that someone of Seohyun’s repute would ever do. But it had been more than a year since Jessica had chosen to drag her luggage out of the dorm and practically disappear from the face of the earth, and Seohyun missed her.
She missed the way Jessica would aggressively pull her head down into the crook of her neck and croon into her ears about what a smart girl she was. She missed the way there were always sweet potatoes in the kitchen without her having to add it to the shopping list. She missed the way Jessica would call for her if there was a thunderstorm and Taeyeon wasn’t around. She missed the way Jessica wouldn’t tease her for wanting a healthy life.
And so, after 20 months of failing to wrangle Jessica’s new number from Yoona, Yuri, and Soojung, Seohyun decided to be the most drastic version of herself and forced her way into Yoona’s car. Yoona had protested for a short while before relenting, because they were the closest among all the girls and Seohyun used to dream about this woman.
“There are ground rules,” Yoona had said as they made their way to wherever she was going to meet Jessica. “Nothing about September 2014.”
Even after almost two years of that fateful event, Seohyun could still feel her heart clenching. She nodded in acquiescence, playing with her fingers as the nervousness grew at the idea of finally seeing Jessica again.
“And nothing about Taeyeon-unnie,” Yoona added, clenching her jaw – Seohyun knew that the older woman had never really forgiven their leader.
“Okay.”
The rest of the drive was quiet. Secretive as they pulled on masks and baseball caps and heavy coats that would hide their hair once they reached a villa in a discreet housing area in Gangnam. Yoona eyed Seohyun carefully, a bit warily, and though the younger woman was slightly guilty, she still wasn’t going to leave now that they were here.
Before they could even ring the doorbell, the gates clanked open. So loudly that Seohyun yelped and Yoona jumped with a hand to her chest. And there she was: Jessica Jung standing at the front door, leaning against the panel with a teasing smile on her face, arms crossed.
“I was wondering when it would be your turn,” Jessica said, tilting her head.
Seohyun wasn’t ashamed at the way she practically sprinted towards the older sister she had let slip through her fingers and engulf her in a bear hug that would beat all other bear hugs. Jessica let out a noise of surprise at being lifted off the ground, but she wrapped her arms around Seohyun all the same.
And then it all just went from there. Seohyun graduated from tailing Yoona to inviting Jessica out independently. They didn’t talk about the two timebombs that Yoona had set that night. Jessica gave lessons on Seohyun’s English pronunciation. Seohyun bought healthy supplies for Jessica’s negligent pantry.
Everything was smooth sailing if they took certain things out of the equation, and Seohyun was content with the way things were.
Until one day, when Girls’ Generation was backstage before an appearance on a variety show, and Taeyeon shuffled over to her with a sheepish look on her face. Yeah, Yuri and Yoona had warned her about this – and Seohyun wished she wasn’t here for this.
“Unnie,” Seohyun warned.
“Please,” Taeyeon pleaded softly.
The maknae had listened to all of Taeyeon’s songs – all the A-sides and B-sides and everything else. She had never asked for confirmation, but she was about 80% certain that most of the songs were about the one woman that they never talked about as a whole, especially not with Taeyeon.
It was that – the pain in Taeyeon’s voice whenever she put notes to those words – and this – the look in Taeyeon’s eyes as she pleaded Seohyun – that caused the relenting. The acceptance of the flimsy paper that seemed to be the only point of communication between Taeyeon and Jessica. The sigh that escaped Seohyun’s lips and the words swallowed back.
“I wish you all would stop walking on eggshells around me,” Jessica pointed out a month later, when there was finally some free time in their individual schedules to spend with each other. “Give it to me.”
“What?” Seohyun said, blinking.
Jessica sighed, smacked Seohyun’s hand away when she tried to reach for the wine bottle, and wiggled her fingers that the younger woman. “The paper. Whatever Tae – she gave you that got you so nervous.” She smacked Seohyun’s hand again when she tried to reach the wine again. “You’re not drinking this. There’s orange juice in the fridge.”
“Unnie, I’m not a child anymore!” Seohyun whined, kicking her feet at the carpet to prove her point.
“I ironed your uniforms. You will not be getting wine from me. Now give it.”
Nothing about Taeyeon-unnie, Yoona’s voice echoed sternly in Seohyun’s head. But this didn’t count, right? Since Jessica was the one who brought her up first.
So Seohyun gave it to her, and failed at getting the wine for the third time. She didn’t fail at noticing the way Jessica’s lips twitched after she read whatever was written on the paper though.
- Tiffany
Playing that song before her concert was a last resort, after the girls had vehemently refused to succumb to her pleas. Even Yuri didn’t budge, her eyes stern enough to deliver the veracity of the situation.
Those eyes screamed that even though Yuri and Tiffany were not-dating – well, whatever they were supposed to be after the breakdown of their relationship in the months that followed the debacle that nearly broke the group – Jessica was an entity that Yuri would protect, regardless of her feelings for Tiffany.
And the latter wouldn’t lie: it hurt, the lengths that the girls would go to, to ensure that they couldn’t hurt Jessica any more than they already had. Especially from Yuri.
Call me before you fall asleep, let’s talk all night, Jessica’s voice crooned.
The news started circulating on social media that night, and SM couldn’t do anything about it anymore. She ignored all the texts from former SM colleagues and her manager and her current company. She needed to do something. It had been five years.
And then the next day, after dinner, there was a text on her phone. From Krystal.
Soojungieeee (8:09 p.m.): Seonbaenim, this is Krystal Jung.
Soojungieeee (8:09 p.m.): Unnie wanted you to have this. [contact]
She hadn’t even realized exactly how anxious she had been until that text popped up, and that sigh of relief permeated the room like a stench. It also stung – how formal Krystal had been, but that was a story for another day.
For now, she didn’t even hesitate to save the new number and call it. She didn’t know where Jessica was. She didn’t know whether the phone bill would rack up madly because of the distance. She didn’t know anything – she just wanted to hear Jessica’s voice.
“That was brave,” was the first thing Jessica said after the call was picked up after five agonizing rings.
And Tiffany could cry at finally hearing Jessica’s voice, even if it was through the phone. At least she wasn’t secretly catching up on the woman’s activitie through social media postings and shaky YouTube videos. At least they were here, taking the first step.
“Bribing Yuri with sex didn’t work,” Tiffany piped up, and she had no idea why she said that.
Jessica chuckled. Low and short. Polite. All the things the two of them should never be. “If only sex can solve everything,” she replied, a hint of wistfulness in her voice, and Tiffany would have been grossed out if not for the overwhelming relief in her chest.
“Can we meet? Over tea? Or coffee? Or lots and lots of red wine. I know a bar in Maiden Lane.”
“I introduced you to that bar,” Jessica scoffed. “How’d you know I’m in San Fran?”
“I took a guess.”
“Aren’t you in Chicago?”
“I can catch a red-eye.”
There were more back-and-forths that almost deluded Tiffany into thinking that everything was normal and nothing was wrong. Except that she still had to pack and book a red flight and she couldn’t even do the thing where she used to hunt Jessica down in their dorm.
That night, she found herself sitting in the bar, and Jessica walked in 10 minutes later. And she looked prettier, if that was even possible for someone like Jessica Jung, who exuded grace and catlike elegance wherever she went.
There was a time when Tiffany thought she was in love with Jessica. There was also a time when Tiffany thought she was in love with Taeyeon.
Well, who could blame her?
These two women were pretty much her support pillars back when she was a little lamb in a zoo who barely had a grasp on the local language. They were the ones who translated things for her and ordered food for her and made sure she didn’t feel left out. And it didn’t hurt that Jessica and Taeyeon were effortlessly beautiful.
So yes, Tiffany once thought she was in love with Jessica and Taeyeon – at different times, of course – until she actually fell in love with Kwon Yuri, and everything just became clearer.
She couldn’t be in love with either of them because there simply wasn’t space for anyone else between the hailstorm of Jessica Jung and Kim Taeyeon. They both circulated in each other’s orbits and allowed no one else’s interjections.
“I should warn you,” Jessica said after a long three hours of quiet arguments and hissed defenses and nearly pouring red wine over each other’s heads. They were now standing outside, ready to return to their separate lives, except for the fact that they would now be on the way to repairing their friendship as well. “She’ll probably ask you to give me something now that we’re back in touch.”
Jessica didn’t need to say the name for Tiffany to know who she was talking about. “She doesn’t have to know we’re back in touch,” Tiffany said, tilting her head.
The other woman snorted, shoving her hands deeper into her coat pockets. “She’ll know. Somehow. She always does,” she added in a whisper, pained and ironic.
Tiffany remembered a conversation a few years ago. A heated conversation with Yuri while she was in California and Yuri was in Seoul and it revolved around a paper or something. She licked her lips, finding her loyalties tearing in two different directions.
Now, she understood the protectiveness Yuri and the other girls had for Jessica. But she was also the one who saw the way Taeyeon became lesser and lesser after that fateful night.
“Do you want it?”
“Sure. She’s a coward, anyway,” Jessica said with a sigh.
They hugged each other goodbyes. Tiffany whispered another heartfelt apology into her ear. And she went back on her tour while Jessica went off doing business things.
Whenever they were in the same city, which was rare but still happened, Tiffany always made it a point to invite Jessica for drinks or a meal or something or other. She wanted to see for herself that Jessica was doing okay without the filter of her friends who were braver than her.
She never told Taeyeon, but Jessica was right – she always was – in that Taeyeon found out anyway. So one day, when Taeyeon ended up in New York and Tiffany went for a visit, there was a paper on the coffee table in her hotel room once they bade their farewells. And Tiffany could only scoff and join Yuri in cursing her cowardice, not that she was much better herself.
“I told you,” Jessica said with a pained chuckle the next time they saw each other, taking the paper.
“She’s writing songs about you, isn’t she?” Tiffany found herself having to ask, having noticed the patterns in Taeyeon’s lyrics.
“I’d rather she talks to me.”
That was probably the realest thing Jessica had said about Taeyeon since their split, if you even call that a split. They were barely anything before they actually became nothing.
- Sooyoung
“I stole this.”
“What – Jesus Christ, Choi Sooyoung.”
“The lord’s name in vain? Expected better from you, Jessica.”
This was definitely the most unexpected surprise, the two of them running each other on Jeju Island, of all places in the whole wide world.
Sooyoung was here for a short vacation with Kyungho before the filming of her new drama. Her boyfriend was at one of those quirky shops looking for gifts for his family, and she was out here, breathing in the salty air by the beach. And Jessica was just a few steps away, picking up seashells.
There was an awkward moment beyond the awkward quips – of course there was, with the monumental role Sooyoung had played in Jessica’s departure and the last words they had spoken with one another before Jessica dragged her suitcase out of the dorm.
“You – you look good,” Sooyoung offered after she had let the slip of paper hang in the air for too long and Jessica made no move to take it.
Jessica squinted – she looked a little older, a little sadder, but still the very same woman who had taken Sooyoung under her wing when she joined as a trainee. “Are you stuttering?”
“I – well – it’s –”
“Oh my god, Choi Sooyoung is stuttering.”
“Yah!” Sooyoung exclaimed, allowing that brash self to surface at Jessica’s prodding, as the two of them were prone to do.
Jessica sobered up after a quick moment, pocketing the seashells she had picked up earlier. She looked around, seemingly in search of someone, only to wave at a distance behind her. When the woman in the distance looked up, Sooyoung’s heart stammered ever so slightly.
She could never forget the way Krystal had shouldered her so hard in the hallway after the whole fiasco that she had a bruise that lasted for days. Hyoyeon had laughed in her face and told her she deserved it. Sunny rubbed ointment on her begrudgingly.
“Will you say yes if I ask you to get a drink with me?” Sooyoung asked in a rare moment of calmness.
That was how Sooyoung and Jessica ended up at a local bar, hidden away in a corner booth because Jeju people could still recognize them, after she had texted Kyungho about this surprise – pleasant or unpleasant still remained to be seen. Jessica ordered a sangria, while Sooyoung an good old-fashioned soju.
Ordinarily, the taller woman would apologize, but this required more than an apology to smooth over and she knew Jessica well enough to know that an apology didn’t matter in the long run. So they sat there and talked about what had happened in the last six years, asking about things that they hoped wouldn’t trigger a bout of hissing fit.
“Will you give me your new number if I ask for it?” Sooyoung asked again after her third bottle of soju, well on her way to shitfaced drunk.
That was how Sooyoung ended up deleting Jessica’s old contact number, replacing it with the one she had never been brave enough to ask for from the girls. Definitely not from Jessica’s sister who had caused bodily harm to her so easily.
It was easy for Jessica to give. They only had to ask for it. Gifts. Numbers. Drinks. Forgiveness.
Sooyoung didn’t know why she had forgotten about that part amidst their long friendship before she, Tiffany, and Taeyeon had practically detonated a C4 amidst their dynamics.
“What did you steal?” Jessica asked after her fifth glass of sangria, cheeks flushed but nowhere near drunk.
“Oh, that.” Sooyoung fished out the paper she had wanted to hand Jessica earlier. “I don’t know why I stole it, but I saw it on the coffee table that one time. And I knew it was for you, so I stole it.”
“Secret klepto,” Jessica chastised as she took the paper.
Before this sudden meeting, this easy conversation, she had heard all about it – the paper and the pleading and the cowardice – from the rest of the girls, except Hyoyeon. She was also witness to the obsessive way Taeyeon could get about writing on random pieces of paper whenever inspiration hit.
This one contained words that she could still remember: You told me to dream good dreams now; I don’t wanna fall asleep without you.
A few months later, as one of the rare get-togethers simmered down and Yoona and Seohyun had already gone home, their leader shuffled over to Sooyoung, her hands obviously fisting over something small. Something flimsy. Something that would definitely become unreadable from her sweaty palms.
“Don’t bother,” Sooyoung dissuaded. “I already gave her one of those.”
Taeyeon blinked. Blinked. And blinked again.
“Galaxy, right?” the taller woman said with a sincere smile. “It’s one of my favorites.”
She would be the last person to call Taeyeon a coward. After all, she wouldn’t have reconnected with Jessica after six damn years had it not been for the accidental meeting on Jeju Island. But she would help here. She would help in whatever small way she could.
- Hyoyeon
Regardless of what the girls liked to think, Hyoyeon was actually the first to reestablish contact with Jessica. Actually, she had never broken contact with Jessica in the first place.
There were certain privileges that came with being the longest companions for each other in a single company. From adolescence to adulthood.
She had watched Jessica lose some teeth and grew her teeth back. Jessica had watched her give up in the bathroom and pulled her back onto her feet. Practically platonic soulmates.
And one of those privileges was pretty much being the only one that Krystal didn’t greet with disdain. Another was directly texting her with a new number rather than making her beg for it from Krystal like Yuri and Yoona did.
The first thing she had wanted to do when Krystal gave her Jessica’s new number was to dangle it in front of Taeyeon’s face like she would a bone to a dog. Because she was petty and Taeyeon had broken her promise to never hurt Jessica and Hyoyeon didn’t want to go to jail for murder. Not just yet.
She did get into a pretty horrible fight with Sooyoung after that Shenzhen fan-meet, involving hair pulling and hand biting and a whole host of curse words that surprised even Hyoyeon herself. Their manager had to break them up, given that the rest of the girls were still too shocked to broker peace themselves.
“I’m surprised that she didn’t approach you,” Jessica pointed out when they somehow managed to be in Seoul at the same time.
“Probably because I almost took Sooyoung’s teeth out that one time,” Hyoyeon replied blithely, smirking at the memory. “So, lyrics, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s writing songs about you.”
“And actually releasing them.”
Hyoyeon hummed slowly, swirling the wine glass in her hand even though there was no wine left in it anymore.
Taeyeon writing songs wasn’t surprising; Taeyeon writing songs about Jessica wasn’t surprising either. Ever since she knew Taeyeon, the woman almost always had a pen and a notebook stashed away somewhere – in her bag, back pocket, the back of a plane or bus seat – and she often scribbled in them.
But she never really showed those lyrics to anyone, as if they were prized words that would burn if a stray pair of eyes landed on them. Well, anyone but Jessica Jung. The woman in front of her was the only one privileged enough.
And now, apparently, Taeyeon was putting those lyrics to notes and composition for the whole wide world to hear. The nation’s voice singing about the one that got away on public stages and the like.
“I’ll judge you if you forgive her,” Hyoyeon said, earning a playful glare from Jessica. “But I’ll also understand. I judge everyone anyway,” she added, because she did.
She had been Jessica’s roommate for so long. She saw the tears. She heard the sobs. She listened to the little declarations of love that didn’t really contain that word when it had been just the two of them.
“Will you?”
“I’ve forgiven her a long time ago.”
Hyoyeon sighed and didn’t say anything else. At the end of the night, Jessica rose from the couch, ready to leave as she had a flight to Paris the next morning and she had yet to pack – the woman tended to go overboard with her packing.
Before she left, they hugged one another, Jessica whispering a request into her ear that had Hyoyeon sighing again.
There was a dinner thing at the SM office building in the following month, and Taeyeon was sitting in a corner cooing at Zero. Hyoyeon had no idea what the dinner was for, but she wouldn’t say no to free food.
“How is she?” Taeyeon asked after they’d put their dogs in the play area and went to the stairwell for a cigarette break.
Hyoyeon sucked in a puff. “You’d never asked before.” It had been six years since the explosion, and Taeyeon had never asked. All she did was give out papers like fucking Christmas or something.
The leader sighed. “You don’t have to tell me.” She reached into her back pocket, and Hyoyeon resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Can you –”
“No.”
Taeyeon paused. “Hyo –”
“I won’t be your little messenger. I won’t participate in whatever this game is that you two are playing,” Hyoyeon snapped, allowing the resentment to release ever so slightly.
“It’s not a game.”
“If you want to talk to her, if you have things to tell her, do. It. Yourself.” Hyoyeon took a deep breath, snuffed out the cigarette, and took out another stick from her pack. “The girls aren’t – we are not conduits. We cannot solve your problems for you. Sure, you’re writing songs about her and you’re singing about her, but what the fuck is that gonna do?”
Taeyeon was quiet. Taeyeon was always quiet. And Hyoyeon wished – she just wished that the woman would stop being so quiet and go after what she wanted.
She fished out her phone and tapped on it a few times. Moments later, the other woman’s phone chimed. When she took a look at it, she turned to Hyoyeon with wide eyes and open mouth. Her hand trembled slightly, but her hold around the phone was tight.
“Grow a pair and call her. Text her. I don’t know. Something.” The next several minutes were spent in silence as they finished their cigarettes. She pushed off the wall once that was done and faced the leader. “Kim Taeyeon, you are the best leader anyone can ask for, and I love you. I do. But if you hurt her again, I swear –”
“You’ll rain hell on me, I know.”
“I mean it this time.”
“Okay,” Taeyeon whispered, staring at her phone like it was a treasure she’d just discovered in the mines. “I – thank you.”
“Don’t fuck it up.”
“I won’t.”
- Taeyeon
“I love you.”
That was most definitely not the first thing she should say to a woman she was definitely in love with but definitely hadn’t talked to or seen in the last six years. The woman she had missed with all that was in her. The woman that was always pushing her in the back of her mind whenever she had important decisions to make.
But the call was picked up after five long, unending rings. Taeyeon had spent two days mulling over the number that Hyoyeon had relinquished to her, and it took two little glasses of soju to finally press on it.
And here she was. Confessing her love to the woman she hadn’t seen in six years.
“Taeyeon-ah,” Jessica said helplessly after a breathless chuckle.
The woman in question squeezed her eyes shut at the voice, a single tear slipping out the edge of her eye. That voice. Her name. Match made.
“I’m sorry,” she forced out and cleared her throat to force the clog down. “I miss you. Is that better?” Without waiting for an answer, she pushed on, “I – can I see you?
“It’s late.”
“Right. I just – sorry,” she mumbled, playing a stray string from the comforter.
Jessica sighed over the phone. Taeyeon could picture the look on her face, a reluctant smile and those beautiful eyes looking out the window. Taeyeon couldn’t count the number of times she had dreamed of those eyes.
The last time they had seen each other, Jessica’s eyes were red with tears that had long dried and Taeyeon wanted to escape to her room because she was scared that she would relent if she had looked at that face any longer.
She loved Jessica and she was terrified of Jessica. And they could coexist. It was a lesson learned far too late, but she knew that they could coexist for as long as Jessica would look at her again without hatred in her eyes.
“I’ll send you my address,” Jessica mumbled.
“Oh,” Taeyeon exclaimed, sitting upright. “I thought – I thought –”
“You wanna meet or not?”
“I do! I do,” Taeyeon added with forced calmness.
“Okay.”
There was a text. An address. Her picking up the keys and rushing to her car, not even bothering to kiss Zero on the head on the way. A 20-minute drive that felt like it went on for hours as she resisted the urge to honk cars in front of her because could they not see that she was trying to grovel to the love of her life?
And finally, 20 minutes later, she reached a villa in Gangnam and the gate was open and there she was. Jessica. Standing at the gate, phone limp in her hand, illuminated only by the streetlamps and nothing else. And she looked –
“You’re beautiful,” Taeyeon exclaimed, hands limp by her side as she stared at the woman. “You’re so beautiful.”
Jessica was quiet, seemingly stunned by Taeyeon’s proclamation. Then a slow smile spread across her lips, thin and glossy and so kissable. The older woman stood there, not knowing what she could actually do, as Jessica slowly cut across the short distance between the two of them.
That smell. Lavender and something distinctively Jessica. They slept in one bed once, and that smell was imprinted in her memory. But no memories could ever compare to the real thing. How could they?
“Fine is my favorite,” Jessica said, looking up at Taeyeon only so slightly as she was in sandals and Taeyeon had boots on.
“What?”
“Fine. Your song. That’s my favorite.”
“Oh.” That had been Yuri’s turn. There had been so many turns, but she remembered each one of them. “I hope I can write something happy after.”
Jessica hummed, and it was sexy – Taeyeon was well aware of the inappropriateness of the situation. “All I want is for you to be happy,” Jessica confessed. “Even after – after you broke my heart, after you left me hanging with no explanation whatsoever, I still – I keep wishing that Kim Taeyeon would be healthy. And happy.”
“Sooyeon-ah.” Jessica lifted her head, a different shine in her eyes, as if she’d been waiting forever for Taeyeon to speak her name like that again. Gingerly, the older woman lifted her hand and brushed away a strand of stray hair from the woman’s face, absorbing the silkiness of skin into her pores. “I’m sorry.”
It took a moment for Jessica to comprehend what Taeyeon was apologizing for. Not just the abrupt confession over the phone earlier. Not just the lateness of this request to meet.
But for everything else. Keeping Jessica in the dark while Taeyeon did everything to set her free from the clutches of SM. Making sure Jessica was out completely with no attachments at all by being as heartless as she possibly could. Ensuring that there was a future dictated only by Jessica herself and no one else. All of that, without telling Jessica at all.
“Okay,” Jessica whispered, her voice cracking. “Just –” She inhaled sharply, blinking away the wetness in her eyes. “If you –”
“I won’t.”
“You promised that before.”
“I swear.” Jessica still looked uncertain, doubtful, and who could blame her. “Sooyeon, I should have told you. I should have told you from the very beginning.”
“Yeah, you should have.”
“I’m sorry. And I’m in love with you. And I would rather hurt myself before I hurt you. Again,” Taeyeon said quickly, like she was afraid that Jessica wouldn’t give her the chance to say these things she had wanted to say for six fucking years. “You, Jung Sooyeon, are the love of my whole useless life. And all I want is to be healthy and happy with you.”
“Your life is not useless,” Jessica asserted. “I don’t want to hear you say that about yourself again.”
“Okay,” Taeyeon relented easily, smiling genuinely for the first time in a long time. She leaned in a little and placed her lips gently on Jessica’s right eyebrow. “I love you.” Left eyebrow. “I love you.” Right cheek. “I love you.” Left cheek. “I love you.” Nose bridge. “I love you.” Nose tip. “I love you.” She hovered over Jessica’s lips, not really touching. “I love you,” she breathed.
Before she knew it, Jessica had her hands fisted over Taeyeon’s sweater and pulled her down for an actual kiss. And Taeyeon sank into the kiss like it was the only well of water in a drought. She kissed and kissed, licking away the lip gloss and tasting blueberry in the wake.
When they drew back, Taeyeon had her hands wrapped around Jessica’s waist and Jessica had her arms around Taeyeon’s neck. They were standing in quaint quietness, crickets singing around them, and Taeyeon prayed to whatever god there was that the paparazzi wasn’t here.
Not that she was ashamed of this. She could never be ashamed of any of this. She just wanted some semblance of quiet, some time to enjoy this. To let this sink in.
“This doesn’t mean that everything is okay,” Jessica murmured, panting into Taeyeon’s neck.
“Of course.”
“You have a lot of making up to do.”
“Of course.”
“I love you too.”
Taeyeon allowed herself to grin like a child on Christmas. She tightened her hold around Jessica’s waist. Over the woman’s shoulder, she could see Krystal standing in the doorway, a warning look in her eyes as she glared at Taeyeon.
She nodded in acknowledgement before burying her nose into Jessica’s hair.
“Of course.”