A/N: For Jenn, who's suffering from a severe bout of the terrible ailment known as Finals. (I am too 😭) Apparently I have a major thing for TaengSic phone calls. You keep asking after sad phone call fic, and hey, here's a sad (and then fluffy) phone call fic!

Taeyeon doesn’t know why she picks up another call, when just the sound of her ringtone brings on a round of goosebumps, like a twisted Pavlovian reaction. Maybe because she just wants it to stop. At this point, she doesn’t even know if ‘it’ is just the calls anymore.

“Please stop calling me,” she practically begs.

Silence greets her.

“I didn’t know it would lead to this. I wouldn’t have done it if I knew. It’s been every three minutes. I just want some rest. Please stop calling me.”

“I’m…sorry?” The voice is soft, delicate, at once familiar and unexpected. “I shouldn’t have called you at this time. I just… Sorry. I’ll hang up.”

“No!” Taeyeon blurts out. “Don’t.”

Don’t hang up. Don’t leave. Don’t leave me. Don’t don’t don’t.

“Taeyeon.” Jessica’s voice is pained. “Taeyeon, I’m not going to leave you.”

She realizes then that she’s been saying the words out loud: don’t leave me don’t leave me don’tleaveme, like a litany, a mantra. She bites down harshly on her lip like she can seal that way.

How can you leave me when you’re not even with me?

“Taeyeon.” Jessica is silent for a moment. “Do you want to hear a joke?”

That startles a laugh from Taeyeon. “A joke?”

“Yeah, see, I’m so funny I haven’t even said it and you’re already laughing.”

Taeyeon laughs again, the sound surprising herself.

“Actually, I read this pick-up line the other day and it reminded me of you.” She can picture the way Jessica’s scrunching up her nose, what she always does at Taeyeon’s jokes, like she’s utterly unamused, but the sparkle in her eyes would always betray her.

“Why are you reading pick-up lines?” Taeyeon asks. “You trying to pick someone up?”

“The last person I picked up was a five-year-old.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you liked them so young.”

“Yah, Kim Taeyeon—” That elicits Taeyeon’s third laugh of the call. She’s laughed more during this phone call than she has in days. “Just because you look like a twelve-year-old with that haircut doesn’t mean I’m a e.”

“I don’t look like a twelve-year-old,” Taeyeon protests.

“Fine, you look thirteen. Better?”

“You do realize that still makes you a e, right?”

“Yah, Kim Taeyeon!”

This time, Taeyeon’s laughter is not surprising to herself but feels natural and right, almost cleansing.

“I don’t even know why I was going to tell you a pick-up line,” Jessica mutters. “Half the things that leave your mouth are innuendos.”

“You like my mouth.”

“I do,” Jessica says after a pause. “I like it when you use it to talk, and sing, and laugh.”

That’s it? Taeyeon is about to ask, but she feels like Jessica hasn’t finished her sentence yet so she waits.

“Especially laugh. I haven’t heard you laugh in a long time.” Jessica’s voice is quiet, sad. “I like it when you laugh.”

Taeyeon’s throat is tight. “Jessica.”

“Oh, I didn’t get to tell you the pick-up line! Listen up, okay? It’s so embarrassing there’s no way I can say it twice.”

“I’m listening to you,” Taeyeon promises. She couldn’t have listened any harder if she had super hearing.

“Did you clean your pants—” And suddenly Jessica bursts out laughing, the kind of laughter that makes her practically fall over with the force of it. If Taeyeon were beside her, Jessica probably would have fallen onto her, and Taeyeon would have caught her, steadied her with an arm around her shoulders, held her. If Taeyeon were beside her… If only.

“Did I clean my pants?” Taeyeon repeats. “I’m not wearing pants right now.”

“You—” Jessica cuts off abruptly. “I’m the one trying to tell the pick-up line here, Taengoo.” Her voice gets whiny, adorably so, and the nickname makes something inside Taeyeon lift and then sink.

“I’m not trying to—I’m wearing shorts.”

“Well, the line works better with pants so just pretend you’re wearing pants.”

“I do that between us, right?”

“Yeah, keep dreaming,” Jessica says, and Taeyeon grins. “Okay, are you pretending you’re wearing pants?”

“Yes, I’m pretending that my shorts just grew all the way to my ankles.”

“Okay, so.” Jessica clears , like she’s preparing for an important speech. “Did you clean your pants with Windex? I—” She breaks off for a second, and Taeyeon can imagine her trying to hold back her laughter. If Taeyeon were beside her… She cuts off on that track of thought quickly. “Icanpracticallyseemyselfinthem.”

Taeyeon is listening very, very hard like she had promised, like she would have even if Jessica hadn’t asked her to, but she still can’t make that out clearly. “You can what?”

“I told you to listen,” Jessica hisses.

“I did listen! You said it so quickly.” Even now, Taeyeon’s brain is still trying to untangle Jessica’s words. “And no, I didn’t clean my imaginary pants with Windex. You know I’m a Tide person.”

Jessica laughs. “Well, I… Give me a minute to come up with a pun for that.”

“Take your time.” The words come out soft, tender.

“Sorry, Taengoo,” Jessica suddenly says, in that cute voice that always accompanies the nickname.

“For what?”

“I wanted to make you laugh with a pick-up line, but I couldn’t even say the line.”

It’s her chest that feels tight this time. “Jessica…”

“I’ll work on it,” Jessica says with resolution. “Practice makes perfect and all that.”

“You don’t need pick-up lines to make me laugh,” Taeyeon says softly. “You – you made me laugh when you just talked about telling a joke, remember?”

“I like it when you laugh,” Jessica repeats. “I like that I can make you laugh.”

“I like—you—laughing too.” Taeyeon coughs. “I mean, I like that I can make you laugh too.”

Jessica chuckles. “Tae.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you clean your pants with Windex? I can practically see myself in them.”

The immediate sound that leaves Taeyeon is more of a snort than anything, and then she’s laughing in earnest, laughing so hard that she’s doubling over and clutching her sides. If Jessica were beside her…

“Sica.”

“Yeah?”

“Please…” Stay on the line. Stay. Stay with me. “I’m going to have to get a new number.”

Jessica makes an acquiescent sound. “You really should as soon as possible.”

“You’re – you’ll…”

“Taeyeon.” Her name leaves Jessica’s lips like half a laugh, half a sigh. “I’m going to call you again. Unless…you want to stay away from phone calls for a while.”

“I don’t want to stay away from you.”

They’re technically already away from each other, but in their own, odd way, they’re also together. Jessica isn’t beside her, but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t with her.

“I wouldn’t let you even if you wanted to.”

“You’re in my pants, right, so I guess we’re both wearing them.”

“Taeyeon.” Jessica’s voice is all laughter this time, and Taeyeon drinks it in, smiling. She had dreaded even thinking about her phone just minutes ago, but now when she thinks about it, she thinks about Jessica, Jessica promising not to leave her, Jessica saying “Taengoo” in the way nobody else ever does, Jessica trying so hard to tell a pick-up line, and her thoughts stay there, at Jessica.

A/N: The line "...and her thoughts stay there, at Jessica" at the end is inspired by the last line of a ship and its uses by saracupcaked.

This wasn't influenced by Super Junior's Don't Leave Me, but after I wrote those 3 words I inevitably thought of it and anyway, I highly recommend it! I hadn't checked out the lyrics before and now that I have-- *clutches chest*

Below is how I originally wrote the "twelve-year-old" scene, but I thought it was too...explicit so I changed it haha. Writing ByunTaeyeon sends my mind even further down the gutter than it already is.

Deleted Scene:

“I don’t look like a twelve-year-old,” Taeyeon protests.

“Fine, you look thirteen. Better?”

“Doesn’t that make you a cougar then?”

“Well, a cougar is a big cat and my fans almost sound like cats,” Jessica says thoughtfully. “And you like cats, right? I mean, I know you have Ginger but—”

“Yeah, I like cats,” Taeyeon says. “You know how much I like pus—”

“Yah, Kim Taeyeon!”