"I'm sorry I'm not what you wanted.”

The statement seems like it's taken the life out of Taeyeon when she finally has the strength to breathe it out. The girl looks smaller right now, more minute than she already is.

Her taxi’s out in front, the driver looking more impatient as he shifts his eyes from his watch to Tiffany through the opened front door. But she gives him little to no attention, having only caught his action through her peripheral vision. Taeyeon is her main focus.

Tears brim at her eyes again, lashes picking up small droplets. The time isn't right, and she hates the situation and reason behind it, but nonetheless, Taeyeon’s eyes still look beautiful to her, behind the unshed tears. They glisten and the warmth is still there, only hidden under the pain and sorrow that is embodying Taeyeon’s being. She hates it. She hates the situation she put them in and she hates it even more because Taeyeon still looks beautiful no matter what the circumstance and Tiffany knows that her time with the most beautiful girl she’ll ever meet and was given the opportunity to fall and be in love with is diminishing and about to vanish from her life. She hates everything, but not as much as she hates herself.

She wants to embrace the small girl, to protect her from the suffering encasing her. But she can't. Even if her fists shake from the urge to just run her fingers through the tousled, blonde hair, to just give in and let her fingertips gently wipe away the tears she has caused, Tiffany instead stands there.

She watches on as Taeyeon stares hard at her. Those beautiful eyes beckoning, no, begging for her to stop what's about to happen. Just to put in that little bit more fight, a little resistance. Because Taeyeon knew as much as Tiffany did that if Tiffany were to grab her hand now, pull her slacken body into a hug, and utter a soft whisper of no would make Taeyeon drop her luggages and not go.

Tiffany knew that's all it took because what she and Taeyeon have was hard to break. What they have words couldn't describe but could only feel. In a thick bubble that confined only the two of them, it held in raw emotions of want, dependence, obsession, lust and heart aching love.

But she couldn't be in that blinding bubble anymore. She had to pop it. She had to leave its comfort. She had to separate herself from the comfort of Taeyeon’s warmth because that's what she knew she had to do. Even if it broke her.

With hesitance that she's never shown to Tiffany, Taeyeon moves in, closing the small space between them. She's soft, Taeyeon’s body. She melts into her front, hands slithering around her waist to gently pull Tiffany into her. The movement makes her hold her breath because Taeyeon’s too close and having her in such proximity is already breaking her shell. Breathing her in would only pull her mask off entirely.

She couldn't handle it. All she wanted to do was return the hold, to just have her in her arms where she was meant to be. To just hold her and know everything is alright in the world again. That this isn’t really happening. But she couldn’t. So when Taeyeon pushes up on the tips of her toes, pressing a soft, lingering kiss on her cheek, Tiffany feels the tears come. What used to bring a smile to her face, and make her heart swell because the gesture was small but meant everything to her was anything but right now.

"Goodbye, Tiffany Hwang.”

Taeyeon doesn't look at her when she leans out, nor when she walks out of the apartment they've shared for the past three years. She's glad the girl didn't because when the door clicks to a close and Taeyeon walks out from the bubble they've created together, that Tiffany’s destroyed, is when she lets her tears fall and agony erupt.

The pain stabs through her heart, regret burning up in . If anything could be the epitome, the walking example, of what Tiffany wants and had ever wanted then that would be everything Taeyeon is.

What they had was too hard to break. When she was with Taeyeon it felt like it was just the two of them against the world. She felt invincible with the girl in her corner. Nothing could hurt her. Nothing could destroy what they had.

To spare Taeyeon, Tiffany had to break herself.

To spare Taeyeon, Tiffany had to burst their bubble.

To spare Taeyeon, Tiffany had to be the one to destroy them.

Taeyeon is what Tiffany wants, but Tiffany is not what Taeyeon needs.