PART II

xii. It’s You

"Baby, I’m falling deeper in love

Everything that you are is all I’m dreaming of

And if I can break enough to show you that I need us

I’d give up everything."

 

JESSICA

“I’m sorry that this isn’t exactly...romantic…” Taeyeon fills in after a brief pause, her eyes apologetically flickering to Jessica’s, almost as though she was somewhat embarrassed—self-conscious.

 

Jessica watches as Taeyeon unlocks the door, the plastic bag looped around her wrist rustling as she pushes it open. The interior of the room looks almost identical to the last time she’d been here, and for a split second she feels as though she’s been transported back in time, back to when she’d been standing on the precipice, their relationship blurry without definition—straddling the line between friends and lovers, then breaking it moments later.

 

Jessica had run back then—from Taeyeon and from herself.

 

She not sure what she was supposed to feel now they were back here again—at the start, like they’d been given…a second chance.

 

Second chance.

 

That sounded about right.

 

“It’s fine. I don’t mind.” Jessica responds genuinely, following Taeyeon into the recording studio. It didn’t matter that they were spending a ‘date night’ holed up in a recording studio, (granted it was Taeyeon’s recording studio), Jessica didn’t need this to be romantic. She just needed Taeyeon.

 

The takeaway bag is set down on a nearby desk and Taeyeon moves to grab the two chairs from where they were sitting, neatly aligned against the wall.

 

“Wait, Tae,” Jessica starts, and Taeyeon stops, turning around and tilting her head to the side, “Do you want to just sit on the floor?”

 

With a shrug, Taeyeon changes directions, moving to pick up their food instead.

 

Jessica settles on the floor, her legs crossed and Taeyeon mirrors her, lowering herself to the ground, plopping both herself and takeaway bag to the ground.

 

“At least I should’ve brought a candle or something.” Taeyeon jokes, rummaging through the plastic bag.

 

“What? Just one candle? On the floor between us?”

 

“Yes?”

 

Taeyeon hands her a fork and one of the food cartons.

 

“Thanks,” Jessica says, shooting Taeyeon a smile, before continuing their conversation, “Wouldn’t it be creepy? Like a summoning ritual or something?”

 

“You’re watching too many horror films, Sica.”

 

Jessica makes a noncommittal sound and a comfortable silence descends as they tuck into their respective takeaway meals, eager to address their empty stomachs first.

 

“Is this weird?—that we’re cooped up here, I mean.”

 

“Why would it be?” Jessica answers between forkfuls of her food.

 

They had spent a few evenings together, rotating between Jessica's apartment and Taeyeon's dorm, preferring to keep their moments private, shared only between the two of them and hidden from the prying eyes of the general public.

 

“It’s just that, sometimes I wish we could go out like normal couples. You know, hold hands and visit restaurants, so you wouldn’t have to put up with my ty taste in takeaway food.”

 

“I don’t mind, Taeng, honestly.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

Taeyeon sets down her fork and runs her hand though her locks, the black hair being tousled as fingers drag through invisible knots. There’s a rigid tension visible in her posture, tightly coiled up in the muscles of Taeyeon’s shoulders. They hadn't discussed this but it seemed as though Taeyeon was afraid that this would be a deal breaker for Jessica.

 

“Yes.” Jessica responds assuredly and Taeyeon breathes a sigh of relief, melting back into the languid pose Jessica was familiar with.

 

“Is it weird for you? Not being able to do all that stuff?” Jessica asks, feeling like there was still something on Taeyeon’s mind, hidden from view, and Jessica is unable to discern whether it was a good or bad thing—it just was there.

 

“I-I guess? I mean like I’ve never dated like a normal person,” She holds Jessica’s gaze, her food temporarily forsaken, “And sometimes I wonder how it’d be like to be able to do all that. But it’s more of fantasy really—”

 

“What? Feeling normal?” Jessica sets down her fork, feeling sadness welling up in her chest, at the thought of normalcy—something she’d taken for granted—being someone else’s fantasy.

 

“Do you ever…get lonely?”

 

“I—Remember what I told you out on the balcony? That I felt as though something was missing?”

 

“I remember…”

 

“Well, now I know what I was missing.”

 

Taeyeon eyes burn into hers, conveying a single word.

 

You.

 

“I want to take you out.” Jessica says out before she can stop herself and Taeyeon’s eyes widen, the idol blinking rapidly.

 

“You want to get involved in a dating scandal with me?”

 

Jessica almost laughs, imagining the headlines that would no doubt send the tabloids into melt down.

 

“I mean I’m flattered but, in my industry, this stuff is no joke.” Taeyeon says grimly.

 

Jessica sighs, wanting to reach over and erase the lines of worry that had suddenly appeared on Taeyeon’s face. She knew this and that’d been why they’d been careful with their dates.

 

“Come LA again sometime. We can go out to restaurants, visit Disneyland and do whatever else you’ve missed out on.” Jessica finds herself wanting to make good to these promises and it bleeds through into her voice, lacing her gentle tone with a firm assertiveness.

 

Taeyeon silent, absently shifting bits of rice around the carton.

 

“I’d like that…” Taeyeon says after quiet contemplation. “I want to go out with you.”

 

“Then it’s a date.”

 

The grin Jessica is rewarded with blinds her with its radiance. The chin dimple makes a reappearance as Taeyeon’s pearly white teeth peek through lips. Her eyes are flecked with a mixture of hope and happiness.

 

“You’re really something, Kim Taeyeon.”

 

“As are you, Jessica Jung…Hurry up and finish your food, I’ve got something to show you.”

 

Jessica makes a show of her enthusiasm, exaggerating digging her fork into her food and scooping up a large heap of it into , all the while nodding her head.

 

Taeyeon has to bring her hand up to stop herself from cracking up and sending food flying out of .

/

Taeyeon cuts the engine of her car and Jessica glances down at their entwined fingers, bridging across the central console.

 

"D-do you want to come up?"

 

In the ensuing silence that suddenly falls between them, air charged and flickering with a volatile energy Jessica that can't read, Jessica almost wants to retract her statement, the way she’d already retracted her hand, unsure where she'd just propelled the two of them. Into a different stratosphere perhaps, and here she was holding her breath like her life depended on it.

 

"Umm..." Taeyeon says, sounding as uncertain as Jessica felt, as though there was some opposing forces tussling within her.

 

The unspoken question hangs in the air.

 

Do you want to spend the night?

 

"I'm sorry, I forget what I..."

 

"Don't." Taeyeon says, her hand reaching over the centre console and clasping firmly onto Jessica's forearm, a strange desperation settling in the depths of her wide eyes, "Don't take it back. Ask me again."

 

Jessica pauses, lips pursing and tongue rolling around in .

 

"Do you want to come up?" She finally repeats, the syllables tentatively inching out again from the corner where Jessica had shoved them into at Taeyeon’s initial rejection.

 

"Yes." An exhale is released. Maybe Jessica, maybe it was Taeyeon, but it didn't matter, something between them had shifted again.

 

"Okay."

 

Taeyeon quickly looks away, pink tinges pale cheeks, even in the poor lighting of the streetlight filtering through the windscreen and the strange tension dissipates with the arrival of her blush.

 

Jessica’s reminded of Taeyeon's prior refusal to share a bed with her, and thinks maybe they were making progress.

 

"Okay."

 

"Just let me tell the others to not wait up for me."

 

Jessica nods, and Taeyeon pulls her phone from her pocket, presumably tapping out a message to her members.

/

Something is pressed into her hand and Jessica tilts her head. As she inspects the item, she finds that Taeyeon had passed her a music player, earphones still plugged in and wound neatly in tight coils around the body of the device.

 

“What’s this?”

 

Taeyeon draws in a deep breath, then moves to sit down next to Jessica on the couch, close enough so that their shoulders were brushing and Jessica can feel the warmth of Taeyeon seeping through the sleeves of her thin blouse.

 

“I wrote a song for you.”

 

“You did what?” Jessica’s heart stumbles before it picks up its pace, twofold.

 

Jessica tries not to hope too much, to read too deeply into the underlying implications. She reasons that this was nothing out of the ordinary, that Taeyeon was just sharing a part of herself—she was a musician after all.

 

“To be honest, I think you’re in a lot of my songs…probably an entire album’s worth—I can’t help it.” Taeyeon laughs nervously and a glance is sent Jessica’s way through thick lashes. Jessica feels as though she’s melting, limbs weak and heart softening. “But this one is for you , and not about you...”

 

But Taeyeon's words quickly snuff the line of reasoning out.

 

“Taeyeon…”

 

Taeyeon takes the device Jessica was now cradling in her hands and unwinds the earphones. Gentle fingers brush away strands of her hair and skim along the shell of her ear as the earbuds are placed into her ears.

 

Jessica shivers at the touch.

 

“I might not be good with words, but the things you make me feel exist outside the confines of written language to be expressed by them anyway.”

 

Jessica brings her hand up to still the hand that was in the process of pushing strands of escaped hair back behind Jessica's ear. Her fingers curl around Taeyeon's wrist, catching it in place, where it was hovering just inches from her cheek.

 

With her free hand, Jessica pulls one of her earbuds out, dangling it between her fingers.

 

“Here.”

 

Their fingers brush and a frisson of electricity courses through her body at the barest of touches. She can’t help but feel like a live wire every time they touched—dangerously alive, she might spontaneously combust.

 

“It’s not complete; I haven’t written have any lyrics yet.” Taeyeon says almost apologetically, accepting the offered earphone.

 

“It’s okay.”

 

She waits until Taeyeon's adjusted the earbud into an ear before pressing play on the song of choice.

 

Jessica doesn't need a music degree to know that the song that flows through into her ears is a confession. There's something pure and raw, as though the very essence of Taeyeon's emotions had been extracted and tucked neatly into the composition—interwoven into every note, filling up every pause and colouring the spaces between the harmonies. Jessica finds herself enraptured not only by the music, but by the girl sitting next to her, whose heart was one with the music—calling out, yearning for Jessica's own.

 

She should’ve known Taeyeon would confess to her like this.

 

I love you. I love you. I love you.

 

Jessica’s heart thunders, beating so hard it was almost painful, and the notes continue to whisper these three words like a gentle caress, over and over again into her ears.

 

Taeyeon loves her.

 

And as the revelation envelopes her like a familiar embrace, Jessica feels like she’s finally found a semblance of permanence. Maybe she’d spent years being lost—adrift—searching and searching but never quite understanding what it was that she was looking for, only for it to dawn on her now.

 

It's the warmth that spills from her chest, carried by her veins, until it'd spread to the tips of her fingers and toes; bathing her in a warm glow.

 

It's the security she feels looking into Taeyeon's warm eyes, anchoring her with their unwavering affection—as though the world could have ended and it'd still be just the two of them, here together.

 

And it's the way her heart seems to quicken at the thought of Taeyeon, as though the other girl was her harbour, sheltering her from the worst of storms.

 

It was home.

 

When the song ends, fading into silence that is filled with quiet breaths, Jessica crashes their lips together.

 

The earphones are ripped out at the sudden movement, abandoned as the connection they had once offered is traded up for lip to lip contact. Jessica pushes against Taeyeon until the idol sinks back onto the couch, back pressed flat into cool leather. Taeyeon’s music player clatters to the ground, displaced in the flurry of movement, but neither of them seem to care, not when their bodies were being pressed together like this.

 

Jessica's hair tumbles down like a curtain, having been pulled free from her hair tie by Taeyeon's fingers. Messy tresses drown Taeyeon in a heady mixture of rose scented skin and Jessica's shampoo.

 

Maybe it’s the slight hesitation etched into the crease of Taeyeon’s brow, or the way Taeyeon’s hands were loosely curled into fists and resting meekly on the neutral territory of Jessica’s lower back—but something makes Jessica pause for a second.

 

Their lips separate with a muted smack.

 

"Taeng?"

 

Beneath her, Taeyeon’s breathing comes in rapid shallow pants, but Jessica finds an unknown feeling crawling under her skin as she watches Taeyeon tremble under the weight of an invisible force, held back by some self-imposed barrier.

 

Jessica wonders when they had switched positions, trading their insecurities and she wishes Taeyeon would stop being so hypocritical and to stop treating her like an after-image—as though she was already gone, and Taeyeon was afraid to love too hard lest the illusion break.

 

“Stop holding back, Taeyeon.” Jessica says gently, though the frustration she felt renders her voice husky and thick. She touches Taeyeon’s cheek as she relays Taeyeon’s own sentiments back to her, reminding the idol of the conversation they'd had at the dorm—except now they had switched positions.

 

The touch seems to jolt something within Taeyeon and Jessica can feel Taeyeon freeze beneath her fingertips, her entire body going rigid.

 

“Am I?” Taeyeon asks tentatively, almost carefully.

 

But maybe there’s something that’s a bit too careful in her expression, like she was hiding something and feigning that she wasn’t.

 

“Yes.”

 

The word seems to drop like lead, falling out from Jessica’s mouth and landing onto Taeyeon’s chest—heavy with the weight of Jessica’s confusion and frustration.

 

Taeyeon swallows.

 

“Well, I need to fix that then.”

 

Jessica watches as eyes slowly darken, watches as Taeyeon blinks away the hesitancy that had once rimmed brown orbs, and finally lets the underlying mixture of emotions seep though. Want colours her eyes black, unbridled and unchecked, but Jessica also sees the burning tenderness within, leaving Taeyeon’s eyes smouldering with a fiery intensity.

 

The hungry, appreciative way Taeyeon was looking at her warms her insides, igniting a flame that slowly burns Jessica from the inside out.

 

Between them, the air seems to crackle, thick with a palpable tension that seems to build with Taeyeon’s ragged breathing.

 

The longer their eyes remained locked, the harder Jessica’s heart seems to thump in her chest—a crescendo in a tune they both knew.

 

Jessica’s eyes dip and are hypnotised as a pink tongue flicks out to wet parted lips.

 

“Better?” Taeyeon questions playfully, voice husky and low, and Jessica suddenly finds that Taeyeon's not the only one who was in unsteady, erratic breaths. Her response comes out sounding as breathless as she felt.

 

“Much.”

 

Demanding yet gentle hands pull Jessica closer to the heat of Taeyeon's body. Arms slide around her waist. Purposeful hands trace the curves of her body, pressing possessively against the contours, memorising every dip and divot with palms flat and fingers splayed.

 

Jessica whimpers—breathy and needy—and the sound is readily swallowed as Taeyeon’s lips seal over hers hungrily. Hot, wet heat; a mixture of frantic tongue and teeth devours her alive, sending sparks crackling under her skin—the thought of spontaneously combusting returns.

 

“Sica…”

 

The short syllable tumbles off a tongue that curls around her name with want and Taeyeon’s voice thick with desire. Liquid heat shooting straight to her core, leaving her aware of the throbbing ache between her legs.

 

Jessica presses their mouths together harder, tongue swiping along Taeyeon’s lower lip to coax a mouth open. She suddenly wishes that she could permanently kiss away all the initial hesitation—to somehow dismantle the self-imposed barrier that Taeyeon seemed to have subconsciously erected.

 

“I love you, Jessica.” Taeyeon says as they separate for air, hair mussed and face flushed as she stares at Jessica with those mesmerising dark eyes.

 

Fingers tangled in Jessica’s hair, hooked around the nape of her neck pull Jessica in and their mouths melding together, moving against each other in a slow, deep rhythm—a stark contrast from the whirlwind of heated, frantic kisses they had been caught up in.

 

“I love you.” Taeyeon repeats, as though she couldn’t stop saying the words once they’d finally fallen free from her lips; tumbling out on their own accord.

 

Jessica’s slips a hand under Taeyeon's untucked shirt, fingers exploring as they skated across smooth skin. Beneath her fingertips she feels the muscles of Taeyeon's abdomen contracting and in tandem with the rise and fall of her every breath reminding Jessica that Taeyeon was he