Jessica is keenly aware of the differences in the word “friend” in both her mother languages.

She is friends with Taeyeon, of course.

In Korean.

Truth is though, they are just coworkers.

Not enemies. Not sisters. Not fated souls.

Just colleagues.

They don’t really have anything to talk about most of the time, or honestly any reason to keep in touch now that they’re not working together.

“Yeah.” Taeyeon’s voice comes garbled through the phone line. The connection’s been crappy all the way across the ocean, which has not helped the stilting awkwardness of all this. “You’re right. Of course.”

“Okay,” Jessica acknowledges.

“Well…” There is silence for a few moments where the only thing Jessica can hear is her own breathing. “Goodbye, Jessica.”

“Bye, Tae.”

There are a few moments of additional silence before she hears the call disconnect.

**

Jessica is right.

She’s right, and it burns, and it feels like failure to Taeyeon somehow.

How can she sit there and argue against her… bandmate, her member, her friend, when really Taeyeon has no clue what drives Jessica (does she? she used to think she did?) or what happens to her on any given day. And she hasn’t bothered figuring it out either, she supposes.

Was she too cocky? Taking a connection for granted only by the bonds that tied them together?

Is Jessica going to be only the first one Taeyeon loses if she’s not careful?

“You’re right. Of course.” She hears her own voice say dully into her phone.

“Okay,” Jessica says, to her favor. She could rub it in some more, Taeyeon thinks - she herself probably would have if their roles were reversed. If it was Jessica that had called her for the first time in as many months as it takes for a rice crop to harvest.

She wonders dully if she should try to plant some rice. Might be one thing she’s capable of tending to fruition.

“Well…” Should she apologize? Tell her that, well, it’s not like Jessica had tried either? feels too choked up to do any of that, though, and she doesn’t want to say anything. “Goodbye, Jessica.”

She doesn’t think she wants to say that, either. It sounds insincere even to her own ears - like she is giving Jessica some weird type of blessing she has no place to, benevolently giving them some sort of civil closure.

There is a little sigh from the other end of the line. “Bye, Tae.”

Something in Taeyeon’s chest twists and lurches and she is too busy grappling with that to hang up immediately. She sits there, twists , and blinks forcefully to clear her vision of her dark room.

Before she can say anything else stupid, she hangs up and throws her phone across her bed.

It doesn’t feel like closure.

**

It’s not closure.

But life goes on, doesn’t it?

And Taeyeon’s left to try to cope with it.

**

“Why the hell do you have a… What is this?”

“It’s rice,” Taeyeon states plainly, and Jessica looks at her like she’d said it’s human teeth. “What?” she quips a bit defensively.

“Why are you growing a tub of rice at home?” Jessica asks incredulously.

God, from the way she’s acting it’s almost like Taeyeon had personally tried to stab her eye out with a rice grain or something, and not like she'd just shown up at Taeyeon's door unannounced five minutes ago asking if she could come up for a bit.

Taeyeon has nothing to offer her other than a somewhat annoyed shrug. Jessica’s response is to give that little huff she gives when she thinks someone is being too much, but she also shakes her head like she shouldn’t have expected otherwise from Taeyeon.

It makes Taeyeon feel silly about how much she cares, and she desperately wants to get rid of the sudden tight feeling in her chest. She shouldn’t mind what Jessica, or anyone, thinks. It’s not that insane to want to grow something.

She can’t keep the annoyance out of her voice now. “Why are you in my home,” she barks, walking over to check the water level in her rice pot as an excuse to not have to look at Jessica and try to know if - and how - she’s judging her.

Taeyeon doesn’t actually have to check the rice by now at all - the only thing she needs to do is leave it be and maybe check the water level sometimes, but every day she still finds herself fretting a bit about it.

She touches a fingertip lightly to one of the growing stalks and pretends to not notice the heaviness in the air or how she thinks she feels Jessica about to burst a few feet away from her.

It takes a few moments of Taeyeon resolutely not looking at her for Jessica to finally reply: “Because you let me in,” she says in a low tone.

Yeah.

Taeyeon closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t want to have her day soured. All she wanted to do was to chill in, check some music out, maybe even try to bake a brownie. She didn’t at any point want to do this. Whatever it is, whatever was that challenge in Jessica’s voice, it’s more complication in a life she desperately needs to be manageable.

She is ready to state exactly that to Jessica, in her most resolute voice, but the words die in when she finally looks over at her and is met not with the strict faced Jessica she was expecting, but instead with…

Is that a shy look?

Taeyeon’s head spins.

She hasn’t seen that expression, that look on Jessica’s face since… God. Since they were eighteen, probably. When Jessica’s shyness and tentativeness would be at odds, and she’d look at Taeyeon like she was trying her best but still needed to hear from Taeyeon that it was good enough, and…

Jessica averts her eyes. “I can go.”

Taeyeon hasn’t had to tell Jessica anything of the sort in a long time. “You don’t have to.” She hears herself saying over the roaring in her ears. She thinks she means it as she says it, but it still somehow comes out like a question.

She doesn’t know what precisely she is asking, and her confusion and bafflement are growing at every turn of this interaction, but Jessica’s shoulders relax the slightest and she meets Taeyeon’s eyes again. “Okay,” she says, not quite smiling but softening. Somehow appreciative, and Taeyeon’s stomach squirms.

They look at each other, awkward now. Taeyeon has no idea what she is supposed to do or say and feels like it’s not fair for Jessica to expect her to be the one to do it, so she looks back at her rice. The plants seem to be growing along happily, and she kind of envies how little they have to worry about. Definitely no bizarre conversations with people they don’t understand for them.

Taeyeon has to admit, though. She had let Jessica in. And she did it because she, for whatever reason, wanted to. She had to.

“Why are you here?” Taeyeon asks, this time without accusation in her voice. What would she even accuse Jessica of? Of being a somewhat social adult and checking in on her… ex-colleague? Or, most likely, of breaching their semi companionable agreement of non-interference for the sake of… what?

It’s Jessica’s turn to shrug, and Taeyeon is reminded of how absurdly aggravating she can be.

Taeyeon presses her fingers to her temple and decisively does not sigh in exasperation. She wonders if this is just a thing for foreigners: being in Taeyeon’s life in really absurd ways that make her constantly struggle to understand what is going on.

She doesn’t want to think about how long it’s been since she’s probably decently talked to Tiffany, though, so she forces her mind to veer into another direction. She thinks of the memory she likes to pretend not to rattle her as much as it does.

What Jessica had said - they, Taeyeon and her, not being friends. Wasn’t it true? They have no reason to catch up, no reason to be standing in Taeyeon’s living room doing a bad job of untangling pleasantries from quips.

Unless, of course, they do.

Unless they wanted to?

Taeyeon is not sure she does. But she let her in.

She takes a breath. “How long are you in Korea for?” she asks in the most neutral tone she can muster.

She makes a show of casually walking away from her rice pot and towards her kitchen, and while Jessica seems amused by it, she still follows her.

**

Taeyeon’s attempt at a brownie burns, so they munch on the sweets Jessica had bought at the airport instead.

It’s terribly stilted and awkward, and Jessica wonders for the hundredth time why the hell she’s still there after she’s run out of texts to reply to (and the ones she initiates, increasingly nonsensically: one to Irene, asking her when is the soonest they can get drunk on that Sauvignon Jessica still has in her house in Seoul; one to Minyoung, telling her she appreciates how nice it is to be quiet around her; and one to Soojung, comprised entirely of the emoticons within range of Jessica’s fingers as she mindlessly tapped in frustration while reminding herself she had come here for a reason).

Call it making amends. Or karmic retribution.

As for staying, Jessica is still clueless about why she is. It might be just because of the fact Taeyeon keeps asking her questions.

“How is… you know. Clothes?”

“… How are clothes?” Jessica asks, baffled and not sure whether to laugh.

“Well, like.” Taeyeon doesn’t really look at her, seeming completely aware of how idiotic she sounds. “Making them. Designing. Stuff.”

So her questions are not terribly eloquent. But Jessica can’t ignore how visibly she is making an effort. Almost too much of an effort, because now and again she looks like she’s going to panic about how long they’ve been quiet for, like she’s forgotten that Jessica has never actually been particularly chatty.

Though maybe she has forgotten, Jessica thinks somewhat bitterly.

At one point Jessica moves to get up and get herself water, mourning silently to herself about Taeyeon’s terrible taste in alcohol and wishing direly for some wine. When she does, though, Taeyeon’s face morphs into something weird that Jessica hardly has time to understand before Taeyeon blurts “Soojung!”.

Jessica looks back at her with a raised eyebrow. She wants to burst out laughing at the wide-eyed look Taeyeon is giving her, as if Jessica had been the one to pipe up with something weird.

“Jessica,” Jessica clarifies, pointing to herself just in case Taeyeon’s forgotten and filling up her glass of water.

Taeyeon’s expression turns embarrassed - Jessica wonder if she’ll blush - and gives a little ho ho! laugh that has Jessica simply unable to hold back her own smile. The way Taeyeon scratches her own forehead with a press of her lips is obviously mortified, but dare Jessica say it, quite endearingly so.

“Obviously,” Taeyeon chuckles awkwardly, trying to pretend she didn’t think Jessica had been about to dart out of there. “I meant, you know. How’s Soojung?”

“Still working in your company,” Jessica comments lightly into her glass.

It might have been the wrong thing to say.

Taeyeon draws back instantly, and the tentative easiness they’d set between themselves grows taut like Jessica had laid out a mine on the floor and asked Taeyeon to step on it.

“I know,” Taeyeon replies slowly, eyebrows drawing together. “It’s not like I can just talk to her much, though.”

“Can’t you?” Jessica asks, honing in on the stiffness in Taeyeon’s shoulders and the gruffness in her voice. Taeyeon isn’t talking about conflicting schedules here, and Jessica is reminded very clearly of Soojung confessing to her how alone she felt in the company now. Jessica’s gaze hardens. “Have you even tried?”

Taeyeon does blush now, but not in the way Jessica had been wondering about earlier. It’s not endearing at all, and the frown between her eyebrows deepens as her gaze hardens right back. “Have I tried? What are you trying to say?”

Apparently that’s all it takes.

“I’m not trying to say anything-” Jessica starts, with a half a mind to send them back into the inane conversation about the weather, but it’s too late now.

“Even if I haven’t tried, you don’t know- you can’t possibly know-” Taeyeon hisses.

“I can’t know what, Taeyeon?” Jessica snaps. “I don’t know what goes on with my sister? Is that it?”

“T-that’s not what I was saying-” Taeyeon falters.

“I know plenty well, Taeyeon, what it’s been like for her-” Jessica says, blood boiling.

A scoff. “Oh do you now?” Taeyeon sneers. “Yeah, you know everything about how it’s been for everyone from far away in your meetings-”

“Do not bring my sister or my business into this when it’s all I still have from-”

Taeyeon’s face contorts uglily. “-a lot of time in our Jessica’s hands for her to keep tabs on all of us for sure but none to actually be-”

This is not happening. Jessica’s hands shake, and she half wants to strangle Taeyeon for the very insinuation that- “Like this was all my choice-” her voice chokes, and she has to force herself to continue. “You don’t know-”

“Oh no I could not possibly know, it’s all beyond me, isn’t it?” Taeyeon gives a small dark laugh.

“Apparently it is if this is the type of thing you spout, like any of it-”

Taeyeon interrupts her again. “Oh, but I thought I was supposed to try to talk more?”

“You’re just being intentionally obtuse right now Taeyeon, and it’s not ing cute-”

“Well, maybe I don’t appreciate you coming to my house and inferring that I’m the one who doesn’t try enough with people! ” Taeyeon hisses.

Jessica’s voice is nearly a shriek now. “Well I don’t think you do, and it’s obvious that it’s an iss-”

Taeyeon’s palm slams down with force onto the kitchen island between them, and Jessica jumps where she’s stood. The startle