All Tiffany remembered was drinking the drink that Jessica had handed to her. And the next thing she knew, she was in a hotel room.

She closed her eyes. Breathe. Stop. She grabbed her mobile. Hurry.

Her hands shook and trembled as she heard voices outside.

Hurry.

Hurry. Dan’s number.

She felt impossibly weak, and scared. Impossibly scared, and afraid. She had to breathe. Come on. Come on!

---

Dan kicked open the door with all his might. It was almost heartbreakingly sad, almost.

He gave a lingering look at all the faces who were stunned and ashamed. All of them in their collared tops and expensive suits.

“Move, or I’ll break the jaw of each one of you.”

They protested, and he shook his head, “Think again. Move or I swear I’ll let this tape go viral.”

He pointed to Tiffany’s mobile that she had taped and then, without any effort, he easily carried Tiffany up in his arms while she clung onto him soundlessly like a child in a beautiful torn white gown.

---

If she could forget that scene, she would. She looked at her bruised face in the bathroom mirror. Dan had helped her out of her torn gown even though he was deeply apologetic about his kind, and she looked at the bruises on her arm.

She pinched them; it hurt, so that means she’s still alive. Good.

She was amazed that she still had a fighting spirit.

Yet something in her seemed…. Dead.

Almost as if the world had died and she, along with it

---

“You’re recording the song wrongly,” Taeyeon knocked firmly on the window glass twice from the other side of the studio.

Tiffany blinked twice, “I’m…sorry.” She said somewhat distractedly.

Taeyeon frowned, as she rubbed her brows in a tired manner, “If this is your so called way of convincing me that there’s more to you… I’m not impressed.”

Tiffany tore her eyes away from the script, “I’m sorry,” She had remembered the doctor’s instructions – one more trauma, and the voice goes, therefore, she was distracted.

Taeyeon looked at her in disbelief, “Forget about it, I’m heading off first. I’ll see you in tomorrow’s debut.”

Tiffany looked at Taeyeon. She blinked, fighting back tears as her insides raged war.

“What if I can’t sing anymore, Taeyeon?” she asked, afraid to know the answer. Afraid to know that she was alone in this…

Yet then again, hasn’t she been alone in this for quite a while already? 

She sighed, but Taeyeon grabbed her shoulders and she winced inwardly from the bruises, “So the great Tiffany is giving up, just like that huh…?”

Tiffany knew Taeyeon wasn’t just talking about her music career.

“I’m not giving up.” She said fiercely, the lights in her eyes blazed brighter, she wasn’t going to give up – just yet.

Not yet…not now.

Please voice, don’t fail me. Not yet… not now…

Taeyeon studied Tiffany properly for a while. She realised with alarm that Tiffany had grown so much thinner from the previous times she had seen her.

She had always intentionally avoided Tiffany at all cost even though she was very aware of Tiffany’s news, but this was the only time she had seen her properly since the masquerade bidding game.

And if it was even possible, Tiffany who was usually effortlessly pretty, looked sick, pale and impossibly tired. She let go of Tiffany’s shoulders abruptly, and was about to express her concern, but Dan appeared with Tiffany’s lunch.

Seeing this, she hardened her expressions instead and said, “Go back to your boyfriend, Tiffany. And put on more makeup for tomorrow, you look awful.”

---

I look awful? Tiffany pinched her face in the mirror lifelessly, and sighed. Yes, she did. She looked so tired, so weak and pale. No wonder even Taeyeon wouldn’t even want to look at her. And the bruises on her arms were not healing.

She had worn long sleeves to prevent her from looking at them… in a way, by not looking at them, she could possibly erase that scene from her head.

Her heart raced each time she was alone, and she hated feeling afraid. She hated being defeated by ‘fear’…

Yet here she was, in a position she loathed.

She hated that so, so much.

“It’s the last time.”

Dan looked up from the newspaper, alarmed. From what he had seen and from what he had heard. He placed the newspaper away quickly.

“What’s the last time…” He asked, as Tiffany poked around her cereal idly.

Ever since ‘that incident’, Tiffany had grown visibly less cheerful. While, previously, she would always talk about how she could win back Taeyeon from Sooyoung with confidence, this time, she looked lost, tragic and deeply tired.

His heart went out to her, truly it did. Anyone would have a heart of steel if they didn’t feel sorry looking at Tiffany the way she was looking now.

She closed her eyes, “One last fight.”

Or she’ll run away from this miserable place. And never, ever return.

---

It takes a lot for a person to break… but once that limit has passed. 

Really, it seems like there’s no turning back, isn’t it?

It was the weekly countdown. It was also Tiffany’s debut. It was almost a joke seeing as how her songs were badly composed or shoddily done.

Yet, despite knowing all these, Tiffany could still accept and fight it.

She was doing all these for Taeyeon, of course.

She had reasoned that Taeyeon was acting out of hurt, seeing as how she didn’t believe that Tiffany had pretended to ‘break up’ with her all these years…. She strongly believed that precisely it was because Taeyeon had cared that much for her before, that she was doing everything in her capacity to hurt her this much…

And by god, she’s succeeding at it, damn it.

Yet, this wasn’t a fight that Tiffany was going to back down from.