A/N: I'm back with a new JeTi fic! I started this in November and it's taken me way too long to finish it, but I'm just grateful to finish something these days.

“You know, I think I was in love with you back then,” Tiffany says idly.

Jessica’s breath catches. “Were you?”

“I think I was,” Tiffany says thoughtfully. “But you know, we were young and in the best part of our lives. It wasn’t hard to love back then.”

Jessica lets out a brittle laugh. “So you’re saying you were bursting with love and I just happened to get a piece?”

“No, I’m saying maybe I wasn’t as afraid of opening my heart. I was braver back then. It’s easier to be brave when you’re young.”

Then be brave now, Jessica wants to say, but she can’t take her own advice.

I think I was in love with you back then, Tiffany had said. Back then. In the past. Not anymore. How easy it is for her, to get this out, off her chest and gone, while it’ll haunt Jessica for ages to come.

Tiffany regards her with dark, solemn eyes. “How about you?” she asks. “Did you ever love me?”

Jessica’s heart splutters, cries yes, yes, I did, I do, IdoIdoIdo. “Does it matter,” she says, trying to affect apathy. “It wouldn’t change anything now.”

Tiffany hums. “I guess not.” She leans in, suddenly, and Jessica is overwhelmed with the scent of her, strawberries and rainwater and something uniquely Tiffany, and brushes her lips over Jessica’s cheek, so lightly Jessica wonders if she only imagined it.

“Take care of yourself, Jessi,” she says, quiet and intimate. “Be happy.”

Jessica forces her facial muscles into a smile, somehow. “You too.” She gives a nod towards the ring on Tiffany’s finger, and means to add something, maybe an “enjoy the happiest time of your life” or “I’ll always wish you happiness,” but her voice dies on her. Tiffany looks at her like she understands, anyway.

Jessica doesn’t know if she’s completely shocked or just the opposite when a voice comes from behind her.

“You really like torturing yourself, don’t you?”

She spins around. “Coming from you, that’s a bit rich.”

Taeyeon shrugs. “I got over her. Can you say the same?”

Jessica could be cruel, cutting, could say she returned my feelings, can you say the same? but she’s beyond such pettiness now.

“Maybe I do like torturing myself then,” she says instead. “Because honestly...if the alternative is staying away from her, I’m not sure I’d want to take it.”

Taeyeon scrutinizes her for a moment and then lets out a sigh. “You’re as pig-headed as her. You two were made for each other.”

That brittle laugh escapes her again. “I don’t know if I’d put it like that.”

“Jessica,” Taeyeon sighs. “You’ve been wallowing in regret—”

“I haven’t been wallowing, thank you very much—” Jessica interrupts indignantly, but Taeyeon ignores her and just continues.

“—wallowing in regret all these years because you never told her about your feelings. Are you going to make the same mistake again?”

Jessica swallows. Wonders what she’s swallowing down. Pride, maybe, or regret. Either way, it leaves a bitter aftertaste in .

“She’s getting married, Taeyeon. It isn’t just a matter of being afraid she’ll reject me anymore. Am I supposed to try and steal someone else’s fiancée? I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”

Taeyeon sighs again but Jessica can’t tell if it’s out of annoyance or pity.

“I made my bed,” Jessica says quietly. “Now I’ll have to lie in it.”

“I guess that for once, bed isn’t where you want to be.”

For the third time, that brittle laugh leaves her. She feels like it slices into her on its way out, leaves the inside of riddled with wounds. The metallic taste lingers in , like blood, like regret, like could haves would haves should haves.

Jessica also can’t say she’s surprised that it’s Hyoyeon who asks her the blunt questions.

“Are you hurt she asked Taeyeon to be her maid of honour?”

“Hurt isn’t the first word I’d use.” Jessica keeps her eyes on her lap. “Do you think I want to be up there giving a toast about how I’m so touched by their love and I wish them the best?”

“What do you wish them then? To split up as soon as possible so you can have Tiffany for yourself?”

“You know that’s not what I want,” Jessica says quietly. “I do wish her the best. I just wish that—” That the best for her isn’t him. That it’s me. She ends up just shrugging instead. There’s no point in saying it out loud. There may be superstitions about genies and shooting stars and 11:11, but she knows how futile wishing is. Tiffany had said that it’s easier to be brave when you’re young, and Jessica thinks that it’s easier to be hopeful too.

“You know, you don’t have to go,” Hyoyeon says suddenly.

Jessica is startled by that. “What?”

“You don’t have to go to her wedding. Why would you do that to yourself?”

Why would she indeed?

Jessica gives a wry smile. “Maybe I like torturing myself.”

“I’m starting to think so,” Hyoyeon says seriously. “I don’t know if that makes you stupid or just stupidly in love.”

“Isn’t everyone in love a little stupid?” Jessica says with another shrug.

“Not me, I’ve always been a genius and my intelligence hasn’t been impacted one bit.”

Jessica bursts into laughter. “You’re a special case, DJ Hyo.” She pats Hyoyeon on the shoulder. “We can only all aspire to be you.”

“You got that right,” Hyoyeon says with her chin held high, and Jessica has to say, she needed this laugh.

When a series of loud, sure knocks startles Jessica from sleep at three am, she’s ready to smack the person to the other side of the planet, but all the anger drains out of her when she sees Tiffany’s wan face at the door.

“Steph?” she asks, rubbing her eyes, both to feel a bit more awake and to make sure she isn’t seeing things.

Tiffany’s face is pale but set. “Can I come in?”

Jessica wordlessly holds the door open. She’s never been able to say no to Tiffany.

“Sorry to wake you up at this hour,” Tiffany says apologetically once they sit down. “I just...need you.”

Jessica’s heart gives an embarrassingly loud thump. Tiffany doesn’t say I need to see you or I need to talk to you, but I need you. If only she meant it the way Jessica needs her.

“It’s okay,” Jessica says, and as ready as she was to fight the person who woke her up, she means it. “Are you...what happened?”

Tiffany lowers her head for a second, before raising it, her jaw clenched. “He told me he doesn’t want to marry me.”

“He—what?”

“He doesn’t want to marry me,” Tiffany repeats in a steady voice.

All Jessica can think to say is, “How could anyone not want to marry you?”

Tiffany looks at her with soft, warm eyes. Smiling eyes. Even as so many things have changed, that smile hasn’t. When Jessica sees those smiling eyes, she can still see the girl she met in high school who yelled “Hey, American girl!” from across the room.

“Would you want to marry me?”

“Steph, I’ve wanted to marry you for years.”

“Huh, I thought you were going to say ‘since the moment I laid eyes on you.’”

“Are you kidding me? That was more like laid ears on you and I was too traumatized to even want to befriend you, not to mention marry you.”

Tiffany bursts into laughter, raucous, incandescent. It doesn’t matter how many times Jessica has seen this smile, it never fails to have the same effect on her. It’s not that she thought the world was dark, but with Tiffany’s smile it’s suddenly so much brighter.

“It’s weird,” Tiffany says. “You’d think I’d feel… I don’t know, heartbroken, betrayed, angry.”

“You don’t?” Jessica asks, eyes intently on her.

“No,” Tiffany says thoughtfully. “In fact, I think I feel relieved.”

“Relieved,” Jessica repeats, the same emotion rising up in her, immediately chased by hope, burning fierce and fiery hot in her veins.

“I realized that I don’t want to marry him either. I think we were both too eager to jump into this marriage when in reality neither of us want to be tied down. At least not to each other.”

“Does that mean he has someone else then?”

“I don’t know, but I do.”

“You do?” And Jessica asks dumbly, “Who?”

“She’s standing right in front of me,” Tiffany says with twinkling eyes.

Jessica in a sharp breath. “Are you— Steph, don’t joke with me here.”

“I’m not joking. Were you joking earlier when you said you’ve wanted to marry me for years?”

“You know I wasn’t,” Jessica says, quiet but firm.

“Then why don’t you know I’m not joking now?”

“Because…” Jessica lowers her eyes. “Don’t you think it’s kind of sudden for you to come here in the middle of the night the week before your wedding and tell me your fiancé changed his mind and now you have too? How do I know I’m not just a rebound?”

As soon as she says the words, or more like they spill out of her, she regrets them. Since when was her tongue so loose? Or maybe it’s that her defences are; after all, in front of Tiffany she’s always felt bare and defenceless.

“Jessi.” Tiffany’s voice is very gentle. “You’re not a rebound. You’re not the one I suddenly discovered I wanted. You’re the one I’ve wanted all along.”

That makes Jessica’s head snap up so quickly she hears her neck crack. “What?”

“Do you remember when I said I think I was in love with you back then?”

Does she remember? More like, how could she forget?

“I do,” Jessica says quietly.

“I was so convinced that my feelings were in the past, but maybe I was just trying to convince myself,” Tiffany says with a wry smile.

“You—” And Jessica loses her voice. She can only stare at Tiffany, helpless and hopeful.

“I was in love with you back then, and I never stopped. I’ve always loved you.”

Jessica feels like she’s lost her breath as well, her focus, but really these things belong to Tiffany anyway. She says the only words she’s capable of at the moment.

“I love you too.”

There’s a part of Jessica that expected them to fall into bed right away, and they do, but they don’t do anything except stay curled up together and exchange kisses, slow, sweet, taking their time. They have so much of it now, months, years, the rest of their lives together, if Jessica dares to let herself think that far.

“What are you thinking about?” Tiffany murmurs, running a hand through her hair.

“You,” Jessica replies without thinking, “and me.”

“So us?”

“Is there an ‘us’ now?”

Tiffany looks at her, soft, solemn, maybe a little sad. “There is, if you want there to be.”

Jessica lets out a weary chuckle. “Steph, I’ve always wanted there to be.” I’ve always wanted you.

“Then there is,” Tiffany says, as if it’s as easy as that. She regards Jessica, eyes dark, doleful. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“It’s okay.” Jessica shrugs magnanimously. “You’ve always been a little slow.”

Usually, Tiffany would scowl and say something indignantly along the lines of, “Hey, what do you mean?!” but this time she just smiles and says, “I guess I am. I’ve been catching up to you all along.”

Jessica wants to laugh, because she’s only ever felt like the opposite, like Tiffany was far ahead of her and all she could do was try to catch up to her, a shadow futilely chasing the light, a moth flying at a flame. In the end, she lucked out and didn’t meet a burning end.

“I’ll wait for you,” she tells Tiffany, reaching out her hand, and Tiffany takes it.