Just a little bit more angst... please bear with me :P 

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Taeyeon cursed softly. Every breath she took brought a fresh stab of pain to her ribs, and considering that she was panting heavily from their heavy dance routine, it took all of Taeyeon to not simply flop down on the ground and curl up in pain.

She had gone back to the doctors’ alone after the bruise failed to ease off after a few days, only to be informed that what she had was a particularly serious case of bone bruise. The impact of her waist with the gearshift was severe enough to cause tiny fractures in the cortex of her ribcage. But nothing could be done except to avoid exertion of the injured area and wait for the tissue to heal on its own in three or four weeks.

Exertion, in the form of strenuous dance practices like the ones she was currently engaging in right now, was to be avoided.

It was information that she had conveniently forgotten to relay to her manager oppa.

There was no way they were delaying their long-awaited comeback for up to a month on her account.

“Okay guys let’s take ten!” shouted Shim Jaewon, the SM choreographer. A collective sigh of relief sounded throughout the studio as seven exhausted and sweat-clad bodies stumbled to the ground.

“I’m just going – bathroom,” gasped Taeyeon to her general surroundings as she hastened out of the studio, tumbling down one of the more well hidden restrooms in the SM building.

Letting a sigh of relief escape as she slid down the wall of her toilet stall, she stumbled with the lid of the bottle of painkillers, gulping down the pills she had begged for from the doctor.

She took a deep breath to regain her composure, feeling the effects of the painkiller start to kick in as the pain ebbed away.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to be on the painkillers so much. The doctor’s instructions had been to apply ice on it thrice a day and rub it down with medicated ointment every night. But it hurt like crap to rub the medicated oil so she only did it once so far, and it was just far too troublesome to apply ice thrice a day so she hadn’t done it at all, relying instead on the pills for pain relief.

Her relief was short-lived though as the click-clop of high heels echoed down the long hallway that led to the toilet – there was someone coming!

She groaned internally and stepped out in front of the sink. Brushing her hand across her hair to pat it back in place, she puffed herself up to look every bit the confident and charismatic celebrity she was supposed to be. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, she marvelled at how she could still look relatively presentable on the outside even while everything was wilting away on the inside. More than her voice, she would count that as one of her greatest talents. 

And a distinctly peachy fragrance floated in.

“Uhm. Taeyeon. Are you alright?” Tiffany’s voice was timid as she peeked her head into the washroom.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” said Taeyeon evenly.

“Uhm… I was just checking. I thought I saw you wince during practice…” mumbled Tiffany, her eyes meeting Taeyeon’s for a spilt second before Tiffany quickly lowered her gaze.

“You’d be better off paying attention to Jaewon oppa when he’s teaching, Tiffany. We don’t have much time to work on the choreography,” admonished Taeyeon.

“Hurry. We’re only on a ten minute break,” said Taeyeon, stepping way clean of Tiffany’s path as she headed back to the studio.

She glimpsed the hurt evident on Tiffany’s face as she turned and closed her eyes.

She wanted nothing more than to throw herself at Tiffany… to hug and hold her. Only Tiffany had realised she was in pain. Only Tiffany… As always, it was only Tiffany.

She took a deep breath and steeled her heart while walking away slowly.

And so this was the way that it had been for the past two weeks since she returned from the hospital.

Maintaining this distance between her and Tiffany was the only way Taeyeon knew of to be able to survive the rest of her career as a member of Girls’ Generation.

She had spent most of her time planning her schedules around Tiffany’s such that they either clashed or overlapped, with the leader going for her OST recording just before Tiffany returned from her Fame musical rehearsals.

In order to not worry the other members, Taeyeon tried to keep the façade up with Tiffany whenever they had activities as Girls’ Generation – which, thankfully, was not very often as they were each engaged in their own solo activities.

With their comeback looming however, Taeyeon knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it under wraps from the other members for long.

One member was already in the loop though – the member who had to watch Taeyeon torment herself, the member who held Taeyeon while she cried herself to sleep every night, and the member who still held firmly onto the conviction that Taeyeon should come clean to Tiffany.

Sunny ran her fingers through her hair, pulling on the short blond ends as she watched as Taeyeon strolled back into the studio, Tiffany trailing behind her like a wounded puppy.

Taeyeon had swore her to secrecy that night when she poured her heart out to her, and while Sunny was all for respecting her best friend’s decision, it tore at her heart to watch the two of them destroy each other in such an epic fashion.

Yes – despite what Taeyeon had managed to convince herself of, Sunny was certain that the course that Taeyeon was headed towards was of self-destruction instead of salvation.

She had to work on getting that through Taeyeon’s thick skull without making Taeyeon feel like she was pushing her away.

And Tiffany… Tiffany was really getting the shorter end of this twisted deal.

But unlike Taeyeon, Tiffany was a good actress.

From the corner of her eye, Sunny could see Tiffany sniff and take a deep breath before turning to fuss over the other members; coaxing Jessica to put more effort in her practice, pacifying Hyoyeon who was acting up her displeasure over a particular dance move, and letting Sooyoung and Yuri over her dancing.

This wouldn’t be the first time Sunny felt that Tiffany was essentially doing what Taeyeon, as the leader, should.

Sunny felt a stab of displeasure at her best friend as she turned and located said leader sulking in the corner of the studio. It spurred her into action. Checking that they still had 5 minutes of break to go, Sunny hooked her arm around Taeyeon’s and brought her out of the studio under the pretext of getting coffee. She pushed Taeyeon into the isolated backyard stairway.

“Taengoo… Why don’t you just talk to her about this.” Sunny murmured, careful to keep her volume low.

“I can’t Sunny. I can’t let her get close to me,” Taeyeon whispered back, leaning her back against the wall.

“She’s like a drug. My personal drug,” mumbled Taeyeon. “All these years I spent thinking that I’ve got it under control – our relationship, that fine balancing act of friendly flirting – I was wrong. I let her seep into me, and like a drug addict I was convinced that I was under control when she had already knocked me on my feet.”

“Now you’re just over-dramatizing things Taengoo,” Sunny muttered back. “You love her so what’s the issue? Is this about her boyfriend? I’m sure if you talked this out-”

“This isn’t about her boyfriend. He’s just a prop Fany… is playing with. You don’t understand,” Taeyeon trailed off, rolling on the balls of her sneaker-clad feet.

“I don’t understand indeed! So what if the balance is a little upset, or so what if you lose a bit of control?” Sunny’s voice shook with emotion as she let her anger at the situation get the better of her.

“Don’t you get it Lee Soonkyu-” Taeyeon’s eyes flashed angrily as she hooked her arm around Sunny’s neck, bringing their foreheads together. “If I cannot do this balancing act, if I lose control and confess to her... And then what will it be? All these years we’ve been able to sustain this – this relationship because we’ve been banking on the fact that neither of us would truly fall for each other. And I failed.”

Taeyeon released her grip on Sunny and slumped onto one of the steps of the stairs.

“And then where will that leave us? I can’t give her the happiness she deserves. I’m not right for her. She deserves a happy family – something only a man can give her, and you know how much she wants to be a mother. Heck - I can’t even give her status. Sones chant for Taeny, Taeny, but in truth the revelation will put an end to our career – Fany’s career. She – of all of us, who sacrificed so much for this.”

“And every time – every time we film something in wedding dresses I see her – I see her turning to smile at me in that white dress - and she could be standing with any - any random guy model and it would still look so – it would still look so right and no matter how I – I try – It is right in the way I will never be for her and even in my dreams I-”

Taeyeon’s voice became muffled pressed against Sunny’s body as the blondie enclosed her leader in a tight embrace, feeling Taeyeon’s body shake with each sob. There was just so much pain, so much pain in the air that it was starting to prick at Sunny’s tear ducts too.

This whole was a mess.

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Taeyeon stepped into Tiffany’s room quietly. Closing the door gently behind her, she glanced through the room that was smattered with blobs of pink that gained its color solely from the massive collection of pink colored objects that the owner possessed.

Sneaking open Tiffany’s accessory drawer she dugged around the mass of necklaces and bracelets before finding what she snuck herself into the latter’s room while she was away in rehearsal for. It was a little old, and rusty around the edge but it was definitely not forgotten. Taeyeon slipped it gently into her jeans pocket.

She let her eyes trail across the desk in the room as she tried to come up with more excuses to prolong her stay in Tiffany's room. Her eyes came to a rest at the only non-pink object resting innocently beside Tiffany’s LV sunglass case.

A white notebook. 

Tiffany’s diary.

Taeyeon felt herself drawn to the book before she could even process her actions. Tiffany always brought her diary with her everywhere she went. She never ever went out of the house without it. Taeyeon knew that Tiffany would always write down the timings of their schedules, her fashion muses, and her various other appointments. It was so important that Tiffany had intentionally chose the white cover so she could locate it quickly and easily amongst her other pink belongings.  Essentially, the diary was what kept Tiffany’s life in order.

Taeyeon frowned. Why had Tiffany left it at home?

Ignoring the pang of guilt at what she knew was a massive invasion of privacy, Taeyeon let her curiousity out of the bag as she flipped open the diary.

Immediately, stubs of movie tickets fell out of the first few pages where Tiffany had clasped them loosely between the seams of the page. A flood of memories from happier days assaulted Taeyeon as she flipped through the stubs, remembering some of them as movies that she had caught with Tiffany. It was easy to identify them – they were always the ones on the midnights of weekdays, where there were the least amount of people in the cinemas.

The diary itself was covered with Tiffany’s pretty handwriting – although they were mostly in English.

5^th March 2012:

5am – 9am: Inkigayo pre-recording

Flight to Japan: AN3513

Kobe concert rehearsal

Movie with Tae <3 – Book tickets!

6^th March 2012:

Always trust in the Lord 

High Cut Photoshoot

Chris Louboutin Spring/Fall 2012 collection – BUYBUYBUY

4^th Album press conference :)

Taeyeon flipped to the latest page where Tiffany had marked out with her bookmark. It was this week’s. She stared in slight shock at the comparatively sparse spread of paper in front of her as the relative whiteness bore into her eyes. Unlike the other weeks, there were only 2 words under each day of this week.

21^st May 2012:

14th Day

22^nd May 2012:

15th Day

23^rd May 2012:

16th Day 

The 15th Day? The 16th Day? Was Tiffany keeping track of something? What happened two weeks ago? And why wasn't she writing anything else? 

Then it hit her. She flipped the diary two pages back and searched for the date.

7^th May 2012:

1st Day

That was the night she decided to push Tiffany away.

Taeyeon sighed. 

Is this affecting you as badly as it is to me? Oh Tiffany, is this making your life as empty as I’ve made mine? I feel so empty that I’ve resorted to stealing your necklace just to feel your presence around me.

Taeyeon let out a hollow laugh as she slipped a hand into her pocket and clasped it around the stolen necklace, feeling the familiar shape of the lock amongst her fingers.

She was a joke, the world’s greatest jerk, and a thief all rolled into one.