Nine

It had been someone's idea, between the two and three o'clocks, to bring in the vodka and sake. The Japanese language is flavourful to SooYoung, but even she finds it tiresome to reason with the cashier lady at the convenience store that she's too skinny. She gets too much of those to count.

She tears open the flimsy aluminum of the Yakult bottle with her teeth, tipping over some vodka into the thick, purple liquid and raising a shot to Sunny sitting across her, already looking bored and on her second.

"Put on some music," Tiffany says distastefully and reaches over to the IPod jack. An upbeat, American song with dinky lyrics comes on.

YuRi is on the bed with her ankles crossing, flipping through the hotel catalogue. She has a finger on an advertisement of a television series when she pauses, and looks up to the Jessica, who had come fresh out of a shower, toweling her hair.

"Which state are we in?"

Jessica takes time to consider it, trying to recall what had been the destination printed onto her first-class boarding pass. She hangs the towel onto a rack and taps her foot.

"Ahh...we're in--"

"Japan, unnie. Niigata."

"Thanks, Hyunnie," YuRi smiles then flips through the pages of the catalogue.

Jessica looks around; something feels strange, someone's not here. SooYoung's cheeks are beginning to burn with heatedness, alcohol mixed with fatigue mixed with recklessness on her cheeks. She is leaning towards YoonA, who has recently joined them at the table.

"TaeYeon," Jessica concludes, "we're missing TaeYeon."

"TaeYeon? She's sleeping in her room. She's been having migraines lately," Tiffany adds, seated at the corner of the bed, waist hitting YuRi's thigh. "She was told to rest since we're having a concert tomorrow. Also." Tiffany looks sternly to the three members gathered at the table. "You three shouldn't be drinking. Especially not you YoonA, after the last time."

'The last time' had been when YoonA drank too much sake at a celebration (In YoonA's defense, it had been a birthday party of a close friend and not drinking would be too much of a saint for YoonA to take) and she had nearly messed up the choreography on stage.

"Calm down, unnie. I'm not gonna get drunk. I just want a drink."

"Well go get one. From the tap."

YoonA makes a whiney face again and Sunny shuts her up by hitting the side of YoonA's arm with a Yakult bottle, offering the younger girl a diluted drink.

This are one of the times when all if not most of them are gathered in a single room (usually SeoHyun's or Tiffany's) and sitting around watching television mutely--they can't understand most of it anyway--or just talking or listening to music from Tiffany's IPod since she has the largest collection of American R&B and bubblegum pop, which suited fine to the tastes of the members.

Jessica presses her palm briefly onto the crown of YoonA's head as she passes by and grabs a spare key card from the table (the girls make it a point to have a spare key card to every room), slipping into white hotel slippers and scuffling past.

Tiffany's head is against YuRi's shoulder, as she looks blearily toward Jessica and offers a small smile. "Where are you going?"

"Checking on TaeYeon. Someone should make sure our leader's alive."

"She's such a sloth. Been sleeping ever since our plane landed. In the van, I think in the lobby behind the sunglasses too," HyoYeon joins in from the opposite bed, been quiet all this while as she scrolls through her messages from phone companies and souring even more when there are no texts from loved ones.

"Give her a break," Sunny says softly from the other side of the table, on four and still steady on her feet, "she's been working hard for about six years. The least we could do is spare her some sleep time."

JuHyun agrees. "I think something's up with her, unnies. TaeYeon unnie looks kinda..."

"Depressed?" SooYoung hiccups, "It must be the pressure."

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna go check on her. Put my finger underneath her nose and check for a pulse," Jessica grins wryly from halfway through the gaped door.

The last thing she sees is Tiffany's hand coming up to wave tiredly at her. The girls are her lovers, family, friends, and when they're all so tired, it's hard to tell who is who, which is which.

Jessica keeps her head down, reading door numbers and stopping at the right one.

Sometimes she loves TaeYeon, is part of TaeYeon's family, a close friend that yearns to be even closer. But most of the time, she just loves TaeYeon is every way possible, for everything of TaeYeon.

~+~

TaeYeon is sleeping on her side, the lights dimmed, the television on but muted. A mug of cold, stale coffee sits on the counter. The girls' respective hotel room numbers are scrawled on the hotel notepad. It smells of thick blankets and take-away food, like the interior of a plane.

Jessica is on her toes, softly padding across the room and reaching TaeYeon in a matter of seconds, and she herself wonders how that itself is possible. Perhaps it's the bare skin of TaeYeon's shoulder exposed from the fold of the blanket. Jessica slips off her slippers and raises the blanket off the bed an inch, then another inch, until she slips under the covers as well, scooting herself closer to TaeYeon and feeling the body heat.

Jessica's hands are uncertain and awkwardly delayed and slow. Her elegant fingers are not used to the clumsy fumbling as she touches TaeYeon's back. TaeYeon doesn't move.

"Tae...Yeon?" she whispers softly.

It takes a few seconds and a few more hesitant repetitions before TaeYeon stirs, emitting some kind of questioning hmmm? TaeYeon turns a little, just enough to make out Jessica's wavy hair. She turns back to her side and mutters sleepily, "Hey, SooYeon."

Jessica slowly puts an arm around TaeYeon's waist, fitting her chin gently into the narrow lines at the back of TaeYeon's neck.

"TaeYeon," Jessica whispers, "are you okay?"

"Hmmm? Yeah, I'm just...sleeping."

And then Jessica can no longer find an excuse to hear TaeYeon's voice anymore, but she still has one card to play, she hopes.

"TaeYeon?"

"Hmmm?"

Even when she doesn't know what good it will be.

"I--I love you."

There's a smile in TaeYeon's muffled voice. "Love you too, SooYeon."

~+~

The concert goes as planned, though not with purposely accidental brushes of knuckles in the dressing room as they slide past each other to get their make-up done. Jessica watches when TaeYeon puts on a hairclip. Her heart aches. Everything else burns.

Hurts. It just hurts.

~+~

"You're definitely not okay, TaeYeon," HyoYeon is grasping TaeYeon's elbow, tugging to urge the leader to look at her and take her seriously. This isn't a joke. "You've been swaying on your feet and you can't even get some parts of the dance right. If you can't keep up, hang in the back, so we can cover for you."

"I'm still the main vocal, you know," TaeYeon can't help not to smile as she grips the microphone tighter and stubbornly tears her elbow away from HyoYeon's twitching fingers.

deep breaths. deep breaths.

Jessica watches all. She feels conflicted. Who should she be now? TaeYeon's friend, family or lover?

She studies TaeYeon's trembling lower lip as she smiles, and understands that she needs to be all three. Nothing more, nothing less.

~+~

"Are you feeling too pressurized? You know there's no pressure, right? We're practically leader-free. You don't have to take on the role just because that's what you're supposed to do. We don't have to have a leader," Tiffany's words are most comforting.

The members' eyes are pitiful, and their gentle hands treat TaeYeon like fragile glass. TaeYeon wishes she doesn't feel suffocated because she would feel horrible if she were to feel cornered when all the members wanted to do was love her more.

She nods. "Yeah, I know. Don't worry 'bout me."

"Are you sure? Because all of us. All of us are starting to worry."

It is scary being leader, scary at being at the pivotal position when they ask they most trickiest questions, being put at the front, in league with other leaders. She represents Girls' Generation, has Girls' Generation blood in her veins, becomes an entire substantive of Girls' Generation.

"Honestly, though, TaeYeon, if you're feeling pressurized or anything, just know that there isn't any."

Tiffany kisses TaeYeon's forehead. And like the others, those lips are soft and gentle on her skin. TaeYeon starts to think that her fragility is some kind of blessing and curse at the same time.

~+~

"Tae?"

"SooYeon?"

TaeYeon is putting together those microwave-heated sandwiches from the convenience store, bouncing on one foot to another as she hums along to Tiffany's playlist. TaeYeon falters but doesn't turn.

"What is Girls' Generation to you?"

TaeYeon pauses, but answers deliberately. "A calling. A family. A home. I think I breathe you girls into my lungs now. I mean, you girls are just way too addictive. You girls are kind of like cigarettes."

"We're like fags to you?"

"No, no, you girls are my fags to this industry. You calm me. Make me feel better."

"Oh. Tae, can I just ask one more thing?"

"Yeah, sure."

"What if you left?"

"We can't leave. We're Girls' Generation forever. We may not be Girls' Generation anymore, but we sure have it somewhere in our body, fuelling our existence. I'm not going anywhere, SooYeon-ah."

"Sure. I knew that."

~+~

"Here, take these, unnie," JuHyun tips over a couple of pills into TaeYeon's palm. "I usually don't suggest physical forms of medicine, especially when it comes to headaches. But I really think this would help you, unnie."

"Thanks, JuHyun," TaeYeon flashes a smile at her and elbows her ribs playfully.

YuRi, on her right, passes her bottled mineral water. TaeYeon mutters her thanks and downs the pills with exactly three mouthfuls of water.

"TaeYeon-ah, your birthday, your birthday," SooYoung sings, loudly and horribly off-tune, pride-hurting for a national singer, but what does SooYoung care?

Everyone begins to hit TaeYeon on the back, giving her hard-earned and hardly given slaps and pats that nearly makes TaeYeon choke on her water. All of them sing a birthday song.

It takes a while to sink in, and eventually even the manager joins in. TaeYeon's skin could have glowed from all the love she had, and she swears to love her members forever, no matter how forked their future paths may be.

~+~

They're now in Kobe, and this time, SooYoung has brought them Japanese beer. Sunny joins her at the table with messy hair that still somehow falls into place, reaching for a chilled beer at the end of the table. She holds the label to the light.

"I swear, kids, at the rate you're going, you guys are only planning to destroy your kidneys and livers."

"Shut up, MiYoung," SooYoung snaps, "don't be a saint when you like some of this too."

Tiffany throws the beer a look of disgust. "Beers are just not my thing."

"Our MiYoung likes classy alcohol, ladies," YuRi says, now on her back and staring at a wall. "Stuff like wine and champagne."

They hear a flush in the washroom and HyoYeon steps out, drying her hands with a hand towel. Jessica, as usual, notices the absence of someone else, and misses that someone else.

"I'm gonna go check up on TaeYeon," she proclaims and takes TaeYeon's spare key card.

Sunny gives her a thumbs-up.

~+~

TaeYeon is sleeping again. The effect of the medicine JuHyun had ordered her to take caused dreamless, deep sleep. Jessica slips into bed with TaeYeon, arm drawn over waist and kissing TaeYeon's cheek. Jessica could even swear she smelled cigarettes on TaeYeon's jaw, across the lengthy bone.

What could she do? The members are TaeYeon's smokes.

Jessica moistens her lips, holding TaeYeon tighter. She kisses TaeYeon's ear, kisses the side of TaeYeon's neck, does it like how Sunny likes to do to Tiffany to wake her up; TaeYeon stirs a little. The clock reads three in the morning.

The girls' body clocks are irregular; sleepy in the day and widely awake at night, darting from every corner of the world. It might not even be three. But the quiet night and rumbling of the air vent makes up for all the time Jessica ever thought she lost.

"Your birthday, Tae," Jessica gives her kisses generously, planting more than just fluttered whispers and breaths into TaeYeon's skin. She plants every single thought of love, every single thought of a Jessica Jung SooYeon existing, loving a Kim TaeYeon.

"Tae? It's your birthday, just wake up for a bit."

TaeYeon makes a protesting sound to argue, her hand coming up to the back of Jessica's hand draped over her waist. Her hair smells like cotton pillows and the van. Jessica pursues, TaeYeon comes to wake with a high-pitched grunt.

"SooYeon? Let me sleep..."

"It's your birthday, Tae," Jessica nudges the side of TaeYeon's face with her chin. "I'll sing you a birthday song, okay? Then you can go back to sleep."

can't believe you woke me up for that. TaeYeon smiles sleepily, half-nodding, inhaling deeply and rubbing Jessica's knuckles, cold from the near-subzero temperatures in the room.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Kim TaeYeon, happy birthday to you," Jessica sings in a quarter English, a quarter Korean, a quarter Japanese and another completely not of human language. Something not capable of human language. Something that words are unworthy of expressing.

TaeYeon feels it, feels the humming throbbing underneath her chin, the moisture left behind by Jessica's lips. Jessica's hips rise to meet TaeYeon's.

"Thanks, SooYeon-ah," TaeYeon reaches behind to pat Jessica's cheek, then keeps it there as two souls breathe lengthily, eyes closing to sleep.

Jessica thinks she could go mad with how much she loves TaeYeon. She would have never thought it possible to love TaeYeon this much. It's like swimming in the deep end of a pool, the waters at her neck, pressing at her chest and lungs. The waters laugh around her, watching her struggle to breathe.

She holds tighter and doesn't let go.

~+~

"Unnie!"

TaeYeon shouldn't have underestimated how long YoonA's legs are, especially when they need to reach a beloved.

YoonA catches up, breathing huge lungfuls of air. She stretches herself across TaeYeon's back for a bit.

"Unnie, don't walk too fast!"

"Oh. Sorry YoonA," TaeYeon says. "Did you want to say something?"

YoonA looks at her weirdly. Was TaeYeon not expecting her to say something? On TaeYeon's birthday?

"Yeah...wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Love you, unnie!" YoonA kisses TaeYeon on her cheek, drawing her long, long arms over TaeYeon's shoulders from the back and holding TaeYeon close. They stop moving. TaeYeon wonders how YoonA's heartbeat sounds so strong and distinct.

~+~

They finish their schedules and return to their hotel rooms. Then slowly, gradually, they begin to filter one by one into Tiffany's room, knocking at her door and grimacing at how the room smells of ointment.

Tiffany is on a chair, rubbing traditional ointment at her ankles, swelling and reddening to the touch.

"How'd that happen?" SooYoung goes over to Tiffany's side, gently swiping off access ointment smeared on Tiffany's left leg. "You should have told us."

"Oh. I think I tripped a bit earlier. That's all. It wasn't anything serious," Tiffany smiles, and SooYoung tilts her head onto Tiffany's forehead, bumping it lightly.

Tiffany chuckles at the tired affection, bumping back and looking up to Sunny, JuHyun, HyoYeon and YoonA present in her room with snacks. Jessica had went to fetch TaeYeon; they're meant to celebrate TaeYeon's birthday before it's twelve.

"Come on, let's put those at the table," Tiffany gets up with a sigh, capping her ointment and taking the plastic bags from JuHyun's hands, red from cold.

SooYoung helps with the arranging, while Sunny collapses onto the bed and YoonA goes by her, rubbing her elbow. JuHyun rinses some cups she found in the bathroom, looking at her reflection every now and then. HyoYeon lays out the napkins with precision.

The doorbell rings and YoonA goes to get it. YuRi launches herself at YoonA like she hasn't seen YoonA all day, whispering that she missed the girl and YoonA says she missed her back, wondering when YuRi had come to gain the ocean-ly, saltwater scent in her hair.

"We couldn't get the cake, sorry," Sunny chips in, raising her hand to the light and closing one eye to look at the yellowish light coating her fingers like some kind of halo.

"No, no, it's okay," Tiffany mumbles, occupied but not too occupied to offer a comforting smile to Sunny. "Cakes are too traditional anyway."

the only kind of tradition we have is us. together.

The door knocks meticulously (Tiffany has instructed Jessica to knock specifically four times in a particular pattern to inform them that TaeYeon is here) and Tiffany shushes everyone even though they are quiet.

Tiffany creeps to the door, Sunny sitting up and getting ready a smile and comforting pair of arms, SooYoung offering a head to lean against, Tiffany preparing her long-lasting and undying support of love and understanding, YoonA readies herself to be the warm and favourite dongsaeng that has split her heart into nine, JuHyun always has been the nurturing and mature maknae with the youngest eyes and a pure love for all, HyoYeon begins to liven the atmosphere and turns up the music, though her brash actions only mean her awkward yet beautiful love for all nine of them.

Nine. All nine.

here we go.

Tiffany mouths, 1, 2, 3...and then opens the door. They all know the drill, and yell out birthday wishes, love yous and pull TaeYeon into their arms, engulfing TaeYeon in every kinds of love they know. Jessica squeals and laughs, their arms forming strong links around TaeYeon, who keeps her head down and laughs nervously, feeling palpable feelings that stops her from looking into the members' eyes.

"I couldn't get the cake, TaeYeon, sorry," Sunny says, apologetic, but raising a plastic bag up in her hand as compensation. "But I got the drinks."

TaeYeon's uneasy smile becomes a full one, then evolves into a grin, a widely stretched one. The yells and cheers only become louder. TaeYeon's cheeks are burning from all the kisses she has received.

Someone might have knocked on their door, it doesn't matter; they hear nothing but nine hearts beating from all the love.

But in the end, Jessica pulls TaeYeon closer to her and whispers in her ear, hands having to touch nothing, but having touched everything: ”I love you."

TaeYeon's soul is soaring. "I love you too."

nine. i love all nine of you. i love you. so much.

The tracks changes into one of the songs Tiffany is embarrassed of having in her IPod, because it's what her parents used to dance to in their kitchen back in America, and Jessica often teases Tiffany for it.

But now, they all squeal when the song comes up, and the consistent beat of John Waite's Missing You keeps them company at night. And for a moment, it feels as if there is no world outside, or that the world is following the beat to the song.

"I love all of you. So much my heart can't hold it all in," TaeYeon's crying, not sobbing, but tears keep slipping out of her hot eyes and down her sticky face, hiccupping and choking up whenever she pauses.

JuHyun approaches TaeYeon first, wiping the tears from TaeYeon's face. TaeYeon shuts her eyes at JuHyun's whispered command. "Don't cry, unnie."

JuHyun envelopes TaeYeon into her as the members watch, equally raw in their hearts.

"No, no," TaeYeon says frantically, wishing to be heard, but not tearing herself away, "hear me--hear me out."

"We're listening, Tae. Haven't we always?" Tiffany grins a watery grin, not crying but almost there too.

The other members agree silently, no nodding, no speaking, but it is as absolute as law would be.

"I'm a mess, a terrible, depressive mess, and I know it can be frustrating to have to put up with my sometimes. But you guys have no idea how much I think--how much I--how much--"

They understand what they have cannot be put into words. There's no point trying. So they all come closer and closer than they've ever been and hold each other tight, so tight time couldn't separate them.

"We know. We love you, Tae," they all say. "You're ours and no one else's."

nine. all nine of us.

Happy birthday, Kim TaeYeon. God smiles on you.

 —ジュリエット