Taeyeon’s not sure when it starts.

Maybe it’s when Tiffany was so hot and cold with her, but when Taeyeon sees her a few minutes later, she’s holding Jessica’s hand and talking with her in a low, intimate voice, Jessica’s eyes speckled with stars and fond amusement.

Maybe it’s when Taeyeon is just so tired and drained that she actually forgets her line during a performance, and Jessica covers for her after barely a moment’s pause, voice clear and sweet and flawless.

Maybe it’s when she’s browsing online and sees comments saying how Jessica nailed that part better than her, and how S.M. should really make her the first main vocalist instead, and how it was a crime they had a sub-unit without Jessica, and how—

She stops reading, her head spinning, but she can’t get the image of Jessica’s smiling face and the sound of her sweet voice and the memory of how close, how right she and Tiffany had looked, out of her mind.

She doesn’t have many things, but her position as SNSD’s main vocalist – and no one could debate that although they have five amazing vocalists, Taeyeon is the voice – and Tiffany’s best friend are two of the things that she treasures above everything else, the two things that she’s kept as a safety net and always thought that she would never lose.

It’s been so many years since their debut, so many years that she’s spent carving a solid place in this industry through sweat and tears, that she didn’t think things would change now.

But Jessica suddenly raises doubts in her. Jessica, with her gorgeous face and cool sarcasm and effortless magnetism. Jessica, who Tiffany clearly still adores even though she’s drifted apart from her and closer to Taeyeon.

(Taeyeon isn’t foolish enough to believe that she has a claim over Tiffany. Even though Tiffany owns her, more or less, it definitely doesn’t apply the other way around. But Tiffany spends the most time with her, smiles the brightest around her, and she knows that this is the most she’s ever going to get. She won’t let anyone take that away from her.)

The first time, Taeyeon’s not in a good mood, and Jessica says one of her rather awkward jokes, with just Taeyeon and Sunkyu there. Sunkyu rolls her eyes at Jessica and makes a jibe about her terrible sense of humour, and Taeyeon…just doesn’t react. She doesn’t laugh, and she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even glance at Jessica, who looks at her for a moment, and then appears to dismiss it.

The second time, they’re caught on camera. She doesn’t even remember what it was about anymore, just that it was a public event and she ignored Jessica, only half-purposefully. Jessica had faltered, looking distinctly hurt for about a second, before she seemed to remember that they were being filmed and turned back to Yoona with a plastic smile in place.

The third time, Jessica is laughing hard over something, and she leans into Taeyeon, who’s also laughing. She doesn’t even know why, she just automatically draws away, toward Tiffany and away from Jessica, who doesn’t have any reaction then. However, only after the cameras have been turned off does she give Taeyeon a long, hard look, and she opens like she’s going to say something. But then Tiffany asks Taeyeon a question, and when she finishes answering, Jessica is gone and only the faint scent of her perfume remains. Taeyeon can’t stand the smell for some reason, and she hurries out of there.

The fourth time, the fifth, the sixth…

Many times pass, and it’s become practically second nature for her to make sure that the seat next to her is always occupied, that she’s busy talking to a member or something when Jessica walks in so she wouldn’t approach her.

She doesn’t outright ignore Jessica anymore; that’s too callous and too obvious. But when Jessica talks to her, she gives curt replies; when Jessica makes a joke, she might give an absent-minded smile; when Jessica tells a story, she occupies herself with taking a drink or fiddling with her clothes.

Eventually, Jessica stops seeking her out for conversation. Stops with her jokes and anecdotes around her. Stops the hesitant smiles she used to throw in her direction.

Taeyeon should be happy that she won, except this doesn’t feel like a victory, and she doesn’t feel any accomplishment or pride, just a strange hollowness somewhere in the vicinity of her chest.

“I don’t get it,” Jessica finally says, breaking the silence between them in more than one sense. (Because although they’ve spoken to each other plenty of times in the past few months, they haven’t really talked in ages.) “Did I do something?”

Taeyeon plays dumb. “What do you mean?”

Jessica frowns at her. She looks more annoyed than hurt, which is good, because Taeyeon might have softened if she actually hurt Jessica, but annoyance is a different matter altogether.

“I’m tired of this, Taeyeon,” she says quietly. “Of this—cold war, or whatever you call it. You never look at me anymore. You never talk to me. If I try to start things – and believe me, I have tried – I feel like I’m just ramming my head against the wall. You can’t blame me for not wanting to do that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lie coming as easily as the truth on Taeyeon’s tongue, maybe even more easily. “So sometimes I’ve been in a bad mood. We’re talking right now, aren’t we? We’re looking at each other.”

“Do you hate me?” Jessica whispers, and Taeyeon sees the hurt in her eyes then, although Jessica looks away right after, like she can’t bear for her to see it.

“No,” Taeyeon blurts out, because out of the myriad of things she feels for Jessica, hatred is not one of them. “Of course I don’t hate you. Why would I ever hate you?”

“That’s what I want to know.” Jessica stares right into her eyes, and Taeyeon has to fight the urge to look away, because she doesn’t know what Jessica will find in her eyes, just like she doesn’t know what she’ll find in Jessica’s.

She’s afraid to find out.

“We weren’t always like this,” Jessica says quietly. “I mean, we were never the closest in the group, but…we were always better than this.”

“Better than what exactly?” Taeyeon asks coolly. “I don’t see anything wrong with how we are right now, and like you said, we were never that close, so I fail to see a difference between how things are now and how they always were.”

She expects Jessica to argue, to press further – she fears that she will, but she hopes so too – but Jessica just sighs, almost silently, her shoulders dropping, her eyes dark and weary. She doesn’t look hurt, or annoyed; she just looks tired. Resigned. Like she’s given her all already and received nothing in return and—really, what more could she do?

“Tiffany’s straight, you know,” Jessica says; casual, matter-of-fact. “She’ll never love you the way you want her to. The way you love her.”

Taeyeon is so stunned that she can’t even say anything; she just stares at Jessica, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

“And I love Fany to death, but not in that way. So if you think I’m trying to steal her from you, then that’s so far-fetched it’s not even on the grid anymore.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Taeyeon repeats, although this time her voice is thick and it wouldn’t have fooled anyone, least of all Jessica, who is hardly given credit for how perceptive she really is. “Do you think this has something to do with Tiffany? Because it doesn’t.”

“So you admit there is a ‘this’ then,” Jessica presses. “You admit there’s something going on?”

“Maybe I just don’t see what everyone else sees in you,” Taeyeon says ruthlessly, because she would rather hurt than be hurt. “When we were trainees and I saw you falling asleep in the practice room while I had to work my off to learn the choreography – I didn’t like you then, Jessica, and I may have to be with you all the time now, but that doesn’t mean I have to like you.”

All the colour drains out of Jessica’s face. She looks at Taeyeon like she physically struck her, or plunged a blade into her, and it’s strange, because Taeyeon kind of feels like she’s been stabbed herself.

“I see.” Jessica’s voice is very calm. Her eyes empty of emotion and her face becomes like a mask: a beautiful, porcelain mask with no life and no feeling. “You’ve never liked me. I guess the friendship that I thought we had was just me deluding myself.” She takes a deep, ragged breath, shoulders hunching like she’s shrinking in on herself, before her spine straightens into a stiff, proud line. “Well, you don’t have to worry, because I’m not going to do that anymore. You don’t want to talk to me, you don’t want to look at me – fine, you won’t have to.”

“Jessica,” Taeyeon starts weakly.

“You’re my leader. I’ll listen to you, you don’t have to worry about that,” Jessica continues in that same blank, toneless voice, “but since you hate the sight of me so much, I’ll make sure to stay out of your field of vision.”

Taeyeon swallows. “Good,” she manages to get out somehow, because this should be what she wants, what she’s been trying so hard to achieve: pushing Jessica away.

Although now Jessica is the one walking away, which is a completely different feeling.

Jessica’s eyes flash, and Taeyeon sees the first glint of malice there, the want to lash out and wound. “You know what, Kim Taeyeon?” she starts softly. “Even if Tiffany did like girls, things would still be exactly as they are, because she would never love someone like you.”

And Jessica waits for Taeyeon to flinch and pale before she spins sharply on her heel and storms away.

Taeyeon tries to tell herself that she doesn’t see the moisture glistening in Jessica’s eyes right before she marches away, the line of her shoulders sharp enough to cut but not to mask the slight tremble in her delicate frame.

She also tries to tell herself that she doesn’t feel hurt at all, but she doesn’t do a very good job at that either.