Tiffany tells them that she’s dating someone, another idol who they all know and like well enough. Taeyeon surprises herself when she discovers that she’s genuinely happy Tiffany found someone who makes her happy, even if that someone can’t be her.

“Personally I think you can do better,” Jessica drawls.

“What’s wrong with oppa?” Tiffany asks.

“Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s a great guy. But you can still do better.”

“Is that what happened with you and Donghae oppa?” Tiffany teases. Jessica is the one who’s been linked with the most male idols out of them, and it’s something they’ve brought up (or rather, used to make fun of her) many times.

Jessica rolls her eyes. “You know there was never a ‘me and Donghae’.”

“So you wish there was?”

Jessica makes a face. “Honestly, you’re worse than my sister.”

“Ouch, that was a low blow,” Taeyeon says, and Tiffany sticks her tongue out at her.

“TaeTae,” she says, her eyes bright. “You’re not against me having a boyfriend, are you?”

“No, I’m not.” Taeyeon hesitates, not because she doesn’t mean it, but because she does. “Why would I be against you being happy?”

“And you’re not against oppa, are you?”

“No,” she replies honestly. “I’m not. He’s a good guy. And we all know he’s crazy about you.”

“Thank you, TaeTae,” Tiffany says softly. “That means a lot to me.”

Jessica looks between the two of them for a while. Taeyeon has no idea what’s going on in Jessica’s mind, which is something that frustrates her. Jessica’s impeccable at hiding her emotions; she’s probably one of the best in the group at it, and Taeyeon’s probably the worst in the group at trying to pick them out.

“What about my opinion?” Jessica asks. “Doesn’t it mean a lot to you too?”

“Maybe it would if you didn’t shove it in my face.”

Jessica pouts, and Taeyeon finds herself staring. For someone who doesn’t like aegyo very much, Jessica has quite a lot of it and she pulls it off very well.

“Oh knock it off.” Tiffany pokes Jessica in the cheek. “You know I think you’re adorable.” She turns to Taeyeon with one of those knockout smiles of hers. “TaeTae, isn’t Jessi adorable?”

“Yeah,” Taeyeon agrees, without thinking about it, without needing to. “She is.”

Jessica’s eyes flicker to Taeyeon, and then she looks down and away, the faintest hint of pink stealing over her cheeks. Taeyeon clears and finds her own face warmer than usual too.

“I have the cutest best friends in the world,” Tiffany declares, putting her arms around both of them. “The cutest and the greatest.”

“Aren’t you a lucky girl?” Jessica says wryly.

“Very lucky,” Tiffany says, and she smiles at both of them: that brilliant, heartbreaking, Tiffany smile of hers. Taeyeon looks at it for a long time, but she’s no longer helplessly drawn to it like before.

“I think I’m lucky too,” Jessica says contemplatively, closing her eyes like she’s remembering something, and then she smiles, quiet and private, not really for or at anyone, just a reflection of some simple contentment.

Taeyeon doesn’t look as long at Jessica’s smile as she did at Tiffany’s, but she doesn’t need to stare to memorize it.

Later on, when Jessica’s been dragged away by Yuri to do God-knows-what and Tiffany’s gone back to texting her boyfriend, and Taeyeon is alone but not lonely, she thinks about their smiles and how Tiffany’s smiles are easy to remember but Jessica’s are hard to forget.

It feels like a significant difference, somehow.

Tiffany starts spending more and more time with her boyfriend, and that means she spends less and less time with Taeyeon. It’s not like Taeyeon sits by the corner and sulks over it or anything, but given how much time she and Tiffany have always spent together, it feels…strange, to say the least, to be without her so much.

Her absence feels palpable, like something present rather than something missing, and with a start, she realizes that the presence is loneliness.

She loves all her members, she really does (although eight is a big number and before, she didn’t think that she had enough room in her heart to love eight people so much. Now she knows better. She doesn’t know if it’s that she underestimated herself, or if her heart has expanded to make room for all of them, but she thinks that the difference doesn’t matter, it’s the love that does), but there’s always been something…special about the bond between her and Tiffany. Something closer. Something more.

She always thought that it was because she was in love with Tiffany, but now she realizes that it’s not just that. Tiffany was the first person who broke down her walls, this fifteen-year-old from America who was all alone in Korea and yet smiled with so much heart, who gave her such open, earnest affection that it was impossible not to return it.

Tiffany was everything Taeyeon wasn’t: sweet, volatile, unguarded. Her voice cracked where Taeyeon’s voice didn’t, but it also throbbed in a way that Taeyeon’s didn’t, it seemed to come from a deeper place than either throat or diaphragm.

Tiffany was and is Taeyeon’s best friend, her unrequited love, the projection of her dreams and hope. She looked for the future in Tiffany’s eyes, sought reassurances, feared expectations, but she realizes now that you aren’t supposed to love a person wanting them to give you everything you’re looking for. If you love someone, you see them for who they are and you love them for that.

She doesn’t think she skipped over Tiffany’s flaws or put her on a pedestal. But she’s loved Tiffany for so long that it’s become a habit, a certainty, a constant in her life that she’s long since given up on trying to change.

Even now, she doesn’t really understand how her feelings for Tiffany changed, but she accepts that they have and that she’s ready to move on.

“You usually look at Tiffany like—like the rest of the world doesn’t exist and it’s just the two of you, or something. Like you only see her, and you wish she only saw you too.”

Taeyeon thinks that she sees the rest of the world just fine now. She sees everyone more clearly, including herself, and this clarity in vision is a little like putting glasses on and a lot like growing up.

“You know,” Taeyeon says conversationally to Sunkyu. “It’s kind of silly how we’re still called Girls’ Generation, even though we’re not really girls anymore, don’t you think?”

“What are we then, boys?” There’s a flippant tone to Sunkyu’s voice, but once she sees how serious Taeyeon’s expression is, she sounds more thoughtful. “Well, Women’s Generation doesn’t really have the same ring to it, I think.”

Taeyeon can’t argue with that.

“We’re not really girls anymore, but we’ll always be Girls’ Generation.” Sunkyu gives a small but warm smile. “Right?”

Taeyeon smiles back. “Right.”

She remembers reading somewhere that two things the human mind can’t comprehend are absolute certainty and the concept of forever.

Despite their fan chant, she knows that they won’t be forever, but she also knows – with absolute certainty – that they’ll always be permanent in one place:

Her heart.

Or maybe she should make that nine places. Their success won’t be forever, and their fame won’t be forever, but their bonds, their love for each other…

Taeyeon doesn’t believe in forever, but she believes in her girls. She believes in them, in Girls’ Generation, and indeed, no matter how old they may grow, that’s a part of them they’ll always keep and always cherish.

A/N: The line "two things the human mind can’t comprehend are absolute certainty and the concept of forever" is taken from a rough guide on how to cope by saracupcaked at sincejuly on LJ.