Yuri and Yoona are doing dishes – well, they’re flicking soap suds at each other and probably getting more water on their clothes than the dishes. Taeyeon doesn’t think much of it, because this is how dish duty usually goes around here anyway. Unless it’s Juhyun doing them, that is.

“Hey, Taengoo,” Yuri greets, waving a soapy sponge at her.

Yoona grins. “Are you here to help us with the dishes, unnie?”

“I don’t see a lot of dishes being done,” Taeyeon says wryly.

Yuri raises one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “They’re doing. They’ll be done. Eventually.”

Taeyeon opens the fridge and looks around for some of the mango smoothie they bought last week. She’s pretty sure Sooyoung finished it, but she has some hope.

“If you want some smoothie,” Yuri says, dashing said hopes, “it’s all done.”

“Sorry, unnie,” Yoona says sheepishly. “I finished it this morning.”

“Oh, it’s okay.” Taeyeon shuts the fridge door and leans against it. “You like that a lot more than I do anyway.”

“You don’t like to drink smoothie unless something’s up,” Yuri notes, a furrow between her eyebrows. Taeyeon’s barely noticed that fact herself, but she’s not surprised that Yuri has. Yuri’s perceptive like that, caring like that. “Is something up?”

“Or down,” Yoona adds.

“Nothing’s down.” Taeyeon shrugs. “Up, maybe a little.”

Yuri scrutinizes her, while Yoona just looks thoughtful, and she’s sure that any moment now they’re going to get it. She hopes so, at least, because she doesn’t quite know how to tell them.

Jessica and I made up. Jessica forgave me. Things are okay between me and Jessica now.

All of those statements are applicable, and yet Taeyeon can’t get them out. It’s not a secret, what’s going on between her and Jessica; she couldn’t have kept it a secret even if she wanted to, but for now at least, the only people who really know what happened between her and Jessica are her and Jessica.

Maybe it does count as a secret then. And she wants to keep it that way. Secrets are only strong if they’re protected; the only thing that sharing will do is break them.

But this is Yuri and Yoona, these are her girls, and she’s shared everything from camisoles to embarrassing baby pictures with them. She has no qualms with sharing things with them, even though sometimes she feels like they want to take more of her, have more of her, and she has nothing left to give.

That sounds like selfishness, objectively, but she knows that their love for her isn’t selfish. It’s generous, it’s giving. It’s selfless. She’s the selfish one, because she wants everything without giving up any of herself, and if that’s not selfishness, she doesn’t know what is.

“Unnie?” Yoona broaches. “Is everything okay?”

Taeyeon breathes out, feels her head clear although her chest still feels congested. “Yeah, everything’s okay. Better than okay. I—had a talk with Jessica.”

Yoona’s eyes widen; Yuri’s brighten.

“What happened?” Yoona asks gently.

“It went good. Things are—okay between us now. I think. I hope.”

“So you made up?” Yuri paraphrases.

“Yeah, we—” Taeyeon wets her lips, swallows, and then realizes that she’s smiling. “We made up.”

“That’s great!” Yuri exclaims, and Yoona chimes in her agreement, and they both smile back. They’re just happy, not pressing for details or badgering her with questions, even though she can tell that they’re curious about the conversation between her and Jessica.

She’s grateful for that. She’s grateful for them. She knows that they’re aware of that, but she finds herself wanting to tell them, verbally and explicitly, but she doesn’t even know how to begin.

“Thank you,” Taeyeon says softly, which seems like a pretty good start.

“For what, unnie?” Yoona asks.

For being here for me, Taeyeon wants to say, for helping me, for comforting me.

Instead, what comes out is, “For everything,” which is not entirely what she meant, but it’ll do.

“Any time,” Yuri says, eyes crinkling in a smile.

“You don’t have to thank us,” Yoona says. “Not for—not for this. I mean, we take care of each other. That’s how we work.”

Taeyeon doesn’t think she did a very good job taking care of them, at least in the beginning, when she was young and raw and full of nerves, when she just wanted to sing and yet was saddled with all these other duties, all these other labels.

The biggest one, the heaviest one, was leader, and she hadn’t wanted to bear it, she’s thought for years that she wasn’t very good at it, but it strikes her again that this is where she belongs.

“Yeah,” Taeyeon says softly. “That’s how we work.”

“Taengoo,” Sunkyu says cheerfully. “I’m going to get some more food today. Is there anything you want?”

“I could go for some smoothie.”

“What flavour?”

“Strawberry banana!” Tiffany practically yells, and Taeyeon jumps a little, not at the volume but at hearing Tiffany unexpectedly. She didn’t even realize that Tiffany had walked up behind her, which is unusual for her, because she practically has a radar to sense when Tiffany’s near. (Sunkyu had called it a ‘Taedar’, a name that she had groaned at but secretly kind of liked.)

Sunkyu rolls her eyes. “You just like it because it’s pink.”

“Not just that,” Tiffany protests. “Strawberry banana tastes really good.”

“Okay, okay.” Sunkyu raises her hands as if in surrender. “We’ll get some, don’t worry. What about you, Taengoo?”

“Some mango would be nice.”

“Yeah, mango is nice too,” Tiffany agrees. “Jessi loves that.”

“You barely drink any smoothie anyway,” Sunkyu says. “You barely drink anything. You need to get some more fluids.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“You don’t eat enough either,” Tiffany chimes in. “You’ve lost weight lately, you know.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

Tiffany frowns, concern swimming in her eyes. Taeyeon looks away. She doesn’t want to meet the concern, doesn’t want to look into Tiffany’s eyes for too long because she thinks that Tiffany can see right through her, and it’s not a feeling she likes.

“You’re too thin, Taeyeon,” Tiffany finally says, her voice soft, her touch even softer as she puts her hand on Taeyeon’s arm. “I don’t like seeing you so skinny.”

Taeyeon swallows thickly; she feels only a ghost of the ache she used to when Tiffany touches her like this, gentle and intimate, but a ghost is still something.

“I don’t like it either,” Sunkyu adds. “You need to eat more, okay? Your health isn’t a joke.”

“I don’t think I’ve lost weight.” Taeyeon pokes her ribs, and they don’t feel prominent or anything. She pinches her sides, and there’s still a decent amount of flesh there. She’s certainly nowhere close to skin and bones, nowhere close to a figure worth worrying about. Like Jessica’s. “If I did, it’s not much.”

“Taeyeon,” Tiffany says, disapproval clear in the two syllables.

“Jessica’s the one who’s lost weight. You should be giving her this talk, not me.”

“Trust me, I’ve tried,” Sunkyu snorts, “but Sica’s more stubborn than a mule. The only person who could beat her in that department is probably you.”

“I’m honoured.”

“Taeyeon,” Tiffany says again, and her voice is softer, sadder; there’s an edge of disappointment in it that Taeyeon hates hearing. She doesn’t want to hurt Tiffany, and she doesn’t want to disappoint her, and it seems like she’s doing an excellent job of both right now. “Please, just listen to us and take better care of yourself.”

“Okay,” Taeyeon relents, because she doesn’t want to see that lingering melancholy in Tiffany’s eyes. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all you ever promise when it comes to taking care of yourself, you know,” Sunkyu says wryly. “You promise to try, never to do.”

“‘Do or do not’,” Tiffany says. “‘There is no try.’”

“There is in my world,” Taeyeon says lightly.

All she can promise them is to try, because she doesn’t want to give them empty placations and she doesn’t want to go back on her word. Trying will have to be their middle ground, their compromise.

“Why don’t you come to our world sometimes?” Sunkyu asks. “We could use a dorky alien like you.”

Taeyeon rolls her eyes, but she laughs, and Tiffany doesn’t smile with , but she smiles with her eyes, and it’s a beautiful expression either way. It’s a beautiful expression, but it doesn’t make something clench in Taeyeon’s chest like it used to.

“I’ll eat more,” Taeyeon tells her best friends, quietly and sincerely, feeling the weight of the promise sink into the air between them. “I’ll try to be healthier – I mean, I’ll be healthier.”

“You’d better be,” Sunkyu says, her tone offhand but serious, while Tiffany just says, “Okay,” with a short, heavy nod.

Their eyes are steady, trusting. They believe she’ll be good for her word. They believe in her.

And for the first time in a while, she finds that she believes in herself too.