You Love Me

It's somewhere between two to three in the morning. The air has a distilled, artificial quality about it, and it feels almost viscous. She's startled out of many attempts at falling asleep. Aimless wandering of thoughts drifting to white blanks and noise until a certain singular thought brings her back to the living.

She rushes her palm through her hair, frustrated. She exhales. It's gotten colder. Japan is always colder this time of year. There's grey snow on the pavements, as a result of all that trampling.

The dorm is quiet, and she is thankful for it. Silence is getting rather tiring to keep nowadays, between SooYoung and HyoYeon and YoonA who never seem to be affected by the weather. She nudges her bedroom slippers away, choosing to walk barefoot and feel the cool tiles underneath her soles.

She chooses to use the bathroom furthest from her room, the isolated one nobody prefers. She lets the water run, testing the temperature and adjusting it accordingly.

She lets out a sigh as she descends into the waters, comfortably warm. If she closes her eyes, it feels like home again, away from all the claustrophobia.

Her thoughts wander, flitting back and forth subconsciously. She lets them. She never had much control over them anyway. Maybe it would be better to let things run their course rather than to resist them.

Somewhere in all of this, the door clicks open, and a disgruntled Tiffany slips through, sporting a full set of pink pajamas. She always wore them when they travel. Perhaps she isn't the only one who truly misses home.

Jessica simply cracks open an eye, not even bothering to cover herself up. There's nothing left to be hidden at the stage they're in. She makes a muted sound of acknowledgement at the back of .

Tiffany crosses her arms. Her eyes narrow. Jessica immediately understands this to be a territorial fight.

"Why are you in the tub?" Tiffany speaks in English; she always speak in English when she's in some kind of emotional imbalance, especially around Jessica.

"Get your own."

Tiffany looks affronted. Jessica seems to recall that Tiffany never backs down from a fight, but then again, neither will she. They are both uncompromising and stubborn, and nearly nothing is able to hold them for too long.

Except for each other, maybe.

Tiffany, never breaking eye contact, undresses, slipping into the other end of the tub, kicking Jessica's legs away.

"There are three other tubs in this goddamned place. This is mine," Jessica glares, sitting upright, kicking back.

Tiffany ignores her, willfully averting her eyes and tracing a crack absently with a prettily manicured finger.

Jessica scoffs, "Your silent treatment doesn't work on me."

Tiffany glares. "Take this as retribution. I've let you take advantage of me for the first two years."

Jessica rolls her eyes, leaning forward. "Don't be a ."

"Statistically speaking, that'd be you."

She scoffs again, though it is a smaller, deflated one. She looks over her shoulder, hoping to negate Tiffany's imposing presence completely. Tiffany seems to be doing the same, though she has a lost, faraway look in her face that comes with her slack jaw and her overly relaxed facial muscles. Or maybe it's the eyes. The fire in them has dimmed.

Silence stretches on. Although, it isn't the same silence Jessica is accustomed to. This silence is tense, heavy in the air, tugging at their respective hearts.

"What do you think will happen now?"

Jessica lifts up her arm, scooping some water in her palm. She answers honestly," I don't know."

Tiffany's voice is low, uncharacteristically soft. "I wish you did."

Jessica blinks, looking over Tiffany's shoulder, at the sharp indentations of her collar bones,  the curve of her shoulder. For a moment, her face almost seems wistful, hopeful.

"Go back to America, maybe," Jessica says, slowly, languidly, "or Europe. I never want to come back to this ing place, that's for sure. I want," she shuts her eyes, "some quiet for a bit. Maybe learn a new language, even."

"That does sound kinda nice."

"It does, doesn't it."

"I wish I could go with you."

Tiffany detects some hint of brave albeit foolish hope in Jessica's voice."Well, it isn't that hard. Maybe you should."

Tiffany smiles sadly. It's been some time since Jessica has last seen that expression. Her offer snaps back, any vulnerability smoothed into a blank face she's learnt to master. She knows she shouldn't have dared to hope.

"They need me here."

"You mean TaeYeon needs you here," Jessica says flatly, looking away. She lets the silence roll by for a while before speaking again. "You do understand that the moment she's exhausted her use for you you're gone."

"She's depressed, and confused and extremely exhausted, SooYeon."

"Please, spare me. She's indecisive, and she needs love everywhere she goes. Nobody can give her that kind of love or attention. And don't use that as an excuse,  Tiffany. I'm not stupid."

She's aware that her words are acidic, and she glances away to avoid looking at the corrosive effects.

"I love her."

Jessica's jaw hardens. Her entire body tenses, though she appears not to show it. Her face remains impassively stoic, cold, composed. Though her eyes are averted, Tiffany knows Jessica isn't crying. This kind of anger is not one that runs hot and burning, it's seeping, like metal in winter. A different kind of burn completely. It's a tiring, weary kind of anger, like they've been going on and on in circles and have finally stopped here.

"No, no you don't. Don't mistake her dependency on you for affection and love."

"It's not like that. I'm different."

Jessica rolls her eyes, her laugh brittle. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Tiffany glances at her wearily. "Will you ever make amends with her?"

Jessica doesn't reply. She skims the surface of the water with her hand, admiring Tiffany's body in the most vulgar way possible. It's her own private, intimate revenge.

"Tomorrow, I will announce it," she says instead.

Tiffany knows better than to advice Jessica against it, totally understanding that telling her to wait for the official statement to be released would only be pitiful on her part. She's not under that influence anymore. She refuses to be. Tiffany merely nods.

"I accept that," Jessica says, steadily, bravely, though Tiffany knows it's not the case at all.

"How can you say that. You've spent nearly your entire life with us. You haven't accepted it and it won't be that easy. I won't make it that easy."

"How?" Jessica fires back sardonically. She laughs soundlessly, only a shaking of the shoulders. Her eyes flit to the ceiling in a show of some twisted bravado, to sink back her tears. "What can you do? How will you do it? In between concerts? Talk-shows? In between pity s and all this show? I honestly can't tell."

The look in her eyes are defiant and heated, determined.

"I swear I'll find a way."

"No, you won't. They won't let you."

Tiffany's eyes narrow. "I hate you. I hate you so much right now."

Jessica scoffs. "Whatever. It doesn't change anything."

It doesn't. The mature adults in both of them have understood and accepted that, but the teenagers they had been when they were first accepted into the group, the ones that never really had an outlet, refuses to acknowledge it. Slowly, Jessica gets up, slipping fluidly out of the tub and grabbing her robe hanging from a hook. Tiffany's eyes follow in what may have been lust. She really doesn't know anymore.

"Do you...maybe you could sleep with me tonight," Jessica says, in a small voice that's hardly her own.

She turns to find Tiffany staring unashamedly at her. A wholesome kind of stare.

"Are you offering?"

"I'm demanding."

"Then okay."

Tiffany gets up too, and Jessica thinks to offer her a towel, but then moves to dry Tiffany off with it herself, tenderly, with all the care she had not or neglected to give back then. It won't be as easy to do this anymore.

—ジュリエット