The stage leaves you empty.

There is nothing left for entertainers like her at the end of it all, this Taeyeon knows all too well.  She gives and gives until there is nothing left—there is nothing left! she wants to scream—and yet the audience that leaves still takes a little bit of her as they go. It is a process that is as painful, and yet as natural, as breathing.

On the stage where she feels the most alive, she also slowly dies.

This, Taeyeon accepts as an inevitability.

Still, on a day such as today, she resents it.

Her love flits across the sprung wood flooring, the squeaky sounds of her sneakers keeping pace with the relentless beat, her face a picture of perfect concentration. Taeyeon sees her fly across the wooden flooring that is littered with sweat, sees the steely glint in her eyes, sees the quiet determination she has come to adore.

…sees the pain.

There is little that she can do for her love, and she resents it.

She watches as her love executes a well-rehearsed hip roll, and then proceeds to slam her knees into the floor, twice. The woman sinks to the floor elegantly, scrapping said knees against the floor as she twisted her body around to lie flat on her stomach. Combing her hair seductively, she curls her left leg forward and back, forward and back, in a sick pendulum. A bout of aerobics later and she again slams her kneecaps against floor. This time Taeyeon winces on her behalf.

Moving slowly, for she knew she had to be very careful, Taeyeon rises from her seat in the audience to place the kneepads she had retrieved from their locker, on the edge of the stage. She pushes them closer to the center of the stage where her love dances, even attempting a little hop for leverage with the edge of her fingertips.

She is all but ignored.

The song ends and repeats again. And so does her woman.

Taeyeon returns to her seat in the empty auditorium, and waits.

On Tiffany’s seventh round, a turn taken too hastily sees her promptly falling to her feet with a heart-breaking clatter. Hair scatters over and sticks to her sweat-laden face. Her face contorts into silent rage. Taeyeon is beside her in seconds, helping her up.

“Stop,” she says softly. Tiffany is not looking her in the eyes, so she raises the woman’s head by the tilt of her chin such that they might be level, and repeats.

“Stop.”

Tiffany says nothing. Then pushes her away forcefully.

She re-starts the music and goes for another round.

But she is exhausted, and it is not too long before Taeyeon is circling her arms around her woman’s waist, pulling her up again.

“Stop, love. Stop,” she whispered softly into her woman’s ear, back-hugging her. Not minding as the sweat coated her arms a light sheen.

“I-I can’t, Taeyeon-ah,” Tiffany mumbles frantically as she turns in Taeyeon’s embrace so that they were face-to-face, “don’t… you see?”

“I can’t get rusty… I have to be ready…ready for whenever they call me. If I’m not ready… when they call me they’ll forget about me,” she confesses, breathing hard between the phrases. The exertion was clearly wrecking through her body as she trembles lightly on her feet. Taeyeon can see the horrible contusions that marred both of Tiffany’s kneecaps spreading beyond them to bite into her shin—coating them a deep shade of dark purple and red.

“I’ve got to work harder,” she states, and there was a note of irrevocable finality in her tone. It is clear she reaches a conclusion and she pushes Taeyeon away resolutely to stalk towards the radio.

“It was a mistake, dear. A god damned mistake. They’ll soon see.”

Tiffany twirls back angrily to face her.

“We can’t afford mistakes, Taeyeon. You know better than that.”

“Fany-ah…”

“We live under a microscope,” Tiffany whispers, “and we know this. We accepted this.”

“But that’s not fair!” Taeyeon can’t help the childish rebuke. “Can’t they see all that you’ve done… and all that the effort that you’ve put in for the past ten years and…” She huffs, “…it just isn’t fair.”

“It was never meant to be,” Tiffany smiles sadly, almost indulgently at her, and Taeyeon is speechless. She wants so much—so much, to take her woman in her arms. Instead she lets Tiffany replay the music, and watches as her woman takes a deep breath before putting on a professional smile.

Tiffany is defined by hard work as much as she is shaped by it, and today Taeyeon resents it.

It is when Tiffany crumbles to the floor for the third time that Taeyeon shatters. She grabs onto Tiffany’s arm and uses her body weight to pin Tiffany to the ground.

“Let’s stop now, Fany-ah. Hit me if you’re angry, and cry if you’re sad. Just don’t do this, please.”

“I’m not going to cry,” Tiffany insists, “it’s nothing to cry about.”

Taeyeon says nothing, but proceeds to retrieve the cold compress she had prepared for this precise purpose. Wrapping a towel over to insulate the cold, Taeyeon gently props Tiffany’s legs on her lap, and daps Tiffany’s shin lightly—testing.

“Is this okay?”

Tiffany hums.

Taeyeon presses the cold compress lightly over one badly bruised kneecap and Tiffany hisses instinctively, recoiling in acute pain and tears welling up in her eyes.

“It’s just the shock,” Tiffany insists weakly as she spots the worried look Taeyeon gives her, “it’s not that painful, I’m okay, really, I’m okay,” her lips curling up awkwardly as she tries for an eye-smile.

Taeyeon reaches her hand over to cup Tiffany’s left cheek.

“Stop it, Fany-ah, just ing stop,” Taeyeon murmurs, “drop it. I am not one of your fans—you don’t have to only smile in front of me. You can cry, Fany-ah,” she says softly as she caresses Tiffany’s cheeks gently, “you can yell, and you can think that it’s not fair.”

“I was wrong, Taengoo, and I will pay for it,” Tiffany answers weakly, her voice dry and dreary, “all I can do is wait it out and maybe, m-maybe one day they’ll forgive me and maybe one day they c-can bear to have me on their shows again... I know... it’s a huge risk...and it’s hard to risk that f-for me.”

“They don’t see it, your pain, your work. They wouldn’t say those things if they could. They couldn’t put in one percentage of what you do,” Taeyeon continued angrily—the fury at those fools who have relegated her love to this resigned, sad trainee almost overwhelming her small frame, “and who are they to judge you.”

“But they are right, Taeyeon-ah, I’m so stupid,” Tiffany whispers, in a voice as small as the ball she curls herself into, “I keep screwing up. I just wanted to show them...wanted to share with them what we do because it’s what they wanted, but I just keep screwing up.”

“I am so stupid, Taeyeon-ah,” she asks, “how can you stand to be around me? How can you love me?”

Taeyeon grabs Tiffany’s arms furiously.

“Stephanie Hwang Miyoung,” she enunciates each syllable with force, “you have touched the lives of hundreds and thousands of people in this world and you have no idea at all.  They’ve looked at you, looked at the way you approach life, the way you treat your friends, the way you love, and they have found the strength to carry on in your smile. I am just fortunate to be one of the many.”

“So never feel that you’re not good enough, honey, you’re more than enough,” Taeyeon says as she lifts Tiffany’s right hand up and presses her lips against it.

"I won't tell you not to lose your smile, and I won't tell you to be strong," Taeyeon continued, "in exchange, don't tell me stupid things like you're fine, and you're okay. It's okay to sad, in front of me. We'll get through this, we will get through this," she grits her teeth, "but in the meantime, it's okay to be sad, and it's okay to cry." 

She stares deeply into Tiffany’s eyes, willing her to believe it.

Tiffany slumps under her, exhausted.

“Home. Rest, now,” Taeyeon states firmly as she pulls her woman up. Tiffany grunts and grumbles a little as she lets the woman slip an arm around her waist. Leaning her weight on Taeyeon, she half-walks, half-stumbles her way down the staircase.

“…Taeyeon-ah”

The sun that was slowly rising across the horizon throws an unsuspecting shade of ray across their figures, one bent over and hobbling, the other short and supporting.  

“Hmm?”

“Thank you,” Tiffany says

Taeyeon merely grunts a little.

“Love you,” Tiffany corrects herself.

This time she gets the smile she wants.

For when the stage leaves them empty, they keep their hearts full.