Taeyeon has to acknowledge it: there is a lot going on.

 

The tour, for one - concerts that feel entirely new, from the locations through the language and the very tone of it all. These shows make her feel nervous and self-demanding in a way she hasn't in a long time: like she has something to prove, and, sometimes, like she might not be able to actually prove it.

 

But she’ll be damned if she won’t try.

 

Then during all of that, of course: traveling, and rehearsing, and re-recording, and styling, and interviewing, and trying to deal with the loneliness. She’s gotten better at it, painstakingly, but she thinks being overseas makes it easier to falter from the buzz of non-stop activity and movement to those moments of silence when it's just her in a hotel room and all she feels is the absence of too much and too many all at once.

 

But also then...

 

Well. Now then.

 

In between all of that:

 

Her.

 

Her, and this something between them. Something new, something that makes Taeyeon catch herself feeling giddy and silly in a way she doesn’t think she’s had the luxury of feeling since she was… God. Since she was way too young.

 

It's not that there is no name for what they have between them, not like in the back of her mind she doesn’t acknowledge there is a term for what they are beyond some, but Taeyeon likes the thrill of thinking of it as just… them. Likes thinking of this as theirs, naming be damned.

 

So these days Taeyeon apparently smiles a lot at her phone. She knows it, doesn’t need the gentle teasing from a stylist here or there to be aware of it.

 

Even when the sadness creeps and when it's all lonely, and even if she hasn't been able to get to her phone in too many busy hours, there is always at least a moment where she can let herself feel silly once finally getting to open her phone to her respite.

 

Seolhyun is pretty silly herself, and her texts (and voice messages, and stickers, and pictures, and the multitude of double, triple, quadruple texts she sends because she doesn't use line breaks and is too interested in asking as many questions as time will allow them) are quite good at making the chronic heaviness in Taeyeon's chest alleviate. Or at least turn that heaviness into something else entirely: something that is still scary but also thrilling and exciting at the same time. Something akin to what Taeyeon has felt hammering away in her ribcage all those times she’s kissed Seolhyun on her couch.

 

And then Seolhyun gets a new tattoo.

 

Mind, Taeyeon had known this was going to happen, of course. They'd been calling and texting, and Seolhyun had been excited about this tattoo because it was probably going to be something she drew or wrote herself. They'd even joked about it one night: Taeyeon, sipping a beer before hopefully not uselessly trying to sleep, had chuckled fondly in their video call about how long it would take for Seolhyun to surpass Taeyeon's own count of tattoos.

 

She'd also known that Seolhyun was getting this tattoo with Jimin.

 

Really: she’d been plenty aware.

 

And Taeyeon doesn't think of herself as the jealous type, not exactly. Possessive? Sure, kind of, sometimes. In a fun, smug kind of way she allows herself to be - just acknowledging that someone that might be so wanted by anyone else chooses to be hers instead.

 

Sue her, she likes her ego sometimes.

 

So, all that said, she'd like to believe she’s never been too jealous for no reason.

 

And jealousy is not what she feels when she finally gets to her phone that night either. It's definitely not what she feels as she opens the pictures of the tattoo getting process - the "we're thinking of this" pictures with a few different doodles, and the selfie of "we're going with the original idea anyway keke", and finally one of the final product.

 

The drop in her stomach isn't jealousy. But… it's something.

 

And that something is not something Taeyeon needed tonight, but she's not going to be irrational about it. It's her new thing, see: being in tune with her emotions and, like, handling them and all that crap. Even though she doesn't know what emotion it is that she's supposed to handle as she looks at the picture of intertwined hands with their handwriting in clear letters.

 

Maybe, and Taeyeon allows herself the cringey introspection, her main emotion is precisely that: uncertainty. And hell if it doesn’t burn down while she forces herself to text back with an animated jaw-slacked emote.

 

The message status turns to read soon after, and Taeyeon gets another picture instantly - this time of Seolhyun making an exaggeratedly pouty face as the artist sets to work on her hand. This one Taeyeon saves with a fond quirk of her lips.

 

And then she can't hold back her itching fingers from tapping out the question that burns itself from her mind onto her screen:

 

Mate?

 

Yeah like soulmates, comes the instant reply. You know?

 

Of course ㅎㅎ Taeyeon replies, rolling her eyes at herself for the awkward laugh. She has to hurry to add to her royally ty reply before Seolhyun beats her to it, because that girl has weirdly fast fingers, so she perhaps regretfully adds: So you two consider yourselves soulmates?

 

Well then. Those are words Taeyeon has said now, of her own volition, glaring back at her from her screen. That burn down is starting to become a grievance.

 

There’s no way for her to know whether Seolhyun is typing or not. She’s definitely read her reply though, as evidenced by the disappearing pending views number, so all Taeyeon can do is sit there, phone in hand, watching with fingers hovering over the keyboard until a reply comes.

 

Which takes a bit. Not like she was counting or staring at that damn timestamp, but Taeyeon notices because she was holding her breath like some sort of cliché, and because usually if Seolhyun is mid chat, she will reply in quick bursts, ra