Tiffany’s always prided herself on her control, her self-discipline, her ability to smile and mostly mean it even when she feels like her insides are filled with tears. This time, however, is an exception. As soon as they’re backstage, as soon as cameras and eyes aren’t on her anymore, she breaks down.

She doesn’t cry, exactly; she’s not sure this can be called crying. Her whole body is shaking, trembling so hard that she feels like the ground is coming apart beneath her. There’s a sound building up in : a wounded, high-pitched, barely human sound. It scrapes against , the inside of , and hurts worse than her vocal nodules ever did.

“Fany,” someone is saying in an alarmed voice. “Tiffany. Miyoung. Tiffany.”

It’s not the name she wants to hear, not the voice she wants to hear.

Arms wrap around her and pull her against a thin frame. “Tiffany,” Taeyeon says, so much pain in her voice that it almost rivals how Tiffany feels.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps, heaving in a breath, feeling like she’s choking. It almost breaks off into a sob, but she manages to hold herself together.

“Don’t be sorry,” Sunkyu says. “We miss her too.”

Tiffany doesn’t say anything. Her name goes unmentioned, as always. They never say it out loud. Tiffany doesn’t even let herself say it in her mind because just the sound of it would be too painful. They all miss her but nobody as much as Tiffany. She misses her all the time, and she misses her more each time, although it should be impossible to miss her any more, to hurt any more, by this point.

She’s finding that there’s no limit to pain.

“Fany,” Sooyoung starts, her eyes red. Most of their eyes are red. Tiffany can’t imagine how hers must look by this point. It must take the makeup artists a lot of work to fix their faces after they cry (and they’ve been crying a lot lately). She wonders if it can even be done. She’s seen people pull off miracles with makeup, but there’s only so much mascara can mask, only so much concealer can hide.

Tiffany shakes her head. “Don’t,” she whispers, pressing a hand against her face like a shield, a mask. “Just don’t, okay?”

“You can talk to us about this,” Taeyeon says. “You should talk to us about this. We can only confide in each other.”

Something dark and ugly suddenly fills Tiffany. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she spits out. “You don’t understand. Do you even miss her? You’ve never acted like it.”

Taeyeon flinches, the colour draining out of her face. She looks like Tiffany struck her.

“You don’t mean that,” Yoona says, just as Hyoyeon says, “Come on, that was uncalled for.”

Tiffany wheels on them. “None of you understand, so don’t talk to me like you do.”

“How can you say that we don’t understand?” Yuri sounds appalled. “I know you miss her, but we all miss her. We all love her. We’re in this together. Everyone else is against us, but we can’t turn on each other.”

Tiffany shakes her head. “You don’t understand,” she repeats. You love her, but I love her. You miss her, but I need her.

“Then help us, unnie,” Juhyun says.

She wants to, but she has no idea how even to begin. She should have told them long ago, if not when it started, with shy gazes and racing pulses, then when it ended, with wet eyes and broken hearts.

“I—” she starts, and stops. Without looking at them, she turns around and flees.

 

Tiffany doesn’t know where she is right now and she doesn’t care. What’s important is that she’s alone. She doesn’t want to be alone, she wants her, she needs her, but if she can’t have her, then she would rather be alone. She loves her girls so much, but they’re not her, and Tiffany only wants her right now. She only wants her always.

“Hey, there you are. I’ve been looking for you forever.”

She almost stops breathing at the sound of that voice, a voice she’s been dreaming about during her sleeping and waking moments. A voice that she’s apparently hearing in her head now. Oh God, she’s cracked, she’s actually lost her mind.

“Tiff?” That voice, that beautiful voice, sounds worried. “You don’t look so good.”

She dares to raise her eyes. Her hallucination looks unbelievably, heartbreakingly real. Her hair is a little darker than Tiffany remembers it, rumpled on one side, probably because she slept on it. She often falls asleep when she’s on the couch, face pillowed against the fabric so that she’d wake up with pink creases along her cheek that Tiffany liked to kiss.

“Your hair,” Tiffany says dumbly. “It’s darker.”

Her mind is an interesting thing, retouching the apparition like that. She doesn’t mind; she’ll take the apparition however she can get her. She’s had so many dreams like this but never quite this real. Maybe insanity isn’t so bad, if she can finally have her in her arms again.

Jessica – there, Tiffany said it – smiles. “Yeah, I use a different dye now, so.”

“I like it,” Tiffany says. “Not that I didn’t like your old hair! I just—I like this too.”

Jessica’s smile widens. She looks so pretty, so—Jessica. Tiffany is marvelling at how vivid her hallucination is.

“Jessi.” Her name falls apart in Tiffany’s throat. “Oh, Jessi.” Then she’s breaking down again, falling over, her legs giving out on her along with her voice. Except instead of landing on the ground, she knocks into Jessica, who had rushed forward to catch her.

“Steph.” Jessica sounds alarmed. “It’s okay, I’m here, don’t cry.” Gentle fingers trail down her cheeks, gathering her tears.

Tiffany shakes her head. “I’ve actually cracked,” she whispers, “but I don’t even care. If I can hear your voice again, if I can see you, I don’t care.”

“Cracked?” Jessica repeats. “Have you been reading New Moon again? I’m here, you’re not imagining me. I’m right here.”

“Jessi…” Tiffany lurches forward, blindly seeking Jessica’s lips. She misses, bumping against Jessica’s chin instead, but then Jessica moves and their mouths align, meet, fit to each other’s. Jessica tastes like her favourite mint chocolate candies, such a familiar taste that Tiffany could cry again, because she’s thought about this so many times but her memories can’t hold a candle to Jessica.

“Steph,” Jessica breathes against . “You don’t have to miss me. I’m here, I’m right here.”

Tiffany realizes that she’s been making gasping, breathy little sounds. Maybe she’s been saying I miss you. Maybe I love you. Maybe just Jessica.

“You won’t believe how much work I had to do to sneak in here,” Jessica says. “Don’t sweep that under the rug by saying I’m a hallucination.”

“Then it’s a dream,” Tiffany says. “I’m dreaming right now. It wouldn’t be the first time – it wouldn’t be the fiftieth time – I’ve dreamed about you.”

“I’ve dreamed about you too,” Jessica whispers. “I could almost think I’m dreaming now, but you’re always smiling in my dreams.”

“I can smile now, if you want.” Tiffany tries, she really does, but won’t cooperate.

“You don’t have to do that in front of me.” Jessica brushes another tear from the corner of her eye. “You can pretend in front of everyone else, but you don’t have to pretend with me. Not now, not ever, okay?”

“Jessica.” Her name spills from Tiffany’s lips like a prayer, a plea.

“Tiffany. Stephanie Hwang Miyoung. I’m right here. I’m not a hallucination, and I’m not a dream. I’m real and right here in front of you, okay?”

Tiffany opens , fails to produce a sound and closes it again. Her eyes fill up again, and this time Jessica doesn’t brush them away. She just looks at Tiffany, and there’s the same pain in her eyes, the same yearning, the same love.

“Jessica,” Tiffany breathes. “Jessica, you’re”—she keeps thinking in four-lettered words: here, real, mine—“Jessica.”

“Yes, I’m Jessica.” She takes Tiffany’s hand. “And you’re Tiffany. And we’re here together.”

“Together,” Tiffany repeats. She squeezes Jessica’s hand, held tightly in her own. “Nobody knows you’re here?”

“Nope.”

“Not even—?” She can’t even finish the question, but Jessica understands.

“Not even them.”

“We all miss you so much.”

Jessica swallows. “I miss you too.”

“I miss you so much,” Tiffany murmurs, her voice cracking.

Jessica’s eyes look wet. “I miss you too,” she says again, only this time the words sound different.

“You don’t have to miss me,” Tiffany echoes Jessica’s words from earlier. “I’m right here.”

Jessica pulls Tiffany into her arms, holding her, squeezing her so hard it’s like she wants to meld their bodies into one. Tiffany wouldn’t mind. She had been singing we are always one, words that hurt so much it felt like she was swallowing razor blades along with her tears. How could they be one when Jessica was missing? Nine minus one isn’t eight. Girls’ Generation without Jessica isn’t complete.

“I still miss you,” they say at the same time.

Tiffany kisses Jessica again, tasting salt on her lips. Maybe it’s the taste of the candies wearing off. Maybe it’s tears. “Jessi, I—” She doesn’t get to finish as Jessica kisses her again, falling against her, bodies pressed together as tightly as their mouths. Tiffany wants to be even closer, wants to crawl inside Jessica and make her home under her skin.

“I love you,” Tiffany hears, and maybe she’s the one who says it, or maybe Jessica is. It doesn’t matter.

 

“We can’t stay here,” Tiffany says after a while. She thinks it’s been about fifteen minutes. Or maybe twenty. Maybe five seconds. Maybe five years. It’s hard to keep track of time around Jessica. The world feels timeless when she’s with Jessica, and sometimes she does too.

“I know.” Jessica shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know where to go.”

“Let’s leave. Together.”

Jessica smiles a little. “Where should we go?”

“I don’t care. Anywhere. Everywhere.” As long as she’s with Jessica, it doesn’t matter.

“I want to see the ocean.”

“We can go back to California.”

“I think we’re too famous in California.”

“We’re too famous in a lot of places.” Jessica traces a shape on Tiffany’s palm. Tiffany can’t tell what it is.

“We could go find a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific or something.”

“Why the Pacific? Why not the Atlantic or Indian? You’re so oceanist.”

“That’s not even a word,” Tiffany laughs.

“Who says?”

“Jessi.” Tiffany shakes her head with a fond smile. “You’re so ridiculous.”

Jessica reaches out, tracing the outline of Tiffany’s mouth with a finger, brushing her thumb over Tiffany’s bottom lip. Her eyes rove over Tiffany’s face, intense, almost greedy, like she wants to memorize this, memorize her. Tiffany knows the feeling well.

“You’re smiling,” Jessica says quietly, almost like she’s talking to herself, “the way you do in my dreams.”

Tiffany swallows. “You’re not dreaming.”

“I might as well be.” The smile Jessica gives her is heartbreaking. “After this… Today might as well just be a dream.”

“Then it’s one that we won’t wake up from.”

Jessica looks at her like she isn’t sure if she’s real. “Tiffany.”

“Jessica.” Tiffany doesn’t reach out for her, not yet, but the way they’re looking at each other almost transcends touch. “I’m not letting you go.”

Jessica gives that soft, sad smile again. “Letting go isn’t always a choice.”

“Well, holding on is.” Tiffany takes Jessica’s hand, and Jessica doesn’t hold hers but she doesn’t pull away either. “And I’m making that choice.”

Jessica doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, just looks at her in that way again. Like she wouldn’t get to again so she has to do it enough to last her.

Tiffany wets her lips. “But I can’t make it alone.”

For a long moment, there’s just no movement and no sound between them, just her pulse in and her heartbeat in her ears. Then, the hand in hers squeezes and fingers slip between her own.

“You’re not alone,” Jessica says, quiet but firm, and Tiffany releases the breath she didn’t even know she was holding. “We’re in this together, right?”

Tiffany smiles, and Jessica stares, not like she wouldn’t get to see this again, but like she can’t tire of the sight.

“Together,” Tiffany agrees.

 

“Jessi?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m not sure,” Jessica says. It sounds like the truth. “I just – I wanted to see you.”

Tiffany isn’t sure if Jessica means ‘the eight of you,’ or ‘you in particular.’ She doesn’t ask. “How did you even get in here?”

Jessica smiles, mischievous. “I have my ways.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Tiffany murmurs.

Jessica’s smile softens. “I am too.”

“Do you—” Tiffany hesitates. “Do you want to see the others?”

Now it’s Jessica’s turn to hesitate. Her smile fades and her eyes darken. Her expression isn’t unhappy, exactly, it’s more—unsure. “I’m not sure if that would be the best idea,” she says slowly.

“We all miss you. You should—you should talk to them.”

“You don’t look like you want me to.”

“I do, I just—I want you with me.” She wants Jessica to herself, just a little longer. For another minute. Another hour. Another lifetime.

“I know, I want me with you too.” After she says it, Jessica makes a face. “That sounded grammatically awkward.”

“You sound like me when I just came here,” Tiffany teases, even as her chest warms.

“Hey, don’t insult me like that.”

Tiffany smiles. “Do you remember how they would put subtitles when I spoke during shows? Like I was speaking another language or something.”

Jessica laughs. “And look at you now. You’re the best speaker among us.”

Tiffany likes how Jessica still says ‘us.’ It hurts, but she likes it. Maybe she’s turning into a masochist. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

“Oh, shoot,” she mutters. “I wonder how long it’s been.”

“Do you have to go?”

“Yeah, I kind of just…ran out here. The girls are probably getting worried about me.”

“You just ran out here?” Jessica repeats. “Nobody knows where you are?”

“Well, you do.”

Jessica shakes her head. “Steph,” she says, the single syllable packed with disapproval.

“It’s a good thing I ran out here,” Tiffany says. “You wouldn’t have found me otherwise.”

“You don’t know that. I could have sonar tracking skills.”

Tiffany laughs. “Just because you scream like a dolphin doesn’t mean you can echolocate like one.”

“I can locate you,” Jessica says. “I can always find you.”

Tiffany kisses her, winds her arms around Jessica’s neck and pulls her close, until only air is separating them. It’s still not close enough for her.

“Jessi.” Tiffany doesn’t really have anything to say after that, so she just stops there. Jessica seems to understand because she replies, “Steph,” and then they just look at each other and the looking is almost more intense than the kissing.

Jessica clears . “You should go before they send out a search party for you.”

Tiffany doesn’t want to leave Jessica, not now, not ever, but she knows they have to part temporarily for a long-term reunion. She takes Jessica’s hand, not trusting herself to let go if she kisses her again.

“I’ll see you later,” Jessica says, not like a goodbye but like a promise.

“Later,” Tiffany repeats softly, tracing a heart on Jessica’s palm.

She doesn’t let herself look back at Jessica as she leaves. She’s not sure she could keep going if she did.

Later, she tells herself. Later, they would be together again.

---

A/N: The line “and the looking is almost more intense than the kissing” is adapted from this line: “It was almost more intense than kissing, the just looking” from Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

I know the ending is unrealistically hopeful, but what can I say, that's me.