It’s 2024. 

Ten years is a long time. 

( Not that she’s counting.)

Granted she's older, wiser and half of the specifics of the last decade have faded, no, blurred into one big jumble of a memory, or rather, as the kids would call it these days, a vibe. Or a feeling, one that could not be bound by words of description but rather by the sum of feelings, an approximation of experience.  

Things feel in some ways both significant and insignificant at the same time, in a strange paradox that confronts her the same way she seems to feel each tick of the clock—the unstoppable force that is the flow of time. It imprisons her, and shakes at her shoulders, holding her accountable in a weird way, a whirlwind list of must dos and must sees racing through her mind. It's a weird notion, to be old enough to feel the lingering presence of mortality, knowing nothing is forever, but to be still young enough to hold onto the blissful ignorance of hope.

Maybe she’s depressed.

Or maybe it’s just that she’s in her mid thirties now. And she’s too tired to give a ing damn.

Between the countless weddings she's sung at, attended or glimpsed via the convenience of Instagram stories, none of the girls have really mentioned anything related to it. It’s as though that notion has been tainted, like a minefield, since a decade ago by the media’s conjecture about Jessica’s - as though, that was the real reason for her departure. 

Taeyeon swallows the oft accompanying emotions at the shape of her name. It’s reflexive now, having a decade of practice made it easier, but no one tells you that it doesn’t hurt less.   

She hasn't really given her own love life much thought, rather, it’s become nonexistent. Much like everything else in her life, in a stage of stagnation. Her music releases are becoming farther and farther apart. 

She owed the greater part of her youth to her image, her reputation and sold her autonomy to the company. But back then, she cared, and truly believed it was for the better, both for herself and for the girls.

A life lived in lies. 

She's losing her touch, is what they say.  Taeyeon knows better, she's just too tired to care what they think anymore, because she knows better than to admit that her muse has not changed after a decade.

But who else hasn’t moved on? 

Taeyeon’s mantra:

There’s an expiry date to everything. So surely, this’ll pass, someday, for sure. 

A click, the whirring of tape bracketed between static—sharp intakes of staccato-ed breath, a bassline of quiet sobs, entwined with a quivering with a voice stripped bare, bookended by a muffled heart wrenching apology. 

Sunny had her hidden message on the radio show FM Date. 

Yuri still watches Jessica’s instagram stories. 

They don’t talk about it. 

Taeyeon’s secret:

A cassette tape, recorded in the vulnerable darkness of an empty cold studio in 2014. 

“You need to move on,” Yuri sighs, the knife she is brandishing is hanging suspended midair mid-cut. Taeyeon drops her gaze to the cucumber on her chopping board, and feels Yuri’s gentle eyes on the side of her head. 

Yuri’s cooking show bled into her daily life, like a side-effect of sorts and Yuri’s gone from incompetent to being the most skilled out of all of them in culinary matters. And, Taeyeon will admit that she is the one that needs the most help in this department. 

Another side effect of this:

Yuri’s at her house every weekend, until it’s an easy ingrained habit, a comfortable catch-up without expectation of emotional therapy, unlike with Tiffany or Yoona. The sizzling of the cooking pan is a constant background noise of comfort.  

It’s so domestic and would be weird, if not for the fact that Yuri yells at her mistakes, calling this a life skill! whilst laughing that incessant, infectious cackle of hers. 

And Taeyeon really would rather not starve to death in the comfort of her own home. So she accepts this help as part of being an adult too. 

Except when Yuri’s switching up her tune and then there’s yet another person asking her to feel and to process. Whatever that meant… and Taeyeon hates how well they can read her. She knows it comes with sharing a space, a name, a future with eight - seven - other girls for the majority of her youth. Knows that it makes them inseparabl—almost inseparable from herself.

Still, she once was better at hiding it, at retreating back behind the ten foot tall facade she’d built for herself in the wake of 9/30. 

“I don’t know what you mean, Yul.” 

But it’s still surprising that it’s Yuri that sees through her, not Tiffany, not Yoona, but Yuri.

“Taeyeon-ah,” Yuri’s voice is painfully soft again. It rarely is, and it coaxes at the terrified part of herself that lingers deep inside the confines of her heart. The same part that drove her to make drastic, dramatic and history defining decisions that were sharper than any of the knived Yuri wields. 

Taeyeon tenses. 

“I don’t get why you torture yourself like this, and pretend that we don’t all see it.” 

“I’m not,” Taeyeon mumbles back, she ducks her head. The cucumber is still lying accusingly on her board, “Torturing myself that is.” 

“Have you…have you talked to her yet?” 

Taeyeon remains silent.

Then, Yuri’s looking at her with sadness in her eyes. Taeyeon rips her gaze away, as though it’ll take back her admission by omission, and lock it back inside of her. 

“Pretending like nothing happened—no—pretending like it meant nothing to you is really insane, Taeyeon.”

“Can we not talk about it?” 

“No, we’re sick of this, when you’re burying it so deep down inside whatever grave you’ve let yourself build… and you’re still writing and singing love songs like she’s Regret herself. And the wallowing, the self-pity…Taeyeon, you need to move on —for yourself.”  

“Yuri.” Taeyeon says warningly. Her tone is unnecessarily sharp, and it cuts at the soft parts of fondness in her heart that she reserves for her girls. Something in her bleeds too at the look on Yuri’s face.

The thing is: 

Yuri’s right. Taeyeon shouldn’t be burying things, letting them sink deeper and deeper, until the longing, regret and guilt she once felt are twisted into something ugly and recognisable, hurtful even, barely a semblance of their former selves.  

“I-I can’t. It’s been too long.” 

Yuri sighs again. 

Somewhere in the background, the smoke detector goes off, piercing in its screeching, matching the chorus in her mind.

It’s sounding an alarm.  

The truth is: Taeyeon’s wounds still feel too fresh. 

A memory that feels like a dream:

The soft candlelight on Jessica’s face, Taeyeon’s birthday cake between them, flanked by the other seven members. 

A stolen glance returned, Jessica ducking her head, her eyes dipping from where they’d held Taeyeon’s own, entranced. A blush colouring her cheeks, shy. A matching smile on Taeyeon’s lips. 

Amidst the sounds of cheers for her birthday, Taeyeon hears Jessica’s birthday wishes the clearest, lets them settle into the nook of neck and sink into the depths of chest where they belonged.  

What exactly, the nature of their relationship is elusive even to Taeyeon herself. It’s ever shifting like the mirage of sands, undefinable, shifting between the opposite poles of affection and antagonism. 

Maybe, just maybe, they were finally on the same page, despite the twists and turns, they were finally here. And between them sits something quiet, but significant, the finally correct approximation of events, experiences and emotions. A desire to love and to be loved. 

Later, a picturesque sky is spread out above them, with a shared view of the starry night and the rest of the girls sleeping soundly in their rooms below. They could be anywhere — in Tokyo, in Seoul — it didn’t matter. They were here together. 

Taeyeon allows herself to curl into the warmth of Jessica’s body heat, their fingers interlaced and bodies tangled in an embrace. The promise of a future tied tightly together by their resolve in two endless lengths of red twine. 

“Sooyeon,” Taeyeon had breathed, because Sooyeon always came naturally to Taeyeon when she reached for a name. It was softer, quieter and more like the woman she came to know (and perhaps love) , more so than her actual legal name, Jessica. 

Jessica, who was sharper, kept around the edges, and perfectly made for success in the wider world. 

This distinction had always meant something to Taeyeon. 

Taeyeon kisses Seohyun. 

It’s awkward, misplaced, like putting a right shoe on her left foot or a left glove on a right hand. She knocks her forehead against Seohyun’s.  

And because between Yuri cornering her, in her own apartment, nonetheless, and Yoona, Tiffany and even Sunny’s pitying looks her way, this is the dumbest, most illogical thing she could’ve done. And sometimes the rescuer will drown attempting to save a drowning person. 

“Unnie,” Seohyun says as gently pushes her back. “This is not you.” 

Seohyun’s lips are parted and there’s a shine in her eyes that matches the wet glossiness of her lips. 

She’s really pretty and she could love Seohyun, Taeyeon thinks, she really could love her if she just tried hard enough. Something inside her chest fractures, a line that propagates all the way through her being, cracking her into two uneven halves. 

“Stop it, unnie.” 

Seohyun’s voice is gentle, but the hand pressed against Taeyeon’s chest is firm, grounding and reproaching. Taeyeon’s caught still hovering over Seohyun, breath mixing and the couch sinking beneath them. 

She’d kissed Seohyun. 

Seohyun hadn’t kissed back. 

Taeyeon always thought the drowning concept was stupid, until she realises it’s the drowning person's fault. It’s asking for help that dooms them both. 

“I won’t let you do this to yourself, Taeyeon.” 

Of course, Seohyun’s voice is even, the maknae they’d all watched grow up and had a hand in it too, is wise beyond her years, even though time has worn down the significance of the years between them. Three years seemed a world’s difference when she was 18, but now at 35…

“I'm sorry.” Taeyeon offers lamely. 

Seohyun reaches out and pats her thigh. Taeyeon flinches. 

She’s seeking affection in ghosts. It’s so wrong.

“You want to talk about Sica unnie?” Seohyun tries. Her palm is still warm on Taeyeon’s thigh. 

Taeyeon squeezes her eyes shut, there’s a trapdoor that’s opened up, bottoming out within her chest. She lets the tides wash her away like a sand castle on the beach, or a dandelion in the wind, crumbling, parts of her dispersing into the unknown, lost and unsure if they’d be ever found again.

“I don’t know what you all want me to say,” Taeyeon says faltering. Her eyes wander back to the foreign film they’d put on when they had first settled onto the couch, skimming over the outlines of the subtitles. The shapes are just shapes, they don’t register as words through her blurred vision. 

She doesn’t have to say it. The ghostly puppet strings that she wore too willingly and moved to. They all know, and everything by extension was a byproduct of this. 

“Can you be in love with the memory of a person?” 

It’s a feeling that catches her off guard on days like these, cold and biting regardless of the season, as though she’ll be able to see her breath as a ghostly wisps hanging in front of her face. 

“Unnie, you could come to love anything if you hold onto it as tightly as you do.” Seohyun says carefully. 

Maybe she’s doomed like this, to be surrounded by so many, yet alone in a self-served isolation, to crave love but still push everyone away. All because of what could have been and what had been.

“You should go on a holiday.”

Taeyeon glances at the calendar.  

August looms over her like a bad omen. 

It’s September 30, 2024 and Taeyeon’s in Thailand. She checks her phone, it’s quiet. 

Bangkok at night is beautiful, the humidity of the day washed away by the cool evening breeze. There’s life to the city, living and breathing, a heartbeat of its own pulsating in each and every laneway. Taeyeon pushes her short hair back, before putting on her cap again, and pulling down the brim. It’s an act gifted to her by the idol industry amongst other things, an old work habit more than anything else.

And of course, of all places…

Jessica’s here, leaning on the railing and gazing out onto the Chao Phraya River.   

Taeyeon freezes in place as tourists and locals alike move past her, some turn to cast a quick glance at her still form before moving onwards again.

Jessica is beautiful—it still catches her off guard, a nudge that sends her balance off kilter, or a breath that catches on its way in. Taeyeon pretends it's got nothing to do with the ghastly remnants of ‘ could have beens ’ swirling in the pits of her gut.

Her long hair is a shade of brown and sits draped over one shoulder, perfect in motion as in stillness. Her profile is as breathtaking as it was when she had last seen her. The years have only been kind and served to refine the features Taeyeon once knew so well.

Taeyeon itches to take a photo. She doesn’t, her hands curl in on themselves, balling into fists by her side. 

Jessica turns and her eyes land on Taeyeon’s, roams her face first and then trails on to the rest of her. Taeyeon feels Jessica’s gaze paint her, like a brush, filling in the missing of the missing years between them.  

"You could've called.” Taeyeon mumbles, stepping forward. And she's still talking without thinking, her words tumbling out of , ungracefully and awkward. “Or, texted. Or something.” 

Jessica’s lips twitch, "Like you wouldn't have just let it go to voicemail and put me through the pain of listening to the voicemail you recorded when we were together?"

Taeyeon feels her face heat up. Jessica's right. They both know it. She ignores the admission within Jessica’s gesture of peace — that Jessica knew what her voicemail sounded like.

"You're right as always." Taeyeon concedes and her hand comes up to press into her temple, but she ends up taking off her hat instead. “It’s been a while.”  

Jessica sighs, it's weary, and bone achingly sad, like she's gone over this conversation in her head millions of times, like she's prepared to be here, standing in front of Taeyeon, with ten years of silence between them and is truly over what happened.

The lines of her face soften and for the briefest of moments Taeyeon catches a glimpse of 2014. She almost lets herself get lost in it too. 

“Walk with me?” Jessica asks, pulling her back from the vortex of her memories and pulling her to the present. To 2024, to this version of them, to the Aftermath.

Taeyeon acquiesces, against her better judgement, against the paranoid voice that says what if there’s someone out here to make a buck, be it Dispatch or… She quietens that part of her mind and lets herself follow after Jessica—the way she hadn’t been able to a decade ago. 

Her steps fall into line with Jessica's own. 

Bustling background noise buffers the lull, the silence that exists is a natural extension of blank empty years that stretches out between them. Taeyeon watches as the bright neon lights are reflected in Jessica’s face. There's a dreamlike haze and Taeyeon feels as fragmented, as untethered as the prismatic fractals of light.

“Are you on holiday?”