A/N: The first snow this year got me emo about JeTi and then this fic happened.

“Do you remember watching the first snow together?” Jessica brings it up as casually as someone would ask for the weather, like it wasn’t something that happened over a decade ago and yet feels like it was merely yesterday.

Many memories with Jessica feel that way, like a faded photograph that suddenly bursts into full colour and vibrancy when she takes it out from the shelf of her memories, brushing the dust off with careful, reverent fingers and restoring the gloss to the photo only to leave it smudged with fingerprints. She’s always been bad at letting go.

“Tiffany?” Jessica asks, hesitant now, and even though it’s her name (or well, it might as well be) it’s still strange to hear Jessica calling her that, somehow.

“Of course I remember.” The words scratch coming out. “How could I forget?”

“It was a long time ago,” Jessica murmurs.

Tiffany doesn’t know how to interpret her tone and turns herself inside out trying to do so, wondering what Jessica’s implying or if she’s even implying anything. There’s a good chance Tiffany is just being paranoid, but then again she’s not used to having to work so hard to get a read on Jessica. Once, she had spoken Jessica better than either Korean or English, but like Jessica said, that was a long time ago.

“Tiffany?” Jessica asks again, still with that hesitance, and something deep inside Tiffany aches.

“It doesn’t have to be a long time until we watch the next first snow.”

At the silence over the line, Tiffany’s heart chills, gathers frost, but right before it hits freezing point Jessica’s words sweep over them like a warm breeze.

“I heard it’s supposed to happen sometime next week.”

Tiffany bites her lip. “Do you want to watch it together?” she asks shyly, reminding herself absurdly of a teenager asking out her crush. It’s not far from the truth.

There’s a breathless pause, but Jessica’s voice holds no hesitance when she says, “Of course. We can’t break our tradition, can we?”

And Tiffany finds herself breaking into a smile.

“It’s been a pretty warm winter so far,” Jessica says conversationally.

Tiffany picks at a fraying thread in her glove. “I think it’s still fall, technically.”

“Oh, true. All the stores hanging Christmas decorations misled me.”

“People like to be festive. It goes from Halloween right to Christmas, pretty much.”

“Pretty much,” Jessica echoes. “Poor November doesn’t get a say.”

“Yeah,” Tiffany says, unable to think of anything else to add. They’ve exhausted ‘weather’ and ‘holidays’ in the standard list of small talk topics already, it seems. Maybe they’ll move onto news next. Have they been reduced to this?

“You look good,” Jessica says suddenly. “I liked the platinum hair but I still think black suits you the most.”

Tiffany self-consciously brings a hand to her hair. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Jessica reaches towards her as if wanting to touch her hair but drops her hand midway. “It reminds me of—before.”

“Before,” Tiffany repeats, and the word has never sounded so heavy. She clears . “Are you ever going to go blonde again?”

“Not anytime soon, I don’t think. My hair doesn’t take well to bleach anymore. If I go blonde again, it’ll probably all fall out when I’m forty.”

“That doesn’t feel too far now, huh? I remember thirty used to feel ancient, like we’d suddenly sprout grey hair and wrinkles or something.”

“You’ve always been so dramatic,” Jessica laughs. “I think your greatest worry was that you couldn’t wear pink anymore when you turned thirty, because there’s an age limit on colours or something.”

“I never thought that!” Tiffany protests.

“You definitely did. I remember that conversation. You also worried about what would happen if your hypothetical daughter didn’t like pink and almost had an aneurysm at the thought.”

Tiffany sniffs. “That would never happen.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure anyone descended from you would be incapable of hating pink. It’s probably written into your DNA.”

“At this point, I also hardly see myself having children in the near future, if ever,” Tiffany says wryly. “The future that I imagined for myself was pretty far off, I guess.”

“What else is different?” Jessica asks, and Tiffany can almost hear her ask, Did you see me in that future?

Of course I did, she wants to answer. I still do now.

“I don’t know,” she says instead. “A lot of things, I guess. Life never quite goes in the direction you expect, does it?”

“No,” Jessica agrees. “It doesn’t.”

Even though it’s still the middle of the day, the temperature drops and Tiffany finds herself shivering, regretting not bringing a hat. She tugs up her collar but it doesn’t do much to make her feel warmer.

“You’re going to catch a cold like that.” Jessica pulls a beanie out of her pocket and unceremoniously tugs it over Tiffany’s head, snaring in her hair in the process.

“Ow,” Tiffany complains loudly. “That hurt!”

“I wonder if they have earmuffs that also act like earplugs,” Jessica says almost to herself. “Those are the kinds I need.”

“Here,” Tiffany says, reaching out and putting her gloved hands over Jessica’s ears. “How’s that?”

“Pretty warm, actually.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to walk like this.”

Jessica chuckles. “It’s okay, you can let go. My ears will survive.”

Tiffany doesn’t really want to, but she drops her hands and steps back. “You’re not cold?”

“Not really,” Jessica says, and indeed even without a hat, scarf or gloves, she hasn’t shivered once.

“Do you have cold immunity powers because you’re an ice princess?”

Jessica takes a moment to reply. “Ice princess,” she says musingly. “I haven’t been called that in a long time.”

A long time seems to have become their catchphrase.

“Do you mind?” Tiffany asks, and it’s her turn to sound hesitant.

“No,” Jessica says after a pause. “I don’t mind. But that means I get to call you ‘brighter than jewels’ then, right?” she says teasingly, and Tiffany groans.

“Don’t even remind me. At least you got a nice nickname. Mine was just cringey as hell.”

“Hey, like nickname like person,” Jessica says, and has to duck aside to avoid Tiffany’s fist aimed towards her shoulder. “Come on, at least it’s better than brighter than mushrooms.”

Tiffany groans. “That was literally over a decade ago, can you let it go?”

“No,” Jessica says simply, and even though Tiffany is the one known for her smile, she swears that Jessica’s laughter could have melted the chilly landscape around them.

When they walk over an uneven stretch of road, Jessica stumbles and pitches forward. Tiffany catches her with an arm on her elbow and steadies her.

“Careful.”

“Thanks,” Jessica says, and only when her eyes flicker to Tiffany’s hand still on her arm does Tiffany remember to let go. She does so reluctantly, trailing her fingers along Jessica’s sleeve for a second, and Jessica shivers.

“Cold?” Tiffany asks in concern.

Jessica blinks. “Uh, maybe a little.”

“Here,” Tiffany says, unwinding her scarf and offering it to Jessica.

“You’re dressed for the winter except for the hat.”

“Usually my head doesn’t get that cold.”

“I guess all the air in it acts as an insulation.”

“Did you come here just to insult me?” Tiffany complains.

“Not just that, no,” Jessica says, grinning, and Tiffany pouts at her. “Okay, okay, I’ll be on my best behaviour.” She puts her hand in the air like she’s taking a pledge, and Tiffany’s pout dissolves into a smile. “Thank you but you can keep the scarf, I’m fine.”

“Hang on, don’t move,” she says, and Jessica holds still obediently as Tiffany carefully loops the scarf around her neck, leaving a long tail hanging. “This reminds me of something.”

“What?” Jessica says, and her voice sounds breathier than usual.

Tiffany takes a step back, and Jessica’s eyes track the movement intently, like she’s measuring the distance between them. Tiffany grabs the end of Jessica’s scarf and uses it to pull her towards Tiffany.

“Wasn’t this your fantasy for the longest time?” she says with a playful smile.

Jessica looks at her with wide eyes for a second. “You still remember that?”

I remember everything about you.

Only when she sees Jessica’s face, the way her eyes widen even further before her expression goes carefully blank, does she realize she said that out loud.

“I do too,” Jessica says, and it sounds almost like a surrender. “And even if I tried to forget, I never could.”

“Do you want to forget me?” Tiffany asks, unable to hold back the hurt that slips into her voice.

Jessica chuckles. “Tiffany, I could no more forget you than I could forget how to walk or sing. And as hard as I’ve tried, I could no more picture a life without you than I could without those things.”

“I don’t want you to try to forget me, or imagine a life without me,” Tiffany says, uncaring that she sounds like a petulant child. “I don’t want you to only talk about me with the words ‘a long time ago.’ I don’t want to just be a part of your past.”

“What do you want?”

I want to be your present, and your future, even if it’s not the future we once imagined. I want to be your earmuffs and your scarf and your warmth. I want to be the path you walk and the song you sing. I want—

“I want to be yours and I want you to be mine,” Tiffany says, and as reductive as that is, it’ll work for now.

Jessica stares at her for a moment that stretches out so long and tenuous she feels like some winter chill sneaks into her bones. “Steph,” she says softly, and it’s like the first sign of spring. “I am. I am, and you are.”

Jessica snorts. “I can’t believe you not only remembered my silly scarf fantasy but re-enacted it.”

“Come on, I did a bomb re-enactment, you have to admit that,” Tiffany says, nudging her shoulder.

Jessica looks unimpressed. “You almost strangled me.”

“Well, that’s payback for the hat.”

Jessica rolls her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

“So are you,” Tiffany says, sticking out her tongue.

“At least we’re ridiculous together,” Jessica says, and her cheeks warm but she holds Tiffany’s gaze.

Tiffany smiles. “Together,” she agrees, and seals it with a kiss.

A/N: This fic was just an excuse for me to unleash my nostalgia and bring up past JeTi moments tbh. I swear I'm going to be a grandma and when the first snow comes I'll still be screaming about JeTi.