A/N: This isn't a complete update - hence I'm calling it chapter 29.5. I wanted to post something for the girls' 10th anniversary, but I don't have a full chapter ready. This is the middle ground. This is going to be incorporated into chapter 30, but for now consider it a half chapter?

It’s only when night has fallen like a blackout curtain that Taeyeon can ask the question that’s been weighing down her tongue.

“Sica?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I’ve changed?”

Jessica studies her for a moment. “In what way?”

“I don’t know.” Taeyeon finds herself rolling her shoulders back again. “Do my shoulders seem lighter?”

Jessica reaches out and squeezes her left one, then lets her thumb trail along Taeyeon’s collarbone in an absent touch. Taeyeon shivers. “They’re as bony as ever. I wouldn’t mind if you gained some padding on them.”

“So I can make a more comfortable pillow for you?”

“Of course, that’s what’s important.” Taeyeon smiles, but Jessica doesn’t, just keeps looking at her with that intent expression. “And the answer is yes. I think you have changed.”

“How?”

Jessica’s eyebrows pull together. “It’s not something I could just describe. It’s more something I feel.”

“Oh. Is it a good feeling?”

“I’d like to think so,” Jessica says. “I’d like to think that you’re…that you know we’re here for you, and that you’re more ready to accept that and to take what we’re offering.”

Taeyeon doesn’t ask what it is that they’re offering, because she knows. Like Jessica said, it’s not something that she can describe but that she feels. She’s been asked countless times, “What does Girls’ Generation mean to you?” and she’s answered honestly, sincerely, but she still can’t possibly put to words what they mean to her.

Jessica drops her head slightly, and her voice as well. “I know that you’re not alone, but sometimes I felt like you didn’t know. And even if you weren’t alone, you were lonely. I hope that’s changed.”

Taeyeon finds her voice. “It has,” she says, reaching for Jessica’s hand. She’s many things, but lonely isn’t one of them. Not anymore.

“Did Tiffany say that you’ve changed?”

“Ye—how did you know it’s Tiffany who said that?”

“Tiffany is usually the one to state a truth that others find hard to,” Jessica says simply. “Even if it’s something that I’ve noticed, I don’t know if I would think to say it.”

“She said that I seem more relaxed and carefree. And happy.” Taeyeon adds the last one almost as an afterthought, even though it’s something (a mood? a state? a dream?) that people spend their whole lives pursuing.

“Do you think you are?”

Taeyeon blinks. That wasn’t a question she expected. “Huh?”

Jessica is still staring at her so intently that Taeyeon feels the urge to look away. However, she doesn’t. “I want to know if you think you are, regardless of what I or anyone else might think. I want to know how you feel.”

Taeyeon’s tongue feels like it’s in a knot, and she’s forced to admit that Tiffany might have had a point about the running away thing. Not that Taeyeon wants to run away right now, but she wouldn’t mind a brisk walk to some other topic.

But then she thinks that even if she did do that, Jessica would simply grab her by the collar and tug her back. Somehow, the thought is reassuring.

“I don’t really know how to feel about things sometimes,” she finally says. “I know how I should feel, and I fixate so much on it that…”

“You feel trapped between who you want to be and who you think you should be.”

“Yes.” The word leaves Taeyeon’s mouth so fast it’s like it was tugged out of her, like there’s a fishing hook attached to some bare, vulnerable place inside her. Some place the layer can’t touch.

“I feel that way too,” Jessica says, slow and measured. “I think we all feel that way.”

“Because we’re idols?”

“Because we’re people.”

“But what if we forget how to be that?”

The question is once again pulled out of her without her volition. She feels stupid, helpless, asking something like that. How can you forget how to be a person? Isn’t that something that’s supposed to come naturally? It’s like asking how to breathe, or how to blink. And yet…

“Then we need to look at the people around us to remind us how again.” Jessica doesn’t take her eyes off Taeyeon as she says this. For a moment, Taeyeon thinks, no, don’t look at me, I can’t remind you when I don’t even know myself. But then Jessica reaches out and covers Taeyeon’s eyes with her hand. “It’s okay if your eyes are tired. You can give them a break before you take a look.”

Jessica pulls her hand away then, and Taeyeon finds it easily even with her eyes closed, holds it in her own. “I think they’re okay,” she says, opening them and meeting the stars in Jessica’s. She takes a moment to take in the sight of her, without spotlights, without cameras, without onlookers, just two people in the midst of an ordinary moment in an extraordinary life.

Taeyeon clears . “Hi.”

Jessica looks like she’s biting back a smile. “Hi.”

“If this is the grown-up version of peekaboo, I think I can see the appeal in the game.”

Jessica snorts. “I’m sure you can see the appeal in many grown-up games.” She pats Taeyeon’s arm with their intertwined hands. “Let’s leave playtime for later. I’m tired.”

“Do you need my unpadded pillow shoulders?”

“Yes, please.” Jessica yawns and rests her head on Taeyeon’s shoulder, which feels lighter even with the additional weight. “Don’t forget to put some padding on them.”

“Okay, your highness. Your wish is my command.”

Jessica turns her head so she can give Taeyeon a smile, soft and sleepy, eyes only half open but full of warmth, and something almost painful clenches in Taeyeon’s chest.

A thought wells up inside her, the same one she had when she was at the twilight land between sleep and wakefulness last night, a time when it’s easy to dismiss thoughts as ramblings of a tired mind. However, her mind is clear and sharp now, and the thought is even more so, like a blurry pattern on a foggy window crystallizing into a solid shape.

I love you.

A/N: I want to say something Deep and Meaningful to express my love and appreciation for soshi on this special day. However, I could write an essay and still not be able to express what they mean to me. I'm very much like Taeyeon in this aspect, I suppose. I can't believe it's been ten years, and what an amazing ten years. Our girls have truly made kpop a girls' generation. Soshi has made me laugh like no other group has, made me cry like no other group has, and made me love like no other group has. No matter what has happened and what will happen, I don't regret being a Sone. Like I said on twitter, I haven't been there from the beginning but I'll be there until the end. 지금은 소녀시대! 앞으로도 소녀시대! 영원히 소녀시대!