Those four words never brought good news. No matter in what context it never, ever meant good news. Jessica closed her eyes and took a deep breath to stop her tears from falling again. Her heart was aching painfully as she sat on her couch, alone. The silence only made her come to the realisation that it was not a dream. All the painful images she was seeing in her head were real. It was very real. 

 

"The company has... Pushed forward your plans with the group. As of today... SNSD is an eight member group," Tiffany, her best friend, struggled to tell her with the other seven members silently avoiding her gaze. Jessica had laughed it off as a joke at first but the silence stopped her very quickly. This was not something that would be used as a joke. That would be going too far. 

 

Jessica stared at her phone sitting on the seat next to her has the texts from all her friends rolled in, asking her about the news. She quickly reached the phone to turn it off before throwing it across the room in pure frustration. She did not want it to end like this. She didn't want to fall like this. 

 

She was excited to spend the day with the other eight members. The fan meet was that evening and she was looking forward to catching up with all eight members again. But now she found herself sitting alone in her home whilst her members were at the fan meet. How did it even end up like this? Why was she saw far from her members when she should be standing no further than five feet away from them?

 

Jessica gripped onto her chair and let out a cry in pain. Not physical pain, but emotional pain. SNSD meant the world to her it was literally her life. Why was she suddenly not allowed to call SNSD hers anymore? 

 

She didn't understand. Those eight years of sharing the stage together. Fifteen years of hard work. Endless hours of hard work through the pain, sweat and tears only to find out that it all added up to nothing. She wasn't part of SNSD anymore. She was just... Jessica. Not SNSD's Ice Princess Jessica. Just... Plain old Jessica. 

 

The endless amounts of photos with her members decorating her interior made her feel sick. She knew she wasn't the only one feeling like this. Her members were feeling it too. She knew that it wasn't their fault. They were as much as a tool to the company as she was. She saw the agony in Tiffany's eyes when she broke the news. Tiffany was probably the only one able to even talk then. All the other members stayed quiet, all gritting their teeth to keep themselves from openly sobbing. 

 

"We're sorry," Taeyeon croaked before running out of the building. Yuri followed her immediately before Yoona gave Jessica a tearful glance and followed suit. Hyoyeon tried her best to give a comforting smile but fell victim to the tears as the maknae beside her cried openly. Sunny gave a nervous laugh and escorted the youngest out of the building with hyoyeon in hand which left the two members left. Tiffany embraced Jessica in a tight hug as sooyoung waited beside her, the three girls not saying a single word. Sooyoung then wiped any evidence of tears and put on a brave face as she urged tiffany to let go. 

 

The manager came running in then, pushing the last of the two outside to catch their planes as Jessica was not even spared a glance. She was not under their management anymore anyways so she wasn't their concern. 

 

Jessica decided to open her laptop and see how the fan meet was going. She saw how hollow her members looked. Taeyeon's chin dimple never showed. Sunny's aegyo was not as bright. Tiffany's eyes didn't disappear when she smiled. Yuri's kabb was never seen. Hyoyeon looked like she cared too much and Yoona's alligator laugh was nothing but a polite chuckle. And the maknae... The maknae was the first to cry. The youngest who was the strongest willed member of their group became the weakest. This wasn't SNSD. It was a broken family. A family that had lost Jessica. 

 

Jessica hugged her laptop screen tightly and sobbed. She wanted to be with them. She wanted to just jump onto that stage and hug them all, reassuring them that she was with them. That they were still SNSD. But she couldn't. Because she wasn't any more. Her members were more than just her coworkers. They were her sisters. All eight of them. SNSD was their family home.

 

She cried mercilessly as the fan meet continued. She didn't dare look at the screen but she could hear them continue. 

 

"Imagine SNSD 10 years from now."

 

"We will still be the best of friends," tiffany answered. Jessica couldn't handle it anymore. She shut her laptop down and laid herself flat against her couch. Her head was pounding from the crying and the irregular beats of her heart. She missed her family. Her family of nine sisters. She missed them dearly. 

 

 

 

 

 

The ride back from the fan meet was messy. Taeyeon was yelling at one of the stage workers for messing up some part of the fan meet, Tiffany was being overly helpful to the point of annoying and Sunny was mindlessly on her phone playing games, not greeting anyone who walked by. Yuri and yoona were comforting the maknae in the corner whilst hyoyeon had just given up and rested her head against the table lifelessly. Sooyoung was the only one who was keeping it together enough to pull Taeyeon back from the innocent workers to avoid any more trouble. 

 

They were shaken to the bone. They were still in denial. The company had told them about the news and told them to tell Jessica. They thought it was a joke too at first... But the company never joked. All of them suffered enough that year. It was the toughest year by far... But this was the worst. They had lost a family member. 

 

Taeyeon looked at the seven members in their dressing room and couldn't take it anymore. She stormed out of the room and made her way to the vans as they prepared for departure. 

 

"Take us to Jessica, NOW," she demanded as the driver jumped at the sudden appearance of his passenger. Taeyeon refused to let it end like this. SNSD meant everything to her and she was sure it meant everything to Jessica too. Hey should have never walked up that stage as an eight member group. SNSD started as nine and should remain that way. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jessica heard her door being abused repeatedly by multiple knuckles and fists. She was honestly not in the mood to see anyone but the sound of her members voices made her heart skip a beat. 

 

"Jessica! Open up!" Taeyeon yelled in pure rage. Jessica quickly got off her couch and opened her door to see all eight members standing outside with bloodshot eyes. All at once they all piled on to her, making all of them fall to the ground. Taeyeon alone stood in her place as she let her members embrace their missing sister. 

 

"Jessica! Jessica!" They all sobbed, not being able to say anything more. Taeyeon but her lip and looked away to stop herself from becoming a bigger mess than she already was. 

 

Jessica found it hard to breath under the weight of seven members but it was better than the constricting feeling she felt when she was alone. She gave a heartfelt laugh with tears in her eyes as she tried to embrace them all. 

 

She knew her members wouldn't abandon her. They were sisters. They promised each other to stay as sisters till the very end and even to the many years after that. 

 

She knew that there was nothing they could do with her removal from the group. They had their own future and with the recent renewals of their contracts they were powerless. But Jessica could only wish that she could stay with them as nine. Their legacy was as the nine sisters. She didn't want to be removed from that legacy no matter how selfish it sounded. 

 

"The SNSD that the company wants now is not SNSD," Taeyeon suddenly spoke. All eight of the girls looked up to the eldest who had the reddest rings around her eyes out of all nine girls. "They will call it SNSD but I refuse to recognise it as SNSD without all nine of us."

 

Taeyeon used her finger to tweak her nose with a sniff, still trying to be the strongest for her younger sisters. Yuri gave a unsteady laugh and pulled the eldest to join in the pile of nine girls on the floor. 

 

"Of course. All nine of us make SNSD. Even if in contract it doesn't say so, as long as we know what the true SNSD is then... That's enough for me," Yuri admitted. 

 

"I'm glad you guys came back for me," Jessica laughed. The eight sisters laughed at each other's ruined makeup and tried to clean each other up but it was a futile attempt. Jessica felt the ache in her heart be replaced with a different ache. The ache of feeling so loved that her heart couldn't contain it any longer. 

 

"Jigeumeun..." Hyoyeon croaked from underneath sooyoung' arm. 

 

"So Nyuh Shi Dae," the girls said in unstable voices. 

 

"Yeongwonhi," sooyoung took over this time. 

 

"So Nyuh Shi Dae!" The girls said a little louder. They all then turned to face Jessica beneath them with reassuring smiles. Jessica gave a long hard sniff to clear her voice, not caring for hygiene at that point. 

 

"Appurodo!" She called out as best as she could. 

 

"So Nyuh Shi Dae!!" They all yelled before falling into a fit of laughter. 

 

Jessica couldn't help but replace her cries of loneliness with laughter of joy. She didn't care for what the company decided anymore. She was part of SNSD no matter what the papers said. Her sisters believed that too. She knew she wasn't being left behind. The girls came back for her. She was still SNSD and no one could say so otherwise.