Across the table, Rosé caught Y/N watching the door a second too long. Later, in the practice room, she nudged her shoulder, smiling gently. "You two still talk like diplomats at a peace summit."
"That's better than war, isn't it?" Y/N's answering smile didn't reach her eyes. But even as she said it, her chest ached like both sides had already lost.
It was past midnight when the YG building finally started to quiet. The floors had gone dark, security guards yawned behind glass doors, and even the vending machines hummed softer. Y/N moved down the long corridor of the recording floor, her steps soft against the tile. She'd stayed late to help Jisoo wrap up her vocal session and now was waiting by the lounge while the idol gathered her things from the booth.
Her phone buzzed in her hand, a message from Rosé.
Coffee in the morning?
Y/N smiled faintly, thumbs hovering as she typed back. Rain check. Too much on my plate.
She slipped the device into her pocket and turned toward the end of the hall, then froze. A soft thread of melody bled through one of the closed studio doors. Not loud, but clear enough that she felt it before she recognized it.
Jennie.
Her voice. Lower than usual, threaded with that quiet ache Y/N had memorized long ago. It wasn't the bright, practiced tone she used in rehearsals or recordings for others. This was private. Bare. The kind of singing Jennie only did when the world outside stopped existing.
Y/N's breath caught.
Her hand brushed the cool metal of the doorframe as she leaned in, not to eavesdrop, just to hear. Through the small window, a sliver of light revealed her. Jennie in an oversized hoodie, sleeves pushed up, one hand gripping the headphones, eyes closed. No audience. No mask. Just her and the mic and the sound of her own heartbreak, bleeding into melody.
Y/N's pulse slowed to something painful, deliberate. Every note seemed to echo in her chest before fading into the air between them. She remembered this version of Jennie. This vulnerable, unguarded, the same girl who used to hum against Y/N's skin when the world felt too heavy.
A soundless breath left her lips. She should walk away. Jisoo was waiting. There were schedules to update, messages to send, things to control. But her feet didn't move. Her body betrayed her heart, tethered to the sound of that voice that still knew every soft place inside her. For one suspended second, it felt like nothing had changed. Like the months, the silence, the distance had been a fever dream and she could just open the door and step back into something that still fit.
Inside the studio, Jennie paused mid-take. Her brow furrowed. She glanced toward the window, eyes narrowing for half a second like she'd felt something, a ghost passing by, a memory brushing against her shoulder.
But when she looked, the hallway was empty.
Y/N was already gone, heading for the elevator, telling herself she'd imagined it, that the past was only noise bleeding through the walls. Outside, the rain started, tapping soft against the windows. Inside, two women worked in separate spaces, pretending not to miss each other.
Hours blurred into days.
By the time another night rain stopped, the city was gray and quiet again, and Jennie was still awake. She hadn't meant to be, she never meant to be anymore, but sleep came only in fragments now. She lay there in the pale light seeping through the blinds, mind replaying scraps of melody.
She woke before the alarm most days now. Not because she wanted to, because her body had forgotten how to rest. Mornings blurred into schedules. Fittings, meetings, shoots. She smiled on cue, laughed when she was supposed to, tilted her chin toward the light just right. The photographers always said she looked effortless. If they only knew how much effort it took to be effortless. When the last flash died, she went straight to the studio, still in makeup, sometimes still in heels. The OA headquarters was colder than YG, quieter too, the kind of quiet that echoed. She liked it that way. The fewer voices around, the less chance someone would notice how hollow hers sounded.
Alison tried.
"Did you eat?"
"I will."
"You said that earlier."
"I'm fine, Unnie."
Always "I'm fine." Even when her hands trembled turning up the volume, even when her stomach twisted from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Music was the only thing that didn't feel fake, even when it hurt. Jennie would stand behind the mic, headphones tight, and chase perfection that never came. Her voice cracked once during a take, not from strain but something deeper. She didn't stop though. She just restarted the track and sang louder, drowning it out.
There were moments, tiny cracks in the walls she'd built. A melody she wrote by accident that sounded like the one Y/N used to hum under her breath during night drives. A joke someone told that echoed one of Y/N's. Her phone lighting up for no reason, her heart leaping before she realized it was just a notification.
She thought of texting her, sometimes. "Do you hate me?" "I'm sorry." But what was the point? She'd made the choice, didn't she? You don't rip someone open and then ask how the wound's healing. So she turned the volume up and pretended she couldn't hear her own thoughts.