The hotel was too quiet. The city was alive outside, horns, laughter, the distant thrum of traffic, but inside Y/N's room, everything stood still. She sat on the bed, laptop open but asleep, the faint glow of the screen casting her reflection back at her. Her eyes were rimmed red. Her face, tired in a way sleep wouldn't fix. She'd told Rosé she was too tired to go out with the team. It wasn't a lie, she was exhausted, just not from work. The kind of exhaustion that came from fighting your own thoughts all day.
There was a soft knock before the door creaked open.
"Room service," Rosé said gently, holding up a paper bag. The scent of pasta and garlic filled the air.
Y/N tried for a smile. "You're supposed to be charming the label people, not playing delivery girl."
Rosé stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She didn't answer right away, just watched Y/N the way someone does when they already know the truth.
"I saw you," she said finally. "You cried."
Y/N let out a small, brittle laugh. "Bad lighting, dry eyes. You know."
Rosé didn't buy it. She crossed the room and sat at the edge of the bed, kicking off her heels with a quiet sigh. "It's okay to miss her, you know."
Y/N stared down at her hands, nails pressing little crescents into her palms. "I don't."
"Y/N."
Just her name. Soft, unjudging. But it cracked something open.
For a heartbeat, she couldn't breathe. The truth clawed up her throat, that she hadn't stopped thinking about Jennie. That every city, every plane, every stage felt wrong without her somewhere in it.
But she couldn't say that.
Not even to Rosé.
She blinked, forcing the emotion back, replacing it with a practiced calm. "Rosie, get some sleep. You've got rehearsals in the morning."
Rosé studied her a moment longer, then nodded. She reached out, gave Y/N's hand a small squeeze, steady, warm, before standing.
"You don't have to keep pretending you're made of steel," she murmured, almost to herself, as she left.
The door clicked shut. Silence rushed in behind her.
Y/N sat there a long time, the food cooling untouched beside her, the city lights painting fractured gold across the carpet. She turned her face toward the window, the reflection of herself blurred in the glass, small, breakable.
And then, barely above a whisper.
"I never stopped."
It wasn't a confession. It was a wound reopening, quiet, endless, and true.
The next few days passed so quickly that she didn't notice when New York was already fading behind a haze of clouds and exhaustion. By the time the plane landed in Paris, the ache in Y/N's chest had dulled into something manageable, not gone, no, never gone, but buried deep enough to function. The city greeted them with a kind of cinematic cool, late afternoon sunlight spilling over the river, the air humming with the sharp click of camera shutters. Cars inched down the blocked off streets near Trocadéro, the Eiffel Tower rising in the distance like something out of a dream too beautiful to touch.
The YSL show wasn't just an event, it was a spectacle. A glowing runway stretched beside the thousands of white hydrangeas forming the YSL monogram against the pale stone, guests crossing the bridge one by one toward the light. The city that had once belonged to her and Jennie, hoodies, masks, laughter under street lamps, hands brushing in secret. Back then, she'd walked with her heart in her throat, terrified of being seen.
Now, she walked with Rosé on her arm, calm, composed, visible. For the first time, she wasn't scared of someone seeing her. She was simply there. Rosé was radiant, the perfect YSL muse, her gown catching the light with every step, smile practiced but still soft enough to feel human.
Her heels, however, were merciless.
"God, I'm going to die in these," Rosé muttered under her breath, clutching Y/N's arm for balance as they crossed the bridge.
Y/N's lips curved faintly. "Not on my watch, superstar."
Rosé looked up at her, laughing, even as she clung tighter. "You realize you look dangerously good right now, right? Like "someone's PR team is going to panic" good."
"Focus on not tripping," Y/N murmured, her tone dry but the faintest warmth flickering behind it.
"I'm multitasking," Rosé shot back, grin sharp in the fading light.
The flashes caught them mid-laugh, Y/N steady and grounded, Rosé glowing and weightless beside her. The contrast was electric, easy. Unscripted. Blond took her place in the front row, all poise and elegance. Y/N slipped into her assigned seat a few rows back, close enough to watch, far enough to disappear into the background.
Her heels pinched, but she didn't care. The black suit felt like armor. For the first time in months, she felt still. Present. The runway lights dimmed, the first notes of the soundtrack swelling through the open space. Y/N exhaled slowly, letting herself fall into the rhythm of it, the music, the movement, the hum of life she hadn't felt in too long.
For a few hours, she allowed herself to breathe. To exist without the shadow of what she'd lost. To forget that just across the world, there was someone who once held her hand in this very city