"Again."
Jennie's knuckles whitened around the lyric sheet. She sang, pushed harder, almost snarled the lines. But even before the producers responded, she knew. Y/N could see it in the flicker of her eyes, that creeping certainty that nothing she did would be enough.
"Still not there. Try it again."
It was a chorus now, overlapping voices, critique layered over critique. None of them cruel. Just relentless.
Y/N's stomach twisted. Every take had been strong. Every one better than the last. But the words feeding back into the booth weren't about sound anymore, they were about breaking Jennie down, chiseling her raw until there was nothing left to give.
Jennie swallowed hard, lifted the headphones again. Her lips parted, but the sound caught in her throat. She pressed her free hand against her stomach, as if holding herself together, then forced the verse out again, louder, sharper, her voice scraping against itself.
"Better," someone said. Not good. Not great. Just better.
That single word snapped something.
The headphones hit the stand with a sharp crack, the sudden sound making even the engineers flinch. Jennie pushed the booth door open, air flooding in around her, muttering something under her breath, too fast to catch, but heavy with fury. Her steps were clipped, precise, like she was holding herself together by force.
The room went still. No one stopped her. No one dared follow.
Except Y/N.
Jennie was already halfway down the corridor, back pressed against the wall, arms crossed so tight it looked like she was holding herself together. Her breaths came shallow, like she couldn't pull enough air into her lungs.
For a moment, Y/N just stood there, a few paces away. She could've left her alone. Maybe she should have. But the sight of her, all edges and cracks where no one else could see, rooted her to the spot. Slowly, Y/N crossed the distance. She didn't say anything, just reached out, fingertips brushing Jennie's wrist. A small touch, steady, an anchor.
"Come with me," she murmured, gentle but sure.
Jennie didn't move at first. Then her hand loosened where it clutched her own arm. Y/N slid her fingers against Jennie's, not a grab, not forceful, just enough to guide. Jennie let it happen. Let herself be led down the hall, their joined hands hidden in the dim light.
Y/N pushed open the nearest empty practice room, the scent of faint wood polish greeting them. The door clicked shut behind them, muffling the hum of the studio. Privacy. Quiet.
Jennie sank onto the floor first, back to the mirror, knees drawn up. Y/N sat beside her, close but not crowding, their hands still tangled.
Jennie hadn't let go.
For a while, neither spoke. The bass from the studio thumped faintly through the walls, a distant heartbeat filling the silence.
Then Jennie broke. Her voice was raw, low, cracking at the edges.
"What if they're right?" Her fingers tightened in Y/N's. "What if I'm not good enough?"
Y/N turned, throat burning, but forced her voice to stay steady.
"They're not right. They don't see you the way I do. You're not some machine, Jennie. You're you. And you're more than enough."
Jennie's eyes flicked up, wet at the corners, searching, like she wanted to believe but couldn't.
"You don't have to carry it all alone," Y/N added softly, squeezing her hand.
Jennie exhaled, a long, trembling sound, and before Y/N could think, she leaned sideways, pressing her forehead to Y/N's shoulder. Her body was taut, resisting comfort even as it sought it out. Y/N didn't move at first, afraid to scare her off. Then, slowly, she tilted closer, resting her cheek against Jennie's hair.
No words. No promises. Just fragile, unspoken trust, hanging between them like glass.
Jennie didn't thank her. Didn't argue. She just stayed.
By 2021, Y/N wasn't just another manager orbiting the group.
Somewhere along the way, she'd become Jennie's constant. The one who always had water in her hand before she asked. The one who knew that when Jennie went quiet, it wasn't aloofness but the weight pressing on her chest. The one who could read her, sometimes better than Jennie read herself.
It looked like friendship. To everyone else, that's all it was.
But to Y/N, it felt different in ways she couldn't name without shattering something. It was in the way Jennie leaned close during rehearsals, brushing her shoulder as she asked about something, voice pitched lower than necessary. In the way Y/N's hand sometimes lingered when passing her a mic or notes, not long, just long enough to feel the warmth. In the way laughter between them sometimes lasted a beat too long, both of them looking away too quickly afterward.
It was small things. Quiet things.
Like the time during the practices, hair damp against her temples, face flushed. Jennie dropped onto the bench beside Y/N, stretching out her legs with a sigh. Y/N wordlessly slid a bottle of water into her hand. Their fingers brushed, warm skin against warm skin, and Jennie's lips curved, soft and private, like the smile wasn't meant for anyone else. Or the van rides, when the others were loud or sleeping, and Jennie's head drifted against Y/N's shoulder as if it belonged there. Y/N never moved. Never breathed too loud. Just let her stay.
They never talked about it.
To the world, they were friends. To themselves, maybe they were too. But underneath it all, something buzzed, low and steady, waiting for the moment when pretending would no longer be enough.
And that moment came sooner than expected.
Seoul blurred past the car windows in streaks of neon and rain, every light bleeding into the next. The wipers dragged across the windshield in a steady rhythm, but inside the car the silence pressed thick, almost unbearable.
Jennie sat curled in the passenger seat, hoodie sleeves bunched in her fists, knees drawn up, forehead tilted just shy of the glass. Her jaw was set so tight it looked painful, and every so often her foot tapped, restless, like she couldn't keep still even when she was exhausted.
Y/N kept her eyes pinned to the road, fingers clamped white around the steering wheel. She could feel the weight of Jennie's mood without even looking, the way it filled the air, prickling her skin, sinking into her chest.
It had been weeks of this. Rehearsals that stretched until dawn. Lights in the practice room still burning when Y/N passed at midnight. Meals skipped, water bottles left untouched. Staff whispered about Jennie's short temper, her sharp words when exhaustion finally snapped through the cracks. But Y/N had seen the other side of it too, Jennie running the choreography until her body trembled, singing the same line until her throat was raw, eyes burning with a desperation that scared her.
And tonight, Y/N finally broke.
Jennie's voice sliced into the quiet, low and ragged.
"You don't get it, Y/N." Her fingers dug into the fabric of her sleeves, knuckles sharp against the cotton. "If I'm not perfect, if I'm even one second off, they'll tear me apart again." She laughed then, a bitter, hollow sound. "Lazy. Deadweight. Maybe they're right. Maybe I am."
The words punched the air from Y/N's lungs. Her stomach twisted, heat burning up her chest so fast she almost missed the turn. She gripped the wheel tighter, voice steady only because she forced it through clenched teeth.
"They're not right."
Jennie barked a laugh, sharp and humorless, still staring out at the blur of lights. "You don't know that. You don't know what it's like to be hated for breathing wrong. To have people waiting for you to fail so they can prove they were right all along."
Y/N bit back the thousand things she wanted to say. That she knew Jennie, that no one worked harder, that every performance left her in awe. That none of the noise online mattered compared to the truth of who she was. But Jennie's profile in the glow of the streetlights was hard, closed, carved in shadow.
Instead Y/N forced the words out, quiet but firm. "Let's just get you home."
Jennie didn't move. Didn't look at her. She pressed her forehead against the glass, rain streaking down the other side like tears she refused to let fall. Her breath fogged the window, and she whispered so faintly Y/N almost thought she imagined it.
"I can't fail. Not again."
The words hit like a confession, like a wound.
Y/N's grip tightened on the wheel until her hands ached. She wanted to pull over, to make Jennie look at her, to tell her she was more than perfect, more than enough. But the road stretched on, and all she could do was drive, chest heavy, throat raw.
The rest of the ride was silent. Suffocating. Every heartbeat counting down to the moment when silence would shatter, one way or another.
The dorm was hushed when they stepped inside, only the hum of the fridge and the faint tick of the wall clock breaking the silence. Shoes lined neatly by the door. Jackets hung with care. A home, but tonight it felt like a fragile shell. Jennie dropped her bag with a dull thud, the sound too loud in the quiet, and stalked down the hall without a word. Her shoulders were tight, her jaw rigid, her whole frame vibrating with the tension she refused to let go.
Y/N should've left. She should've let her go to her room, shut the door. That would've been the professional thing, the safe thing. But she couldn't. Not when Jennie's words from the car still echoed in her skull.
Her feet moved before her mind caught up.
"Jennie—"
"Don't," Jennie snapped, whirling on her. Her eyes were rimmed red, lashes clumped with unshed tears. Her voice frayed like a rope ready to snap. "You don't understand. Slowing down means failure. And if I fail, everyone's right about me."
Y/N's chest burned. She shook her head, stepping closer. "You're going to hurt yourself. Do you get that? You can't keep running like this—"
"I have to!" Jennie's voice cracked, too loud in the sleeping dorm. She shoved her hair back with shaking hands. "If I'm not flawless, I'm useless. If I'm not perfect, I'm nothing."
The word sliced through Y/N like a blade.
Useless. Nothing.
Words she'd seen hurled at Jennie online, words spat from strangers who knew nothing about her, and now Jennie was saying them about herself.
Her pulse surged. She closed the gap between them, fire in her throat.
"Stop."
Jennie blinked, startled by the force in Y/N's voice.
"You are not useless," Y/N said, the words trembling but fierce. "You are not lazy. You are not weak. Do you hear me? You're the hardest working person I've ever met. You break yourself down every single day just to build something for everyone else. And you think that makes you less? That makes you more."
Jennie's lip trembled, but she shook her head, eyes glossing. "You don't—"
"I do," Y/N cut in, louder, unable to stop. Her throat tightened, but she pushed through, words spilling hot and relentless.
"Jennie, you light up every room you walk into, even when you don't try. You hold yourself like you have to be ten different people at once, and you still make everyone believe in you. I've seen you exhausted, sick, broken down, and you're still stronger than anyone I know. Stronger than me."
Jennie's hands fisted at her sides, shoulders trembling.
Y/N's voice cracked then, softer but raw. "You're brilliant, Jennie. Do you get that? Brilliant. Not because you're flawless, but because you're you. And I don't care what the internet says, or what the headlines scream. They don't see you. I do."
The silence after was brutal. The kind that shook in the walls, in the floor, in their bones.
Jennie stared at her, chest heaving. The mask she wore slipped, and suddenly, she was just Jennie, a girl with wet lashes and trembling hands, looking like she'd been holding her breath for years.
Her breath hitched once. Twice. And then she broke.
The sob tore out of her, violent, guttural, like it had been caged too long. Tears spilled fast, hot, unstoppable. Her body shook with it, every inhale ragged.
Y/N's hands twitched, aching to reach for her, but fear rooted her in place. She'd said too much. She'd gone too far.
"Jennie, I—"
But Jennie moved first.
She surged forward, fists catching in the fabric of Y/N's hoodie like she was drowning and Y/N was the only thing keeping her afloat. She dragged her down, lips crashing against hers. It wasn't polished. It wasn't practiced. It was messy, wet with tears, desperate in a way that split Y/N's chest wide open.
For a heartbeat, Y/N froze, stunned by the shock of it. But then her body moved on instinct, on everything she'd buried and tried to silence. Her hands came up to cup Jennie's face, fingers sliding against damp cheeks, thumbs brushing tears. She held her together, kissed her back like she'd been waiting for this moment without ever daring to admit it.
Jennie kissed her like she was shattering, every press of her mouth saying what words hadn't. I'm scared. I'm breaking. Don't let go. And Y/N kissed her like she was promising. I see you. I won't.
Time dissolved around them. It was nothing but the thud of Y/N's heart, the salt of Jennie's tears, the ache of years of silence breaking all at once. When Jennie finally pulled back, her forehead rested against Y/N's shoulder, breath hitching. Y/N held her, hoodie damp with tears, hands still trembling.
That night changed everything.
They didn't call it a relationship. Didn't label it. But it was there now, alive between them, undeniable, and there was no going back.
It started small, like gravity pulling them into the same orbit.
Nights stretched long in Jennie's room, the city lights glowing against her curtains while the rest of the dorm slept. Sometimes they talked until their voices went hoarse. Sometimes they didn't talk at all, just lay tangled under blankets, Jennie's head against Y/N's chest, Y/N's fingers tracing circles against her back until sleep finally took her. Y/N always left before dawn, hoodie pulled over her head, sneakers silent against the floorboards.
In vans, Jennie passed her one earbud, playlist queued up on her phone. No words, just shared music, the kind that said more than conversation ever could. Shoulders pressed together, hidden under the excuse of cramped seats.
Backstage, where cameras didn't reach, Jennie's hand would brush hers, fleeting, too fast for anyone else to notice.
But Y/N noticed. Always.
And then there were the cracks. The moments when Jennie couldn't keep the mask in place.
A crowded airport, flashes too bright, voices too loud. Jennie's breath faltering, her steps stuttering as panic clawed up her throat. Before anyone else caught it, Y/N was there. Her hand brushed Jennie's wrist, not a grab, just contact. Steady. A tether.
"Breathe with me," Y/N whispered, low, firm, the same rhythm they'd fallen into months ago. In. Out. In. Out. Jennie's chest rose and fell against the pattern until the storm dulled. She never said thank you. But when their eyes met, raw and unguarded, Y/N read it there anyway.
Cars. Dressing rooms. Hotel hallways. The panic came and went, and every time, Y/N was the one who pulled her back.
They never said what they felt out loud. But it lived in the way Jennie's fingers lingered on her sleeve when no one was looking. In the way Y/N carried her pain like it was her own. In the quiet, the secret, the undeniable.
It was something more.
And both of them knew it.
But knowing it didn't change the world pressing in around them.
The hotel was gilded and suffocating, every hallway gleaming too brightly, every chandelier humming with silent scrutiny. Staff moved like shadows, arms full of garment bags, clipboards pressed tight to chests. The girls were fitted, adjusted, rehearsed, polished until they glittered under the Paris lights.
From the outside, it was dazzling, Fashion Week in the city of dreams. From the inside, it was a cage dressed in velvet.
Jennie wore it well, as she always did. Smiles perfect, posture effortless, charm spilling in interviews with just the right tilt of her head. But Y/N saw the truth. The faint tension in her shoulders whenever another camera flashed. The way her laughter clipped short, fading too quickly. The exhaustion she carried like an invisible weight.
By the time midnight came, Y/N thought Jennie was finally asleep, locked behind her suite door like the rest of them, swallowed by silence.
So when the knock came, soft and urgent, Y/N almost didn't believe it. She opened her door to find Jennie standing there, hood pulled over her hair, mask covering most of her face. No diamonds, no silk, no lights. Just her.
"Come on," Jennie whispered, eyes sparking with mischief, with freedom. It was the first real thing Y/N had seen all day.
Y/N's chest tightened. "Jennie—" She hesitated, glancing down the hall.
Jennie reached for her hand before she could finish, gloved fingers brushing against hers, sparking fire through the contact. "Just an hour. No one will know."
Y/N should have said no.
Should have reminded her of the risks, of the headlines waiting to devour even a whisper of scandal. But the way Jennie was looking at her, alive, unguarded, begging her to step into this fragile pocket of freedom, made the word impossible.
That was all it took.
The streets were cooler at night, Paris hushed beneath the glow of lamps. They moved fast at first, hoodies low, masks up, sneakers slapping against cobblestones. But the further they got from the hotel, the slower Jennie's steps became, like she could finally breathe.
They slipped onto the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in the city. Y/N stopped at the rail, leaning to look at the river shimmering below. Jennie came up beside her, their shoulders brushing, and then, suddenly, Jennie's hand slid into hers.
Y/N froze.
The world was empty around them, no cameras, no fans, just the hum of the Seine and the echo of their breaths. And Jennie was holding her hand. Not like a mistake. Not like an accident. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Y/N's chest burned, but she didn't pull away. She squeezed instead, soft and sure.
Jennie laughed, quiet, real, bubbling out like champagne fizzing loose after being corked too long. Y/N found herself laughing too, leaning against the rail with her, their joined hands hidden in shadows but blazing like a secret flame.
On Rue Saint-Honoré, they ducked into a bakery still open late, pink awning drooping slightly over the doorway. Jennie pointed at boxes like she was a tourist instead of someone whose face was on billboards two streets over.
Outside, they sat on the curb, masks tugged down just enough to taste. Jennie licked frosting from her thumb, eyes crinkling when Y/N called her spoiled. She shot back, "Research," grinning wide enough that Y/N swore she'd never seen anything more beautiful.
Later, they wandered to the Seine. The water stretched quiet and endless, lampposts glowing gold over the stone banks. They sat on a bench, the city alive around them but somehow far away.
Jennie leaned into Y/N's side, head finding her shoulder like it belonged there. Y/N didn't move, didn't breathe too hard, afraid to shatter the perfection of it.
"This doesn't feel real," Jennie whispered at last.
Y/N turned, cheek brushing her hair. "Maybe it doesn't have to be."
Jennie tilted her head, eyes glinting in the lamplight, and for a second Y/N thought she might kiss her, right there, in the open, Paris watching. Instead, Jennie just smiled, soft and secret, and tucked herself closer.
That night became theirs.
Not the runway shows, not the flashing bulbs, not the hotel suites with their gold-plated ceilings. Paris didn't belong to the cameras or the endless hum of schedules.
It belonged to them.
To the way their sneakers scuffed against cobblestones as they ducked through quiet side streets. To the laughter they muffled behind masks when they almost tripped running across an empty crosswalk. To the ridiculousness of sitting on a curb with a box of pastel macarons balanced between them, shoulders brushing every time one of them reached for another. To the way Jennie's hand found Y/N's. Tentative at first, then certain when Y/N didn't pull away. Fingers twined in the shadows, unshaken by the world that had forced them to hide everywhere else.
For the first time, they weren't the idol and the manager. They were just two girls in a city too big to care, holding on like they had every right to. Paris wrapped itself around them, vast, eternal, theirs. It wasn't just a city anymore. It was freedom. It was safety. It was the proof that whatever this was, whatever they were building, it was real.
Paris became their city. A memory carved so deep it would never fade, even when everything else unraveled.
And that memory stayed with them. Through airports and rehearsals, through sleepless nights and the endless churn of preparation, it lingered, that quiet bridge, those stolen hours where they weren't hiding, weren't pretending. Whenever Y/N caught Jennie's hand brushing hers in a backseat, or their eyes locking across a dressing room, Paris hummed like a secret only they knew.
And then October came.
The Born Pink tour was finally real, lights, fans, the deafening roar of a stadium that felt like it could split the earth in two. The first show ended in a blur of adrenaline and exhaustion, the kind that left everyone vibrating, half-laughing, half-crying. Staff scrambled with headsets, the girls clung to each other in sweaty hugs, champagne already being uncorked somewhere down the hall.
But Jennie didn't follow the noise. She found Y/N instead.
A gentle tug on her sleeve. A flick of her head toward a darkened corner just out of sight. No words. She didn't need them. Y/N followed without hesitation, her pulse still hammering from the concert, hammering harder now, for reasons that had nothing to do with music.
The shadows felt calmer, a pocket of quiet carved out in the frenzy. Jennie pressed back against the wall, her chest rising and falling too fast, cheeks flushed pink from the stage lights and effort. Damp strands of hair clung to her temples, and her mic pack hung awkwardly at her hip like she'd forgotten to take it off.
Her hands trembled, just slightly. Y/N noticed.
Jennie leaned close, so close that Y/N could feel the heat rolling off her, could smell the faint mix of sweat and stage perfume clinging to her skin. Close enough that the chaos outside, the cheers still echoing, the crew still shouting, dulled into a faraway hum.
Her eyes found Y/N's in the dim. No idol mask, no flawless façade. Just Jennie. Soft, raw, alive.
"I'm glad that I get to see the world with you." she whispered, her voice barely threading through the noise. Too soft, too private, like it was meant only for Y/N's ears.
Y/N's breath caught, her heart squeezing.
Jennie's gaze didn't waver. Her words spilled again, rougher this time, trembling at the edges. "I couldn't do it without you."
That was it. No confessions. No declarations. But the meaning bled between every syllable. I need you. I choose you. You're the one who makes this bearable.
And Y/N felt it all.
It burned in her chest, heavy and bright, a secret vow woven wordlessly between them. She wanted to say it back, wanted to echo it, to tell her me too, always. But the words lodged in her throat. So instead, she let her hand brush Jennie's, just the faintest touch, enough to steady the tremble.
Jennie's lips parted, a sharp inhale, like the touch alone unraveled something inside her. She didn't move away. She leaned into it, shoulders easing for the first time all night.
Neither of them said I love you.
They didn't have to.
It pulsed in the silence, in the heat of their closeness, in the way Y/N felt it settle deep inside her like an unspoken promise. Even through the ups, even through the downs, they were still here. Still together.
Invisible, unbreakable.
Next months blurred.
Planes, arenas, hotel rooms, life lived in motion, yet somehow it felt steady because they had each other. Nights ended the same way more often than not. Y/N slipping into Jennie's room when the corridors fell quiet, their laughter hushed against pillows as they watched old dramas on Jennie's laptop, subtitles crooked on the screen. In the mornings, Y/N always left before the first knock on the door. No one ever asked where she slept. No one ever guessed.
On stage, Jennie shone with a brilliance that felt untouchable, and yet Y/N could see every crack. The clenched jaw before a live broadcast, the way her shoulders tightened when certain headlines trended online. She learned to read Jennie's storms like weather, to see them forming, to step in before they broke. A touch to her hand. A steady, low voice in her ear. A rhythm of breathing only they shared.
It worked every time. It had to.
The highs were dizzying. Paris, London, L.A., Tokyo, each city folding into the next, each crowd screaming louder than the last. They collected memories the way others collected souvenirs. A stolen kiss in a dressing room before call time. Shared fries on the floor of a hotel room when the minibar was empty. Midnight walks through foreign streets, faces hidden, hands linked tight in pockets.
And then there was Coachella. April 2023.
The desert air was thick with dust and music, the stage heat almost unbearable, but they'd made it. BLACKPINK. The headliners. The roar of the crowd stretched like it would never end.
Backstage, Jennie's eyes found Y/N's through the chaos. She looked undone in a way the world would never see, sweat running, makeup smudged, hair falling free. She grabbed Y/N's wrist, pulled her close until the noise dulled, and whispered, breathless and trembling.
"I'm so glad you're here with me."
Y/N squeezed her hand, holding on like it was the only thing keeping them both grounded. And maybe it was.
Through scandals and rumors, the endless noise of cameras, the cruel sting of speculation, Jennie always came back to Y/N. No matter what the world said, no matter how loud it got, she found her way back. Y/N was the anchor, the place where her panic softened, where she could finally breathe.
It was love, undeniable, though they still didn't name it. They didn't need to. It lived in the way Jennie's voice steadied only when Y/N was near. In the way Y/N's chest ached every time she caught Jennie looking at her like she was the only thing real in a world built on illusion.
Together, they made the impossible life feel almost ordinary.
Together, it felt unbreakable.
For a while.
The roar of the stadium still lived in Y/N's bones hours after the lights went out. The sound of fifty thousand voices had cracked against the Seoul night, crying, singing, sobbing as if the air itself had been split open. Fireworks rained overhead, smoke thick in her throat. The girls had taken their bow hand in hand, mascara streaked, voices breaking, a final image seared into everyone's memory.
The encore was over.
The Born Pink tour was over.
It should have felt like triumph. Instead, it felt like goodbye.
Y/N kept her professional mask in place backstage, headset clipped at her hip, tablet clutched tight. Staff scrambled to dismantle the stage, balloons deflated in forgotten corners, champagne corks rolled under dressing room benches. The afterparty had already started somewhere across the city, executives gathering, drinks pouring. The energy was wild, unsteady, the kind of electricity that came when no one wanted to admit an era had ended.
But Jennie didn't go. And neither did Y/N.
Her apartment was a different world. Quiet. Low lamps casting soft gold over the furniture. The faint scent of takeaway food lingered from the bags abandoned on the table. Jennie had scrubbed half her makeup away, eyeliner smudged under her lashes, lipstick gone. She wore an oversized tee, damp hair pulled into a messy knot.
They curled up on the couch like it was the most natural thing in the world. Jennie's head fit against Y/N's chest, her hand fisted loosely in the fabric of her hoodie. The TV flickered soundlessly in the background.
For a while, neither of them spoke. Jennie's breathing was uneven, hitching every so often, her shoulders rising and falling against Y/N's body. Y/N stroked a thumb absently over the ridge of her shoulder, grounding them both.
When Jennie finally spoke, her voice was so soft Y/N almost missed it.
"I don't know what comes next."
Y/N tilted her head down. Jennie's face was hidden, pressed into her shirt, but she could hear the shake in her words.
"Nini—"
"I'm scared." Her grip tightened, a small, desperate clutch. "Everyone thinks I'm strong, but I'm—" She stopped, the word lodged in her throat. Then, in a broken whisper. "I'm terrified. What if this is the peak? What if it all disappears? What if I fail?"
Y/N's chest squeezed. She slid her hand down to catch Jennie's fingers, lacing them together.
"You're not going to disappear," she murmured. "You're Jennie Kim. You've built something no one can erase."
Jennie gave a small, humorless laugh. "That's what scares me. That it'll never stop. That I'll never stop being watched, torn apart, loved and hated at the same time. That I won't survive it."
Her voice cracked, the words spilling faster, like they'd been caged for too long. "Next year, it's going to be brutal. Everyone's watching. Everyone expects more. The spotlight's only getting brighter, and I—" She broke off, shoulders trembling.
Y/N shifted, pressing a kiss into the crown of her head. "You don't have to face it alone. Whatever happens, we'll face it together."
The silence after that was fragile, like glass. Jennie's breath stuttered, her fingers clutching tighter. And then, muffled against Y/N's chest, came the words that undid her completely.
"I love you."
Not loud. Not grand. Just a whisper, like the admission itself hurt. Like the truth was too heavy to carry any other way.
Y/N froze, tears stinging behind her eyes. She'd known. She'd always felt it in the way Jennie's hand lingered, in the way her gaze burned. But hearing it, raw, trembling, was different.
She kissed Jennie's temple, whispering back, steady and certain. "I love you too, baby."
Jennie exhaled, shaking, like the words had carved something out of her. She didn't say anything more, didn't explain the fear clawing at her chest. She just held tighter, burying herself in Y/N as if she could hide from the future.
And Y/N let her. Because for tonight, this was enough.
They drifted to sleep tangled together, hearts raw, promises unspoken but heavy in the air. Hopeful. Fragile. Doomed.
Then November came.
The news didn't come from Jennie.
It came from a curt email at YG headquarters, cc'd to three different departments. The girls hadn't renewed their solo contracts. Jennie established Odd Atelier, her own company. Alison, and half the staff Y/N had worked alongside for years, were leaving with her.
Y/N sat frozen at her desk, the words blurring on the screen. Her pulse pounded in her ears, the air gone sharp and thin. She reread it three times, waiting for some kind of mistake to reveal itself. Something to explain why she was finding out like everyone else, in a memo, not from the woman who had whispered I love you into her chest two months ago.
By the time she realized her hands were shaking, she was already on her feet, already moving.
Jennie's apartment looked the same as it always had, soft lighting, candles half-burned, a throw blanket tossed over the couch. It smelled like her. It felt like home.
Except for the three massive suitcases lined against the wall. Silent, waiting.
Y/N's throat closed. Her steps faltered, but she forced herself inside, shutting the door with more force than she meant. Jennie appeared from the bedroom, hair damp, a sweatshirt hanging loose on her frame. For a split second, her face lit up at the sight of Y/N, then it shuttered, walls slamming down so fast it left Y/N dizzy.
"You're leaving," Y/N said. It wasn't a question.
Jennie didn't answer. She reached for a glass of water on the counter, eyes fixed anywhere but on Y/N.
The silence was unbearable. Y/N's voice cracked through it.
"Why didn't you tell me? Jennie, I had to find out from YG, from an email. After everything—" Her chest heaved. "Weren't we in this together?"
Jennie's jaw tightened, but her face stayed cold. She set the glass down carefully, like precision could make up for the wreckage between them.
"I can't do this anymore," she said.
Five words. Flat. Final.
Y/N blinked, the floor tilting beneath her. "What?"
Jennie's arms crossed over her chest, fingers digging into her sleeves. "Us. This. I can't."
The words landed like glass shattering inside Y/N's ribs. She took a step forward, desperate. "No. No, you don't get to say that. Not after everything. Not after you told me you loved me."
Jennie flinched, just barely, but didn't speak.
"Do you still—" Y/N's voice broke, tears burning hot at the corners of her eyes. "Do you still love me?"
Jennie's silence was the knife. Her lips parted like she might answer, but nothing came. Just silence, heavy and merciless.
Y/N's breath came fast, ragged. She tried again, softer, pleading. "Please. Look at me. Don't shut me out like this. We can figure it out, I don't care how hard it gets, Jennie, I don't care how messy—"
Jennie's eyes flicked up, and for the briefest heartbeat Y/N swore she saw it, the fear, the ache, the love that matched hers. But then it was gone, buried under steel.
Her voice was flat when she spoke again.
"It's over."
Y/N's chest caved. She shook her head, a sob clawing its way up her throat. "You don't mean that."
But Jennie didn't take it back. Didn't move. Didn't touch her. She just stood there, silence thick as concrete between them.
Y/N's knees nearly buckled. She pressed her hand to her mouth, fighting the scream threatening to tear free. Everything in her wanted to reach out, to grab Jennie by the shoulders and force her to explain, to fight, to try.
But Jennie's stillness was absolute.
Y/N swallowed the words burning her tongue. Swallowed the tears that blurred her vision. Finally, with a voice that didn't sound like her own, she whispered, "I don't understand."
Jennie closed her eyes. Just for a moment. Then opened them, blank again.
That was the end.
Y/N turned, each step a fracture, the door heavier than stone when she pulled it open. The last image seared into her memory. Jennie standing in the glow of her apartment, surrounded by the quiet warmth they had built together, and the suitcases that would take her away.
That night they'd shared in September replayed in Y/N's head as she walked out into the cold November air. Jennie's head on her chest, whispering I love you like it hurt, like it was the truest thing she'd ever said.
Now it felt like a cruel joke.
Outside, the city moved like nothing had changed. But for Y/N, everything had.
She'd spent the night folded into her sheets, body shaking with sobs that wouldn't stop, no matter how many times she told herself to breathe, to hold it together. Her mind spun in brutal loops. Replaying Jennie's voice, flat and final, I can't do this anymore. The way she hadn't even fought. Every time Y/N's eyes closed, she saw it again. Jennie's face, blank where it used to be soft, lips pressed shut instead of saying what Y/N begged to hear. She turned her pillow over and over, damp with tears, but the ache only grew sharper.
By the time the sky began to pale, her body was raw, wrung out, eyes burning dry. Still, her hand groped for her phone on the nightstand, desperate for something, anything. Some fragile, foolish part of her still thought there might be a message waiting. An explanation. A correction.
She fumbled through call after call, each one bouncing back before the first ring could connect. Tried a message, then another, then another, all green, all dead ends. Every trace of their years together wiped in an instant, as if Jennie had simply decided Y/N had never existed.
She sat on the edge of her bed, phone clutched so hard her hand shook, vision blurring as the screen smeared through tears. For a moment, she thought she might actually crush the device in her fist, anything to release the storm burning inside her chest.
And then the sob came. Sharp, wrenching, unstoppable.
Y/N folded over herself, arms wrapped tight around her knees, face pressed into them as the sound tore out of her throat. It was too big for her body, this grief, too jagged to contain, too endless to silence.
Jennie had pulled away before. Gone quiet. Slammed walls so high Y/N had to claw at her own hands not to try climbing them. But this? This wasn't distance.
This was erasure.
A clean, surgical cut that left her bleeding out alone.
Next weeks blurred.
Mornings folded into rehearsals, into emails, into meetings that meant nothing and everything. Y/N went to work at The Black Label because she had to, because there was rent and schedules and people who relied on her, and because pretending was the only thing she could do. She answered messages with the mechanical calm she'd honed over years, booked fittings, solved problems before anyone knew they existed. She checked boxes like a ghost wearing her skin.
People joked in the hallways. Assistants compared notes over coffee, producers bumped into each other with clipped, professional affection, and staff laughed in the stairwell about a line someone had flubbed on a livestream. Y/N smiled at them all with the practiced ease of someone who'd done this a long time, but the smile sat on her face like a mask. Her eyes stayed hollow, glassy. The laughter around her sounded like it was happening underwater.
But the world outside refused to let her forget. It was worse than silence, it was a chorus of presence where absence should have been.
Jennie's face was everywhere, colossal and impossible to ignore.
A Calvin Klein campaign lit up the side of a building in Gangnam, perfect lighting turning Jennie's cheekbones into monuments. Storefront windows framed her in glossy paperbacks. Fan cams looped on phones. Jennie laughing, Jennie turning, Jennie moving through the world with the careless grace of someone who could still be adored. Clips of her at events, interviews from awards nights, each one spun by fans into endless replay. The sound of her laugh, the tilt of her head, the tonal cadence she used when she said something silly, all of it filled every corner Y/N tried to carve out for herself.
Everywhere Y/N looked, there she was. Omnipresent, untouchable, worshipped. The woman Y/N had loved with quiet, absolute ferocity was a public god, a bright thing everyone could hold up and adore, and yet she had erased Y/N from her private life with the same sweep. Jennie lived on a thousand screens and billboards, she lived in strangers' breath and in trending tags. But to Y/N, the phone that had been warm with whispered midnight confessions now sat cold and mute.
The nights were the worst.
When the city finally quieted and office lights shuttered, Y/N returned to an apartment that still smelled faintly of Jennie's perfume. She'd curl up on the couch, lights off, the TV doing a ghostly loop of product placements she might once have flagged in a schedule.
Her phone was a small bright altar in the dark. Her thumb hovered over Jennie's name as if it might still answer if she kept it there long enough. But there was nothing left to touch, no messages, no missed calls, no little memos of intimacy. Just an empty screen reflecting back her face, puffy from crying, pale from too many sleepless hours.
She replayed everything in the dark until the room rearranged itself into memory. The dorm floor where they'd shared late-night ramen, the bakery curb in Paris where they had fed each other macarons like kids, hotel hallways where they walked with their shoulders almost touching. Seoul nights when they had fallen asleep tangled in each other's arms, promising impossibly bravely that they would always try. Each image was a fresh cut, the scenes layered over one another until the past felt like a different life she could not reach.
Sometimes, most nights, she found herself whispering into the stillness because saying the words aloud made them less like a stone in her mouth and more like air she could breathe.
"I love you. I hate you. I miss you."
The phrases came out like prayer, like pleading, like a small animal trying to make noise in a world grown too loud. The words hit the walls and fell away. They found no answer. They landed and echoed back to her as nothing.
When she tried to sleep, exhaustion offered no mercy. Her brain refused to stop looping the last time Jennie's lips had formed the words she'd always wanted to hear. She kept seeing Jennie's last expression, cool, closed, the silence, the absence that felt deliberate. The grief wasn't a tide she could wait out. It was a constant weight, sitting on her chest and making breath a work of will.
The world had Jennie in every bright place. Y/N had Jennie in the raw, private places that no longer existed. The contrast felt like punishment, to carry someone through the worst of her life, to be the hand that steadied her in airports and backstage, only to be cut loose and left to watch her face become someone else's sanctuary.
Every night ended with the same quiet verdict.
The one person the whole world knew had become a stranger who haunted every street corner. And Y/N's only company was the echo of the last vow, the promise they had both failed to keep in action, if not in intention.
Her chest felt split open, ribs hollowed out. The world had Jennie. Everyone did. Everyone could see her, reach for her, worship her.
Everyone but her.
And in that moment, the truth crashed down, merciless and final.
Jennie had become a ghost she could never escape. A love so loud the world could hear it, so visible it wrapped itself around every corner of the city, except the one person who should have still had her.
The woman she loved was everywhere.
Everywhere, except with her.