Chapter Text
The air in the SM Entertainment boardroom was filtered, climate-controlled to a precise 22°C, yet Taeyeon felt like she was suffocating in a vacuum. The scent of expensive cologne and stagnant coffee hung heavy—the atmosphere of a room where art was routinely dissected into spreadsheets and "brand assets."
On the massive 8K screen at the front of the room, the 20th-anniversary retrospective continued to play. It was titled “Girls’ Generation: The Eternal Legacy.” To the executives, it was a celebratory reel of a two-decade dynasty. To Taeyeon, it was a masterpiece of digital gaslighting.
As the "The Boys" era flashed across the screen, an era of global expansion, of military jackets and fierce choreography, Taeyeon felt a familiar, sickening bile rise in her throat. The camera cuts were frantic, surgically precise. Every time the formation shifted, the editor had used a combination of tight crops and clever transitions to remove the girl who had once held the center of that very frame.
In the wide shots of the Tokyo Dome, a sprawling ocean of pink light, there was a blurred-out figure on the far left. A ghost. A smudge on the lens of history. To a casual fan, it might look like a trick of the light or a focus issue. To Taeyeon, it was a screaming void.
She looked at her younger self on that screen. She saw the way her eyes would dart to the side during the chorus, checking for a specific blonde-haired girl to make sure they were in sync. They always were. They had a physical tether that defied choreography, a shared breath, a mirrored heartbeat. They were the "Soulmate" duo, a label the fans gave them that the company had marketed until it became too real to handle.
"The AI-assisted erasure is ninety-eight percent clean," the Marketing Director noted, leaning back in his leather chair with a satisfied smirk. "We’ve even used the new vocal isolation software to re-distribute the high notes in the 'I Got A Boy' remaster. We’ve managed to blend Tiffany and Seohyun’s registers to cover the missing frequency. It sounds like she was never even there."
The missing frequency. That was how they spoke of her now. Not as a woman, not as a pioneer who had spent seven years in the basement of this very building eating convenience store ramyun and dreaming of the stars, but as a "frequency" to be tuned out. A glitch in the legacy.
Taeyeon’s hands were folded in her lap, her knuckles white. She looked down at her fingers, remembering the way Jessica’s hands were always cold, always seeking warmth. She remembered the secret language of glances they had developed—the way Jessica would press her shoulder against Taeyeon’s during the final bow, a silent 'I'm here' that had sustained Taeyeon through the crushing weight of leadership.
It wasn't just friendship. It never had been. It was the terrifying, unspoken truth that had hummed between them like a live wire for years. It was the reason the fallout had been so cataclysmic. When you break a professional contract, you lose money. When you break a heart you never officially claimed, you lose your soul.
"The fans will appreciate the 'purity' of the eight-member lineup," another executive chimed in. "It reinforces the current brand. It keeps the narrative clean for the new generation of listeners who weren't there for the... complications of 2014."
"Clean?" Taeyeon’s voice was a low rasp, barely audible over the hum of the projector.
The room went quiet. The executives turned, their expressions shifting from self-congratulation to wary curiosity. Taeyeon was the "Trustworthy Leader." She was the one who followed the rules, the one who stayed when the world fell apart. She was their anchor.
"Taeyeon-ssi?" the CEO prompted.
Taeyeon stood up. The screech of her chair against the polished floor sounded like a gunshot.
"You’re talking about her like she’s a glitch in the software," Taeyeon said, her voice gaining strength, trembling with a decade’s worth of suppressed grief and a love she had been forced to bury alive. "Like she’s a smudge on a window that you can just wipe away. You’re sitting here bragging about 'vocal isolation' like you’ve performed some kind of miracle, but all you’ve done is mutilate our songs. You've mutilated me."
"Taeyeon-ssi, we discussed the legal complexities of her departure and the branding—"
"No, you discussed them," Taeyeon snapped, leaning over the table, her eyes burning into the Marketing Director’s. "You want to celebrate twenty years? You can’t have twenty years without the girl who trained for seven of them before we even debuted. You can’t celebrate our history while you’re actively rewriting it. She wasn't a guest. She wasn't a session singer. She was Girls' Generation. She was the person I sang to for ten years."
She looked toward the corner of the room where the other members sat. Sunny was staring at her lap, her expression unreadable, but her hands were trembling. Hyoyeon’s jaw was set tight. Yuri was biting her lip, her eyes shimmering with a grief she wasn't allowed to name. They all carried the same scar, but they had been conditioned—trained since childhood—to be the "perfect idols." To value the Brand over the Body.
"I have spent ten years being the 'good one'," Taeyeon continued, her voice cracking as the dam finally broke. "I have sat in interviews and smiled when people asked about the 'strength of eight.' I have looked at photo books where she was cropped out and I said nothing because I wanted to protect the group. But who was I protecting? Not Jessica. Not the fans. I was protecting this." She gestured wildly at the corporate walls.
"Taeyeon, please sit down," the CEO said, his voice dropping into a warning tone.
"No. I am done being an accomplice to this lie. Every time I stand on that stage and sing her lines, I feel like a thief. I feel like I'm stealing from a ghost. I feel like I'm betraying the only person who ever truly saw me." She looked back at the screen, at the blurred figure in Tokyo Dome. "She deserves to not be erased. She was there when we had nothing. She should be there now that we have everything. If her name isn't on the credits for this anniversary, if her contribution isn't acknowledged, then mine won't be either."
The silence that followed was suffocating. For ten years, Jessica Jung’s name had been a "Voldemort" in this building—she who must not be named. And Taeyeon had just screamed it into the rafters.
"Are you threatening to boycott your own 20th anniversary?" the Director asked, his voice cold.
"I'm telling you how it's going to be," Taeyeon said, gathering her coat with trembling hands. "You can release your 'pure' version. You can sell your lies. But you'll do it without me."
She walked out, not waiting for the backlash. She drove through the grey Seoul rain, but she didn't go to the airport. She went home. She sat in her dark apartment, the silence mocking her.
Her hands shook as she pulled out her private phone. She found the Kakao contact she had never deleted, the one that had been silent for 3,652 days.
I told them I won't do the anniversary without you, she typed. Her thumb hovered. I'm done hiding. I miss you. I'm sorry for everything I didn't say.
She hit send. The "1" didn't disappear. It sat there, a tiny, yellow mark of hope and terror.