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“You and I are tangled as these sheets / I’m alive, but I can barely breathe…”
Rosé didn’t mean to call her.
She stared at the screen for a long time before she pressed it—Jisoo in bright white letters, still pinned at the top of her favourites even after everything. Her thumb hovered, then betrayed her. It rang once. Twice. She could’ve hung up. She should’ve.
But the sound of Jisoo’s voice hit her like a blow to the ribs.
“Chaeyoung?”
Rosé didn’t answer right away. She was already lying on the floor of her apartment, one hand gripping the neck of a half-finished bottle of soju, the other pressed to her chest like that might keep it from splitting open.
“I’m drunk,” she said finally. “You shouldn’t come.”
Jisoo paused. Then, quietly muttered, “but you want me to.”
Rosé didn’t say yes. She didn’t have to.
Jisoo arrived twenty-five minutes later, dressed like she just grabbed whatever she could from her wardrobe. A navy blue cropped jumper, light grey tracksuit bottoms and white Nike airforce ones. It didn’t really match but she still looked effortlessly beautiful.
The knock was soft—no demand, no apology. Just presence. Rosé opened the door barefoot and sleepless in an oversized sleep shirt she didn’t remember putting on, makeup smudged around her eyes like bruises. They stared at each other in the hallway for a second that felt like a held breath. No hello. No why.
Rosé stepped aside. Jisoo walked in.
It was like gravity all over again.
Jisoo didn’t bring anything—not a coat, not a bag, not even a change of clothes. Like she knew she wouldn’t need it. Like she’d always belonged here.
“I shouldn’t have called you,” Rosé said, though her voice didn’t match the words. “This isn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me right now.” Jisoo was already slipping her shoes off. Already crossing into the living room where the lights were low and the air smelled like perfume and loneliness.
They hadn’t spoken since the last fight. Weeks. Longer. A silence that had thickened into something solid. They were supposed to be done.
But love was never the kind of thing either of them could bury.
Rosé leaned against the wall. “You make it so hard to breathe when you’re here.”
“I know,” Jisoo said, not cruelly. “You make it hard to leave.”
They didn’t kiss right away. That was the most dangerous part.
They talked, if you could call it that—quiet, meaningless things. “You look tired.” “You smell like lavender.” “You still listen to that album?” Like they were pretending they didn’t know every inch of each other’s skin.
Like Rosé didn’t remember how Jisoo tasted when she cried.
Jisoo touched her first.
It was gentle—fingers brushing along the inside of Rosé’s wrist, thumb circling the pulse point like she could feel every lie trapped in her veins. Rosé’s breath hitched, and the sound made Jisoo shiver.
“You okay?” Jisoo asked, voice low.
“No.”
The distance snapped like a thread pulled too tight.
Jisoo kissed her.
Not soft. Not hesitant. It was months of silence and unsent texts and bitter longing, crashing into them like a storm. Rosé wrapped her arms around her neck and kissed her back like she was trying to forget every reason she shouldn’t.
They stumbled toward the bedroom. There was no slow. No sweet. Only hands, frantic and familiar, dragging clothes away like they burned to touch skin again.
Rosé’s shirt hit the floor. Then Jisoo’s. Then everything else.
They collapsed onto the bed with the desperation of people who’d broken their own hearts too many times to count. The sheets were tangled before they even got in—just like them.
“God,” Rosé gasped as Jisoo’s mouth found her collarbone, biting hard enough to leave a mark. “I missed you.”
Jisoo didn’t answer. She moved lower.
She knew this body. Every mole, every shiver. She kissed the line beneath Rosé’s ribs and pressed her hand between her thighs, slow and possessive. Rosé bucked up, already wet, already wrecked.
“Say it again,” Jisoo said.
“I missed you.”
“Louder.”
“I fucking missed you,” Rosé groaned, hips grinding against her hand.
Jisoo slid two fingers inside. It wasn’t slow. It wasn’t careful. But it was right. Rosé arched, one hand in Jisoo’s hair, the other clutching the sheets like she’d fall through the mattress if she didn’t hold on.
Every thrust was a memory. Every kiss was a scar reopened.
“You’re the only one,” Rosé whispered. “It’s always been you.”
Jisoo fucked her like that mattered.
They didn’t stop after once. Or twice.
They moved like the world was ending, like nothing mattered except touch and heat and the ragged sound of Rosé crying into Jisoo’s shoulder as she came again.
And again.
When they finally stilled, the room was silent except for breath. The sheets were twisted beyond hope, the air thick with sweat and ghosts.
Jisoo lay on her back. Rosé curled beside her, head on her chest.
“This is a mistake,” Rosé murmured.
“I know,” Jisoo said. “But I’m not leaving.”
Rosé didn’t ask her to.
The room was dim. The clock blinked 4:37AM.
Neither of them slept.
Rosé stared at the ceiling, still trembling. Jisoo’s arm around her waist was too tight. Her mouth was near her ear, still whispering things she wasn’t ready to believe.
“If I reach for something I can’t keep,” Rosé asked softly, “how bad could it really be?”
Jisoo kissed her temple.
“Let’s find out.”
“With your arms around me, it feels like I’m drownin’ / If I reach for something I can’t keep…”
The morning was too soft.
Rosé woke to the weight of Jisoo’s arm slung across her waist, their legs tangled like the sheets, bodies pressed skin-to-skin beneath the thin grey light seeping through the window. Her mouth was dry. Her body ached. Her chest—
Her chest hurt.
It was always like this. Quiet and warm and dangerous. As if the night hadn’t shattered them all over again. As if love were still something that could be soft.
Jisoo stirred behind her, breath warm against the curve of her shoulder. She was still half-asleep, fingers curled loosely around Rosé’s hip. Their bodies fit like a secret.
“Hey,” Jisoo whispered.
Rosé didn’t answer.
“I know,” Jisoo said anyway. “We weren’t supposed to.”
She pressed a kiss into Rosé’s back, like an apology.
Like it would help.
They didn’t talk about it.
Not the calls that never came. Not the fights, or the silence that stretched like frost across their weeks apart. Not the last time Jisoo left with her jaw clenched and her eyes wet.
Instead, they made coffee.
Rosé sat cross-legged on the counter in Jisoo’s jumper while the machine sputtered to life. Jisoo moved around the kitchen like she still belonged there. Like nothing had changed.
But it had. Of course it had.
When Rosé looked at her—really looked—she could see it. The weariness in her posture. The hesitation. The way she didn’t quite meet her eyes.
Still, Jisoo set down the mug and leaned into her space, her palm resting gently on Rosé’s bare thigh.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I will be.”
A half-truth.
Rosé didn’t pull away when Jisoo kissed her again. But she didn’t kiss her back.
Not fully.
Later, after the dishes were washed and folded clothes stacked into piles of who-was-leaving-this-time, Rosé sat on the floor of her living room and stared at the sunlight bleeding through the curtains.
Jisoo paced near the window, arms crossed, a familiar tension wound tight in her shoulders.
“This isn’t sustainable,” Jisoo said eventually, her voice low. “Us. Doing this.”
“I know.”
“But you keep calling.”
“You keep answering.”
That stung more than Rosé meant it to.
Jisoo blinked, then sank to the floor beside her. “I can’t be the reason you break.”
“You already are.”
They didn’t touch. Not yet. Not again. But the space between them buzzed like a live wire.
Rosé turned her head slowly, eyes burning. “Do you still love me?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it hurts.”
The kiss this time wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t angry or drunk or blurred. It was slow—so unbearably slow that Rosé almost cried from how careful it was. Jisoo cupped her jaw and leaned in like she was afraid Rosé might vanish if she breathed too hard.
They undressed each other on the floor.
Sunlight lit their skin in gold and shadow. Rosé let herself be laid down on the rug, let Jisoo kiss along her collarbone, her stomach, her thighs—like worship, like mourning.
“You’re beautiful,” Jisoo whispered. “Every time, you’re more beautiful.”
Rosé arched when Jisoo’s mouth found her again, tongue soft and deliberate, hands spreading her open with reverence. This wasn’t fucking. This was knowing.
Jisoo took her time. Let her come apart twice before even reaching for herself.
Rosé flipped them over.
“I remember everything,” she murmured into Jisoo’s mouth.
She slid down, slow and torturous, until Jisoo gasped. Her body trembled beneath her, hips rising in rhythm, breath catching on Rosé’s name like it was a prayer. Rosé didn’t stop—not even when Jisoo clutched at her hair, whispering I love you, I love you, I love you.
Not even when it broke her.
They lay there for a long time after, sticky with sweat and tears they didn’t talk about.
“I don’t want to lose you again,” Jisoo whispered.
“Then don’t leave.”
But they both knew she would.
That night, Rosé stood alone in her apartment, looking at the top Jisoo had left on the chair. She picked it up. Held it against her chest.
She could still smell her.
It felt like drowning.
“So baby, let’s get messy, let’s get all the way undone / Come over, undress me just like I’ve never been touched…”
The next time Jisoo came over, Rosé didn’t call.
It was late—after midnight. Rain on the windows. A slow, cold drizzle that soaked through clothes and crept into bones. Rosé had just lit a vanilla scented candle when the knock came. Three quiet taps. No buzz. No warning.
She opened the door and there Jisoo stood—hood dripping, eyeliner smudged, breath white smoke in the cold air. Her eyes were tired. Her hands were bare. She didn’t speak.
Neither did Rosé.
She just stepped aside.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Jisoo said, standing in the doorway like a shadow. “I tried.”
Rosé’s voice was hoarse. “So you came here?”
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
She didn’t need to say more.
Rosé reached out slowly, fingers grazing Jisoo’s wrist. “You’re freezing.”
“I know.”
Rosé led her inside, wrapped her in a blanket that smelled like passion fruit and ash, and they sat together on the floor, knees touching, silence stretched between them like thread—taut, shimmering, inevitable.
“I’m sorry,” Jisoo whispered into the deafening silence growing between them.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Rosé looked at her, the flickering candlelight dancing across her cheekbones, catching the wet strands of her hair. She could barely speak.
“I don’t want safe,” Rosé said. “I want you.”
They didn’t move to the bedroom. That night wasn’t about comfort.
Rosé slid the blanket from Jisoo’s shoulders and undressed her slowly, reverently, like it was the first time—like the past hadn’t happened, like every bruise on their hearts wasn’t self-inflicted. Jisoo let her, let her hands trace the soft curve of her waist, the strong line of her back.
When Rosé undressed herself, Jisoo watched like she was memorising her all over again.
“You’re still the most dangerous thing in my life,” Jisoo said, voice shaking.
Rosé stepped into her arms. “Then hurt me.”
The first kiss was deep, open-mouthed, aching.
They made love on the floor—no cushion, no comfort. Just breath and hands and the rough slide of skin on skin. Rosé sat astride Jisoo, hips rolling slow, head thrown back, the candlelight flickering across her stomach. Jisoo’s hands were on her thighs, gripping hard, grounding her as she moved.
“You feel like fire,” Jisoo gasped.
“You feel like a goodbye.”
But she didn’t stop. Neither of them did.
It wasn’t gentle this time.
They broke apart and came back together again and again, mouths hungry, hands bruising. Jisoo shoved Rosé against the wall, kissed her until they both couldn’t breathe, then dropped to her knees like she was praying.
Rosé came with her hands tangled in Jisoo’s hair, gasping her name like it was salvation and ruin all at once.
When Jisoo looked up, her mouth glistened, her eyes dark and wrecked.
“Say it,” she whispered.
“I love you.”
Jisoo pulled her down to the rug and kissed her again.
After, they lay in a heap—naked, panting, trembling. The candle had burned low. Rain tapped soft against the glass.
Rosé traced circles on Jisoo’s chest with the tip of her finger.
“We’re going to destroy each other,” she said.
“I know.”
Rosé looked up. “So why does it feel like love?”
Jisoo answered by kissing her—soft this time, full of sorrow.
“Because it is.”
That night, neither of them slept.
They kissed like thieves. Touched like they were trying to remember each other’s edges. Made love again on the kitchen table, hands slipping, bodies crashing together until one of them cried out.
There was no space left between them. No lies. No distance.
Only skin. Only breath.
Only this.
In the quiet after, Jisoo lay beside her on the floor, eyes open, arm across Rosé’s waist.
“You’re the only one I ever let see me like this,” she said.
Rosé closed her eyes.
“Then stay.”
Jisoo didn’t answer. But she didn’t leave.
Not yet.
“I want all of your complicated / Give me hell and all of your worst / When the party’s over and I’m screaming, “I hate it” / How bad could it really hurt…”
Rosé stopped pretending she didn’t care.
It was a Thursday when it broke—somewhere between the third unanswered text and the sound of Jisoo laughing in someone else’s Instagram story. Rosé watched it over and over, thumb hovering over the screen, breath shallow.
That laugh used to be hers.
She was on her second glass of wine, already drunk, when Jisoo knocked again. Same knock. Same storm-wet hoodie. Like no time had passed. Like Rosé hadn’t been spiralling all week.
She opened the door. Didn’t speak.
Jisoo’s mouth parted like she wanted to say something soft. Something safe.
Rosé shoved her.
Hard.
They kissed like they were fighting.
Rosé dragged Jisoo inside, slammed the door behind her, and shoved her against the wall. Their mouths collided—teeth, tongue, heat. There was nothing tender in it. Rosé bit her. Jisoo groaned, fingers tangling in her hair, clutching her like she wanted to bruise her into memory.
“I fucking hate you,” Rosé gasped against her lips.
“Then show me.”
Clothes were torn, not removed. The couch barely held them.
Jisoo flipped Rosé onto her stomach and yanked her hips up—no words, just the sound of her breath and the slap of skin. Her fingers were inside before Rosé could even moan, deep and ruthless, curling just right, again and again until Rosé was shaking.
“More,” Rosé choked out.
“You don’t get to beg after ignoring me all week.”
“Fuck you—”
Jisoo slapped her ass. Hard. “That what you want?”
Rosé hissed. “I want you to ruin me.”
“You already are.”
The orgasm hit like a wave breaking over a cliff. Rosé screamed into the cushion, body arching violently, tears burning at the corners of her eyes. Jisoo didn’t stop. Not even after.
She kept fucking her with those fingers, kept whispering, “You don’t get to let go of me. You don’t get to leave.”
It wasn’t sex.
It was war.
After, they lay on the floor, naked and trembling.
Jisoo’s fingers were still sticky when she reached out to brush the hair from Rosé’s face.
“You can’t hate me,” she said quietly. “You love me too much.”
“That’s the problem.”
It was always worse after nights like this.
Rosé wouldn’t cry in front of her. Wouldn’t beg her to stay. But the second the door shut, she collapsed onto the bathroom floor, sobbing into her knees.
This wasn’t a relationship.
It was a habit. A high. A sickness that felt like heaven.
Three days later, Jisoo sent a voice note at 2 a.m.
“I saw someone tonight. It didn’t mean anything. But I thought about you the whole time. I think you’ve ruined me for anyone else.”
Rosé stared at the message. Didn’t reply.
Instead, she called her.
“Come over,” she whispered when Jisoo picked up.
“I’m already outside.”
This time, they didn’t even make it inside the bedroom.
Jisoo fucked her in the hallway—hands on her throat, breath hot in her ear, both of them gritting out I hate you and I need you in the same breath. Rosé scratched her back open. Bit her shoulder. Came so hard her knees gave out.
They collapsed together on the floor again, naked and tangled in the dark.
Rosé traced the mark she’d left on Jisoo’s collarbone. “I want all of you.”
Jisoo looked down at her.
“You already have it.”
“You’re pullin’ back and I’m runnin’ for the door / You’re sayin’ those words and it just makes me want you more / A second chance with our hearts on the floor / Guess it’s love…”
Rosé didn’t think she’d go to the party.
She’d been ignoring her phone all week. Ignoring the ache in her chest. The bruises on her thighs. The way her sheets still smelled like Jisoo. But when the night came, she dressed in black silk, lined her lips in red, and walked in like she hadn’t been crying for three days straight.
Jisoo saw her the second she walked in.
Their eyes locked across the room. Frozen. No one else mattered. No music, no drinks, no crowd. Just them. History written in every look.
Jisoo didn’t smile.
Neither did Rosé.
But Jisoo came to her anyway.
“I didn’t think you’d show,” she said, stepping too close.
Rosé stared at her. “You didn’t think I could survive without you.”
A pause. Jisoo licked her lips. “Can you?”
“Barely.”
Silence.
“I saw you left a mark on my back,” Jisoo whispered. “It’s still there.”
“You left one on my heart.”
“That sounds like a pick-up line.”
“It’s not. I wish it was.”
They didn’t make it through the party.
They didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t tell anyone. They just ended up in the back of a cab, hands already on each other, kisses tasting like regret and desperation.
Back at Rosé’s apartment, they didn’t even turn on the lights.
They knew the way by touch.
This time was different.
They didn’t tear at each other. They undressed slowly. Rosé pulled Jisoo’s tight black dress off like it was sacred. Jisoo undid the buttons on Rosé’s shirt like each one hurt. Their bodies were familiar, but tonight they treated them like something new. Something breakable.
Rosé straddled her on the bed, fingers trembling as she sank down, her breath catching. Jisoo gasped—hands on her hips, eyes wide, every nerve lit up like a fuse.
It wasn’t wild.
It was intimate. Devastating.
Rosé moved slow. Jisoo held her like she was saying goodbye with her body.
Neither of them said I love you, but it was in every breath.
When Rosé came, she cried. Not loud. Just tears slipping down her cheeks as her body shook, held in Jisoo’s arms.
Jisoo didn’t tease her.
She just kissed them away.
After, Rosé lay against her chest, listening to her heartbeat.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said.
Jisoo didn’t move.
“Because you don’t want me?” Rosé asked.
“Because I want you too much.”
Rosé blinked.
“I’ve never loved anyone like this,” Jisoo whispered. “I didn’t think I could. But you scare the shit out of me.”
Rosé sat up. “Then stop pulling back.”
“And if it ends badly?”
“It will.”
Jisoo looked up at her. “Then why—”
Rosé leaned down and kissed her—slow, deep, full of every broken thing between them.
“Because if it’s messy,” she breathed, lips against hers, “then you know it’s really love.”
They didn’t fix everything that night.
They didn’t promise forever.
But they lay there, tangled in the sheets, hearts on the floor, knowing this thing between them wasn’t clean or safe or easy.
It was real.
And it was theirs.
“Maybe if it’s messy… then you know it’s really love.”
Rosé woke first.
The light was thin, gold. It crept across the floorboards like it was afraid to be noticed. Her back was sore. Her mouth was dry. And there was a hand curled around her waist like it never planned to let go.
Jisoo’s hand.
She lay there for a moment, breathing. Listening.
Outside, the city was waking up. A car horn. A bird. Someone yelling too early. But inside, there was only the sound of Jisoo’s breathing — slow, deep, uneven.
Like she didn’t know how to rest unless she was holding something.
Unless she was holding her.
Last night still clung to the sheets.
Not just the sweat, or the smell of sex, or the creak in the mattress when Rosé shifted. But the weight of it. The silence after. The things neither of them said aloud — but both meant.
Rosé closed her eyes.
She remembered Jisoo’s face when she came, the way her lip trembled. The way she whispered don’t let go when she was half-asleep. How she didn’t pull away, for once.
Not even when it got too real.
Jisoo stirred behind her.
“Chaeyoung-ah…”
It was groggy, half-mumbled.
Rosé smiled. “Yeah.”
Jisoo’s voice was hoarse. “You didn’t leave.”
“I never do.”
They both paused.
“Maybe that’s what scares me.” Jisoo said, looking at her, tone laced with vulnerability.
Rosé turned in her arms. Jisoo’s eyes were half-lidded, swollen from sleep, dark lashes stuck together. She had always been beautiful like this — wrecked and real, stripped of everything but herself.
“You always think I’ll disappear,” Rosé said. “But you’re the one who runs.”
“I know.”
Their foreheads touched.
Rosé whispered, “I love you anyway.”
They didn’t get out of bed.
Not for hours.
Jisoo kissed her collarbone. Rosé hummed. They talked — not about the big things, not about labels or futures, but about nothing. Breakfast. Jisoo’s dream. How Rosé’s pillow smells like coconut shampoo, lavender and her.
They touched each other lazily, like they’d earned it. Fingers trailing over hips, knees brushing. No urgency. Just quiet. Present.
Jisoo watched her like she was trying to memorise peace for the first time.
“I want to do it differently this time,” she said.
Rosé raised an eyebrow. “Sex?”
Jisoo grinned. “No. Us.”
“Okay.” Rosé said, exhaling slowly.
It was not perfect. The mess didn’t disappear.
Later, Jisoo had to leave. Rosé watched her button up her shirt, pick up her shoes, hesitate in the doorway.
“Don’t disappear on me again,” Rosé whispered, loud enough for Jisoo to hear.
Jisoo leant in and kissed her softly. “I won’t.”
She left behind her scent. Her silence. And a note on Rosé’s nightstand, scribbled on the back of a receipt.
I’m all in if you are.
P.S. You still look so fucking good, even when you cry.
Weeks passed.
They fell into something that didn’t look like anyone else’s idea of love. Some days they didn’t speak. Some days they fucked so hard they ended up on the floor, limbs trembling, breath gone. Other days, they just held hands in silence.
But Jisoo kept coming back.
Rosé stoped counting the hours between texts.
They went grocery shopping together. Fought over movie nights. Rosé sang in the kitchen while Jisoo made ramen. They fell asleep on the couch, tangled in blankets and bare skin. Jisoo read her poetry. Rosé read her body.
It’s was still messy.
It always would be.
But it was theirs.
One morning, months later, Jisoo rolled over in bed and said:
“I want to tell my sister about you.”
Rosé froze.
Jisoo pressed her lips to her shoulder. “I want to stop pretending I don’t love you like this.”
Rosé turned toward her, heart slamming.
And she whispered the only answer that’s ever been true between them:
“Then let’s be honest. Let’s be loud.”
Outside, the city moved like it always did.
But inside, in the tiny room with messy sheets and tea gone cold and two girls who had ruined and saved each other a thousand times—
There was peace.
Not clean.
Not easy.
But real.
And in the end, Rosé thought, that’s all she had ever wanted.