Chapter Text
"Well hello to my favorite person on earth!" a petite brunette singsongs as she barges through the bedroom door unannounced, clearly uninvited. "How have you been?"
"Oh, you're giving me that look. I know that look Jennie."
"I don't have a look." the brunette blinks.
"Yes you do, unnie. But not today, I have a big exam tomorrow and there is no way I'm flunking it by slacking off on the last night."
Jennie huffs in frustration. "But Jagiya I came all the way here. Like in the middle of the night! Please. I need you to distract me."
"Came all the way here," the younger girl repeats through laughter. "Ruby Jane, you make it sound like you had to as so much lift a finger to have come here. I know for a fact you dragged your chauffeur out of bed at 1 in the morning just to get here. Jesus I feel bad for the man."
"Lisa." Jennie's frown deepens.
"No," Lisa closes the magazine and along with the sea of books and ripped pages scattered on her bed she starts to pick them up and arranges them neatly unto her desk. "Stop sulking."
"I'm absolutely not sulking," Jennie huffs in denial. She's definitely sulking, arms crossed shoulders hunched like a child being told her playtime has just been cut shorter.
She refused to move from her spot against the door and as the seconds pass by and Lisa finally finishes tidying up her things, she turns to see Jennie's pout still in full swing.
Lisa shakes her head and turns off the light and it's almost completely dark except for the light of the moon that shone through her window. She settles comfortably on her bed and closes her eyes for a full minute.
The corner of her lips turn upwards, Jennie is unbelievable. She has not met a more stubborn person.
"Why are you still standing there like a loser? Come cuddle." Lisa moves the comforter away from her body, and Jennie doesn't hesitate to climb over and lay completely on top of the younger girl.
Lisa lets out a breath playfully and the brunette pinches her side, "Are you implying I'm heavy?"
"Those are your words Nini, yours." Lisa chuckles.
Lisa pulls the comforter closer and makes sure they're all covered up. She shouldn't have turned the AC too low but she was also too comfortable to want to move anymore.
A couple minutes have passed and the two girls lay still, if it were anyone else they would've thought the other was asleep. But Jennie and Lisa knew each other too well, Lisa knew Jennie like she was the subject she was put on this world to absorb throughout her lifetime.
It's more than half past midnight, her best friend couldn't have come over nothing. She knew the Korean dealt with a lot of things no one else in their high school would've thought she'd have.
What does Jennie Kim have to worry about anyway? She's filthy rich and has a chauffeur driving her around wherever and whenever she wants. She's a cheerleader who doesn't flunk her classes. Everyone either wants to be Jennie Kim, or be with Jennie Kim.
"Your thoughts are so loud, I can practically hear them from here." Jennie mumbles against Lisa's neck, her breath tickling the blonde's skin.
"I can say the same for you missy," Lisa whispers and brings her arms around the older girl. Her fingers begin to play with the locks of brown hair, and she smiles when she hears Jennie purr softly. "What did you want to do so bad at this hour before I rejected you?"
"I forgot," Jennie shrugs. "I just wanted to be out of that damn place."
That damn place, the place Jennie always referred to as her dungeon, her own godforsaken hell. Jennie's house — well mansion. It was nearly a third of the size of their school, and their school was well, big. Jennie hated going home everyday, eating some cuisine her personal chef would prepare on their long dinning table big enough to accommodate twenty-three other people. Walking through halls and hear every step she took echo back in her ear. Even the breaths she took as she walked up the stairs seemed loud, but nothing was louder than the silence that filled the house.
Her parents were divorced. She didn't know much about her father actually, he left when she was a child. It was always her and her mom.
Scratch that.
For as long as she could remember it was always just her. Her mother was always catching planes and meeting investors. Jennie didn't understand when she was younger, because as early as that age she resonated 'work' with cold and loneliness. She didn't understand it even now, but she learned to get used to it anyway.
Like Jennie said, it was always just her. Alone. Until one day it wasn't.
She remembered it as clear as day, her mother had once again left her with some snobby aunt who was just too eager to take her mother's offer. 'Taking care' of little Jennie while the businesswoman traveled out of South Korea for work.
Who wouldn't jump at the opportunity of watching a five year old child when what you had in exchange was more than a million won and two weeks worth of living in the Kim's mansion right?
Lucky Jennie her aunt had brought her along when she met up with some equally snobby women while she boasted about her salary for looking after a child who didn't say or do much.
She showed them pictures of every meal she had prepared by the house chef like she was fine dining three times a day. By the time her aunt began talking about the pool and the jacuzzi Jennie pulled on her arm and pointed at the playground right outside the café. The woman waved her off and continued with their conversation.
Jennie was excited but also quite nervous when she saw other kids were around too. She didn't have any friends. She didn't talk much in school, and she didn't have time to make friends anyway. By the second the bell rung signaling the end of class her driver was already outside in a very flashy Mercedes-Benz.
Jennie thought it was absolutely obnoxious. She literally lived two blocks away.
For about twenty minutes, Jennie played with a small stick she found by a tree's trunk. She drew lines and circles on the sand and giggled as some millipedes began following the track she made with the stick. It was that way for a while.
Jennie, her stick, and the millipede.
Until it was Jennie, her stick, the millipede, and a taller lanky girl with big bright eyes.
"Annyeong." The girl says confidently, flashing her a mega-watt smile.
Jennie saw she was missing a tooth or two, she wasn't sure because she looked away quickly and moved to find another spot bringing her stick and millipede with her.
Jennie drew another track and watched as the millipede began its journey again. The brunette was enjoying the view until a tall shadow made its way unto her field of view.
"Annyeong!" The girl tries again, still as enthusiastic as ever.
Jennie furrows her brows in annoyance, she already gave up her first spot she didn't want to give this one up too.
"Annyeong." Jennie says back coldly, and the girl in front of her smiles in glee.
Little did she know, Jennie meant annyeong, goodbye, as she left and went back to the first spot abandoned by the foreigner.
The other girl obviously didn't pick up the meaning behind Jennie's reply, she's still learning Korean after all.
"I'm Pran— I mean Lisa."
Jennie ignores her and draws a bigger path with the stick.
"What's your name?"
Jennie didn't reply to that question either. But this Lisa, didn't stop her questions. She'd ask a bunch of others after that like how old are you? Are you here alone? Do you go to school? What's your favorite color?
When the questions stopped Jennie sighed in relief and dusted the dirt from her fingers against her pants and sat down on the sand. Her knees were beginning to hurt after all. She was alone again at last.
Or so she though.
Lisa came back a few minutes later, two ice cream cones in hand. She sits beside Jennie, too close for the Korean native's liking.
"Here, I got you ice cream." Lisa hands over to cone to Jennie who looks at it curiously.
Jennie has seen her classmates have some from the cafeteria, but she had never even had a single taste. Not a single lick of the frozen treat. She'd always brought with her the packed lunch prepared by Mr. Kang, greens always made a good portion of her lunch box.
Lisa abruptly grabs Jennie's hand and wraps it around the cone. Jennie stares at the foreign object in front of her and tilts her head when she sees something runny from the corner of her eye. It touches her skin and she cringes. She then turns to the other girl to see her putting the said weird object against her mouth.
Jennie then brings the cold treat towards her face and presses it against her lips, then jumps back in surprise. She hears a giggle from her side.
"Khuṇ nī̀ tlk cạng (you're funny)," Lisa says in a language the other kid has never heard of, "You eat it like this."
Lisa teaches her how to properly eat the ice cream until all that's left of the dessert was the piece of tissue wrapped around what was the cone. That and Jennie's sticky fingers.
They parted ways with Jennie having not said a word to Lisa.
But the next day her aunt brings her to the same café to meet up with a different group of people to boast about the same exact thing.
Jennie gets a stick and finds another millipede.
And Lisa finds her.
For the rest of the week Lisa finds her in the same spot, with the same stick, but never the same millipede. Jennie is always silent. But Lisa always talks, talks about herself, her family, Thailand.
And Lisa thinks Jennie never listens. But Jennie is always listening. To every word she says. Every laugh, every giggle. She even takes note of how Lisa's eye crinkles when she smiles, and how she's so quick to get teary eyed when she's talking about something funny.
Then Jennie realizes her aunt wont be taking her here anymore. Her mother returns tomorrow and it was the first time she wishes her mother wasn't coming home yet. Before they parted ways, Jennie went back to the café and tugged on a waiter's pants. She asked for a paper and a pencil.
She went back to the spot where she left Lisa and hands her a paper with an 11 digit number and a name scribbled below.
"Jen-nie," Lisa says out loud.
For the first time and it feels refreshing to hear someone call her that. Her aunt had always referred to her as Jane. The staff at her home called her "Ma'am". The kids in her class didn't call her at all.
"Jennie." The Thai repeats.
"Lisa." Jennie says for the first time. And she says it with a smile, and she realizes she has never had so much fun in her life until the week she meant Lisa.
And since that day, it was always Jennie and Lisa. Lisa and Jennie. Them against the world.