jisoo kim @kimchikin

what do dogs dream of when they’re asleep

3:09 – 21 April 17 – Twitter

jisoo kim @kimchikin

because honestly i wanna know what the airplane dog is dreaming of rn she looks so happy

3:12 – 21 April 17 – Twitter

lisa of the memes @monalalisa

@kimchikin UR COMING HOME???????!!!!!!

3:13 – 21 April 17 – Twitter

jisoo kim @kimchikin

@monalalisa yep

3:13 – 21 April 17 – Twitter
 

jisoo kim @kimchikin

@monalalisa and go to sleep, it’s late smh

3:13 – 21 April 17 – Twitter

lisa of the memes @monalalisa

@kimchikin CHICHOO-UNNIE IS COMING HOME @jendeukie @chaepark

3:15 – 21 April 17 – Twitter

jennie kim @jendeukie

get some rest, jisoo. will see you later.

19s

It’s nearing dawn by the time Jisoo’s plane lands at the airport. She has half a mind to crash in a nearby hotel for the time being instead of making her way to her apartment, but the temptation of sleeping on her own bed after several weeks is too great to resist.

So she books a cab and tries her best to stay awake for a few more minutes, and she just about legit cries when she finally arrives home.

She throws her stuff haphazardly on the floor, resolving to put them away after she’s rested up. Maybe.

If she remembers.

But all thoughts that are not about sleeping dissolve right into the ether the moment Jisoo lies down on the bed, and sleep claims her without any resistance.

When Jisoo wakes up, the first thing she thinks of is chicken.

And that may be telling of who she is as a person, but to be fair to herself, her apartment really does smell like chicken. She wonders if maybe she’s still in dreamland or something, but then the smell of freshly brewed coffee enters the poultry haze in her mind, and she figures that nope, she’s definitely awake.

Also, her apartment’s being overrun by either her friends or an overly affable burglar.

Deciding that either way her company is owed, she gets up and pads over to the kitchen.

The scene that greets her makes her pause.

“Unnie!” Lisa cheerfully greets, with an equally cheerful chef’s hat placed on her head, proclaiming her the Best Chef. “I’m making breakfast!”

Jisoo blinks. “Uhm.” Lisa is juggling two pans with what appears to be multiple eggs frying on them. Jisoo has seen her perform this sort of thing dozens of times before, but she’s still kind of impressed.

“I think you meant we’re making breakfast,” comes a familiar honey voice, and Jisoo looks to her left and sees that Rosé is crouching down, getting something from a lower cupboard. “Hi, Jisoo-unnie,” Rosé greets with a warm smile. “Welcome home!”

“We really missed you!” Lisa says, though her focus is on putting the eggs on plates. She then shouts, “Seulgi-unnie, the eggs are ready!”

“Yeesh, I’m coming, I’m coming,” Seulgi says, walking from the dining room, and Jisoo spots Irene trailing behind her.

“That’s what she said,” Irene teases, dancing just out of reach when Seulgi bats her away.

“Hey!”

“Hi, Choo!” Irene hugs Jisoo, completely ignoring her grumbling girlfriend. “We’re so glad you’re back. Your dongsaengs are getting out of control without you.”

“I’m pretty sure Jisoo’s the one encouraging their antics, to be honest,” Seulgi says, though she slings an arm around Jisoo too. “We missed you, little chicken.”

“You act as if I’ve been gone for years,” Jisoo tells them, but she feels touched that her friends appear to have missed her so.

Well, her friends . . . except one.

“Where’s Jennie?” she asks, and she swears a pin dropping could be heard in the room.

There’s a moment where they all just stared at each other—Lisa frozen with her pans, Rosé with her favourite mug, Seulgi and Irene with identical looks of regret, and Jisoo with complete confusion.

“What? Why? What happened?” Jisoo shoots off question after question into the silence, suddenly panicking at her friends’ lack of response. “Is she okay? I swear she’s okay earlier, she even DM’ed me on Twitter and said she’s gonna see me later, did something happen? God, I can’t leave her for two minutes—”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down,” Seulgi says, placing both hands on Jisoo’s shoulders. “She’s—She’s okay. Fine. She’s totes fine.”

“Yep,” Rosé adds, albeit a bit nervously, and Jisoo is really confused, “pretty sure Jennie-unnie’s just doing some advanced reading for her coursework. You know how she is.”

“Also, aren’t you the one who always finds a way to injure herself without Jennie to hold you steady?” Irene says, a teasing grin tugging at her lips.

“Yah,” Jisoo protests, “I’m not that helpless.”

“Sure, unnie,” says Lisa. “Say that to the broken plates from when you tried to serve yourself breakfast.”

“Yah! We swore never to talk about that again!” She glares at them, then, crossing her arms. “And don’t think that I don’t know you’re distracting me.” That at least gets them to look guilty, and Jisoo latches onto that. “Now, what’s happening here, really?”

“We’re making you breakfast because we love you?” Seulgi offers with a sheepish smile.

Jisoo just glares harder. “Try again.”

“We really did miss you,” Lisa tells her, putting aside Jisoo’s cooking utensils that she has appropriated for herself (because, yeah, Jisoo admits she is sort of, maybe, completely hopeless in the culinary arts). “And we want to welcome you home with your favourite food. So. Here we are.”

Jisoo huffs. That makes sense, but still, “If she’s really fine, then I’m gonna go get Jennie.”

“Probably not the best idea,” Seulgi says quickly. Jisoo raises an eyebrow.

“Jennie does have some things to do, with her workload at school increasing,” Irene explains, and it is her level-headedness that makes Jisoo pause. “You might wanna text ahead if you’re coming over.”

“Her apartment is right across the street.”

“It’s polite to text ahead when you’re coming over,” Rosé points out.

Jisoo merely looks at them deliberately.

“Ah.” Rosé winces. “Point taken.”

Jisoo sighs, running a hand through her hair and wincing at the knots. Her bed-head’s probably atrocious, but she wants to go over her best friend and get a proper hug. So she makes a decision. “I’m gonna go there and get her. If you’re staying here, please don’t burn my apartment down.” With that she turns around, grabs the hoodie flung on the back of a sofa, and leaves, ignoring Seulgi’s protests and Irene’s somewhat-pleading “Jisoo, no.”

Jisoo power-walks her way to the elevator, grateful that it arrives just in time for her to get in, and she doesn’t have to wait. She probably has a few minutes of a head start before her friends catch up to her, because despite all reservations, they are a responsible bunch who won’t leave Jisoo’s apartment just like that.

She fixes her collar on the way down, untangling some more knots in her hair, and wishing she at least drank some coffee.

But she really, really just wants to see Jennie.

It’s been weeks since they last saw each other, and though they FaceTime and chat a lot, seeing the girl you’re in love with in person is still a different experience altogether. Jisoo misses the way Jennie smiles and looks and generally just exists, and she can’t wait to hug her again and see that face without it getting pixelated because of bad Internet connection.

Jisoo smiles just thinking about her, and she’s really, royally screwed.

She has been the moment Jennie Kim walked into her life when they were in third grade.

They have been best friends ever since, and though their social circle expanded through the years, it’s always been the two of them against the world.

It’s no accident that Jisoo chose to live in the apartment right across the street from Jennie’s—they might be grown-ups now (or, well, something akin to it, in Jisoo’s case), but that doesn’t mean that Jisoo will ever be ready to be far away from Jennie.

If anything, this last trip abroad just reinforced that belief.

The weeks without her best friend are just . . . blurs, to be honest.

She needs to see Jennie, right now.

Jisoo crosses the road with a renewed energy in her steps, and she nearly bounces with excitement on the elevator ride up. She knocks on Jennie’s door, but it’s unlocked.

“Interesting,” Jisoo murmurs, before shrugging and pushing it open.

For the second time that morning, Jisoo pauses at what she sees.

A stranger is standing in Jennie’s kitchen, dressed in Jennie’s oversized sweater, drinking tea from Jennie’s grey mug. She looks up at Jisoo. “Oh, hey!” She’s smiling, Jisoo realises. She’s pretty cute too, with plump lips and soft curls. “You’re Jisoo, right?”

“Pardon?”

“Right, right, I’m sorry, I should probably introduce myself.” The girl then puts down her mug and walks over to Jisoo, extending a hand. “Hi, I’m Lee Hi.” Jisoo takes her hand on autopilot. “I’m Jennie’s girlfriend.”

Jisoo registers the door opening behind her, and a procession of bodies bumping into each other before bumping into her.

“Oh, unnie,” Rosé whispers in this really small, really soft voice right in Jisoo’s ear, “we were warning you.”

And that is when Jisoo’s world comes crashing down.