“Hey.” Jennie looks up from her phone to find Jisoo hovering at her bedroom door. Jennie’s sitting on the floor, back against her bed, knees up, phone perched atop them. For some reason, Jisoo doesn’t come in, just leans against the doorframe.

“Manager-unnie just asked me to go to the mv filming with you. Insisted, more like,” Jisoo says, a little hushed even though they both know their manager is gone for the day.

Jennie shifts; she tastes a strange tenseness in the air but can’t pinpoint the source. “Why isn’t she going?” she asks, glancing at her phone as it goes to sleep.

“Chaeyoung begged her to go to the recording with her, for that idol show.” No more had to be said. Even if they were only using her audio clip, Chaeyoung could get cripplingly self-conscious over things the rest of them wouldn’t blink at. Their manager would need to be there for moral support.

“But that’s not the point,” Jisoo says, worrying her lip for a moment. “Jennie, why does manager-unnie think you need to be chaperoned?

Jennie stares blankly at her. “I…don’t?”

“She thinks you do!” Jisoo startles at her own volume and steps into the room to crouch in front of Jennie, putting them at eye level. She says, hushed again, “Jennie, she made me promise not to leave you alone at the mv filming. She wants me to stick to you like glue, like we’re in pre-debut period again. But what I can’t figure out is why.” She spreads her hands like she’s asking Jennie to throw an explanation in them.

“Why is she acting like you can’t be left alone when we’ve done so many mvs already?”

“I—don’t know….” Randomly, the only thing that comes to mind is the way Yoongi had, earlier that day, oh so nonchalantly taken off his jacket and handed it to her as they were waiting outside for Jennie’s van. Her manager had stared at the jacket like it was leather poison. 

The exact same jacket that is currently laid out across her lap and knees like a blanket. Jisoo notices her fiddling with the zipper and then squints.

“Is that your jacket?”

“Yoongi-oppa’s.”

Jisoo pauses deliberately. “He gave it to you?”

Something about her tone makes Jennie defensive and she says, “What about it?”

Jisoo stares at her as terrible clarity leaks into her face. “Jennie…do you like Min Yoongi?”

Jennie protests immediately, “No! Just because he gave me his jacket? Be serious, unnie.” But Jisoo looks down pointedly at where Jennie has clutched Yoongi’s jacket closer to her as if someone might steal it, and she flushes hot.

“Jennie,” Jisoo says, a world of meaning tucked into her tone.

And Jennie thinks about the past few weeks of composing, recording and practicing together with Yoongi; thinks about the months before when she couldn’t overlook his smug blond head, and how he always—always—seemed to be watching her in return; thinks about the last recording session where she forgot Jimin was in the room because she had been preoccupied on having Yoongi praise her again.

All these thoughts condense down to something painful and undeniable, and her inner objection dies with a whimper.

“Maybe. Maybe I do like him,” Jennie says, at last, raising her gaze from the jacket to look at Jisoo with large, hopeless eyes. “Is that so bad?”

“Oh, Jendeukie.”

Whatever Jisoo sees in her expression makes her lean forward, and Jennie clings to her as her nickname describes.