Chapter 20/?

A black sedan stops in front of the gate which garners a couple of prying eyes among the students and that includes Jisoo who has just arrived a few minutes before.

After a couple of minutes, a familiar woman steps out from the said vehicle, donning in a black skinny jeans with a white button up, a black sunnies and a much shorter boyish haircut. Jisoo tilts her head to get a better look at the newcomer. She gasp as it finally dawn on her that the other person is someone that she has been thinking about for the past few days.

“Chaeyoung?”

The other woman apparently heard her as she immediately inclines and took off the sunnies off her face. “Hey…Ji”

“Don’t hey me, where the hell have you been?” Jisoo pushes the other woman’s shoulder lightly. She is understandably upset, how can she not? Chaeyoung has been missing in action for several days!

Chaeyeoung lets out a guilty smile “I’m sorry about being AWOL. I have a perfectly good explanation for that” she quickly added

“Oh you better be Son Chaeyoung or I won’t hesitate smacking your head upside down”

“Oh, feisty. I like that” The shorter smirks which receives a punch on her shoulder. She yelps in pain “Damn mommy, that hurts”

“It’s going to be a lot more painful if you don’t open your mouth now.”

Chaeyoung stifles laughter at the choice of words “EyE…that is so ”

Instead of hitting her for the second time, Jisoo opt for other option. She engulfs her bestfriend with a tight hug, burying her face in the crook of the other woman’s neck.

“Thank god you’re okay” she mutters under her breath “I know you’re mysterious and but can you please text me to say that you’re fine or something so I won’t call FBI and look for your sorry in every nook and cranny of this city?”

Chaeyoung lets out a guttural laughs as she reciprocates with equally tight hug. “Sorry Ji, I had some… issues that I need to take care of”

Jisoo takes a peek from her little embrace “Not going to tell me?”

“Not for the time being” Chaeng sways their body a little, hoping that her best friend would drop the subject eventhough she knows that she owes her some clearer explanations.

Jisoo wanted the other woman to be honest with her, she was getting tired of Chaeyoung’s antic of sneaking around and not telling her anything what was going on with her life but, Jennie’s voice echoed in her mind reprimanding her not to do anything remotely stupid. Stupid Jennie and her stupid advice

Jisoo slowly keeps some small distance between them, not actually releasing her hold around her neck “Okay batman, but if there’s anything going on in that Chamber of Secret of yours, can you promise me, you’ll tell me next time?”

Chaeyoung could sense the heaviness in her bestfriend playful banter. She chided herself for not updating the other woman about her wellbeing and even more remorseful when the arm around her neck tightens.

“I’ll try”

“Okay… that’s better than nothing”

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

Jisoo and Chaeyoung release their hold from each other. Toby has his eye brow raises, obviously judging them. “Are you guys dating or something?”

“And that has got to do with you because?” Chaeyoung trails, not really liking the lanky boy intonation. Before he could say anything, a feisty blonde woman pulls his ear hard causes the boy shrieking in pain.

“Ignore him you guys,” Hanna faces the duo, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration “He’s still salty about Jisoo turning Jennie down”

“No I am not!” scowling at Hanna, “ I’m mad because Jennie went missing because of her”

Toby flares, pointing finger at Jisoo. He is still upset about the whole ordeal, and the mere fact that everyone keep on telling him to drop it and wait for Jennie to return infuriates him even more.

“Whoa there big boy, you better watch your mouth” Chaeyoung moves in front of Jisoo, silently protecting her best friend from the menacing look that Toby is giving her.

“That’s true! If it weren’t for you, Jennie would probably still be here”

“Jesus Toby, don’t make it sound like Jennie is dead” Hanna deadpanned “I’m sorry, it has been a rough months for us and it’s frustrating that no one knows where the hell that little is”

“Am I the only sane person in this campus actually cares about Jennie’s whereabout right now??” Toby mutters exasperatedly, he looks at Hanna “Why aren’t you freaking out about this Han? This is just madness!”

“Get your head out of your Toby and look around” Chaeyoung glares at the boy “Everyone is worried sick about Jennie, hell, even me and Jisoo, but that doesn’t give you the right to be a d*ck about it. People react to situation differently. Moping around and basically starts pointing fingers at people aren’t going to make Jennie come back. Give the girl space for goodness sake.”

“Guys come on, let’s not make a scene” Jisoo pulls the other woman by the hand practically forcing her to break away from the staring competition with Jennie’s best friend. “We’ll talk some other time”, She curtly bids the other duo goodbye along with an apologetic smile despite of having the boy still staring her down.

“You know that that’s not the reason right?” Chaeyoung utters. “Whatever it is Jennie is pulling, none of that is because of you. She did that on her own will”

Jisoo nodded “I know”

Jisoo lets out a small sigh. Thinking of a way to tell Jennie about the small misunderstanding and probably convince the other Kim to text one of her best friend.

**

“Sorry I’m late…” Jennie takes off her jacket and rests it on the chair “We had a quick staff meeting and 10 minutes turns 20 especially when George starts talking about redecorating the isle and trust me that man could talk for hours”

‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it” Jisoo waves off Jennie’s apologies “So did you guys managed to come up with any ideas for the isle?”

Jisoo had come to learn about Jennie’s colleague through all the tutoring session that they had together. The heiress ‘introduced’ to the one that she talk a lot with due to their shift and isle arrangement. And surprisingly that includes her bossy manager Michael or Mike Wizowski as Taeyeon would enthusiastically put it.

There’s Tina, a sassy queen of the store. A confident woman with crazy hairdo. Jennie ever told her about how Tina dyed her hair multiple times within a span of two weeks because the colour doesn’t ‘shine’ as much as she like under the sunlight and Jennie felt sorry for her scalp.

There’s George. Mr-know-it-all George. And that being said is nowhere near negative connotation. George is simply dun as the McGyver of the store. He practically done most of the plumbing and fixing thing despite of constantly whining about every little thing going on.

And then they have Michael. Mike the bossy nit-pick of a boss that Jennie deems or specifically Taeyeon claimed. Jisoo only met him once and she thought that he was a pretty decent human being to say the least. Even Jennie thought that her boss is practically a big fluffy bear. Harmless and soft. Jisoo chuckles when she remembers Taeyeon squeals “Gayyy” out of the blue when they mentioned this before.

“So, what did you guys come up with”

“Well, that’s the thing… since Taeyeon refused to back down on her idea, and George adamant on wanting to do his deco, we couldn’t get any work done”

“What exactly did Taeyeon suggest?” Jisoo squints her eyes, looking at the other woman.

After knowing the older woman a while ago, Jisoo has come to a term that Taeyeon is pretty much… eccentric and not in a bad way. She is someone who is outspoken and does not care about what other people thinks. Regardless how ridiculous it might sound.

“PUBG themed isle” Jennie sighs

What Jennie did not expect was the gasp coming from Jisoo. There’s a sudden light flickers across Jisoo face and the excitement exudes the moment is pretty much unbearable.

“I m rooting for Taeyeon’s idea” Jisoo squeals.

“I haven’t told you about George’s idea yet”

“Nobody cares, nothing can top that”

The heiress could only laugh her heart content when Jisoo suddenly whip out her notepad and starts jotting down all the necessary items that needed to be included in the said decoration. The boring blue lejar, 236 pages assignment and discussion about Jennie’s best friend were long forgotten.

Who would’ve thought that Jisoo Kim likes PUBG? Out of all hobbies that Jennie could think of, playing games is definitely not in the list.

When the late evening sets in, and the weather seems to be a little colder and only then Jisoo and Jennie realised that they had overstayed their tutoring session at the cafe. Like any other meetup, Jennie dreaded this part of the day, knowing that she needs to wait for another 3 more days to see the other Kim again. Don’t be too clingy Kim. Watch your boundaries. Jennie reprimanded herself internally for almost acting out desperately.

“Hey Jen, I don’t think I can make it for our Friday’s tutoring session” Jisoo utters as she packs all her notebooks in her bagpack.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

“Uh, okay, yah. That’s cool. I’m okay with that” Jennie stumbles with her words.

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