Have you really forgotten about me?

Rosé does not understand why it hurt to hear such words coming from Jennie. She knew she had to at least barter some type of response. But here she was, a deer caught in headlights.

Jennie slowly releases her elbow. And Rosé misses the warmth that the hold had emitted as her arm limply drops to her side. 

“Sorry to have puzzled you- looks like I ultimately mistook you as someone from my past.”

A knot forms in Rosé's throat, hearing the girl's dejected tone.

Say something. She urges in her head. 

And the nerves around her jaw fortunately complies to let her speak. Her own words leaving a bad aftertaste in .

“Maybe you have.”

SHE REENACTS ways to approach Jennie in her head the next school day; somewhere along the lines of apologizing or she could start by asking who this person was in the girl's past.

In no doubt she was overreacting. But she felt responsible for the subtle hurt in Jennie’s eyes that Saturday night, and it had tagged at her mind ever since. She had thought about sleeping through it, which she did. But her brain had made up its mind, replaying Saturday night over and over again. Whirling Jennie's dismal voice back into her thoughts whenever she was open enough to be distracted by it. 

The school period bell rings as few of the students rush into their seats. Giggles and hoarse whispers overlap each other until they gradually die down as the young teacher enters the room with a blinding smile on his face. 

"Notebook and pen out, we're in for a short lecture today." 

And Rosé frowns at the empty desk next to her.

-♥-

“Can’t believe Seungri bought into my excuse and let you skip class today.”

Jisoo stays in her usual spot, thumbing at her controller as she regards Jennie’s sprawled out body on the bed behind her. She hears a shift, as the girl sits herself up against the headboard. Jennie had made herself comfortable in Jisoo's bed, falling in and out of sleep due to the calming sounds of rain drops hitting the window surfaces. 

“Me taking the score tracker position for your soccer team's away game sounded legitimate to me.”

“You never liked to skip classes. What makes today different?”

Another shift in the bed. And Jisoo waits in vain for a response that never returns.

“I just lied to your teacher.”

Jennie exhales through her nose. It was another one of Jisoo’s specialized guilt-trip tactics, but she doesn't feel like resisting against it today. She could use Jisoo's listening ability, just this once, she thought. 

“Remember that little girl I met in New Zealand?”

Jisoo’s ears perk up upon her recollection of a young Jennie eagerly telling her about a new friend she’d met- she’s so clumsy, but she makes my practices fun, Jennie had said, her usual stoic face left unbothered. Even then, Jisoo could still see the sparkle of excitement in Jennie's eyes the more she spoke about the bob haired girl and their daily escapades in the stables. 

“It was Roseanne, after all.”   

Not a second and Jisoo rolls herself out to leave her game, tossing the controller hastily on her chair before joining the girl in bed. She mirrors Jennie’s posture, back straight and legs crossed, as she faces her with a stretched smile.  

“Well I’ll be damned- what gave it away?”

“I gave her that fish keychain she always carries around.”

Jisoo recalls seeing Rosé walk around with an orange plastic fish hanging from her phone case once, and she chuckles softly.

“Adorable.”

Jennie suppresses rolling her eyes.  

“I’ve had some time to think things through after we talked, the night she was at my place. It’s her, and she’s still the same. The way her ears blush first before her cheeks do when she’s embarrassed, she’s always played with her hair and puffs her cheeks out on the littlest things- her skin had paled greatly in contrast to her tan skin back then. Otherwise she’s still as pretty, even more now, as I remembered her.”

Jennie bites her tongue at calling the girl pretty. But Jisoo didn't seem to take heed of her small slip, and so she feigns nonchalance.

“I feel like there’s a BUT here...”

“She doesn't remember me, as I remember her.”

Jisoo catches Jennie’s fingers clutching on the sheets. And with her eyes fixated on the paling knuckles, she mellows out a reply.

“It’s not her fault she doesn't remember.”

She earns a searching gaze from Jennie, the girl giving her statement a measurable thought while her shoulders and hands relax on their own. Jisoo smiles at the silence and continues.

 “Go to class tomorrow, Jen.”

THE CLOTHES laid freely on her bed as they have the night before. Fifty after the hour now, her bed time nearing in about two hours (she always tried to sleep by 10 pm at the latest), yet her brain does not understand her crucial need to finish the last of her homework as she stays on her study chair, her line of sight not leaving Jennie’s clothes out of its crosshair.

Just who was Jennie Kim to her?

She hears a splash from the tank by her bed, and she asks the energetic fish staring back at her.

“What do I do?”

She watches as the fish roams around the tank’s edges, mindlessly picking at the pebbles with its mouth before coming back to face her. Rosé her head to the side, noticing how much Joo Hwang had grown over the years. 

She chuckles at reminiscing the first time she’s welcomed the blood parrot fish with open arms.

“I simply named you orange, didn't I?”

Rosé comes to a pause. She’d unconsciously uttered the sentence in her native tongue of English instead of Korean, and it brought an odd sense of déjà vu.

"Orange? Really?"

“Why not? His color is orange.”   automatically finds the words to answer the unfamiliar young voice in her head. It had come out of her so naturally, as if it was said just yesterday.

Her eyes waver through the tank’s glass, no longer paying attention to the occupant inside it. Jennie’s face makes it back to her mind and she tries her hardest to comprehend the memory that's resurfacing itself back to her like a bullet-train. 

Have you really forgotten about me?

Authornim's Messageu: Stay tuned, I'm pretty excited for part 2. Are you? ;)❤️