The moment Jennie shed her tears, my heart broke. It was the third time I actually felt genuinely empathetic towards anybody. The first one being my grandparents. The second was towards my parents. And the third one, towards the cat-faced girl that kept sniffling with her face covered by her hands. I didn’t know why I felt that way, maybe some of it was guilt of presuming that Jennie is a cold person. I tried to comfort her by patting her bare shoulders.

I actually waited for a minute until I finally opened my mouth,

“Are you okay now?”

Jennie just nodded while still crying, tears fell down like raindrops on the window. I hugged her and let her face leaned towards my shoulder. My grandpa always said that when people cry, they don’t need words, they need company. Then, I waited in that position until she finally found her composure.

Jennie lifted her face and wiped off her tears.

“Sorry, unnie”, said Jennie with a slightly hoarse voice.

“It’s okay”, I said while patting her head.

I moved to her side, and we were silent for about 15 minutes, I guess. I was really curious about the reason Jennie cried, but I think it was not polite to ask that kind of thing just yet.

When tears finally stopped, the only word that came out of my mouth was,

“It’s tiring isn’t it?”, I said while letting Jennie’s head leaned on my left shoulder.

Jennie was kinda surprised, she looked up at my face. Then she looked down and after a while, nodded. I felt heat emanating from her face.

“If you want to…, I’m all ears”, I said while awkwardly laughing.

Jennie was silent, she blankly stared at the empty tub.

The deadly silence came over again. My face was actually burning, I was kinda shy because of the awkward atmosphere because I am pretty sure that I am a straight girl.

“Unnie”, Jennie opened .

I answered with a single on her hair.

“Aren’t you scared?”, said Jennie.

“Of what?”, said Jisoo.

“Of everything?”, said Jennie.

“Of everything, like what?”, I cluelessly asked.

Jennie let out a small laughter. I kinda felt relieved.

“Of course I’m scared, Jennie”, I answered.

“But I have my family, my friends, and now I have…, you…”, I said jokingly.

Jennie slapped my chest. Her face was flustered, I don’t know maybe from the water’s heat, I don’t know. I was shocked and kinda embarrassed as she touched my chest.

“Yeah, but what if you do something that is unforgivable”, said Jennie.

I suddenly remember my grandpa’s advice as I passed the advice to Jennie,

“…I don’t know about your problems, but my grandpa once said, that even if you had killed a person, your loved ones will forgive you, at least at the deepest place in their hearts”, I said hesitantly.

“….but that doesn’t mean you should kill people”, I continued to break the awkwardness.

Jennie let out a small laughter. Jennie seemed composed, as she rose from my shoulders. And after that, she looked at me with soggy eyes but a more cheerful expression.

“Yours is quite big, unnie”, said Jennie.

I was shocked like, “What?”, then Jennie laughed.

“You too, bro”, I said trying to keep my composure.

Jennie laughed again, I also laughed because of her.

“Anyway, don’t worry. You have me to talk about everything, and even if you kill a person, I’ll back you up”, I told her jokingly.

“Maybe not today, but from here on after, I’ll take care of you”, I thought to myself while gently Jennie’s hair with my fingers.

“If you don’t talk to me, then I’ll ppoong you every day”, I said, pompously introduced my own jargon which is ppoong. For your information, it’s a very useful word, you can use it in almost any sentence, for it has no actual meaning.

After that, we talked about a lot of things, what kind of idols do we want to be, what kind of stage do we want to conquer, and everything concerning our past, present, and future. We were really close after that incident. Jennie always clings to me even until now, then I gave her the nickname Jendeuk, which basically means Jennie who likes to cling.

And then we became roommates, and we told a lot of stories about ourselves and the world, we became best friends.

Then, a certain event happened at the later time of our trainee days. I wouldn’t blame Jennie for this, but after this certain event, the confusion and stress came. And they came for me.