interlude

prologue

***

It all starts when she’s thirteen.

Sports aren’t part of Jennie’s forte, getting easily exhausted from the smallest bit of physical activity. So when Sam invites her to play a game of volleyball, Jennie politely declines and opts to watch from the sidelines as Sam finds another willing opponent nearby.

The game begins and Sam makes a horrible serve, the ball barely making contact with her hands, causing her opponent and Jennie to explode in a fit of laughter. Jennie runs for the ball and throws it to Sam. She gives it one more try. Her seconds serve is far better, rather impressive and she happily gives a brief thumbs up to Jennie who claps at her successful attempt. But the moment the ball bounces back towards her court, she misses lamely and Jennie laughs once again.

Sam isn’t the type to give up though, and from the few short years Jennie has known her, it’s the challenge and the enjoyment of the game that keeps her going. The way she giggles away her mistakes, Jennie admittedly sees it as—dare she say it—cute in a manner that isn’t annoying unlike other girls who try too hard at coming off as silly.

But for Sam, it’s something that’s natural to her, with her complete disregard for her unkept hair as it constantly flies towards her face and the obvious fact that she can’t play volleyball to save her life yet she initiated the match.

She’s quite the scatterbrain but it works, and Jennie could go on and on about the things that people would usually find as unpleasant but would totally be different on Sam.

“Like what you see?”

Jennie jumps in her spot when a classmate approaches her unexpectedly from behind. It’s Fiona, someone from their friend group and Jennie embarrassingly blushes a little because it feels like the girl, who is now standing right next to her, had just invaded her tiny moment of privacy with her own thoughts. Jennie clears , tucks a lose strand behind her ear and acts as if her sudden arrival had not startled her.

She smiles at Fiona and says, “I’m really not into sports.”

“Apparently so is Sam but I’m not talking about the sport, Jen.”

“What?” Jennie whips her head to Fiona faster than she’s intended and the girl doesn’t do as much as dart her eyes between Jennie and Sam, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, a teasing grin filling her lips.

Now, Jennie is sure that the heat from her cheeks has spread all over her face, even feeling it as far as the tip of her ears. Hell, her whole face feels burning hot. But what she can’t understand is why her body has this unexplainable reaction to this situation. All she did was admire one of her friends in her head, list her good qualities.

People do that.

It’s not like she’s…

Nope.

She isn’t even going to go there.

“What?” Jennie asks again, her eyes widening in surprise. She tones down the volume of her voice, ensuring that other people won’t be able to hear them. “No, no, no.” She laughs, trying not to sound rattled but her nervousness gives it away. “You got it all wrong. Besides, she’s a girl. A girl,” Jennie says the last word slowly as if emphasizing it would get her point across.

Because let’s face it, Jennie Kim is a person who fangirls over boybands, drools over the hottest leading men on screen and reports to her friends giddily about a cute boy she sees.

It’s absurd to begin with.

“I’m just saying though, girls can like girls too.”

And Fiona leaves her with that.

Jennie pretends not to hear it.

Three days later, she starts seeing a boy. It’s not anything serious.

It lasts for three weeks.

unedited.

while i'm working on the ending of behind the scenes, here's a little treat for y'all