A car honked furiously at a blonde girl running past the road, ignoring the red sign preventing from crossing by. She didn’t have time to wait, she was very late. The girl was an art student at UCLA and today was the first time she’ll expose her work at the Hammer Museum.

Chaeyoung had been living here for a year now, and she still missed the quietness of Washington, especially when she was just almost crashed by a car.

She couldn’t be late for her first exhibition; her professor had been hesitant at first to give her a spot there, he tends to think that Chaeyoung shouldn’t have been accepted in the program, and she had to fight for her place every day since last year.

He was a very charismatic man, navigating between art and fashion, very unique in his vision of his art but he was indeed a genius. This was why he never was really impressed with Chaeyoung’s work, he judged it too classy not bold enough, too ‘bland’ as he will say.

So she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction to say he was right again, she had work very hard on her piece and was looking forward for what he had to say about it.

As she walked into the building, she spotted Mino and her professor. Mino was a little prodigy in the matter of arts, he was a few years older than her and maybe the favorite student of her professor. Well honestly spoken, he was just a mini version of her professor, and she kind of found it unfair that professor Jiyong showed up his favoritism shamelessly.

Jiyong was admiring Mino’s last piece, as usual a very abstract piece of art that reminded Chaeyoung of ‘the scream’. It was beautiful she wasn’t gonna lie as the bright yellow contrasted with the all darkness of the painting.

‘Yellow’ was the key-word for this exhibition, every student allowed to expose had to brought one piece.

Chaeyoung gave her piece to the man in charge and went to salute her professor.

“Good afternoon, miss Park,” he greeted her with no smile. “I hope that this time you gave up on the landscape for something more exciting for once.”

Chaeyoung was nervous, that was exactly what she had drawn, but she this exhibition meant more than just impressing her art professor.

“I feel like as my first exhibition, my piece should’ve represented something deep for me. So I made it thinking about something meaningful for me, and it happens to be a very beautiful landscape, yes.” She replied confidently.

Jiyong raised an eyebrow, his face’s expression imperceptible. “Well, that’s a very cocky answer here. I’m looking forward to see that ‘very beautiful landscape’ Roseanne.”

And with that he left the girl there.

Chaeyoung couldn’t breathe; it was the first time ever he had called her by something other than ‘miss Park’.

“I think you impressed him already, Chaeng,” Mino said with a smile. “I always told you to be confident with him, GD doesn’t like hesitation, if you’re not confident about your art, ‘cause it’ll no matter how good it is. You have to be the number one fan of your pieces.”

Chaeyoung smiled back at the boy, “Thanks Mino, you painting is very good as usual.”

“Yeah, I’m happy with it. What about yours?” he asked looking around.

“I just gave it to the organizers, you’ll see it later. You can come see it, it’ll be in the third hallway.”

“I’ll come by then,” Mino agreed, before being called by professor Jiyong who wanted to make some introduction.

-

The event was doing great, people who came by Chaeyoung were very impressed by her technique and how she used the texture to make relief on her painting making it more realistic.

She was very satisfied, but her professor was still missing. He didn’t come to see the piece of art yet, so Rosé was very impatient.

She was discussing with some lady about the meaning of her piece ‘Autumn in Washington’, when she saw in the corner of her eye, professor Jiyong who was walking toward her with someone else.

He was talking passionately with a brunette who had her face hidden by some large black fedora men’s hat, the girl was wearing some low cut black blouse under a black Chanel men blazer and some black feather pants, wrapped around her neck was a beautiful black with shades of pink scarf.

This girl looked like she just walked off of a catwalk and Chaeyoung thought that she made a good pairing with her professor.

When she finally met eyes with the woman, her heart stopped beating.

When she first choose to go to UCLA, Chaeyoung had hoped to crossed road with Jennie, she wanted to solve things between them, she wanted to make up for the pain she coasted the girl.

She had so many regrets and going to LA and found Jennie was something she waited for long, but as time passed over the year, she realized it had been very naïve of her to think she could have found the girl in such a big city with zero information about her whereabouts. So she just chooses to focus on her arts which were all connected to the girl and the evergreen state.

This was the last place she would had expected to find Jennie, but here she was looking majestic besides her so annoying main professor.

“Well, well, well,” Jiyong started analyzing the painting in front of him. “I have to say Jen I made a mistake in my expectation for this piece; I expected something boring as usual from this girl, but I must confessed this is the first time some leafs bring me some kind of emotion. I still have to find out which one though.” He said perplex still looking at the painting, and not noticing the two girls scanning each other.

“‘Autumn in Washington’ what a candid name,” he sighed. “Well, I guess miss Park here still have some progress to do after all, what do you think Jennie?”

He finally turned to the brunette who switch her attention to the man, “I dunno, you know I’m not very fond of Washington anymore, so I’m not very fond of this name.” she said her voice cold.

Chaeyoung felt the hurt that was intended to her, her eyes still on the girl, not paying attention on the remarks made on her painting.

“Well that’s what I thought too,” Jiyong stated. “I don’t know what is it with you and this state miss Park.”

Chaeyoung finally acknowledge the man beside Jennie, “I love this state, I learned a lot about myself there. This painting represents the epitome of this all new world that I found about, lost there in between of nowhere by a late summer three years ago.” She said her voice clouded with emotions, her eyes back on the girl.

Jennie scoffed and turned to Jiyong, “I need to leave GD, thanks for the lovely evening.”

The professor seemed surprise but said his goodbye to his friend, “Really so soon? Well that’s fine, just kiss Irene for me, and tell her I’m sad she couldn’t make it too.”

Jennie seemed uncomfortable as she looked at Chaeyoung slightly. “Yeah sure, I will do. Bye oppa.”

And with that she turned around, leaving the building.

Chaeyoung excused herself to her professor without minding to explain and she ran outside in hope for the girl to still be there but the street was empty, no trace of the brunette there.

She sighed deeply and turned back to the building.

When she approached her painting, Jiyong was still there but now with Mino. They were talking about it, and she catched a glimpse of their conversation.

“It’s a beautiful painting don’t you think so Hyung?” Mino asked the professor.

“It is, it’s the first one when I can feel her emotion thru it. It’s full of liveliness. Chaeyoung Park has some trouble to open up in her art but this time I think she made some good job.”

Mino smiled, “she’ll be happy to hear that then.”

“Oh, I won’t say a word to the girl, my compliments aren’t meant to be given that easily she need to be constant to earn them.” The man said his head very high like he was some kind of nobility.

Rosé rolled her eyes at her professor attics as Mino laughed at the attitude of his mentor.

“I saw Jennie was there too, why did she left without coming to see me?” Mino pouted cutely.

Jiyong replied still looking at the painting, “I dunno she said she needed to leave after she saw this painting.”

Mino nodded still looking at the painting too, “You are both from Washington, I wonder why you dislike it like that.”

“I never really like this state, I always knew to make it big I needed to leave. It wasn’t shiny enough for someone like ‘G-Dragon’, I knew I could make it of only I was in the right place. Jennie always loved that place, the lake and the forest, she loved everything about it. When I left for college, she was left alone, but she was still happy there. I don’t really know what happened, but she was so destroyed when she joined me here almost three year ago. I never saw my sister like that, well except after she was outed. All I know is that she felt for some church girl there. I’m glad for Irene, she’s the first one who was able to make my sister smile again after she came here.”

Chaeyoung’s eyes widened at the discovery, her heart growing heavy with guilt for the pain she caused.

Mino detached his eyes from the painting, “Hyung, Jennie is fine now don’t worry. She got us, she’s happy now, Washington is far behind of her.”

“I dunno about that, it’s still there in her heart.” Jiyong’s eyes never left the painting.

_three years ago…

The road back to her house had been awfully quiet, neither of the girl daring to say a word.

As they parked in the little secluded area by the tattoo shop, Rosé got down of the bike and handed back the new customized helmet.

Jennie stared at it, and before the blonde could turn around, she grabbed her hand.

“I’ll leave you this week alone to think and I’ll come by your house Saturday night, please think about us don’t throw everything away that fast Chaeng, please.”

Her eyes were clouded with tears that had yet to fall down and Chaeyoung could seem to look into them without having her heart breaking so she just nodded slightly and break the contact of their hand, before leaving the girl in that little road.

-

The rest of her week had been spent mostly in her room alone, feeling very anxious about what was to come. What happened at the lake had been so intense that even though she would love to assure the opposite she knew her body was attracted and connected to Jennie’s in that moment.

Saturday had come faster than she thought and she knew she had to face the girl again tonight, she was afraid as she was still unsure what to do.

She didn’t know what she was or what she felt, everything was unsure, all she knew was that she did something un-thinkable for her and she loved every second of it.

She tried all day long to make some sense of her emotion but this was harder than she thought.

As she was eating quietly, rather playing with her food than eating, her mom addressed her.

“I met Mrs. Knight and her son June today. Such a lovely boy, don’t you think so Chaeyoung?”

Rosé looked up from her plate. She didn’t really know the guy in question, she only saw him at church. He was in Bobby’s squad when he was still in town.

“I guess yeah.” She replied not knowing what else to say.

Her dad smile at his wife, “I like him, and he’s a very good boy. I can see him having a bright future.” He said before adding with a mischievous smile, “Maybe our little Roseanne should meet him for real someday, I’m sure he’ll be a good element in your entourage.”

Rosé didn’t miss the little allusion about her circle of friends, neither did she missed her mother’s smile.

“I’m glad you said that honey, because I invited them for lunch tomorrow after the sermon, and afterward June is taking Rosé to the theatre.”

Rosé looked at her mom in astonishment, “Do I have a say in this?”

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