Chapter 7 | Part 2

 "Jisoo!"

 As soon as Jisoo opens the apartment door, Chaeyoung welcomes her and jumps on her with hugs.

 "You were great! It was an amazing performance!!" Chaeyoung enthusiastically compliments Jisoo.

 - "Ok- okay.. just.. just let me breathe.."  Jisoo says with difficulty as she taps Chaeyoung's arm, which is wrapped around her neck to loosen it a little.

 Chaeyoung moves away from her and heads to Jennie, who was behind Jisoo.

 "You too! You were amazing!"

 She says and heads to hug her, but Jennie backs away quickly.

 - "Thank you. I'm good."  Jennie declares quickly raising her hands in the air to stop Chaeyoung, who is now wearing a pained expression because Jennie did not allow her to hug her.

 Jennie rolls her eyes playfully when she sees her like this and she retreats, 

 "Okay.. a quick one."  She tells her as she gestures with her hand to herself as an invitation to Chaeyoung to embrace her.

 - "Yay!!"  Chaeyoung is once again excited as she runs to hug the surrendered Jennie.

 "I'm going to change my clothes. I have to go to the company."  Jisoo tells them as she heads to her room and Jennie nods to her with understanding.

 When Chaeyoung and Jennie are left alone, Jennie looks around with a wondering expression, she looks at Chaeyoung and asks, 

 "Mmm.. where is Lisa?"

 Although she was concerned that Lisa would be the first one to welcome her just to by the fact that she spent the night with Jisoo outside, that not happening was even more concerning.

 - "Ah.. she's a little bit sick." Chaeyoung replies sheepishly, shrugging restlessly, she doesn't want to show it's, in fact, more than that.

 "Sick? What's it?"  Jennie is even more concerned.

 - "Just a headache.."

 Jennie nods affirmatively.

 "I will change my clothes first.." Jennie adds calmly and trails off, as though she wants to say something else, but she stops herself and heads to her room.

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 Jennie stands in front of Lisa and Chaeyoung's room door and gently knocks on it and then slowly opens the door as she inserts her head first to see Lisa lying on the bed on her right side, wrapping herself completely in the blanket.

 She opens the door further, enters the room, and closes it behind her, without completely closing it.

 "Chaeyoung.. I told you I don't want to eat anything." Lisa says in a muffled voice from under the blanket when she feels like someone is in.

 - "Oh.. don't worry, I wasn't going to feed you anything."  Jennie quips jokingly turning around the bed.

 Lisa quickly lifts the cover off her head as she turns toward Jennie, looking at her with great questioning eyes.

"Jennie?"

 Jennie sits on the edge of the bed looking at Lisa, who is still furrowing.

"What are you doing here?"

 "It looks like you're still alive.. damnit."

 Jennie says hitting her thigh in a fist dramatically with a fake disappointment, looking elsewhere.

"Apparently, the poison didn't work."

 - "I see.. you are here to enjoy watching me dying, living my last moments on this bed.." Lisa adds in a dramatic and jittery way as she puts the back of her hand on her forehead.

 There is a little silence between them as they look at each other while they reincarnate the two characters that they just created, and then suddenly burst out laughing lightly.

 "How do you feel now?" Jennie starts putting her palm on Lisa's forehead, to gauge her body heat. It’s a little high.

 -"Better."

 She falls silent and then she follows when Jennie lifts her hand off her forehead,

"But not better than you after spending the night with Jisoo." Lisa shakes her eyebrows twice with a side smile.

 Jennie freezes in her place momentarily and then rolls her eyes and directs her hand to flick her head lightly.

 "Nothing will stop you, will it?"

 Lisa nods affirmatively, laughing silently, and then gradually stopping until her facial expressions are straightened. Here, Jennie felt the sadness hiding behind that laugh.

 Jennie stares at her for moments meaningfully.

 "I will go now and let you rest."  She says softly and gets up afterward. Wanting to give her the alone time she wants and mostly needs.

 "Jennie."  Lisa calls her when she reaches the door, making her stop and turn around.

 "You were great. Both of you." She tells her and Jennie gives her a warm smile.

"Also.. you don't have to bring me any food." Lisa finishes, knowing how Jennie's mind works.

 - "And who said I will?"  She deadpans, raising an eyebrow playfully. She smiles and turns around and heads out, closing the door behind her.

 That was a lie, because she's intending to do just that.

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 Kim Eun Ji's secretary was sitting in her chair spinning with it outside the meeting room, looking at her nail polish when she heard the heel patches approaching and getting closer until they stopped, raising her head to see Kim Jisoo standing in front of her and it seems that she is not in the mood today. It is not like she is in the mood in any day anyway.

 "Is Mrs. Kim here?"  Jisoo starts looking at her separately.

 The secretary quickly rises up in a calf way that makes her stumble over nothing, and she answers Jisoo with a stutter:

"Yes, but- but she ha- has a meeti-"

Without completing her sentence, Jisoo leaves her and wanders into the office, ignoring the secretary's requests to stop and wait.

 Once she enters, all those present and gathered around the big table start looking at her with a questioning expressions about who interrupted them, but Jisoo doesn't give them any attention and only directs her gaze to Eun Ji.

 "Jisoo, we're in-"

 "We have to talk." Jisoo interrupts her strictly. Looking at her sharply.

Eun Ji looks at her and then at the gathered businessmen, all of them are silent, looking at each other with confusion, and then she looks back at Jisoo.

"Now!"

 .  .  .  .  .

 "I can't believe you broke into the meeting like this!"  Eun Ji says once she enters her private office, Jisoo follows.

 - "Why didn't you tell me?"  Jisoo asks her with a tone of rage, ignoring Eun Ji's annoyance.

 "Tell you what?"

She asks her indifferently as she goes behind her desk and sits in her chair, Jisoo does not answer her and only keeps staring at her angrily.

 "Aah.. you mean your engagement with Jackson? Right." She nods affirmatively before she adds, "I didn't see any reason to tell you."

 - "You didn't  see any reason to tell me?"

Jisoo asks in a pressed tone unbelievably as if she heard the silliest thing of the day.

 "Are you kidding me? I can't believe you were setting me up to marry Jackson! Who made you think that I would even accept?"

 She hisses as she approaches Eun Ji's office.

 Eun Ji rolls her eyes, returns her attention to Jisoo, and follows:

 "First of all, I didn't set you up or anything. The event was due to announce the partnership only and the engagement later at another time. Jackson was stupid to pre-empt the events and jumped to conclusions." Eun Ji finishes with a nonchalant smile.

 Jisoo chuckles humorlessly at that.

 - "Oh really? Is this supposed to make me feel better? 

You were intending to announce that we will be a couple in the future! And not only this, the agreement was based on that!"

 "And what’s the problem with that? There is a long time before the engagement to happen.. or rather, there was."

 She finishes shooing her hand dismissively and then follows, "Long enough to know Jackson and one day-"

"Kim. Eun. Ji!"

Jisoo interrupts her in a deep and low pitched tone, addressing her without honorifics, causing Eun-ji to look at her with great shock.

"You have no right to decide for me!  Or to interfere in my personal life!  Who I date. Who I love. Who I marry. None of it your business!"

 Jisoo was hitting the desktop with her index finger knuckle between each phrase as she directed her words to Eun-ji.

 Eun Ji gets up in anger and slaps both hands on her desk forcefully and tracks:

"Kim Jisoo! Looks like you've forgotten in front of who you're standing!"

 Jisoo backs away from the office and looks at Eun Ji indifferently.

 - "I didn't. I'm just making it clear enough to you to store it in your mind."

 Eun Ji scoffs and turns her head to the other side with impatience, then returns her attention to Jisoo.

 "Is this how you repay me? After saving you and showing you the truth of that manipulative Jin Young? By ruining our deals and diminishing your respect?"

 "You saved me?"

 Jisoo replies in a tone higher than hers and more surprised. she can't believe that her aunt brought this topic to her this way. 

"You destroyed me!"

 She says, pointing to herself and the veins of her neck about to explode, making Eun Ji unable to speak. She had never seen Jisoo like this, and Jisoo had never spoken to her like that.  She has always thought of her, despite who her mother was, as a girl with an intelligent mind, obedient and nothing else.

 Jisoo falls silent for a moment, changing her eyes to the other side, to gather herself, and then she calmly adds,

"I never asked you to show me the truth of anything. You did it on your own accord."

 "Jisoo!"

 Eun Ji wants to respond but Jisoo doesn't give her the opportunity to do so and continues coldly, still not looking at her aunt,

 "I will say this only once, stay out of my personal life."

She then turns around and walks toward the door with heavy stamps and exits the door shutting it behind her forcefully, leaving Eun Ji staring in the void silently and blankly.

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 Lisa takes a few doses from the glass of water that was on the nightstand next to the bed and then puts it back in place and returns to lie on her bed on her side with the cover raised up to half of her face, wrapped up on herself.

 It is evening and she has not left her room since morning, not even from her bed.  She ate nothing but what Jennie was bringing her, who literally threatened her with death to make her eat it with Chaeyoung's help pinning her.

 Yes.. it is not enough that she lives the most traumatic time of her life, she lives with criminals too.

 She did not have the desire or strength to argue even, contrary to what they used to see and what herself used to be, she feels as though the accident of meeting that woman has brought her back years before. she returned to how she was in the past, a silent, serious girl and.. abandoned.

The girl they don't recognize now thinking she is just sick, with the exception of Chaeyoung. 

And so she was trying to pretend and show them what they used to see whenever they talked to her.

 She was confused, frightened, lost, and doesn't know what to do next-

 Her train of thought get cut when she hears the door knocking. She lifts the cover off her and raises her head, looking at the door.  A few other Knocks to then it opens, announcing Jisoo's arrival.

 Jisoo stands at the doorstep, one hand on the door handle and the other hand carries an apple, she looks at the darkness of the room with discomfort and starts scolding Lisa,

 "Hey! How can you leave the room so dark!"  She heads towards the bedside lights, lighting them, giving the room warm night lighting.

 - "Do you all take turns on me? All I want is to sleep in peace!" Lisa grumbles as she puts her head back on the pillow and coveres her head again.

 Jisoo stands by the side of the bed squinting a little, then she throws herself on the mattress and adjusts her sitting to a sitting position with her back against the headboard next to Lisa, and then she throws her legs on Lisa to annoye her.

 She takes a bite from the apple and says with a lighthearted tone,

 "They told me you were sick.." takes a bite. "so I came to check on you and give you this apple.."

 Another bite.

"You know. one apple a day keeps the doctor away." She finishes and takes another bite.

 Lisa doesn't answer her at first, only brings the covers around her closely and then mutters under the cover,

 "I'm not sick with the flu. I just.. I'm not feeling well."

 Jisoo stops chewing and swallows the bite of the apple that she has gnawed, stays silent a bit and adds softly, "I know.. headaches can't thwart Lisa."

She refers to her passively, her tone loving and tendered.

"I mean.. I see how you can endure Chaeyoung's blubbering at the end of each movie without the slightest complaining. That, my friend, requires high stamina."

She jokes, playfully lifts her leg and kicks Lisa's lightly, making her jiggle a little.

"So, whatever that makes you like this, it won't go away by itself if you stay in your bed all day long.."

Jisoo falls silent again to let her words reach its depths inside Lisa's mind, and as a result, Lisa throws the cover off from her head and upper half as she turns to lie on her other side, looking up in bleak expressions at Jisoo, who turns her eyes down at her as well.

"You have to face it." She finishes with a smile and looks back forward.

 Then there is silence between them for several short minutes, and when Jisoo wants to take another bite from the apple, suddenly it's taken away, and then she sees Lisa sitting up as she continues eating the rest of the apple with a groan.

 Jisoo silently laughs, gets up off the bed and heads towards the door.

 "Everyone is waiting for you for dinner! We won't start unless you're with us!"

 Jisoo informs her in a singing tone playfully as she leaves the room, making her smile heartly for the first time since yesterday.

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 To be continued

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