Chapter 4

As the door swung shut behind them, Jisoo was about to give Rose a stern talk about looking where she was going, when she saw the flushed look on the younger girls face. She had seen Rose’s subtle interaction with the beanie girl, and furrowed her eyebrows a little, but decided to keep shut. After walking in complete silence for a while, Rose finally came back to reality.

‘Umm…Jisoo-unnie…can I ask you a – um - quick question?’ she asked, sounding a bit timid.

‘Sure. What’s wrong?’

Rose was about to respond, when she collided into someone who had just walked out of the library, their books spilling all over the ground in the process. Rose bent down, quickly picked them all back up, and proceeded to give them back to the girl who she had bumped into, apologising profusely the entire time.

When she realised who she had bumped into, she almost dropped the books again.

‘J-Jennie?’ she exclaimed. She then proceeded to blurt into a completely messed up apology. ‘Umm…I’m sorry if I did something wrong before to hurt your feelings or something. If it was because you didn’t want me to touch your bag, then, sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to, and I hope my stupid actions won’t ruin our still freshly new friendship. Er…I’mnotmakinganysense sorry. Anyways, main thing is: I’m sorry. Can we still be friends?’

Jennie stood there, blinking slowly. Then she wrapped her arms around Rose, hugging her so tight, that Rose felt a bit suffocated.

‘Of course we can still be friends, Rose!’ she said, releasing Rose from her bear-like embrace. ‘I’m sorry for being an idiot and acting like that. It had got nothing to do with you, or anything to do with you touching my bag…’

She was about to continue, when she saw the smaller girl standing behind Rose.

‘Oh, er, hello!’ Jennie said, bowing. ‘Um, sorry about all that. I’m Jennie. I take that you’re Rose’s new friend?’

Jisoo nodded. But her heart was racing a bajillion miles an hour.

Why?

Because she already knew who Jennie was.

Her father was the CEO of a major fashion brand in Korea, and he was making it big with sales. He was absolutely loaded with money, and, in fact, he was second in the list of the richest people in Asia. Everyone in the country also knew that his only daughter, Jennie, was – well – obviously rich as well. As well as that, she was also well-known for her beauty and fashion on Instagram. One day, Jisoo came upon one of Jennie’s posts, and from that moment onwards, Jisoo felt as if she was Jennie’s fan or something. Her biggest fan. She was so beautiful and cute, the way she talked on Insta lives, the way she laughed and that gummy smile of hers. Everything about the girl made Jisoo feel full of happy bubbles.

So the fact that Jennie was standing there in front of her made Jisoo feel weak at the knees and made her voice crack.

‘Er – Umm…I’m J-J-Jisoo…’ she finally managed to say.

Rose noticed that when they were talking to each other, both of them seemed to be rather awkward and fidgeted with their fingers. But she was completely oblivious to the fact that Jisoo’s cheeks were an unnatural shade of red, so she just assumed that maybe both of them were just a bit shy.

After a rather awkward conversation between Jisoo and Jennie, Jennie said she had to go, so Rose and Jisoo went back to the classroom.

As they were walking up the stairs, Rose suddenly remembered the question that she had been meaning to ask the older girl.

‘Hey, um, Jisoo-unnie? I know you told me who those kids were back there in the cafeteria, but – um – do you by any chance…umm…happen to know their names?’

Jisoo stopped, looked at Rose and continued to walk up the stairs.

‘Well…I don’t know all of them. I know that they’re considered the “cool gang”, and they’re always up to stupid nonsense. There’s a girl in the group who’s known as the schools “girl crush” or something stupid like that. Her name’s Lalisa Manoban, by the way. A Thai girl who moved to this school less than a year ago.’

Rose noticed that the more Jisoo spoke about this Lisa girl, the more aggravated she seemed to get. Maybe they have bad blood? She thought.

‘Just so you know, I don’t hate her,’ said Jisoo, almost as if she was reading Rose’s mind. ‘I barely even know her for that matter. The reason why you might get the feeling that I don’t like her is because she once dated one of my really good friends, and when they were dating, my friend said that Lisa treated her like crap, and that all she did was try and harass her. And when my friend broke up with her, she spread rumours that my friend was a wuss when it came to dating and that no-one should date her…Lisa’s the girl you’re asking about, right?’

Rose actually thought she was a god at that moment. A god that could read minds. She timidly nodded her head slightly.

‘Well, as your friend, I would suggest that you don’t get too close with her. As far as I know, she isn’t a very good person,’ said Jisoo, as they arrived at their classroom.

She isn’t a good person? Rose thought, as she sat down in her seat. That’s disappointing…I don’t think she seems like a bad person, let alone someone who ually abuses their partner…but I’ll trust Jisoo-unnie. If she says to not get too close with this Lisa girl, I won’t.

And right there, Rose made a silent promise to herself that she wouldn’t get too close to Lisa, even though she felt like she had a tenny weeny crush on her. Perhaps it was just the girl-crush vibes kickin’ in.

The rest of the school day went pretty smoothly, except for the time Rose’s history teacher picked on her to answer a question that Rose had no-idea what the answer was and made a fool of herself trying to answer the question.

When the bell signified the end of the school day, Jisoo offered to walk with Rose to the private coach that the exchange students were to take back to the dorm. Rose thought she was just being nice, but that was only part of the reason why. Jisoo just wanted to see Jennie again, as Rose had told her that Jennie was also part of the exchange program.

Sneaky Jisoo.

Anyways, Jisoo and Rose made their way to the entrance of the school, where the coach was waiting. But just as Rose was about to open the door to the outside, she suddenly remembered that she had left her phone in her locker, back in the classroom. She told Jisoo to wait a sec, and bolted back to her classroom, on the top floor of the building on the far side of the school entrance.

After clambering up a bajillion stairs and cursing at herself for going up so fast, she went to the classroom and retrieved her phone. She was in such a frantic state, that when she rushed out of the classroom, she didn’t look where she was looking and collided with another person walking past, for the second time that day.

The collision made her drop her phone, and she heard it make a “crack” upon contact with the floor. She didn’t have the time to worry about her phone though, because the person who had been walking past was on the floor, holding their head.

‘Oh my god! Are you okay? I’m so sorry!’ cried Rose, crouching down to help the poor person.

It was then she realised that the person was a girl, and wore a beanie that looked strangely familiar. She could’ve sworn she had seen it somewhere before, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

When the girl slowly lifted her head and opened her eyes, Rose’s eyes locked with hers.

For a moment, there was an awkward silence between both girls, and then Rose realised who she had run into.

Lisa Manoban.