“Let’s read the comments.”

All four members of Blackpink raised the Samsung Galaxy A phones that they had been demonstrating at the live event to allow themselves to read the comments pouring in from fans across Indonesia.

“WOW!” Lisa exclaimed at the sheer volume of comments. 

All four of them used their thumbs to scroll up and down on the comments to read previous ones. 

I love you guys! You’re the best! 

Welcome to Indonesia! ILY!

I’m Blink. U guys r the best! 

Those were three of the hundreds of comments that they saw sprint up their screens, almost too fast to read any of them. The girls were used to seeing such comments during their VLives and Instagram Lives. They loved seeing comments of love and support from their Blinks. 

Rosé, ur the best! You sound like an angel 

Jisoooooooooooooo, I love you!

Rosé, sing a song, plz! I love your voice! 

Lisa, ur amazing dancer! Ur so y! 

Jennie scanned the comments and saw a few for her band members with supportive comments from their stans. ‘Another one for Rosé. Lisa. Lisa. Jisoo. Lisa. Rosé. Are there any for me? Oh yeah, there’s one for me.’

Jennie, why you so lazy?! 

‘Not that again! Ah well, there’s always a few trolls in the comments. Ah, another one for me.’

Jennie, u dance so bad! Ur the worst dancer in BP

‘Okay, whatever! That’s your opinion. There’s gotta be a nice one for me somewhere.’

Jennie, you don’t deserve a solo. The other girls are all better than you!

‘ sake. I wish people would stop saying that. I didn’t ask to be the only one to have a solo.’

Your solo is Jennie. Rosé should have solo, not you! 

’Yeah, you’re right. Rosé does deserve a solo. But I don’t decide that. Stop hating on me! There’s got to be someone saying something nice about me.’

Jennie u so ugly! 

Jennie u sing

Jennie go out Blackpink and don’t come back

Jennie leave Blackpink now! U lazy and ugly

‘Seriously, what the ?! Why is everyone being so mean to me? I try so hard at dancing and singing.’

At this point, Jennie's eyes were getting damp from tears threatening to spill from the ambush of mean comments. All she wanted to do was turn the phone off and hide in a corner and cry.

‘Maybe I should. No one would obviously miss me if I left this interview.’

Jennie knew she should have put down the phone or play a game, anything instead of continuing to read the comments, but she felt in as if something was pulling her into the tornado of hate. She kept scrolling up with her thumb, moving the older comments upwards, in search of newer ones, frantically looking for a comment of love and support. Just one would do now!

‘Seriously, not one?!’

She was on the brink of tears again as she kept on reading hate comment after hate comment. She was no longer a part of the interview, as she was now entirely focused on finding that one supportive comment among the sea of hate. A needle in a haystack, as it seemed to the obsessive brunette. 

A few minutes and many more hate comments later, she was seriously ready to crawl into a cave and die, as suggested by one of the vile vermin in the comments. The brunette’s glum look didn’t go unnoticed by her band members, especially the blonde, Chaeyoung. She had been keeping an eye on the shorter brunette for quite some time, since first noticing a sudden shift in her demeanor, as her face sank and her lip quivered.

Chaeyoung’s heart broke at the sight of the brunette’s solemn face, and the blonde knew exactly what the reason was. She had also seen the huge amount of hate towards the shorter brunette, and this made the blonde’s blood boil. Not only because her fellow band member was being viciously attacked by so-called fans but also because the short girl that they were attacking was her lover.

The blonde felt a twisting sensation in her stomach as she read hate comment after hate comment about her girlfriend, so much so that she decided not to use the phone for the rest of the interview. She put her phone down on her lap and instead played with the rose that she had in her hands. She needed to calm herself down somehow, and distracting herself with the rose and whatever the interviewer was waffling on about was better than focusing on the fierce attack in the comments. 

Chaeyoung really wished that her lover could distract herself with something else other than the phone, as she saw the brunette still fixated on the screen, allowing her heart and soul to be punctured with an arrow with every hate comment she read. 

It wasn’t only the blonde that had seen the hate for Jennie in the comments. Lisa and Jisoo were also aware of it and gave concerned looks in Jennie’s direction, but were sad to see her still scrolling through the onslaught. 

With only a couple of minutes remaining in the live event, the host instructed the girls to read more comments again. Hesitantly, they all picked up their phones and allowed themselves to read a few comments. To Chaeyoung’s relief, there were some supportive comments for Jennie, and the blonde wondered if Jennie had seen them. In fact, there had been a few supportive comments for the brunette since the start of the comments section, but Jennie hadn’t noticed them, with her subconscious only focused on the negatives. 

Knowing Jennie very intimately, Chaeyoung knew that Jennie probably didn’t pay attention to any of the positive comments, so Chaeyoung leapt at the chance to read a comment that she knew would bring a smile to the brunette’s sorrowed face. 

“Jennie, I love you.” The blonde read a comment from a true fan, knowing that the brunette really needed to hear it. Chaeyoung also used the comment to deliver her own feelings to Jennie, desperately wanting the brunette to know how much she meant to her. Maybe that comment laced with Chaeyoung’s true adoration and love would pull the brunette out of the black hole that had her in. 

“I love you, too,” Jennie replied instantly, unaware that her girlfriend had read a comment from a fan. Jennie thought that it was all from Chaeyoung, and that caused a bream of a smile to break through the dullness. Jennie was falling down a bottomless pit, and Chaeyoung had thrown her a rope and pulled her out and back on to firm land. 

The interviewer then concluded the interview, and all Jennie could think about was Chaeyoung’s exclamation of love for her. The hate comments were mere whispers in her mind as Chaeyoung’s words were being sung by a choir. 

“I’m okay, Rosie. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine now,” Jennie said through a half-genuine smile, trying to convince her lover that the whispers of the hate comments hadn't started to get louder once more, as she allowed herself to rethink the horrible words that she had read about herself. 

“Okay, Jen,” Chaeyoung replied with a sympathetic smile. “But you’re walking with me to the car.” Chaeyoung wanted to be by her girlfriend’s side to support her and cheer her up if she began feeling sad again. 

“No, no, it’s alright. I’m alright, I promise,” Jennie replied with a hand out stopping Chaeyoung from standing by her side before leaving the dressing room. “I can walk by myself.” Jennie didn’t really know why she refused her girlfriend’s kind offer of accompanying her out of the building. Maybe it was her last essence of pride and dignity telling herself that she didn’t need her girlfriend's assistance. She could make it to the minibus herself without a problem. Maybe she just needed a win, and walking to the minibus without being chaperoned by her caring girlfriend was a victory in itself. 

Chaeyoung understood that she shouldn’t push more on the matter, and simply said a sympathetic “okay,” with an understanding nod. 

Outside of the building, with their minibus insight, the hateful words from the comments were now screaming in Jennie’s mind again. Chaeyoung’s words of love drowned fighting against the whirlpool of hate. Words whirled around in her mind: ugly, lazy, bad singer, don’t deserve a solo, leave Blackpink! Don’t come back! 

Like a DJ looping a part of a track, those words looped in her mind, getting louder and bolder with each repetition. She could feel the anxiety and anguish building in her body, pushing tears to the edge of falling. She tried her best to keep her tears at bay until she reached the minibus. She didn’t want anyone to film her like this. It would only give haters more ammunition. 

But she couldn’t hold them in anymore. She needed to feel the release of her tears as they had built up to the point of bursting. Tears fell down her cheek metres away from the minibus. She quickened her steps and dived into the minibus, hoping it would provide some sort of sanctuary. 

She dived onto the seat next to the window, and curled up with her head in her knees, trying to hide the tears cascading down her face. She didn’t want her lover to know that she was crying. She didn’t want to look weak in front of her or the other two girls. She knew it was a stupid thought to have. Her Rosie was the most caring, affectionate, and sympathetic person she knew. She knew her Rosie wouldn’t judge her and would only want to console her, but she so wished to be strong enough to deal with it without help. 

She heard the voices of Lisa and Chaeyoung chatting and giggling as they entered the minibus, unaware of the brunette’s current condition. 

“Oh my god!” Seeing Jennie had curled herself up into a weeping ball, Chaeyoung wasted not even a microsecond in jumping to her side and putting her arm around and leaning the brunette into her. 

“Please, don’t cry, baby,” Chaeyoung said upon hearing the faint whimpers from the brunette. “I told you those people don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Jennie didn’t respond. She continued to whimper and cry intro her knees as the blonde embraced her, with her head beneath the blonde's chin. 

“Jisoo, I’m gonna need to swap rooms with you tonight,” Chaeyoung said to the oldest girl, as she turned to face the brunette, sat on the row behind them. 

“Sure, of course. Anything you need,” Jisoo accepted the request without hesitation, knowing that Jennie needed Chaeyoung tonight. Chaeyoung and Jennie didn’t always share bedrooms in hotels. Chaeyoung normally shared with Lisa, and Jennie with Jisoo, as suspicions of a romantic relationship between them would be easier to deny if they slept apart while traveling for work. 

At the hotel room, Chaeyoung laid on the bed, in a pair of purple silk pyjamas. She had already showered and was waiting for Jennie to finish her turn 

Chaeyoung put on the TV and logged into her Netflix account. She searched for something cheery and something that didn’t require a lot of attention. Friends will do. 

She played the episode that she was up to and then laid back, propping herself up against the bedrest. Just then the bathroom door opened and the brunette emerged in her own pair of black silk pyjamas, with her skin still slightly damp from the shower, and her hair down, having just been brushed. 

“Come here, baby,” Chaeyoung said with open arms, inviting Jennie to nestle in them. Like a moth to a flame, Jennie walked to her as if she had no control over her own actions. Chaeyoung pulled the duvet up to allow easier access for the brunette, who slid into the bed and instantly joined herself to Chaeyoung’s side, nestling herself in her arms, just as the blonde had intended.

Jennie was no longer crying. She stopped during the drive back to the hotel but was still noticeably upset. But knowing that she was sleeping with her girlfriend tonight brought her mood up, knowing she was going to sleep in loving arms. 

“I love you, Jennie,” the blonde said kissing the brunette’s forehead. 

“I love you, too,” Jennie replied, with her head resting on Chaeyoung’s chest. 

“Please don’t think about what those dickheads said in the comments anymore, baby. They don’t deserve your time or energy,” Chaeyoung said softly while running her fingers through Jennie’s hair. 

Jennie replied with silence, but the blonde knew she was listening. 

“They’re all completely wrong about everything they said about you. They don’t know you. They don’t know you like I do,” the blonde kissed her girlfriend’s forehead. 

“You’re not lazy. You’re one of the most hardworking people I’ve ever met. You’re always trying to improve your dancing and singing, you help write lyrics to raps and songs, and you don’t stop until you’ve done your absolute best. If they saw how hard you work, then they would never call you lazy. They don’t see what I see.” The blonde continued making grooves in her lover’s hair with her fingertips. 

“And if anyone deserved to have a solo song first, it was you. You deserved it the most out of all of us, baby. You were a trainee for 6 years. You put blood, sweat, and tears into everything you did, and that’s why you’re here now, and that’s why you deserved to be the first one of us to have a solo song. Don’t ever think otherwise.

“And to the people who said you should leave Blackpink and not come back. They’re idiots. They don’t know that if you left, Blackpink would crumble. You’re the strongest of us all. You hold up Blackpink more than any of us. You’re the reason there’s an edgy side to Blackpink, which is what makes Blackpink. Without you, we’re nothing. If you weren’t a trainee, I don’t think I’d be the person I am today. I don’t think Lisa and Jisoo would be the people they are today, too. And we wouldn’t have achieved all that we have. You inspire all of us to be better. You inspire me.

“And about you being ugly. That must be the stupidest comment of them all, and the easiest to prove wrong because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And I can’t believe that I get to be with you, that I get to hug you and kiss you and make love to you. I can’t believe that you even chose to be with me when you could have anyone you want... because you absolutely could.”

Jennie turned her head up to look at Chaeyoung’s face. Their eyes locked as the brunette turned to prop her chin up just below the blonde’s collarbone, and gazed into her lover’s eyes. She had listened to everything her girlfriend had said and was reflecting on it.

“Do you really mean all of that?” She almost whispered with a crack in her voice. 

Chaeyoung sighed through a smile of adoration for the brunette and ran her fingers through the brunette's hair once more. 

“Every word.”

The brunette curled her lips as she believed her girlfriend meant every single word. Jennie pulled herself up and pressed her lips against the blonde’s. The soft kiss held more words and emotion than any poem or story could. As their lips released, they both opened their eyes to lose themselves again in each other’s, searching and finding home in each other’s pupils. 

“By the way, you could get anyone you want, too,” Jennie whispered. 

“Oh, I know,” Chaeyoung replied with a chuckle, and Jennie chuckled in return. 

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, because I have her. The only person I want and will ever want is you. And I have you,” Chaeyoung said softly, her words causing Jennie to reconnect their lips, this time much deeper. They didn’t need to say anything else, they didn’t even need to say anything before, as everything they felt was spoken through that kiss.