Jennie woke up to the morning light streaming through the wall of windows opposite the bed. The curtains were pulled apart, neatly tucked to either side of the twenty-foot spread of french doors and windows. Fluttering her eyes open, Jennie adjusted to the brightness and slowly pushed herself up from a fetus position, with her arm outstretched, which was previously wrapped around Rosie. 

The brunette scanned the room slowly, still rather disorientated. Laying her sight on the beautiful outside, she saw a figure sitting on the cushioned bench on the side of the veranda. Through squinted eyes, she tried to focus and saw Rosie admiring the view through a digital camera, dressed in a white dressing gown supplied by the resort.

The brunette shuffled out of bed, wearing nothing but a lacy, black, silk nightgown. She puttered over to the huge wardrobe and took out the remaining dressing gown and wrapped herself within its comfort, and then put on a pair of equally comfortable cream slippers. She then continued her half-alert shuffle outside, eyes widening as the stunning view came into focus. 

The view was so magical that it made her feel like she was seeing it for the first time again. She stopped in the middle of the veranda and ran a hand through her hair as she stared and smiled contently, taking in the sapphire sea and azure sky. 

Rosie heard the shuffle of quilted feet enter the veranda and then stop in the middle. She took her attention away from the view through the camera and put it firmly on the cute, half-awake brunette. 

“Morning, babe. Looks like you slept well,” the blonde chuckled, looking at the brunette’s sleepy face and bed hair.

“Morning. Yeah, you could say that again. I don’t think I’ve slept that good in years,” running her hand over her eyes and through her hair. 

“Sorry for waking you up babe. But I didn’t think you’d want to spend all morning in bed.”

“No, it’s alright. It’s best to get up early on holiday, and we have things planned today. anyway” Jennie shuffled over towards her girlfriend and sat next to her and looked at the image on the camera that the blonde was holding. “Should we head down for breakfast soon?”

Putting the camera down, Rosie turned to her girlfriend with a telling smile. “I’ve already ordered it. It’s on its way. I thought we could have breakfast here with this stunning view.”

“Mmm,” Jennie hummed and smiled in excitement, “that sounds romantic.”

“I know,” the blonde kissed the brunette and lingered her lips on hers for a couple of seconds, before pulling away and biting her lip to stop her grin. Jennie was slightly surprised by the kiss and curled her lips to stop her own grin from splitting her ears. 

“Speak of the devil,” Rosie chimed with raised brows as she heard a buggy approach. A man got out of the vehicle and carried a tray with two plates covered with metal dome-shaped lids and two glasses with a bottle of apple juice. Rosie thought about ordering coffee but realised that they had all of the supplies to make their own brews in their room. The man came up onto the veranda and placed the tray on the coffee table in front of the girls, bid them 'good day', and left rather quickly, not wanting to ruin the girls’ privacy. 

Rosie took the lid off both breakfasts and lay them on the lower shelf of the coffee table. Jennie’s eyes widened with hunger that she didn’t know she had, and her lips at the sight of the delectable food. Both plates were identical, containing Instagram-worthy Eggs Benedict: juicy yet fluffy-looking poached eggs on top of smoked salmon and English muffins, drizzled with hollandaise sauce.  Biting her bottom lip, the brunette turned to the blonde, releasing her lip and leaning in to press their lips together. 

“This was a lovely idea. Thank you, hubby.”

“You’re welcome, wifey.” The blonde kissed Jennie. “Now, let’s enjoy our breakfast with this amazing view. And then we can get started on today’s activities.”

“I can’t wait.”

—

An hour since breakfast and the two girls were walking along the white sand beach with their families. Rosie and Jennie were walking hand-in-hand, swaying each others’ arm on the verge of skipping like schoolgirls. The rest of the members of their group were strolling, admiring the pristine picture before them. 

The weather was stunning, with barely a breeze in the air, although every now and then they would feel a soft touch of wind, weaker than a slow blow of air from someone’s pursed lips. The sporadic ever-so-slight breeze was much welcomed, as the sun shone strong, with an average temperature of thirty degrees at midday, much hotter than what they had been used to in Seoul. 

The two girls came to a stroll after walking giddily and swinging arms. Rosie scrunched her toes with every step, feeling the coarse white sand fill the spaces between them, and then spread her digits to release the powdered rock before repeating the cycle with every step. This caused the blonde to slow her pace, which the brunette noticed as her joined hand was pulled back as she unknowingly got ahead of her girlfriend. She stopped as she felt the tug on her arm and saw the pattern that Rosie was repeating with every step, acting just like a child’s on their first visit to the beach. The brunette smiled fondly and happily mimicked her girlfriend’s scoop and release footsteps. 

A couple of minutes later, they reverted back to taking normal steps, still holding hands and smiling in content, with crescent eyes hidden behind Chanel and YSL sunshades. 

A group of young thirty-something men played football deeper on the beach, playing keepy-up with a ball, passing it to one another, and trying their best not to let it fall to the ground. The girls watched as the men had fun, as they had watched other people enjoy their holidays earlier on down the beach. They had seen all sorts of people reveling in their time on the beach, seeing middle-aged women and men sunbathing, families and friends swimming in the shallows, and dads helping their kids build intricate and not so intricate sandcastles. 

However, this was the first group of young men they had seen, and they both were aware that the men were indeed handsome, although there was no attraction from the girls’ side. But from the men’s side, attraction spiked as they saw the two gorgeous girls walking along the beach, both in high-waisted denim shorts, exposing the length of their thighs, with Rosie in a grey t-shirt, tied up at the front, and with Jennie wearing a loose white crop top, both with the top of their abs visible. 

The men tried their best to continue with their game and took glances at the girls after passing the ball to a friend, but ultimately the distraction of the women was too great, causing the ball to hit an absent-minded man in the face, yielding unapologetic laughter from this friends. The scene went unnoticed by the girls as they had already turned their attention to a row of jet skis that they could see a hundred feet or so away down the beach.

Excitedly, the girls jogged towards the jet skis and ushered their family to hurry too, hoping no-one would get to them before they did, as other people headed that way. Arriving slightly short of breath, the two girls hunched over with their hands on their knees, refilling their lungs, with their family members shortly following. 

“Hey, no need to run. We’ve got plenty of skis for you,” the jet ski vendor said with a welcoming smile. 

“Yeah, but it’s not just us two. I think we all want to have a go,” Rosie informed gesturing back to the rest of the arriving members.

“Ah well, you’ll need to take turns then. We’ve only got four at the moment. There’s another four out on the water already, and we don’t really like having them all out at once. So it needs to be two for now, and then the others can have a go afterward.”

Jennie nodded excitedly, turning to her lover with a big grin and grabbing her forearm with both hands, practically already dragging the blonde towards the jet skis.

“Erm…okay,” the blonde said now definitely being dragged to the vehicles, “I’ll take two,” she chuckled as if she was casually ordering two coffees to go. 

—

The almost tranquil state of the sea provided a smooth surface for the girls to speed across. Their laughs and cheers were drowned out by the engines, but their faces were unmistakably full of joy.

They both had different approaches to driving jet skis: Jennie put her all into it, and charged across the water like a bull charging towards a matador, whereas Rosie carefully moseyed along like a cautious learner driver, but still wailed in excitement as much as the brunette did, although the blonde knew that if Jennie was sat behind her on that jet ski, she would have gotten frustrated with her slow-but-steady driving style, which made the blonde chuckle. 

Jennie, being the speed head she is, mapped out an imaginary racecourse on the water, and raced around it, counting the number of times she overtook her girlfriend. 

One. Two. Three. 

Chuckling at her girlfriend's thrilled face which didn’t match her driving style, she decided to ask Rosie for a race. 

“Aw, you’re so cute. You’re driving like an old woman!”

“Yeah, and you’re driving like a ually-frustrated boy racer!” 

“Oh, really? Well, you might have gotten the boy racer right, but I’m definitely not ually frustrated,” the brunette winked at the blonde, making her blush and widen her eyes, sending her an alarming but shy glare. 

“C’mon, old lady. Race with me.”

The blonde’s glare narrowed and she scowled at the brunette, trying her hardest not to let her amused smirk through. “Where too?”

“Not to anyway in particular. I just want you to drive fast with me.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“We’ll stay a good distance apart from each other, I promise. I just want to see you drive fast.”

The blonde was pondering it, but from the anxious look on Rosie’s face, the brunette knew that she was going to decline. Before she could hear those words, Jennie maneuvered her ski in front of Rosie’s and revved the engine, making her ski propel forward and shoot a stream of water at the blonde, getting her straight in her face and wetting her top. 

Rosie’s eyes bulged and her jaw dropped at the shock of getting wet and her girlfriend’s boldness. “JENNIE,” she squealed. 

“Come on, live a little, babe.” Another jet of water soaked Rosie as Jennie propelled her jet ski forward again. And again the blonde’s face dropped, but then morphed into something that Jennie recognised as a mixture of anger, amusement, and determination. Racer Rosie was here. 

“Right! Okay! Let’s do this Mandu!” Jennie jokingly scowled at the nickname but then beamed as Rosie moved forward to be in line with Jennie, but making sure they had twenty feet or so between them.

“I’m proud of you,” Jennie winked and Rosie just smirked through narrow eyes, before looking dead ahead waiting for Jennie’s signal.

“Three. Two. One.”

Away they went. Blonde and brunette hair flew in the wind from beneath their helmets, as they raced across the water, neck to neck, both of them with the hands twisting the accelerators to the max. They glided over the transparent blue, both of them trying to inch ahead of the other. The brunette finally started getting ahead, causing the blonde to look, observing her progress. The further the brunette got away, the more the blonde wondered how she was doing it. But then she realised her grip on the accelerator had weakened slightly, causing it to slightly detract from the max. With a newfound hunger for victory, the blonde went back to full speed and tried gaining on the brunette, keeping her girlfriend in sight the whole time, wondering when she would come closer. 

Rosie kept her sight locked on the brunette so adamantly that she forgot to look at what was in front of her. Glancing ahead for any potential hazards, she saw a glimmer of something dark and round. 

‘Is that a kid?’

She let out an almighty gasp and turned the handlebar suddenly to the right, in a heroic attempt to steer away from the child, but the sudden change in direction threw the blonde violently off the jet ski. She flew backward through the air, not knowing when she was going to hit the water. Time seemed to slow down, but unfortunately, her thoughts did too. She didn’t even have time to think about bracing for the impact before she found herself engulfed in water. 

As soon as she was fully submerged, a sharp pain went shocked her from her lower left calf. She winced in pain, and let out a scream, which was almost inaudible underwater. The reflexive scream made her involuntarily breathe, bringing in water to and into her lungs. Fear of her pained calf left her and was replaced with a fear of drowning. She panicked and took in another breath. She didn’t know why. She knew was still underwater, but she found herself gasping and bringing in more water into her lungs. 

“Haha! Nice try, babe!” Jennie yelled through a grin looking over to her immediate left, seeing that Rosie was no longer in line with her, meaning that she had lost the race. 

Releasing her hand from the accelerator, satisfied with the length of the race and being the winner, she slowed down. “Better luck next time, Rosie!” She happily yelled again while turning around, expecting to see her girlfriend join her any second, but instead met with a sight that sent terrifying chills through her entire body, Rosie flying fast through the air and crashing hard into the water. 

“ROSIE!” The brunette screamed in horror and then immediately and quickly drove over to her girlfriend’s crash site. It only took her ten seconds to reach her, but throughout that whole time her lover was submerged underwater, and those ten seconds may as well have been ten years. 

She could see her girlfriend under the crystal clear water and could see that she was only a foot or two from the surface. Greys and beiges of a few small stray rocks and sand dotted the seafloor around Rosie, but Jennie could also see a red mist spread from the blonde’s left leg. For a second she didn’t know what it was, but then it clicked. 

“Rosie!” She gasped, as her jetski came to a complete stop. Her already shocked and terrified face went up a level as she realised that her lover was hurt beneath the water. 

Another eternity seemed to have passed before Rosie’s head broke the surfaced and she could finally grasp the air she so desperately missed. Her hands quickly followed and came above the water, splashing as she desperately tried to stay above water. 

Jennie was relieved when the blonde broke the surface and started breathing air again, but then instantly regressed to fear as she saw her lover panic to stay afloat. 

“ROSIE! ROSIE! STAND UP!”

But the blonde didn’t listen, or couldn’t hear her through all of the panic. 

“LISTEN TO ME, BABY! STAND UP!”

Little did the blonde know, that she was in shallow water. All she knew was that she was thrown violently off her jet ski and was plunged into the water, hurting herself in the process. For all she knew she was in the middle of the ocean because the depth of the water wasn’t even a question on her mind. The only question on her mind was, ‘how do I survive?’ Her lifejacket was doing its job, keeping her head above water, but it couldn’t squash the panic of potentially being in the deep, open water. 

With tears threatening to spill, Jennie jumped into the water and rushed to Rosie, tripping over a stone, submerging herself in the process. She clambered to find her footing again, and once she did, she strode over to Rosie and embraced her, one arm beneath her and the other on her shoulder. 

“Rosie! You can stand up,” she helped lift the blonde up so that her body was ninety degrees to the water, causing her feet to sink to the seafloor. As soon as she felt the firm sand beneath her feet, she tried to pull herself up but was unable, shocked by the terrifying experience. Jennie instead pulled her up and pulled her in for a reassuring and loving embrace. Rosie put her head on Jennie’s shoulder and tears instantly fell. 

“I’ve got you, baby,” Jennie whispered into her trembling lover’s ear. 

Little did Rosie know, but from falling underwater to being pulled up by Jennie was less than fifteen seconds, but the fight with possible death made the ordeal feel like forever.

“What happened, baby?” As she held Rosie, the brunette wondered what could have caused such a sudden accident.

“I saw a kid in front of me. I tried to get out of the way, and then I fell,” the blonde choked on her tears. The brunette scanned around to find the kid that almost got hit by a jet ski, but couldn’t see anyone anywhere. Even though the water was shallow, they were over fifty meters off the shore, in an area only designated for jet skis and banana boats. They had specifically stayed in the area that the jet ski instructor told them to play in, so there shouldn’t have been any people swimming there. As Jennie continued looking around, she saw a dark blue inflatable football floating away from them. 

Jennie sighed in anger as she realised that the ball must have been the culprit and that Rosie’s pain and trauma should have been avoided. However, she was angrier with herself for coaxing her girlfriend into racing, something she didn’t want to do in the first place. 

“I’m sorry for making you drive fast, baby. I should never have done that,” Jennie confessed softly, almost a whimper, on the brim of tears.

“It’s okay,” the blonde croaked. The brunette squeezed the blonde impossibly closer in a supportive and apologetic hug, causing the blonde to squeeze her eyes shut and melt into the embrace. 

“I know you’re scared, baby, but we need to return these jet skis. Do you think you can drive it back? I promise you can go as slow as you want.”

The blonde hesitated as she fought her nerves, knowing that there was no-one else to take her jet ski to shore unless she waved for the instructor to come and help them. The desire for help was growing within her, but she shook her head slightly and mustered up the courage to fight through the fear. She wanted to make her girlfriend proud, she wanted to be brave and conquer her fear, but more importantly, she wanted to move on from this incident and not let it ruin their day. Moping and sulking over an accident would only dampen their spirits, their day, and their relationship. The blonde wanted to forget about it and move on and continue the day with laughs and smiles, enough to drown this incident in the back of their minds. 

Nodding, the blonde consented and agreed to take the jet ski back, causing the brunette to look at her with love and admiration for her bravery. Jennie jumped up and pulled herself out of the four and a half feet of water, onto her jet ski, before driving over to Rosie’s jet ski which had drifted fifty feet away from the momentum of the fully-twisted accelerator that Rosie suddenly released. 

Having pushed the empty jet ski to the blonde, using one hand to steer it as the other steered her own, the brunette gestured the blonde to jump up by tapping the seat with her palm. The blonde clambered up onto the jet ski and as she sat up and positioned herself correctly, Jennie could see the wound on her left leg. It was only a small, shallow cut, but the seawater diluted the blood causing the red liquid to seemingly stream down her leg effortlessly. The mixture of water and blood made her blood loss look way more dramatic than in reality, as the brunette deciphered that she could only have lost a few drops. With a sigh of relief, knowing that her wound could have been a lot worse, the brunette smiled supportingly to the blonde with a soft “let’s go.”

They both drove slowly, with Jennie driving a few feet away from the blonde, with the thought of driving fast never crossing her mind. Her only concern was to be with and support her lover. Looking over at the blonde who was still slightly shaken from the incident, Jennie grinned with pride at her courageous girlfriend for getting back on the machine that caused her pain and facing her fears. 

—

Safe on dry land, the two lovers sat on the sand, watching their family members zoom across the water with extra caution after witnessing Rosie’s accident. The Parks had seen it but didn’t know how scared their little Chaeyoung was until Jennie explained the cut on her leg. Rosie played it off as nothing, having no desire to worry her family, as it would have proven to be unnecessary as she was already safe and sound on the sand. Jennie, on the other hand, told the Parks and her mother everything that happened, but downplayed that drama of it, not wanting to ruin the idea of jet skiing for any of them before they had a go.

The heat of the day seemed to be increasing as the sun’s rays blanketed their visible world, unhindered by clouds as the sky appeared as a wall of blue. The rest of the group returned after an hour of fun on the water, the rest of them being able to drive together as others had returned the jet skis during Jennie’s and Rosie’s antics on the water.

Waiting for everyone else to return gave the blonde plenty of time to reflect on the incident and move on from her previous emotions of fear, as she concluded that she was lucky to have walked away relatively unharmed and that there was plenty of fun things still to do. The rest of the party were happy to see a smiling Rosie upon their reunion, in the arms of the caring and loving brunette, both of them sat on the white sand looking at the horizon beyond the ocean. 

“Banana boat?!” Alice suggested with excitement. The rest of the group turned to her in hesitation, all still filled with concern for Rosie. As if rehearsed, they all turned their heads to the blond with turned-up brows and eyes filled with a mix of concern and permission. The blonde chuckled at the group's synchronicity and began climbing to her feet with Jennie pulling her towards her, offering herself as support and allowing the blonde to take her weight off her left leg which now donned a blue band-aid over the small wound. 

Rosie didn’t really need to lean on her girlfriend, as she didn’t need to limp due to there being no more pain coming from the cut. However, the blonde gladly leaned on the brunette, knowing full well that Jennie wanted to feel like she was taking good care of her. 

They all spent the next couple of hours on the beach and in the water swimming in the shallows, splashing each other in jest, and getting pulled along and thrown off a banana boat, in slightly deeper water this time. 

—

The sun was descending in the sky, cooling the heat, making their five o’clock walk back to the hotel refreshing. Mr. Park and his eldest daughter, Alice, walked at the front of the group, with the two mothers slightly behind, followed by Rosie and Jennie who were once again walking hand-in-hand, as Jennie felt it was no longer necessary to take the weight of her girlfriend who could walk perfectly fine by herself. 

Halfway along the beach to their hotel, they walked past a few groups of people, some the same as they saw earlier in the day. They all scanned the beach, curious to see what the people from earlier in the day were doing now. While looking around, Jennie saw the same group of men from earlier, still shirtless and having fun, but instead of playing football, they were now playing with a frisbee. She saw one of the young men throw the frisbee to another who completely missed it. The flying object curved in the air and the brunette flinched a little as she saw it coming straight for her, but let out a sigh of relief as it landed in the sand ten feet away from her. The young man who missed the catch jogged over to pick up the frisbee, standing in place as he saw the two gorgeous girls walk past, recognising them from before. 

“Hi,” he simply said to Jennie, who simply nodded her head in response and then turned to look in the direction where she was headed. “What’s your name?” The young man walked to keep in line with the brunette. 

“Why do you wanna know?” Jennie replied politely yet defensively. She didn’t really want to get in a conversation with him.

“‘Because if you don’t tell me, I’ll have to give you a cheesy nickname like ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’, and I think you’re too good for that,” he smirked. 

Even though she wasn’t interested, she couldn’t help but be impressed with his reply. Maybe it was good enough to get an answer to his question. 

“Je - Jasmine,” she stumbled over her real name and landed on her fake name that she and Rosie had agreed on the previous night.

“That’s a nice name. I’m Justin. Pleased to meet you,” he said politely keeping in step with the brunette. “And what’s your name?” He called over Jennie to Rosie who was still firmly linked to the brunette. 

“This is my...friend, err, Belle,” this time stumbling twice, to find Rosie's new name and to hide their relationship. 

The blonde just looked over and nodded with a lack of interest or enthusiasm. Clearly, she didn’t like the man talking with Jennie. 

The young man and Jennie shared what they had done that day, leaving out Rosie’s incident as she didn’t want to embarrass her girlfriend in front of strangers. 

“So what are you up to tonight? Maybe we can get together for a drink,”  he smirked, which was met with a blank expression from Jennie. The man then paid extra close attention to the joined hands of Rosie and Jennie and how they were clasped together tightly, and how Rosie was rubbing her thumb up and down the brunette’s fingers, asserting her presence, love, and support for the slightly irritated older girl. The exchange of looks between the two girls didn’t go amiss either. 

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you guys were together,” he pointed his two index fingers together, implying a romantic relationship. Jennie’s eyes widened in fear as the man had deciphered their relationship. She knew she shouldn’t worry about it as the man didn’t know who they truly were, but the habit of keeping their relationship a secret got the best of her. Hearing the man’s words, she dropped Rosie’s hand and shooed it away like her lover’s hand was an annoying wasp buzzing around her cocktail. 

“No, no, we’re not together. We’re just really close friends,” she said automatically, having those words engrained onto her brain from years of a secret romance. 

Rosie turned to Jennie, with eyes filled with insult and rejection. She couldn’t believe that her girlfriend had pushed her away and chose to lie about their relationship when they were meant to be here to experience being publicly affectionate. 

Turning her head away from the brunette, she focused on the sea, which now had lost its stillness, with knee-high waves breaking on the sand. Her eyes were ignoring Jennie, but she sharpened her hearing to focus on the rest of their conversation. 

“So, you won’t mind if you go for drinks with me, then?”

“Sorry, not tonight,” Jennie shrugged. 

“C’mon. I’ll even bring a friend for your friend to drink with,” he gestured towards the seemingly clueless blonde. 

“Not interested, thanks,” Jennie dismissed before turning to look at Rosie. 

“C’mon! You’ll have fun. I promise.”

“She said she’s not interested! Leave her alone!” Rosie snapped. She was keeping her cool up until the point when the man’s tone changed as soon as he said ‘I promise’, implying something ual in nature. “Now, get lost!” She said with so much venom that she could have killed him with one bite. 

The smirk on the man’s face disappeared at Rosie’s verbal attack, causing him to gingerly walk away after putting his hands up in surrender. 

The two girls continued walking along the beach in silence, although the tension made up of rejection and guilt between the two was thick enough to be cut with a knife. 

A/N: Leave your thoughts below. I have a story arc in mind, but I'm filling in the story with random events as I go along, which I want to follow a certain theme.