jenlisa one shots & short stories

different ways to say i love you (1)

"Alright, what has she done now?"

Jennie casts an eye up from where her chin is slumped atop her arms that rest on the bar surface.

"How d'you know she's done anything?"

"Plain as day," Chahee scoffs, taking a rag to a dirty beer glass. "Come on, my shift ends in half an hour, I don't have all day."

Jennie lets out an elongated sigh before dropping her face back down onto her arm pillow. "I just thought she'd say it by now."

"What's that?" Chahee says, taking Jennie's glass, refilling it and sliding it across the bar towards her.

Jennie accepts it gratefully, before giving another sigh and sitting up properly. "I just thought she'd have said it by now. We've been dating for a year now. Is it something to do with me?"

Chahee stares at the girl for a few moments, before tipping her head back and laughing. "That's what The Jennie Kim is worried about?" she says, her shoulders still shaking as the giggles subside.

Jennie's head slumps back down onto the bar. "This is why I didn't tell you."

Chahee wipes a tear from her eye, leans over across the bar and rests her hands on Jennie's shoulders, pulling her up and out of her slump.

"Jen, I'm laughing because if there's anything certain in this universe, it's that Lisa is in love with you. I'm pretty sure it was written in the stars before the Earth was even a speck on the big old dude's plan. If the clouds could write messages, the sky would be lit up with the words 'Lisa Is in Love with Jennie' Every. Goddamn. Day."

"Alright, I get it," Jennie grumbles. "So why hasn't she said it yet?"

Chahee shrugs, taking her rag to the surface of the bar. "Maybe she has been saying it and you just haven't been listening."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I just mean that you've been waiting for her to say a certain set of words," Chahee says. "A very specific set of words. Have you ever thought that there's more than one way to say it?"

Jennie raises her head slightly and stares up at her friend.

"Just think about it, yeah?" Chahee says, her eyes sparkling a little. "Now, stop moping. As soon as I'm done here, we're gonna go back to my place, drink way too much than we should and marathon some awful reality television show."

For the first time in the last half an hour, a smile spreads across Jennie's face. "Now you're talking my language," she says, downing the rest of her drink.

~~

Predictably, Jennie drinks way too much, wakes up with a stinking hangover and completely forgets about the conversation she'd had the night before with Chahee, or at least not until a week later when she's yet again griping over the fact that Lisa hasn't said it yet.

It's in the small hours of the morning, she's driving back to her flat after a god-awful amount of time spent in the university library, and she's so tired that she's finding it hard to fight the impulse to let her head droop right onto the steering wheel. It's a wonder she doesn't crash the car.

As always when Jennie hasn't had enough sleep, she finds herself getting overly frustrated and irritated with things that wouldn't bother as much in a completely awake state. While she drives, she recounts numerous conversations that she's had with Lisa, thinking about all the times she could have said those three words, and she starts grinding her teeth, muttering things under her breath about what an idiot that girl is.

And then the car stops moving.

It takes her a little longer than it normally would to realise what's going on, but as soon as she notices that her tank is completely empty, she bends her head forward and groans into the steering wheel.