Midnights In Paris | Jenlisa

Strawberries Are Not The Only Fruit

"I'm not going to sleep with you"

The lace of the napkin was as white as Jennie's skin. It had been thoroughly ironed, one could easily tell. Even so, she could not help herself but fidget with it, crumbling it in her hands.

She was wearing a silk lilac dress she had recently bought. Her hair was hanging loosely on her back, solely held back by a Hermés hairpin her mother gifted her quite a while ago. She had not wanted to look this good for Jongin. She was doing it to play the part; one she knew her father would not believe if she didn't put any real effort in.

Hence the dress and the hair.

Except the moment she was out of her parents supervision, she felt no duty whatsoever to appeal to any of Jongin's men-like fantasies.

"Didn't expect you to" he answered.

He smiled only with his mouth, as he passed a hand through his perfectly combed hair. If Jennie had to guess, which she really did not have to, he, too, was dressed for the occasion. Probably, though, one fueled by a different motive.

"I love someone else"

There, she said it. There was no going back now. Jennie's eyes squinted, studying, rather than waiting for Kai's reaction.
But, to her surprise, none came. Actually, it was a different one than she had expected.

"A woman"

Jennie looked back at him, a puzzled expression on her face. He was staring back at her while taking a casual, long sip from his drink.

"I figured at our second date. I bought you flowers but you seemed unfazed" he said, leaning back on his chair as a devious grin appeared on his face. "Straight girls are far more impressionable. Easier"

"Well" Jennie said, finally feeling relaxed enough to speak from her mind " they're easier because they actually want to sleep with you". She picked up the small silver spoon that was brought with their desserts almost twenty minutes ago. The strawberry mousse Jongin had ordered for her was melting already but that was exactly how Jennie liked it. She went in for a second bite as she spoke again, her lips tinting even more red : " I don't".

His eyes followed the trail of her hand to her mouth, where they stayed.

"Who knows? Strawberries are not the only fruit"

Jennie's mind could not help but replay bits of her past life, her memories brought back by familiar sounds, faces and smells all around her. It had been years since she had stepped her foot back in her homeland, and even if part of her felt joy, relief even, the other part of her was nothing less than overwhelmed.

Incheon airport was a place she was used to leave, to go to some business trip for her father or on the few vacations she would allow herself to have. It felt strange, coming back to the last place she had left before she actually did.

If things had stayed the same, business men with their strict attires, hordes of people waiting for their favorite idols to pass by and the kind ajummas working the corner coffee shops, one thing had changed. Every time she came back from one of her trips, there would be a certain blonde-ish girl waiting for her at the arrivals, waving at her with enthusiasm, an excited smile on her face.

An enthusiasm, Jennie remembered with malinconia, she never returned. Too many people, too many eyes on them. All the time.

Not even on the car ride back from the airport, she would let herself go and reciprocate Lisa's affection, too scared of the driver's mouth on her father's ear.