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Words - 8K+
Chapters - 5/5
Alternate Universe Alternate - Royalty
Genre - Mild Sexual Content, Longing and Yearning, Fluff
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Summary
As far as the world knows, Princess Jennie is dedicated to her duties and has no interest in the whirlwind of suitors around her.
They do not know that she shares her heart only with philanthropic businesswoman Park Roseanne.
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Rosé (06:13): No more sleeps.
Jennie brushes her thumbs over the screen as if she can make the words clearer by removing the slightest particles of dust. She wants to enjoy them in total clarity, and bathe in their truth; there will be no more sleep until she is able to see her again. The next time that she climbs into this bed, it will be with Rosé. For five months, the left side of the bed has been ice cold. No matter how high she turns the thermostat, it does not warm, nothing but an empty space left barren by the absence of her love.
For a moment, she stays still, reading those three words over and over. The bed is as luxurious as it is possible for a bed to be. Blue silk curtains fall ruched around the silver cushioned headboard with tiny white gemstones creating stars overhead. There are so many pillows that Jennie disappears amongst them, sheets pulled up over her shoulders until they brush her cheeks. With little to do until the evening, she finds no motivation to move from this spot yet.
The first thing that she does every day is checking her phone. Rosé is usually awake earlier, usually at 5:30 or 6:00 depending on the work for the day and her time zone, and therefore Jennie has precious moments each morning in which she can think of nothing else in the world except for her words. She is more prone to sleeping in herself, unless there is the royal business to attend to, and can make it to midday before uttering anything more than a yawn. It is too soon after waking to think of everything outside her door. Instead, her mind still feels half asleep and dreams blend with reality in perfect harmony.
Tonight, she thinks, I get to be with her tonight.
She closes her eyes, a vision of the night ahead painted all across her imagination. She has planned it so many times. The first was seven weeks earlier when the final date for the state dinner had been set. On that, she had finally allowed herself to think about it. Before then the waiting had hurt too much, and it was easier to permit the scene to slip into her mind only occasionally, like a fanciful daydream. Over the next few weeks, she visualised every possible scenario for the night. Two days ago, she planned out the night in specific detail.
Jennie does not have the luxury of spontaneity, even in a life of extravagance. There is no such freedom in a schedule that is governed by a security detail, prescribed down to specific seconds – but that is okay. She learned at a young age how to create wild, exciting moments even with her bodyguards a few metres away. Part of it was cultivating the people surrounding her until she could trust her assistant and security and entourage with things that she would never tell her parents. Even at college, her wild parties had never made it onto the front pages. There could be no headlines about the princess of South Korea.
Tonight, she knows how things will go. She has already cleared it with her personal bodyguard in preparation. She has made the necessary arrangements. The fanciful has finally become real and she can feel the buzz of excitement all the way down to her fingertips.
I'm seeing Rosé today.
One more time, she enjoys her message and then taps out a response.
Jennie (07:45): I'm counting down the hours.
When she sits up, at last, she stretches out with a yawn. It took her a long time to get to sleep last night because she was so excited, and she knows that she probably does not look her best as a result, but that isn't too much of a problem. For nights like this, she has her own make-up artist and she knows that Rosé will not care how she looks anyway. Not that that means she doesn't want to look her best. In their months of distance, she sends a thousand photos, but they are not the same as being five inches apart from one another.
She crawls out of bed and reaches around for the long white silk robe that she hands nearby. It is never long before an encounter with the staff in the morning, so she always keeps a robe close to her hand. This morning she is dressed in a pair of purple pyjamas embroidered with silver-threaded flowers, and a cute matching set, but over the chair of her dressing table she has already laid out an indigo negligee, because on the very few days that she can have her girlfriend here with her, she wants to make an effort.
Girlfriend.
They rarely use that word anymore. It seems too light, too simple, to adequately express the such depth of love.
As far as the world knows, Jennie is single and will remain so forever. She has a line of suitors queuing up at all times of course and she treats them with an air of polite disinterest at events and lunches and charity excursions. Her patience is starting to wane, but niceties are her trade. She has never entertained one personally and the world ought to know that. Some people have questioned it, calling for her to settle down in some sort of politically worthwhile marriage, but her parents and grandfather are content to allow her to dedicate her life to her duty instead.
Duty above all else is the maxim of her family. That is how they have kept their position for so very long, and why they are so very loved.
Being the third child affords Jennie a degree of freedom. Her older brother will succeed in the crown, and her older sister will marry well. Jennie was the only one permitted to study outside of Korea, first at boarding school in Europe and then at college in the US. She was the only one permitted to have non-royal or celebrity friends. She knows that she is her grandfather's favourite and that the family spoils her somewhat. She wonders, occasionally, what people would think if they knew the truth. Would they be outraged?
Would they be affronted to find out that Park Roseanne is not the childhood friend that people said she was, but rather the boarding school confidant who had skipped from friend to girlfriend to lover with a tiny gap in between? Best friends, partners, and lovers, but it is more than that too. Rosé holds a part of Jennie's soul in her hands that she will never let go, and Jennie holds hers too.
To everyone else, however, Rosé is merely her old friend, the old friend that she can see only occasionally because she is always travelling, building her family's business empire, and trying to make the world a bit of a better place along the way. From when they were teenagers, Jennie had been drawn to her ambition. Rosé could not be tied down, always on a plane, always seeking out some new opportunity. She is on the news every other day. She has a fervent need for progress that makes her cleave a path through the world like a diamond drill.
Jennie moves around her suit with a happy song on her lips. It is an apartment really, a self-contained block in her parents' vast estate, but at times it feels more like a serviced hotel room. She has a kitchen, but there are also chefs on the property who she can call upon in a second, and she has never been good at cooking. Everything in the apartment is kept in order by others: cleaners, maintenance workers, and her enthusiastic if somewhat forgetful personal assistant, Isla.
She opens the curtains that overlook the inner courtyard of the block and smiles as the sun streams into the room.
