Catch The Stars

Chapter 26

Whenever you're ready:

It keeps raining the following days.

The farmers are happy about the weather, their crops having been drying out due to the never ending heatwave weeks prior.

Jennie, though, not so much.

She’s usually one to find a lot of peace in watching the rain fall from the safety of her bedroom, listening to the raindrops splattering against the roof and windows.

After the recent events in the village, the fight, Joohyun getting hurt, her conversation with her yesterday, Jennie can’t help but feel like the sky is crying.

There’s a sense of heaviness in the air, almost like the villagers are tiptoeing around, trying to stay quiet and hidden. Maybe they know of what happened; how Y/n beat up Joohyun’s cousin, how she got hurt herself, how the bruises on Joohyun’s face aren’t from her running into a door on accident.

If they do know, they’re turning a blind eye to all of it, which seems to be their way of dealing with most problems that arise up here in between mountains and forests, isolated from the rest of the world.

Jennie isn’t one of them though, and she sure as hell isn’t going to ignore what that sorry excuse of a man did to Joohyun. She’s not just going to sit back and watch her life be ruined just because no one can be bothered to help her, to care about her.

Not that Y/n and the others don’t care about Joohyun and Seulgi, but they’re part of this village, and there’s only so much they can do without risking getting hurt themselves in the process in one way or another.

So, despite the pouring rain, Jennie catches uncle Changho’s bus the next morning and tries to nap the thirty minutes it takes to get to Cheumsan. She’s not very lucky. Her mind is buzzing with endless thoughts about Joohyun and Seulgi, what their plan is, if they’re going to be okay.

And then there’s Y/n.

Y/n’s gentle words, the soft look in her eyes when she gazes at Jennie, how Jennie feels when they kiss, and a lump forms in her throat when she thinks about how Y/n might as well be in Joohyun’s situation right now.

Because they’re exactly what Joohyun and Seulgi are, aren’t they?

And the pair is running away now, just so they can be together, because there is no happiness for them in the village.

Jennie has no clue what it means for Y/n and her, and it fills her with a sense of dread. She doesn’t know why it hurts her so much to think about Y/n and her just… ending things.

A part of her tried to keep in the back of her mind, that what they have is nothing but a summer romance, doomed to simply break apart due to their situation, but that was before she spent more time with Y/n.

That was before Y/n started looking at her the way she does, before Jennie’s heart grew so damn fond of the older girl it’s started to feel like it’s going to overflow whenever Jennie so much as thinks of Y/n’s name.

She just really needs to talk to her best friend. She needs Lisa’s advice, but she knows she wouldn’t get any sympathy there, not when Lisa told her to stay away from Y/n in the first place.

Once they arrive in Cheumsan, Jennie gets off in front of a small convenience store and sends uncle Changho a smile from where the man is climbing out of the bus.

“What’s got you down here so early, kid?” The man asks her, his silver cross necklace distracting Jennie momentarily. It’s still raining but the man’s wearing a flat cap that’s mostly protecting his face and Jennie has the cap of her hoodie pulled up so it doesn’t get into her eyes.