𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐁𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 | 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞

▸ chapter 5.

Chapter 5

The seconds stretch, charged, heavy, and something shifts, a subtle rearranging of air between them. Chaeyoung wants to claw back what she just said. Because Jennie's hesitation is sending her stomach into a wild plummet and there isn't a graceful way to extricate herself from this. She's trapped beneath Jennie's body, her stare, the weight of that stupid admission.

They're pressed so tightly together, hips and stomachs and ribs, that Chaeyoung feels the rise and fall of Jennie's diaphragm as she sucks in a small breath and lets it out slowly.

"Chaeyoung, I—" she begins, and it's so tentative, so completely unlike her usual self-assuredness that it makes Chaeyoung flinch.

If this is Jennie letting her down easy then Chaeyoung can't bear to hear it. The best thing, the sensible thing, the thing that will preserve her dignity, she decides, is to beat Jennie to the punch.

"You're a catch. That's all I meant." If the words sit uneasily, twisting and coiling in her gut, then she hopes it doesn't show on her face. "Who wouldn't be flattered?"

Jennie's eyebrows shoot up.

"I'm a catch? Are you fucking kidding me?" She shakes her head slightly. "Besides the fact you're super fucking attractive? Everything about you is just... Chaeyoung, in the dictionary definition of girlfriend material there's a picture of your perfect face."

Girlfriend material?

It occurs to Chaeyoung that she's holding her breath. Has been for the last several seconds. But she's too reluctant to move a muscle or so much as blink in case it disrupts this confessional mood, puts a stop to whatever it is Jennie's on the verge of saying.

"God, sometimes, when you look at me..." Jennie drops her gaze and when she glances up from under her lashes half a moment later, Chaeyoung's heart thuds so forcefully in her chest it's a wonder Jennie doesn't hear it slam against her rib cage. "I don't even know what to think."

In Chaeyoung's head, there's Lisa telling her to woman up and find some fucking backbone. So when she speaks her voice sounds only slightly uneven. "The mixed signals aren't exactly one-sided, Jennie."

She can't quite read Jennie's expression. It's pensive. Brown eyes downcast again. A few seconds drag by where there's only the shallow sound of their breathing and Chaeyoung's own pulse thundering in her ears. She cushions herself for rejection, denial, a dismissive laugh at the very least.

"It's not that I don't—" Jennie stops, catching her lower lip between her teeth. She exhales softly, and Chaeyoung's sure she isn't imagining the discernible wobble in it. "We have a really, really good thing going here. But, speaking from past experience? If we let this become something more, it'll get ugly. Once feelings are involved, everything gets messed up."

"Jennie." Chaeyoung's throat constricts over that single syllable, the name coalescing into a hard lump, and she swallows around it. "I think that ship's already sailed. Don't you?"

It's risky—this whole conversation has klaxons going off in Chaeyoung's brain—but she lifts both hands to trace along Jennie's jaw. She doesn't shy away from Chaeyoung's touch. She's trembling slightly. They both are.

"It isn't the end of the world."

"No?"

"I don't think so."

"It is if the person I'm with makes me feel like I'm the bad guy. Like I'm cheating on them just by doing my job."

"Is that what Kai did?"