『JenSoo Short Stories ₂』

5 Bad Dates Until You Fall In Love (1/3)

Jennie prepares a bottle of sparkling Australian rosé for Jisoo's first post-breakup date because it's her favourite way of solving problems. Not the getting drunk bit — the everything else bit. See, if the date has gone well, Jisoo can use the wine to wash down her inevitable guilt. Jennie gives this scenario a 20% chance of happening. But if the date hasn't gone well, they can a) drink together, b) cry, c) laugh, d) complain about men, and e) wash down the bad date memories (at least somewhat). Jennie estimates a 79% chance for that scenario.

(The extra 1% doesn't mean she failed maths. She's very good at that, thank you very much. It just means she's allowing for miscalculations, like any good planner should do.)

So Jennie is satisfied that her bottle of rosé is equally useful for both miracles and disasters.

Unfortunately, she can't anticipate everything.

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Jisoo's return is announced by a loud fumbling of the keys, a kick of the door, some loud swear words, and the door staying stubbornly shut. This is a familiar scene. Jisoo forgets whether it's the keys or the card every week, even though she's been living here the whole six months since the breakup. When the door is finally unlocked, Jisoo doesn't even glance at Jennie. She just kicks off her heels, tosses her keys onto the table, and marches grimly over to the couch.

She flops face-first onto the pillows.

The 79% scenario shoots up to 99%.

"So!" Jennie says, with an exaggerated chirpiness. "Um, want to watch Friends?"

Jennie gestures to the screen, which is already blaring with the cheerful opening theme. She looked up all the episode summaries beforehand, filtering out the ones that have too many references to divorce or love or even sex. Which was pretty hard, considering those seemed to be the only topics on the show.

"No," Jisoo sighs.

For a moment, Jennie feels a twinge of disappointment. This is meant to be their thing. After a day of work where they're too flat to do anything else, they put on Netflix in the background while they gossip and complain about their bosses. (Or bad dates, Jennie supposes.)

But Jisoo doesn't leave. She just turns around on the couch until she's facing the ceiling, her eyes covered by a slender elbow draped over her head.

"This dating thing," Jisoo declares, "was a terrible idea."

"I know, I know," Jennie says soothingly.

"And it was yours."

Jisoo reaches over and flicks Jennie on the nose.

"OW!" Jennie gasps, clutching her face.

Jisoo snorts softly, lays back down, and rests her cheek on Jennie's lap.

"I thought you said you didn't want to watch," Jennie says.

"I don't. But I'll still do it for you," Jisoo says grouchily. "I didn't want to go on this date, did I?"

Jennie struggles to hide how pleased she is at these words.

"So how'd it end up going?" she says instead.

Jisoo is an animated storyteller, even when she's clearly pissed off. Her stories are accompanied by as many gestures as words. Jennie watches on, engrossed, utterly ignoring the TV.

Jisoo's date, Jin, talked obsessively about perfectly efficient real estate investment strategies. 'Location!' he barked multiple times, slamming his fist onto the table, which Jisoo imitates in a mock dramatic voice. He then proceeded to grill her over how much she got paid, which she finally confessed near the end of the date, having already decided there wouldn't be a sequel. At which point Jin promptly pulled a calculator from his pocket and declared in no uncertain terms that they'd split the bill according to the ratio of their salary packages, divided to the nearest ten cents, and he was generously offering to pay the extra.