A List of Firsts (How it All Started with Jennie's Ruthless Confidence)

'how is America doing you', she typed

'cold and too many high calorie foods', he answered, 'when will you be back from Japan?

'we got one more guesting then we're done', she typed again, then the dots that let him know she was typing more disappeared for several times and he wondered what it was she was having a hard time to say.

'i got you a souvenir.'

Namjoon was in the middle processing that sentence when a picture of a KAWS doll nestled between Jennie's feet popped in their convo. He laughed and struggled with sleep that night when his heart felt as if running a mile per second.

---OOO---

The next time they saw each other, it was in the comforts of her borrowed car. BLACKPINK had finally came back to Korea to prepare for their next album and BTS had just finished their world tour. Namjoon felt blessed by all the fans who he got to meet in that journey, for the unshakeable love they pour for BTS and he could not brush off the whisper of guilt when the idea of Jennie waiting for him in the parking lot of the airport could be equaled to standing in front of sixty thousand fans and hearing their band name, BTS, rolled down the stands.

At this point, when Namjoon told them he would be using the private exit, his band mates did nothing more than slap him in the back while their personal staff shared resigned sighs.

Namjoon's hands gripping his bag were slicked with sweats when he finally located the car Jennie described to him an hour ago. He walked towards it purposefully, and convinced himself it was only few steps away and not a three-month separation.

The moment he slid into the passenger side, and he was met with a gummy smile, he wondered if it was even possible to put into words how one could be rendered entirely powerless against a person he had seen and talk to behind a screen more than in person.

Namjoon believed that a strong relationship was built on meaningful conversations and sincere connections that would have been developed over the course of close interactions. This was none of that. This was guarded secrets, reserved touches, miles apart and contract forbidden future and it had never made more sense to him than it did the first time Jennie stood in front of him, looking like she had all the right to be there. Yet, the world had never felt righter to Namjoon.

Jennie stirred them away from the parking lot, down the crisp streets of their home country laid in front of them but could not see their intertwined hands between them.

She glanced at him in between stop lights, cheeks flushed and pulse in rapid beats against his own palm.

Namjoon simply knew. And accepted.

---OOO---

It was another week before Namjoon was able to kiss her for the first time. It was not glorified the way he imagined it to be, nor tender the way he knew she deserved. Their lips were slammed together with no finesse, Jennie's hands curled on his coat tightly and Namjoon simply holding her waist because he knew she needed this. She leaned back, only to breathe, then met his lips again, his tongue seeking entrance and pressing against her own. She made a pleasured sound, one hand gripping his coat coming to rest against his cheek instead.

Namjoon slipped a hand under her blouse and rested against the skin in her lower back possessively. He continued trailing kissing in the line of her jaw, the hollowed space between her collar and shoulder, then back to her lips.

After, when she stopped trembling and her tears had dried, Namjoon held her close in his chest. He assured her the dreaded rumors weren't true. That she was amazing, talented and brilliant and those people who says otherwise did not matter. Only those who cared truly she should pay real attention to. He pressed soft kisses in her cheeks and nuzzled her nose with his and only then, did he kissed her the way he dreamed of.