a little bit of black with a little bit of pink

You're the apple of my eye

"You could've worn something other than a three-piece, you know. It's a craft brews festival , not a business meeting ," Rosé exasperatedly sighed, an amused look lighting up her face as a small smile played on the corners of her mouth, "you look like you're going to do their taxes, or like the Irish version of Men In Black. Have you created a mind-wiping pen yet?"

"Very funny," Jennie snorted, a brooding look on her face as she strolled along with her hands in her pockets, nose wrinkled at the smell of hops and sawdust permeating the air of the crowded festival. "So, what's the point in this whole thing?"

Looping her arm through the crook of Jennie's elbow, Rosé excitedly pressed up close to her, smiling brightly as she looked around at the stalls packed with customers and the curious, knocking back sips of craft beer and cider in paper cups. Cash flowed as bottles and small kegs were handed off, and people who looked like they'd been drinking non-stop since the crack of dawn weaved in and out of the crowd on unsteady legs.

There were rustic picnic benches where people drank from pint glasses, singing bawdy songs and eating greasy food from trucks selling burgers and fries and hotdogs. Paper cups and napkins littered the flattened grass and the noise washed over them as they stepped into the large field and joined the flowing crowd.

"The point is to try as many free beers and cider samples as we can, eat all this shitty food and then catch a cab home because we can't walk straight."

"If you want to get drunk I know this great distillery that does great whiskey tours. One call and I could have them shut it down for us. No need to lower our standards to free samples."

Bumping her shoulder with her own, Rosé gave her an exasperated look, used to Jennie's grumbling moodiness, and dragged her along. "But the atmosphere is so great! Come on, let's try out this one."

Jennie allowed herself to be led over to a stall manned by a middle-aged man with a long beard and a ponytail, and she gave him a flat look the entire time she sipped the sour beer, putting her barely touched sample into an overflowing trash can as she ran her tongue over her teeth.

Then it was onto the next one, and the next, as she baked in her suit and sullenly refused to take her jacket off, no matter how many times Rosé tried to prompt her, giving her exasperated looks of amusement as she shook her head at her friend's stubbornness. Jennie walked around scowling with a contemptuous look on her face, the smell of hops overwhelmingly nauseating as the bright sunshine made her don a pair of sunglasses.

Making the rounds through a dozen stalls, trying a variety of craft beers and ciders, all of them unpalatably bitter to Jennie, they eventually crammed in on the end of a picnic table with burgers and fries. It was the most joy she'd shown all day, taking a massive bite of the food and chasing away the stale taste of beer and filling her stomach with something aside from alcohol.

Feeling a little less cranky, Jennie let herself be dragged down another aisle of stalls, resigning herself to another round of drinks she didn't particularly like but didn't want to be the one to spoil Rosé's fun as her friend grew more lighthearted and rosy-cheeked, downing sample after sample. Jennie trailed after her like a morose chaperone, ensuring that she didn't drink herself into a stupor and get into trouble.

And then she lost her. One moment Jennie was grimacing after a particularly nasty sample, Rosé right beside her trying another, and then they'd been separated in a mere moment by the crowd. Looking around, body tense and alert, Jennie slowly moved in a circle, finding no glimpse of Rosé's blonde hair or tall stature sticking out from the crowd, no casual t-shirt and jeans flashing amongst the bodies flowing with the current of movement.