"It's embarrassing!" Jennie whines at her manager, who is holding a wheelchair.
"Jennie you'll have to walk a lot with those crutches if you won't use this," he worriedly says, knowing it will be harder for Jennie to walk around the new YG building with a sprained ankle. The studio is nowhere near the elevator either.
"Yeah I know it's even more embarrassing, I can perfectly walk on my own thank you."
Her manager's eyes widened. "Jennie... What am I gonna do with you?"
"What's happening here?"
-
"Manager oppa said she's downstairs being stubborn-" Jisoo stopped reading her phone when the door suddenly opened, making everyone inside the studio to stare at their manager opening the door for the two other people.
"Don't tell me you came all the way here..." Rosé trailed off, putting her hand on her mouth dramatically.
Teddy chuckled while Lisa looked unamused, her arms crossing.
Standing before them is Winner's Song Mino, carrying Jennie on his back. He steps inside slowly, then slowly lowered himself so Jennie could stand just beside the couch.
"Aigoo my back," he complains, standing up while stretching his hips forward and then sidewards, "I think I broke my back."
"I told you I can walk!" Jennie crosses her arms.
"If you wanted your injury to get worse you could've just told me," Jisoo suddenly smacked the back of Jennie's head, making the latter glare at her.
"Yah cut her some slack," Lisa, who is sitting on a separate couch and is beside Rosé, glares at Jisoo too.
"Thanks for carrying her oppa, you can leave now," Rosé grins at him. "We still have a lot to discuss before recording and you can't be here."
Mino pouts, "But I carried her! Can't I at least get some spoilers?"
"Nope," Jennie shoos him away with her hand, "Go now oppa, thanks for helping me."
"Rude, we're not besties anymore from now on," Mino jokes, "Lisa wanna be my bestie?"
Lisa drapes her arm around Rosé and shook her head, "I have my bes already."
"Bes?" Mino cocked his brow.
"Bestie," Rosé proudly says with a huge grin on her face, "Anyway oppa, we're just kidding. You can stay if you want."
Mino's dazzling, boyish smile was on as he shook his head and ruffled Jennie's hair, who swatted his hand right away. "Maybe next time, I have a schedule too so I'll let you be for now."
Jennie looked at the Thai from the corner of her eyes, half expecting some kind of reaction from the girl. She doesn't know why she's thinking Lisa would at least be a little jealous, it just sounds ridiculous now that she confirmed that Lisa's not jealous.
-
One thing she's sure of is she's really, really jealous. Lisa tiptoed to the living room at 2 in the morning, expecting everyone's asleep when to her surprise, Jennie's on the couch with an empty bottle of soju on the table.
"Were you waiting for me?" Lisa frowns, dropping her shoes on the doorstep. "Unnie we have a practice later. Why are you drinking?"
"I didn't drink," Jennie quickly denies, setting the bottle aside, "It was Chaeng's brilliant idea to drink because according to her, Kimchi tastes better with Soju. Now she's knocked out on her bed."
"That makes sense..." Lisa nods, "I mean, Chaeng being the irresponsible one."
Jennie scoffs. "You're one to talk," she mutters under her breath.
"What was that?" Lisa curiously asks because it was too low for her to hear it.
"How was your date with Jackson?" she asks instead.
At the mention of his name, Lisa smiled a little. "Fun, he's so loud though thankfully there weren't much people on the second floor of that restaurant."
Jennie smiled weakly. "So what are you two now? Is it official?"
"We haven't talked about it, really," Lisa sighs as she plops down beside the brunette, "I feel guilty. We're all working too hard, I don't want to ruin it for you guys."
Brushing off Lisa's hair away from her face, Jennie turned her body to face her, "Don't say that, you're allowed to be happy too. If he makes you happy then good thing you're allowed to have your own personal life, no one can take it away from you. You will still be BLACKPINK Lisa no matter what."
At that, Lisa cracks another smile. "This is why I chose having five Jennies rather than having 5 years old Jennie. While you, you chose 5 years old Lisa instead of having five of me..." her hand flies to her mouth dramatically, talking about questions their fans loved to ask during fansigns.
"One 24 year old Lisa is already unbearable as it is," Jennie's lips stretches into a playful grin as she stood up, stretching a little as she moved away.
"You love me though," Lisa's voice was quiet.
But when Jennie spun around to face her, there was still that smirk on the Thai's face. She easily recovered from the gay panic building up by yawning and turning her back again on Lisa.
"Of course I love you. Now, I'm going to sleep and you do that too."
But of course, Lisa followed her to her room. The Korean knew it's dangerous because stopping her gay panic is just getting harder.
"I love you too Unnie. And because we love each other, let's sleep together," Lisa invites herself over Jennie's bed, peeling off the sheet with an expecting smile. The bed dipped as Jennie laid beside her, lights now off, eyes hard to prevent Lisa from seeing her chaotic inside.
The Thai brought down the sheets to tuck Jennie in like she was a five year old, and of course draped an arm and a leg on her unnie under the sheets.
"Lalisa," she said in a warning and she was so damn thankful her strict voice didn't waver.
But Lisa stubbornly snuggled closer, her warmth making Jennie's cheeks hot.
"I missed hanging out with you alone, Unnie. Didn't you miss me?"
"That's because you're so busy..." Jennie answers after a while, as if she was out of breath. Lisa eased a little with the one-sided cuddling, her head now propped on her hand as she lie on her side.
"You are busier," Lisa points out in the darkness, though her beautiful brown eyes is still visible in the darkness. "You're hanging out a lot with Winner these days, weren't you?"
Jennie's close with the members of the boy group since their trainee days so this wasn't much of a news.
"Mm-hmm," Jennie confirms, "And you with Got7 Jackson."
"I feel like BLACKPINK Jennie should spend more time with BLACKPINK Lisa," the Thai says good naturedly, and Jennie guesses, jokingly.
"We are always together," Jennie rolls her eyes with a smile.
"Oh, yeah, you're right," Lisa seems to be thinking as she clicked her tongue, "I should have said Nini and Lili, my bad."
Her heartbeat is rising even when Jennie knew Lisa only meant it as a good friend who wanted to exist in her life beyond a mere coworker. They're friends. Of course they should also hangout as friends, outside work.
"Isn't right now a Lili-Nini time?" Jennie says, staring at the ceiling as if it would help set her heart's pace back to normal.
"Only if you'll cuddle back."
But it made Jennie worry that whatever she's feeling at the moment might be obvious if Lisa ever gets close to her chest to feel her heartbeat.
"I don't want to," she says playfully instead.
"Okay then, no more cuddling my cats," Lisa threatens, making Jennie stare at her in shock.
"Yah!"
Lisa grinned, stretching her arms, "Then let me cuddle my cat unnie."
And Jennie had no choice but to surrender and lean onto her, she wasn't strong enough to resist the want to be in Lisa's arms especially when like what the Thai said, they hadn't spent a lot of time together.
Nevermind that her heartbeat must be giving away her tiny little crush because Lisa's heartbeat is making her smile as well, mirroring her own's pace.
So they've been cuddling a lot the following days. Big deal?
No, it's just a crush. A girl crush. Every girl got one, right?
"Yeah, I mean I got girl crushes too," Mino tries to comfort her and fails, obviously. They're alone in one of the studios in their company building because Jennie barged in while he was busy experimenting some beats, freaked out because of this stupid girl crush that's getting a little out of hand.
Earlier, Lisa caught her staring at her lips while the Thai was on top of her as she was just lying in the floor to regain some energy to practice their live singing. Typical Lisa to be playful around her unnies while they are practicing.
And Jennie just had to tell someone, probably a close friend out of their group. Mino just seemed to be an easy target.
"But if you really like her, tell her," he advised as if it was that easy.
"No way," Jennie sighs exasperated. "And it's different, I don't like her. Like I said, girl crush. Don't you have a bro crush or something?"
Mini stifles a laugh. "Well I like GD. Doesn't mean I want to kiss him. I just look up to him, but not specifically to his lips."
"So I like her that bad?" Jennie sounded defeated on her own realization.
"Yeah, you do," Mino confirms, "You want her."
"I might be simply fond of her."
"Yet you want to kiss her."
"I didn't say that!"
"So you don't?" he gave her an inquisitive look.
Jennie's face fell behind her hands. "Maybe I do. I'm curious."
"Curious. Huh," he nods, as if understanding. "Sounds like infatuation."
"That's good right? I still have time to back out," Jennie had hope in her eyes as she raised her head.
"The thing with infatuation is it only stops once you see an ugly side of her."
"That side literally doesn't exist," Jennie rolls her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous."
Mino grinned at the attitude, "You got it bad for her. Wanna co-write a song with me? Feelings are good for songwriting. Monetize them. Lisa will make you so damn richer."
"You're not helping!" Jennie whines.
"It can't be helped. Your infatuation will only end the other remaining option: falling in love."
At that, Jennie threw the cushion at him which he caught before it landed hard on his smug face.
"Just make sure not to tell anyone. I'm trusting you on this," Jennie semi-threatens him.
"Mind letting me in on this secret?" the voice that made Jennie's heart beat madly infiltrated the room.
When she looked over her shoulder, Lisa's looking at them with raised brows, closing the door behind her.
"Why are you here?" Jennie's question seemed to make Lisa frown.
"Vince oppa said you'd be here. Came here to get you," she says, coming closer, "Break time is almost over. So what were you guys talking about?"
"I can't tell," Mino grinned, "I was told to keep it between us if I don't want to be buried alive."
"Well, okay," Lisa says, confused and quiet. She flickered her gaze back to Jennie and offered her hand, "Let's get back to practice?"
Jennie stared at that hand, then at the smile tugging on Mino's lips. She doesn't know why her feelings are making her nervous and Mino could tell.
"I'll be back later oppa," Jennie sighs, taking Lisa's hand, whose hold was firm.
Lisa just bowed to him a little, a little too formal than normal.
The male idol was left watching at the two girls in amusement and whispers to himself, "Well, it just became more interesting."
Meanwhile, the two girls left the room with Lisa's hand still holding Jennie's, the maknae awfully quiet.
"You could have messaged me instead of coming all the way here," Jennie tries to start a conversation since the silence in the elevator was deafening.
"I wanted to get you myself."
The Korean bit the inside of her cheek.
Only then did Lisa's gaze drifted to her, then to her ankles, "You're still recovering. Yet you walked all the way to Mino oppa's studio."
An amused smile lingered on Jennie's face, "Is our youngest reprimanding me?"
Lisa shrugged. "I was just looking out for you, Unnie. You don't like bringing your crutch with you."
"He doesn't mind carrying me though," Jennie quips but it didn't even make Lisa smile. Maybe the girl isn't in the mood today.
"Must be urgent?" Lisa cocked a brow, tilting her head while staring at Jennie who looked confused so Lisa continued, "You coming to him, sharing secrets with the little break time we have, half across the building with your injured ankle."
"Oh. Yeah. It couldn't wait," Jennie says, thanking God the elevator door finally opened and she was the first one to step out of it. She also subtly dropped Lisa's hand, then smiled, "Don't worry about me, my ankle doesn't even hurt that much anymore."
At that, Lisa gave her a small smile before walking with her, her hand finding the small of Jennie's back, "Good."
Jennie stopped breathing. A small gesture like this used to be something she wouldn't even notice or dwell on, but since this ridiculous girl crush struck her, even the slightest touch of a fingertip would send tingles up her spine.
It's actually worrisome.