If I'm losing a piece of me, maybe I don't want heaven:
"Joohyun!"
Jennie sucks in a breath and stops walking, glancing at Y/n who momentarily stopped walking too, hearing the woman's agonized voice calling for her daughter.
"It's okay," Y/n mumbles, shooting her a look over her shoulders. Her hand twitches, like it wants to reach for Jennie's. "Come on. Just follow my lead."
And with one look into Y/n's dark eyes, the anxiety that has Jennie hunching up her shoulders ebbs away, eases the tension like a twisted drug taking away the pain.
She nods and starts walking up the steep hill leading to Joohyun's house.
The village feels strange this morning. It's empty and quiet, like something's not quite right.
The sky has cleared up, no more dark clouds looming above them. It's a beautiful day, the prettiest one so far this week.
There are puddles on the ground, yellow pollen swimming on the surface from the rain washing it down over the past few days. Birds are chirping happily, the by now familiar chime of the cows' bells in the distance making this seem like any other morning in the small village.
But it's not.
Joohyun is gone.
Jennie feels like there's a heavy stone pressing down on her chest.
"Please calm down. We will find her-"
"Joohyun! My daughter- My beautiful daughter! She's gone!"
"Auntie please-"
They arrive at Joohyun's house at that moment; walk through the gate to the small garden where days prior Jennie watched Y/n fight Joohyun's cousin, bloody and bruised. Y/n stops Jennie, the back of her hand gently knocking against her stomach, and Jennie stays put behind her, peering over her shoulder to watch what's going on.
She kind of wishes she didn't look.
Joohyun's mother is kneeling on the ground, crying, a crumpled piece of paper on her lap. Another women is trying to calm her down, trying to help her get up and sit down on a chair instead, but the woman is inconsolable.
She's sobbing, loud and unrestrained, repeating Joohyun's name like a mantra.
Some men are shouting inside the house and by now, the commotion has attracted the attention of the other villagers, who arrive with confused expressions on their faces, gasping loudly when other whisper to them about what happened that night.
"Joohyun ran away."
"Minhyuk's daughter, Seulgi, she's gone, too."
"They ran away together? What is the meaning of this?"
"Let's pray it doesn't mean what we think it means."
"What a disgrace. Bringing shame to her family like that."
Jennie feels her blood boil at all the hushed words that are being exchanged around her. A part of her wants to turn around and yell at them to shut the hell up.
To stop worrying about their religion for once and worry about Joohyun and Seulgi who had to leave in the dead of the night and go to a foreign city where god knows what could happen to them.
No one's worried about that, though, are they?
They don't even fucking care about Joohyun.
She'll forever be known as the selfish girl that ran away and left her parents to clean up her mess.
Her head snaps up when the door to the house slams open, several men walking out, including Joohyun's cousin Kwangsun whose eyes immediately land on Y/n.
His lips pull back in a snarl and before Jennie can even comprehend what's happening, the older guy walks up to them and grips Y/n's shirt, getting all up in her face.
The older people around them gasp in shock, some of them trying to pull Kwangsun away from Y/n, but the guy won't budge, glaring at Y/n with a deadly look in his eyes.
"Where the hell is she?"
Jennie doesn't even realize she has her hands curled into the back of Y/n's shirt until Y/n reaches back and squeezes her wrist in a silent sign to make her let go before anyone sees.
"Do you really think I would tell you if I knew?" Y/n calmly asks.
"Bullshit! If anyone knows where she went it's you, Kim! Don't fucking test me right now, I'll rip your head off if you don't-"
"Kwangsun!" Uncle Changho suddenly steps through the small group of people at the gates, looking way too angry for Jennie's liking. "What on earth has gotten into you? Let go of her!"
"Joohyun is gone, uncle!" Kwangsun shouts. "And she knows where she is! I bet you she even helped that slut run away-"
Y/n growls and knocks Kwangsun away with her arms. "I dare you to call her that one more time!"
"She's my cousin!" Kwangsun snaps back. "I'll call her whatever the fuck I want. Look at her mother!" She points at the poor woman sitting on the ground, weeping quietly to herself. "Look what she's putting her whole family through! She's always been a selfish brat. We should've seen this coming. Why the fuck are we even looking for her, huh? She won't survive a day in the city. Silly bitch-"
"Shut up! You fucking bastard-" Y/n lunges at him but Seokmin suddenly appears out of nowhere, wrapping his arms around Y/n's middle to pull her back.
"Not again, Y/n. Enough," He quietly says.
"I called the bus station," Another boy speaks up, putting her phone away in her pocket. "They haven't seen her or Seulgi. The guy at the desk said he didn't sell any tickets to them. Said he would've recognized them. Their CCTV didn't catch them either, there were some people that might've been then but we can't be sure."
"Do you think they're stupid enough to buy the tickets themselves? One of the other kids must've bought them." Kwangsun shoots them all a glare.
"He would've recognized anyone from the village, Kwangsun," Uncle Changho says. "Let's all just calm down for a moment. What did Joohyun say in her letter?"
Kwangsun scoffs as the guy from before kneels down to pick up the crumpled piece of paper, handing it to uncle Changho who starts reading it.
Jennie peers at it from the side, her eyes flickering over neat handwriting on the paper.
Mom, dad, I'm sorry for putting you through this. I'm sorry I was never able to be the daughter you wanted to have. I know all I've done was let you down, but would you believe me if I said that the feeling is mutual? You let me down so many times it stopped hurting me years ago.
Don't look for me. I wouldn't have left if I wanted to be found. The village is not a place I can see a future for myself at, it has never been. I can't be happy somewhere people want to control my every move, how I speak, what I wear, who I love. I can't be happy where people can't accept me for who I am.
Take that as you will. I know you won't understand. You don't want to understand, and I guess that's okay. It's not your fault. I want you to know that I'm not doing this to spite you. I just want to be happy. And if there is even a small ounce of love somewhere in your hearts for me, then you will accept my decision and be happy for me, too.
I know I never said this out loud, but I do love you, mom and dad. I wish you could've loved me, too.
Goodbye,
Joohyun
Her eyes are stinging by the time uncle Changho lowers the letter, a tired sigh leaving the man's lips.
Jennie looks at the ground, her heart heavy in her chest.
"Isn't it clear that she doesn't want to be found?" Uncle Changho asks into the round.
Kwangsun lets out something close to a snarl. "No one cares what she wants! I'll track her down, I'll chase her through the whole fucking nation if I have to-"
"Like hell you will," Uncle Changho interrupts him. "Sit down, boy, before I beat some sense into you with my cane."
"She's my daughter, uncle," The man that's currently holding Joohyun's mother speaks up. Jennie's seen him around before but for some reason, she never made the connection and realized that he was Joohyun's dad. He definitely resembles her, the eyes and the mouth. "How can you expect me to just sit here and relax, not knowing if she's safe, if she has money, a roof over her head-"
"If you care so much about her, why didn't you show her while she was still around?" Uncle Changho asks.
Joohyun's mother lets out a sob and her father starts tearing up.
No one seems to know what to say to that.
Even Kwangsun lowers her head, shoulders shaking with rage, maybe even something close to remorse.
Y/n sighs and glances at Jennie.
The sun shines down on them.
And despite everything, Jennie has a feeling that in the end, everything will be okay
-
Jennie's head must look like an overripe tomato.
It's been dangling off the edge of the hammock for quite a while now, but it feels too heavy at this point to lift it back up, so Jennie doesn't even bother in the first place.
Her butt touches Kuma's back at every swing of the hammock.
"Kuma, baby, you're fat."
Kuma huffs like he understood her and when Jennie twists her head to peer at him, he still has his eyes closed, napping quietly in the shadow of the fruit trees in between small daffodils and healthy green grass.
"Buddy, are you listening? You're chubby. My butt shouldn't be able to touch you at all. The hammock's so high above the ground-"
Kuma blinks one eye open and stares straight into Jennie's eyes and she stays like that until Jennie shrinks back, muttering an apology under her breath and reaching her hand out to pat Kuma's head, who only huffs again but goes back to napping the whole day away.
It's the afternoon. Jennie has lost track of time and her phone is upstairs so the only thing she can rely on is the position of the sun, which looks like it's starting to get ready to set.
After raining for the last few days, summer has come back full force, making clothes stick to everyone's skin again, bees and butterflies and all sorts of insects flying around and making Jennie shudder in fear whenever they get too close to her.
The air smells sweet, fruity and floral, and Jennie already misses this.
The silence, the nature, the gentle summer breeze ruffling her bangs, tickling her skin, the sounds of their chicken walking around in the garden, the cow bells in the distance, tractors passing through the village.
Even the dried little heaps of cow shit she keeps stepping on.
All of this.
But her summer here is coming to an end, and she's running out of time.
Jennie sighs and blinks her eyes open, the leaves of the tree casting shadows across her skin, shielding her from the sun. She stays like this for a while, staring up at the tree, the flashes of blue of the sky.
Joohyun and Seulgi have been gone for two days.
No one went looking for them.
No one was saying what a lot of people were suspecting.
Because another silent rule in the village is that nothing is real unless it's spoken out loud.
So to these people, Seulgi and Joohyun ran away with each other because they were best friends.
And that's it. No more questions asked.
No more questions allowed.
Jennie wishes she had a way to contact them, just to check up on them, because they have yet to hear from them.
Joohyun promised to call as soon as they arrived, and they should've arrived yesterday evening, and it's making Jennie worry.
Y/n has work the whole day, so Jennie tries to calm down by telling herself that Joohyun probably already called the other girl, but since (for some reason) Jennie and Y/n never bothered to exchange numbers, Jennie can't know for sure until Y/n comes back home later tonight.
She went to the waterfall earlier with Seokmin and Nayeon. It was fun. They cooled down in the water and stepped behind the waterfall, talked about meaningless things, ate some of the food Jennie's grandma packed them before they left, tried to calm Nayeon down after a frog "attacked" her.
Jennie is going to miss them, too.
She's going to miss-
"Boo!"
"Jesus! Fuck!"
Jennie gets herself all tangled up in the hammock and Kuma values his life enough to get out of the way before Jennie falls on the grass.
She hears an amused giggle and blinks her eyes open with a groan, coming face to face with Taehyung who's peering down at her with an adorable smile.
"Got you!"
"You sure did." Jennie sits up, holding her back with a pained face.
Maybe she's being over dramatic.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing?" Jennie shrugs and stands up. "Wasting time, mostly."
"So you have time for me?"
"Sure. What do you need me for?"
"I mostly just need your laptop, actually," Taehyung says and that's when Jennie notices the blue see-through folder in his hands.
"My laptop?"
"Deadlines for college applications are coming up," He explains to her. "And I can't upload my files on my phone. I even have a USB stick! I just need to fill out the application online from a computer, and no one else around here has one. Except for uncle Changho's grandson, but he's not around."
Jennie tilts her head at h, not really sure what she's supposed to say. "What college?"
"There's a nursing school in Cheumsan."
"Huh, okay. You want to become a nurse?"
"Why else would I send my application there?" Taehyung gives her an exasperated look that has Jennie pouting.
"I'm just asking," She says and begins walking to the house. "Y/n knows about this, yeah?"
"Of course." Taehyung rolls his eyes. "She's the one who told me to ask you."
Jennie smiles at that. She knew Y/n wanted Taehyung to go to college, the older had mentioned it off-handedly the night they were drinking at the school, and Jennie's happy to hear that - even if it's only down in Cheumsan - Taehyung can get her education and do something he likes.
Taehyung sits down in the living room while Jennie grabs her laptop and opens it to quickly close some of the suspicious tabs on her browser before placing it on the coffee table in front of her.
"I'm going to make a phone call," Jennie tells him. "Just shout if you need any help, okay?"
"Yeah!" Taehyung nods his head and spreads out his documents on the couch. "Thank you for letting me use it."
"Don't mention it," Jennie says and smiles.
She calls her mom and talks to her for a few minutes and then sits down on her bed to scroll through her Instagram feed mindlessly before she decides to go back and check up on Taehyung who should be done by now with filling out the application.
When she enters the living room again, Taehyung looks up at her with wide eyes before quickly tapping away on her laptop as Jennie stands in the doorway. Jennie narrows her eyes at him when she hastily shuts the laptop and leans back with a boxy smile.
"All done?" Jennie asks.
"Yes!" Taehyung nods his head. "I should be hearing back from them by the end of the month, but there are never too many applicants around here anyway, so I'm sure I'll get in."
"Well, that's great, Taehyung." Jennie nods her head and smiles at him. "Did you need anything else? You want a popsicle or something?"
"Do you have any?" Taehyung asks, looking genuinely excited.
"Sure, come on." Jennie laughs and watches him gather his stuff before grabbing a raspberry flavoured popsicle from the freezer.
Taehyung leaves with a little wave, thanking her again, and Jennie watches him run down the stairs, fighting the urge inside of her to go back and check her laptop.
She trusts him, okay? What else would he need her laptop for?
"Nope, you're not going to do it," Jennie mumbles to herself. She grits her teeth together, bounces her leg for a good ten seconds before she groans and walks back into the living room, sitting down on the couch and opening the browser on her laptop.
She looks up her browsing history and sighs in relief when she finds nothing but the website of the nursing school Taehyung mentioned.
Jennie immediately feels bad for not trusting him and promises herself to send the rest of the popsicles to Taehyung next time he comes around.