Jisoo was sprawled on the soft satin sheet of her queen-sized bed. She had been wide awake for hours now. And if her stares could burn, she'd already have put soots and holes on the ceiling of her bedroom.
She was still wearing the dress that she had worn for the gala dinner she attended last night. Her raven hair was a beautiful mess around her head and her eyes were now fixed on the tiniest smudge of ink vaguely visible on the spread of white above her. Which she knew too well that it was her own doing.
She had once flung her favorite pen on the ceiling, wanting to feed her curiosity about how sturdy the case of her pen was and how high she could fling it in the air. It was sturdy, she found out, after it did not break open when it hit the concrete ceiling. But the tip of the ballpoint miraculously touched the white paint and left a mark there, which nobody else knew about. The pen did not work properly after that and Jisoo prohibited a repainting on her ceiling. She felt like it was one of her secrets, a weird relationship between her and her room.
"AAAAAARGH!" Jisoo screamed and sprung herself up on her bed. Her hands automatically flew towards her head and disturbed her already messy mane.
The memory of her kissing--no, smashing her mouth--on Chaeyoung's mouth kept replaying on her head since she got home at almost four in the morning.
"I am so stupid!" Jisoo told herself for the nth time and dropped herself back on her bed once again. She went back to her eagle-spread position. "So so so so stupid!" She was kicking her feet four times against the soft linens, putting an emphasis on the word "so" every time. Her soft pillows scattered all over the floor.
She had already lost count the number of times she screamed and sprung up and then plopped herself back on the soft mattress and did it on repeat eversince she got home from her stupid stopover at the Orange.
"I think I like her?" Jisoo repeated the monologue she had been doing with herself for the umpteenth time. The echo of her own words from the dawn at the Orange was haunting her. "I. Like. Her?? Since when did you ever like a...a woman, Jisoo Kim? A woman! For God's sake! Idiot! You're an idiot!" she told herself and shut her eyes.
When Jisoo was a kid, her mother would often tell her to shut her eyes if she wants to forget a bad memory. It was the trick, her mother would often say. "Close your eyes and think of something happy." And now that she shut her eyes tight, all she could see was Chaeyoung, grinning at her and telling her that she hasn't died yet after drinking that stupid cocktail she made and named after herself.
"That idiot," Jisoo mumbled and heard her phone ringing.
The sound of the ringing was muffled. She knew she had thrown it somewhere underneath all the sheets of her bed out of sheer frustrations and annoyance to own idiocy. And the thought of unearthing her phone from the layers of her bed linens was already tedious enough.
So Jisoo rolled her back, instead of standing to her feet and systematically recover her device beneath the layers of sheets, after she felt the vibration of her phone against her back. It was Jennie, calling.
Jisoo suddenly realized something while she was staring hard at Jendeukie's name on her screen. Maybe this was all that she was waiting for.
"Oh, yes. Right on cue," Jisoo muttered and sprung herself up again and snatched the device rather harshly.
"This is all your fault, Ruby Jane! I swear to God I will reap you open when I see you and feed your internal organs to Dalgomie! He'd love that!" Jisoo told her bestfriend as soon as she slid her thumb towards the green telephone icon on the screen.
"Well, Happy Valentine's to you, too, Jisoo Kim!" Jennie responded sardonically from the other line. "I don't know what you're talking about but you better come over because we need to talk."
"T-talk?" Jisoo said, repeatedly blinking her tired, bloodshot eyes. A sudden shot of cold slid down her spine. Her hand gripped the device rather tightly. Did Chaeyoung told Lisa and Lisa told Jennie? "What are we going to talk about? If this is about something I did at that stupid bar, then no. I cannot talk to you about it. Because I did not do anything politically wrong."
"What bar? Did you mean the Orange? Have you been there?" Jennie asked from the other line.
"Yes! No!"
"Chu, what--?"
Jisoo signed in resignation and slowly said, "Well, yes. Yes. Fine. Yes, I went there. But now is not the right time to talk about anything, Jendeuk. I'm tired and sleepy," and feigned an obvious loud fake yawn. "Did you hear that, Ruby Jane? I was yawning because I'm tired and sleepy. I need to go now. Please hang up already," she almost begged Jennie.
"What did you do, Chu?" Jennie asked suspiciously, not buying Jisoo's fake yawn.
"I honestly don't like the accusatory tone on your voice, Ruby Jane. Are you seriously accusing me of something that you know I wouldn't do, ever, right now?" Jisoo asked, sounding defensive.
"What on earth are you talking about?" Jennie asked curiously, sounding a bit weary and annoyed.
"I don't know. Why do you want to talk to me all of a sudden?" Jisoo shoot back.
"What do you mean why? We've been talking since pre-puberty, Jisoo Kim! Me wanting to talk to you right now is not 'all of a sudden'," Jennie pointed out.
"Okay, let me rephrase it for you, Jendeuk: What do you want to talk to me all of a sudden?"
"Things. Stuff. Lots of important, pressing matters that you and I need to discuss in person and in private," Jennie answered.
"Like what?" Jisoo prodded.
"Like I cannot discuss it with you over the phone, Chu. Because apparently, I now have a driver and he's obviously eavesdropping right now. Hence, it is imperative that you need to come over and meet me at the house in thirty minutes," Jennie said. The obvious annoyance and contained anger on Jennie's voice was all it took for Jisoo to realize the grave seriousness of the situation.
"Oh, shit. Did hell broke loose overnight? Okay, no, don't answer that. I'll see you at your place in thirty minutes," Jisoo said and flung her phone on the mattress, not minding if Jennie was still on the line or not.
She and Jennie have one important rule about phone calls. They discussed and imposed the veracity of it eversince the day they were allowed to use a phone, which was eons ago. And it says: "The one who called should hang up first. Ignoring to do so would equate a severe punishment. The punishment should be decided by the aggrieved party." They even both signed a piece of paper that they torn from Jennie's diary book.
Punishment back then was childish and immature but should still be taken seriously. Friendship Golden Rule: "Be childish and immature. But do so together." But now that they're older, punishment for the "phone calls rule" would mean paying for everything the next time they would splurge themselves to anything or everything. And Jisoo wasn't worrying a bit about breaking the rule at the moment because she did not technically hung up first. She just threw her phone on the bed. And for all she knew, Jendeuk might have already hung up while her phone was suspended in mid-air. Who knew?
"Damn rules. I kissed a girl," Jisoo muttered as she admitted herself inside her walk-in closet. She needed to change. Her dress reeked of a pungent mixture of perfume and spoiled alcohol.
...
Meanwhile, Lisa had been sitting on the same high stool she had sat upon waking up on her kitchen. Leo was back on his favorite place in the apartment. Which was anywhere away from Lisa's reach. And Luca went back to sleeping on the windowsill. The only sound that was generously disturbing the monotony was Lisa's speakers on the living room, where Tracy Chapman was asking for that one reason to stay.
The house felt quiet and empty after Jennie left, Lisa realized, as she was staring at the distorted pancake sitting on one of the two plates that are strategically placed above the dining table.
"I know you don't like talking to me but I need you to explain things to me right now, Leo," Lisa spoke, her soft round eyes sought Leo. She found him hiding behind a shelf; his wide eyes were staring back at her. "Why does the house feel empty and quiet all of a sudden?"
Leo repositioned himself, preparing to run away as fast as he could in case Lisa would decide to walk over and scoop him up and imprisoned him inside her snuggles once again.
"You should know the answer, Leo. You obviously like her, too," Lisa continued and decided to heave herself up from the high stool, making a beeline towards the table.
Leo impulsively ran as fast as he could towards the top of the staircase.
"Aren't you a little paranoid?" Lisa told Leo as she found him lurking at the top step of the stairway.
Leo just stared at her, looking as though he thought Lisa was a little paranoid.
"'Like' is an understatement," Lisa told herself as she forked a portion of the distorted pancake and brought it to her mouth. It tasted flour. "It is an understatement," Lisa repeated and took the whole pancake on her mouth.
She wasn't really hungry and the pancake's cheap flour taste was nowhere close to her favorite pancake in the world--her mother's recipe of soft, thick pancakes smoothered in syrup, a sprinkle of powder sugar and fresh berries. But Jennie made it for her, the distorted one. And she already missed Jennie, eventhough it's only been half an hour since Nini left.
Lisa's eyes shoot up and all her senses came live when she heard the doorbell. Even Leo and Luca shared the sudden excitement that their hooman Lisa was feeling at the moment.
Nini, Lisa thought as she quickened her pace towards the door, crossing the distance between her kitchen and the living room. But it wasn't Jennie, Lisa found out as soon as she opened the door.
"Chaeng?" Lisa asked when she was meet by the flustered face of the redhead.
"Hi, Shutterbug!" greeted Chaeyoung with a bright but anxious smile.
"Hey! Come in, come in. What are you doing here?" Lisa told and asked her bestfriend.
"Uhm--,"
"And why did you have to ring the bell? You know the code, right?"
"Well, I didn't want to intrude. Just in case you're, you know, not alone," Chaeng said as she took off her overcoat.
"But I am alone," Lisa said before she noticed her two furballs who were waiting for Chaeng to recognize their existence. "Well, not really," she said.
"Heyyyy! How's the two most handsome furballs in the planet doing?" Chaeyoung asked and scioped the two cats on her arms and kissed them on their noses. "Leo's eyeing you suspiciously," she then told Lisa.
"He's been eyeing me suspiciously eversince. I don't know what his problem is," Lisa said scornfully and went back to the kitchen. Chaeyoung followed.
"Are you making pancakes?" the redhead asked when she saw the mess that Jennie left with the pancake batter droplets on the stove and the kitchen counter. She even took a peek of the pancake batter laying cold and abandoned on the frying pan.
"No. Jennie did," Lisa replied.
"Oh! Is Jennie still here? I'm so sorry. I can come back later, if you want?" Chaeyoung said, suddenly looking anxious and ready to bolt out the door.
"Don't be silly. She left half an hour ago," said Lisa, eyeing her bestfriend curiously.
"She left? Why? Did something happen?" Chaeyoung asked in her most concerned voice.
The last question sent Lisa back to the almost-steamy moment she shared with Jennie, before the Kai guy arrived. The kiss, she thought with a subtle sigh. Those kisses they shared as they explore they delicateness of each other's mouth and the slow dance their tongues did. Wet, hot and intimate. Lisa shivered as she remembered the moans and soft whiperings of their own discoveries.
"Uhm, n-no," she said, suddenly feeling uncomfortably hot in the face. "A guy came over and picked her up. Her driver, apparently." She decided that she couldn't look Chaeyoung straight in the eyes, so she decided to stare at Luca, instead.
"I didn't know she has a driver?" Chaeyoung asked.
"She didn't either," Lisa replied, thinking about the less welcoming look Jennie gave to the Kai guy. "Hey, does every driver in Gangnam doesn't look like a driver at all?"
"What do you mean?" Chaeyoung asked.
"That guy was wearing a Gucci. I think he even smelled Gucci, too," Lisa replied.
"I don't know, Lisa. Maybe that's, like, their designated uniform or something. Are you okay?" the redhead asked.
"Yeah, of course," Lisa replied. "Anyway, I don't know if there's anything relevant about it or whatever, but Jennie is a Kim. I just found out. So, her name is Jennie Kim. Does it ring a bell to you, Chipmunk?" she asked.
"No. But Jisoo kissed me," Chaeyoung blurted out before she could contain herself.
Lisa blinked and just stared at her bestfriend before she realized that she was already looking stupid with her mouth slightly hanging open and eyes almost bulging.
"Jisoo what?!? What do you mean Jisoo kissed you? Did you mean Jisoo, as in Jennie's friend Jisoo?" Lisa inquired.
"Yes. That Jisoo," Chaeyoung replied, rolling her eyes. She'd never imagined talking to Lisa, telling the blond about someone kissing her. It felt weird, considering that Lisa was the only person she'd ever wanted to kiss.
"Whoa! Why? I mean, when? Where?" Lisa asked.
"At the bar. She arrived an hour after you and Jennie left. I don't know why she did that," the redhead replied.
"And she kissed you where exactly?"
"In the mouth, Lisa. Where else? Well, she sort of just rammed her mouth on mine, actually. She almost knocked my front teeth off. That idiot!" Chaeyoung said, feeling a little awkward all of a sudden.
"Did she say anything after?" Lisa asked, trying to contain herself from laughing so hard. She didn't want to offend the Chipmunk. But she never thought she'd ever hear Chaeyoung telling her about stolen kisses. And the fact that Jennie's bestfriend, Jisoo, was the culprit? Everything just seemed funny all of a sudden.
"She told me my cocktail was disgusting," Chaeyoung replied.
"What?" Lisa asked.
"I mean, she was talking fast and incoherently, like she was blabbering, before she told me that the cocktail I gave her was disgusting. The was the only part that was clear and coherent enough for me to understand. And then she just stormed out. I mean, I really don't understand how she had the nerve to walk out from me, angrily, if I might add, when it was me who was the victim here!" the redhead said lividly.
"Victim how?" Lisa prodded, a laughter was already visible on her face.
"She stole a kiss from me, Lisa! What gave her the right to storm out and be mad like that? And why are you laughing?"
It was Lisa's cue to release all the bubbles of laughter contained on her throat. She laughed and then said, "I cannot believe Jisoo kissed you! I mean, you both hate each other. Right?"
"Oh, here we go again. I. Don't. Hate. Her!" the redhead snapped.
"Okay! Okay!" Lisa said in between giggles. "Wow, it's Valentine's Day and here we are talking about stolen kisses, Gucci-clad drivers and Jennie being a Kim," she said and sighed. "Hey, can I borrow your phone?"
"Sure. But why?" Chaeyoung looked apprehensive but still handed her phone to Lisa.
"I'm just really curious why Jennie had to withhold her being a Kim to me," Lisa replied. She could, of course, use her own phone or computer. But both her devices were upstairs and Leo's there. She didn't want to intimidate the cat further. Plus, she's feeling tediously lazy at the moment.
"So, what are you going to do?" Chaeyoung asked as she watched Lisa tinkering her phone.
"Google her," the blond answered. "Something should come up, right? A LinkedIn or something. Anything. Does her Jennie ends with a 'y' or 'ie'?" Lisa asked as she was about to type Jennie's name on the search box.
"You're the one who spend most of the time with her. You should know," Chaeyoung said with a raised brow.
"Well, we really don't discuss the spelling of her name, to be honest. Let's try the one that ends with a 'y' first, then. Okay, here we go," Lisa said and typed "Jenny Kim" on the box.
Chaeyoung scooted closer and took a look at her phone's screen.
"Jenny Kim is a South Korean model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Supranational 2017 blah blah blah," Lisa was reading out loud the Wiki result, scrolled a little more further, stared at the beautiful face of the woman in the picture and added, "This isn't her."
"Try the other Jennie," Chaeyoung suggested. She, too, was starting to get curious about Jennie's identity.
Lisa typed "Jennie Kim" on the box and was shocked with what she saw.
"Nothing," she said.
"What do you mean nothing?" Chaeng asked and took her phone from Lisa's hand. And all she could read was, "No results found."
"Google couldn't give me anything about a Jennie Kim. Unbelievable! Is that even her name?" Lisa sounded exasperated.
"Hey, stop that. I'm sure Jennie has an explanation," Chaeyoung told Lisa.
"Why are you defending her all of a sudden?" Lisa asked the redhead.
"I'm not. I just don't want you to think about anything stupid right now. Anyway, I'm hungry!" Chaeyoung said.
What better way to divert their focus than to think about eating a good set of meal on a freezing Valentine's Day, right? And no, she wasn't trying to keep Lisa for herself. She just wanted to get out and eat good food and forget Jisoo's kiss and how she was thinking about it from the moment she woke up. And maybe it could help Lisa, too, from thinking too much about Jennie's identity.
"Me, too," Lisa said and asked, "Do you want to go out?"
Chaeyoung nodded and asked, "What about all these?" She was looking at the mess on Lisa's kitchen.
"I'll clean this up later when I get back," Lisa answered. She didn't want to disturb Jennie's mess yet. Stupid as it may sound, but she thought Jennie's mess on her kitchen was the only real flaw about Jennie. And she loved that flaw.
...
"So, what's your story?" Jennie asked the stranger on the front seat as they were cruising down the street of Gangnam.
"What do you mean?" Kai asked back and added, "Miss Kim?"
Jennie smirked on the rearview mirror as she was trying to catch the stranger's eyes.
"I mean, who are you and why are you driving me home to my mother?" Jennie asked. "I can ask my mother about you later, of course. But maybe you might want to fill me in with your version of the story, first?"
"There's nothing more to tell. I'm your driver, Miss Kim," Kai answered curtly.
"My mother didn't orient you well about me, did she?" Jennie asked and scoffed.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Miss Kim," Kai responded cautiously. He was too cautious that he intended to not meet Jennie's eyes on the rearview mirror.
"Of course you do," Jennie told him disdainfully. "Because if she did, then she would have specifically told you to call me Lady Kim. That's how everyone from the household staff and the company would address me, as per her instruction."
Kai remained resolutely silent. His focus was on the road, but Jennie could tell that he was thinking, the way his jaw would occasionally twitch and how his brows were furrowed.
"So, let me ask you again. Kai, right? What's your story?" Jennie prodded.
Kai took his time and when he met Jennie's eyes on the mirror, his eyes were laughing at her.
"I was told I'm supposed to marry you, instead of my cousin, Yi Eun. I thought, 'No way!' I heard a lot of stuff about you, Jennie Kim. They said you're hard to handle and that you're really stubborn. And so I told myself, no, I am not going to marry that kind of woman. But now that I've finally met you? I think I'll give it a shot,"Kai said confidently." And it's Jongin, by the way. Jongin Kim."
Jennie smirked and glared at him. Another Kim, she thought. She was right, she told herself. Kai looked a little too overdressed for a driver. And she knew how drivers slash security dressed up in Jisoo's dad's security company. They would never wear fancy Gucci scarfs and sweaters.
"I won't, if I were you," Jennie said, feeling too tired to even argue and tell this Kai guy that she's not interested, at all.
Her thoughts drifted back to Lisa's kitchen. And how it smelled of cats and Lisa. She missed the tall blond already. She missed how Lisa made her feel a million things just by kissing her. Chaeyoung Park was absolutely right. Lisa was a great kisser.
And now, Jennie was curious what more could Lisa do and those plump lips of hers. She needed to find that out.