VII. Quite Foreign
https://youtu.be/2E3li83lEJc
She’s jerked awake from the loud thud and heavy footsteps coming from the front door. She barely manages to get a glance from her spot on the couch when she sees Jisoo walking over with an empty expression and somehow it boils up confusion inside her instead of annoyance.
“Uhh Jisoo?”
She waits for a full beat and gets nothing, not even a glance her way.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming over today? Jennie didn’t say–”
The words seem to fall away at once, and Lisa pushes herself off the couch. It’s kind of weird how similar, yet how different both Kims can be when she sees Jisoo heading straight for Jennie’s room. The confusion bubbles over into realization and it hits her hard, she almost stammers for a second.
“Hey Chuu… What’re. What are you doing?” She still doesn't look her way, as if Lisa's invisible. The events of last night dawn on her as if from nowhere, and her breath hitches a bit for some reason.
"Fuck."
Jisoo finally spares her an ignorant glance but it doesn't stay on her, rather travels on the half empty bottles on the table, and all Lisa can detect on her face is disgust . She shakes her head and storms toward the bedroom.
"Is she okay?!"
"DON'T YOU EVEN DARE TALK TO ME ABOUT HER." Her voice is gruff and serious. Scary, to the least.
She pulls at the closet a little too roughly, pulling a duffel bag next and throwing it on the bed. Lisa’s watching it all, transfixed, a little too stuck, eyes darting over the clothes and the floor of her bedroom. Jisoo’s taking coats, and shirts off the rack and pushing them carelessly into the bag, stuffing it with any piece of clothing she manages to put her hand on.
"Wait, no no no, what are you doing?" She's suddenly brought back into reality again.
"Are you blind?!"
"No, I mean. Why are you taking her clothes?"
"Are you absolutely stupid or what? Don't behave like an asshole with me, I'm not Jennie, I'll kick your ass, Manoban."
"Wait wait wait. You shouldn't take anything with you, it's all her things—." With that, Jisoo stops whatever she was doing, steps back, takes an exhale and approaches her sharply.
"Know your fucking place, Manoban. I'm taking what's my sister's, and you're not the one stopping me after everything you've done to her. You won't be digesting all the hurt you've caused her by the way, know that. I just don't have the nerve for your shows at the moment. Get out of my way." It's almost horror-worthy how she's looking straight into her eyes while spitting annoyed bars her way.
"No… No, I mean I'm the one who must leave the house. She has to stay." Jisoo's face loosens a few muscles at that and she steps back again.
"That, Manoban, is not my business. Tell her yourself . I'm just making sure she has a change of clothes around." With that, she leaves.
Lisa follows her steps, "Just.. tell her, okay?"
She sticks out her middle finger in response before shutting the door on Lisa’s face.
Jisoo pushes the duffel bag onto the back seat, taking one quick mental note that she has everything with her before taking the driver’s seat. She takes another glance at the bag, then at the house across, and takes another deep breath. Somehow seeing it there just drives the point home that whatever happened last night wasn’t something she dreamt about.
There’s faint knocking on her door and if it weren’t for turning the TV off, Jisoo wouldn’t have heard it from all the rain. She looks at the time and gets ready to curse whoever it is while she walks toward the door. She opens the door to her soaked-to-the-bone cousin, whose makeup has apparently smudged off from all the crying she did.
"Jendeug?" She's shocked seeing Jennie like that, and judging by how well she knows her, Jisoo's anger is already boiling over.
Jennie's hugging her own arms while shivering as she takes a half step into the hallway and falls into her arms, "Jisoo…"
A car honk in the distance takes her off her thoughts and she blinks real hard to clear her mind off the image. She shakes off whatever it was and starts the car.
The first thing that hits her is the silence and the subtle clank of keys that scrape against the door and into her pocket. She walks over to the kitchen counter to grab a glass of water and cool down. Her mind's been foggy the whole week.
Her glance settles on the table where it feels a little too empty and bare. Maybe if she were too honest or brave, she'd realize she doesn't like the house without her. She settles on the thought that she doesn't like everything related to the house instead. It’s subtle, how it ticks something inside her, how after a week of heavy drinking and not deciding on hitting Call, she’s dialing, in less than a minute, familiar and memorized digits into her phone.
Jennie turns the tap off and gently pats the towel to her skin. Looking into the mirror has been a swallowing experience lately. Like she gets stuck in the depths of that shallow surface. She takes a quick glance at herself before she walks out into Jisoo’s guest bedroom where she’d been staying the past few days. It feels quite foreign, how it registers a little too late how the bed covers look different and why most of the things in front of her don’t match up to what she has back home. She hears her phone ringing, and it’s more than enough to get her attention on the bedside table where she left it.
The yellow heart that pops up on the screen doesn’t make sense. It does, really, in a mundane way. She knows what it means: she’s calling her… the why isn’t making any sense at all. It takes her a couple of seconds to realize the ringing has stopped. She wonders if it was by mistake. She gets a text "Please answer." And the phone rings the second time around. She takes the call.
"Hello"
"..." Silence on the line.
"Lisa." Sounds so weird saying it aloud in a long time.
"Hey.."
"Hey."
"..."
"Yes?"
"I, uhm, wanted to tell you— how are you?"
"I'm doing okay, thanks."
"..."
"You?" Gets her by surprise for some reason. She hasn't been thinking about the question for a while. Or maybe it's all she's been preoccupied with.
"Uhm, I'm doing fine, too."
"Good."
"..."
"..."
"I was gonna ask you— I think you should come back." For a moment, Jennie's heart skips a beat and it feels like she can point exactly where it is in her chest.
" I'm the one that shouldn't be here."
Oh .
"I mean I know how much you love the place and… you should live here. Yeah. That's what I wanted to say. I think."
"Where would you go?"
"Oh, I mean. I don't know, back to my place? Or Rosie's, I don't know…"
"Okay." She sounds blunt.
"Come tomorrow? I'll make sure to be gone to work by then, don't worry." She thinks she's heard a sigh, but she's not sure.
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Sleep well, Lisa."
"Yea, you too."