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𝐒𝐊𝐘. the next morning, the four of them quietly packed up their clothes, cleaning up the mess they had managed to make in the ballroom.
"i can drive. let's have some fun today," rosé said, placing jisoo's bag in the back of the car and hopping into the driver's seat.
"alright, let's have some fun," lisa replied, hopping in next to rosé in the front. as they waited for jennie and jisoo (and, of course, their new companion, dalgom) to settle in, lisa put a hand on rosé's shoulder.
"you okay?" rosé nodded and smiled.
"better." a deep breath in. "thanks, lisa. you're the best." she gripped the steering wheel and ran her fingers over the worn down leather, again and again, a broken record.
"how are you feeling?"
before answering, lisa glanced back one last time, at the mansion.
"good. i think i'm okay, too."
"no way, lisa. i thought you would be the popular one at school!?" jennie said, in the middle of devouring, and choking on, her dalgona coffee.
"um, no!?? i had a few close friends, but other than that, i was alone for majority of my time at school."
"yeah. i was by myself.. a lot, actually." lisa frowned with realization, but her heart-lifting smile returned after jennie patted her head from the backseat.
"it's okay, lisa. you have us now!! we're so much better than your lamo classmates," rosé swatted her hand at the air and batted her eyelashes, looking away from the road to smile at her.
"ppphhhs. whatever," lisa rolled her eyes.
"what!? it's true, we're so much cooler." rosé grabbed her strawberry iced tea. yes, she was a fruit tea type of gal. (they had originally stopped by at an abandoned cafe to get lisa a drink to quench her "dying thirst," but ended up making themselves some drinks as well.)
"do you guys want some chips?" jennie stood up, causing the pink car to shake lightly and for rosé to tsk for the hundredth time, dropping a bag of barbecue lays into lisa's lap.
jisoo was feeding some food to dalgom next to her. "jennie," she said after a while, feeling suffocated by the monochrome silence of the winds. it rustled her hair and her top, pillowing the thin fabric and revealing patches of scars on her skin. her hands kept rustling around to adjust it.
jennie was quiet beside her, which meant that she was listening.
"i'm sorry about last night."
jennie said nothing. but then she hugged jisoo.
"it's okay, ji. i'm sorry, too. i was being sel-"
"no. i was the selfish one." jisoo looked down into her lap. "i'm so sorry for losing control of my emotions like that." jennie smiled and wiped jisoo's cheek, patting it lightly.
after seeing this in the rear view mirror, rosé scolded jennie to put her seatbelt on, because it was dangerous to be moving around in the car like that, seatbelt unbuckled, blah blah.
but she was glad they had made up.
when the four of them exited the grocery store, rosé read the cracked and yellowed clock above the cashier. it said (at least it looked somewhat like) 8:30. the sky was blue. and it was purple. and red. and it was everything beautiful.
there was an abandoned car parked outside the store, and jennie hopped onto its roof, balancing herself on top. rosé carefully helped jisoo and lisa up, then climbed up herself.
she opened her can of coke, letting it sizzle as the metal popped outwards. she sipped it, then smacked her lips with the spicy saccharine taste.
"do you guys think this counts as living?" she asked, somewhat suddenly. not really knowing what answers she wanted to hear.
"what do you mean?" jennie asked, tracing outlines of indigo clouds with her tired eyes.
"i don't know. i remember when i was little, my mother always used to say that her teenage years were the best moments of her life. and we.." she paused, trying to find the words to finish her sentence amidst the jumbled thoughts in her head.
"i don't really know. i feel like we just.. never had the chance to live it."
"i.. i think this counts," jennie nodded, mixing her cup noodles with cheap wooden chopsticks.
"we are. we are living." lisa said. "this is my youth. you guys are my youth." a bubble of strawberry pink grew from the edge of her lips, and then it popped with a snap, leaving a sugary scent lingering in the air.
jisoo laughed at how the bubblegum stuck to lisa's mouth, and jennie joined in, as lisa just.. struggled to clean it. the melody reached rosé's ears in a sweet blend of roses, vanilla, and merigolds.
and it suddenly came to her. the thought that.. she had never felt so alive.
suddenly, she was grateful. and all those moments where she cried so hard it hurt to breathe, all of those moments where she had collapsed onto the ground from the buildup of painful memories, eternally on loop, inside her head, and all of those mornings where reality struck her hard and reminded her she had purpose-
suddenly, they were all worth it.
if this was what living was like, she never wanted it to end.
as she she joined the others in painting the tie-dyed sky with her faded star-filled gaze, she sent a message to her mother up in the heavens.
mom, is this what living feels like? you were right. life is so, so beautiful. i think i'vefallen in love with it. i love it almost as much as i miss you. hopefully, when it is time for me to ascend into the sky as you and dad did that night, i can meet you again.
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🗒 ❛ author's note: ༉‧₊˚✧ ╰┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ THE GIF I MADE FOR THIS CHAP WAS SO SO PRETTY BUT I HAD TO COMPRESS IT BC IT WAS 5.5MB AND NOW ITS SO UGLY TT
grrr this chapter was really tough to write, but i am finally finally publishing it sigh :) 💗 take care everyone and until the next update!!
