Tags: cute, sad, heavy yet light, winter aesthetics
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This is Jennie's first time hating winter.
The past years, she would've been jumping on snow and making snowpeople and making passersby turn their heads for a double-take on that hyper girl singing "Last Christmas" without an awareness of how much attention she was actually grabbing.
"Last Christmas" - she hates that song.
"Hey! Last Christmas girl! Didn't see you last christmas..." The owner of the voice says with a cheeky grin, almost masked by the baggy scarf around his neck. "See what I did there?" He wiggles his eyebrows.
Jennie chuckles, a spark of a memory nagging at the back of her head as she dismisses it, being quick to respond rather than have another one of the man's puns thrown at her.
"Very genius, Uncle Jinyoung." She says with a playful eyeroll as the "genius" laughs hoarsely.
"Heard you went off to college. Amsterdam good?" Jinyoung asks.
Jennie kicks out a twig buried in snow underneath her feet. "Yeah, it's great! New friends and all. It's amazing." Jennie says, looking up from the ground to the querant, masking her real disappointment.
Jinyoung knows in a beat.
"You mean no friends?" He asks directly as Jennie curses in her head.
She sighs, knowing that Jinyoung is going to see through her façade anyway, and right now, she's particularly not interested in starting an argument with this otherwise perceptive man.
"Not enough." She opts for saying and it's true.
She's only met another transfer student named Chahee who seems to really get her, but the girl is a legit party-animal. Not that it's bad, but Jennie cannot imagine leaving her Art History assignment just to lose sleep and get felt up by perverted college boys. No, thank you.
"Hang in there, kid." Jinyoung says and gives a way-too-hard pat on Jennie's shoulder, almost dislocating it (is what Jennie thinks in the moment). Before she can really respond with respectful yet biting words, his relaxed expression seems to make way for recognition instead. "Speaking of friends!" He says and points somewhere behind her. "There's your Christmas sweater girl."
Jennie's heart speeds up and her feet sink a little deeper into snow, the tweaking of the now-severed twig heard because of how silent it is for a moment. She wants to stop herself in her head but her body's acting on its own accord and soon, she's whipping her head, sending hair flying up in the air as her breath hitches at the sight of her ex.
"Lisa..." She whispers into the chilly air and it's not possible, no. It's not possible for even Jinyoung to have heard that beautiful word that just escaped her mouth, but Lisa's head turns to her direction.
Eyes meet, vision hindered by white powder, sending surges of electricity through both bodies, much more piercing than when bare hands grip snow, as they both shakily breathe out puffs of smoke.
A gloved hand lifts up slowly, followed by another in response as the girl at the distance smiles, Jennie's stomach now a lepidopterarium.
Of course, Lisa was back in town. It's Christmas, after all. For all she knows, Lisa is the most family-oriented girl she has come across. And maybe, just maybe that was part of the reason why Jennie was so in love with her. Is.
Jinyoung pushes her from the back as she stumbles a little, frowning back at him as he chuckles but it soon fades in her ear because Lisa's walking towards her. Kicking snow, pulling at her jacket sleeve (a nervous tick, Jennie knows) and purposefully striding towards her. Jennie makes an effort to close in the distance between them. It almost reminds her of how she made an effort to keep their relationship last Christmas. Only difference is, she only succeeds this time.
"Hey." Lisa says breathlessly, looking Jennie up and down.
"H-hi." Jennie curses in her head for how nervous she is.
"How have you been?"
Jennie doesn't even pause before saying, "Terrible."
Lisa chuckles lightly.
"You're not the only one then."
She knows she's not. She knows their relationship meant as much to Lisa as it did to her. Damn this thing called life. Damn having to go off to college.
"I thought LA was the city of dreams." Jennie jokes, cutting through the heaviness.
Lisa smiles wide but says, "The people there suck."
Jennie raises her eyebrows in amusement.
"I want coffee...let's go." Lisa says, tipping her head to the right, although the café is behind her. Jennie nods, following her.
She inhales in relief, the bittersweet scent of coffee and the light hum of people talking warming her up in addition to the heater in the café. They've been here before. Half (or a little more) of their dates have been here, right at the corner booth Lisa's staring at right now.
They instinctively take a seat right where they always would and smile at each other. Jennie feels a strong sense of deja vu hit her as she looks away from Lisa's umber eyes because she knows she's going to do it - she's going to kiss her if she stares any longer.
Lisa knows and she chuckles, making Jennie's eartips go red. They redden further when Lisa's hand finds hers and gives it a good warm squeeze before settling there as she orders their usual pick of coffee.
"Black." Jennie says swiftly, earning an arched brow from Lisa.
"You hated black coffee and the fact that I love it." Lisa says, removing her hand off hers and taking her gloves off before settling her hand on the same spot as before.
"And that's all that I have now." Jennie says, hoping Lisa doesn't pry further bit knowing Lisa, she does.
"And why so?" Lisa asks distractedly, playing with the maroon glass ring on her finger - that ring that Jennie gave her three years ago, and so Jennie is encouraged.
"That's all I have now...of you." Jennie says as understanding followed by shyness and sadness flash in Lisa's beautiful eyes and she smiles.
"You wanna go to The Forever Cave?" Lisa asks.
Yes.
"It must have become a spider's den by now."
"Well, at least we have a spider's den. Thats just so cool." Lisa says jokingly and Jennie smiles.
"Didn't think of it that way when we wrote our names on the inside, did we?"
"I think I did think of it and how cool it'd be. Not at the price of us, though." Lisa says grimly and before Jennie can reply, the waiter invades their space, setting their probably last coffees on the table.
A/N: Took me long enough to write this one. I thought I was going nowhere with this, but I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out. Hope you're enjoying <3333
