seventh heaven | (chaesoo)

step one

Rosie and Jisoo had been friends for as long as they can remember.

"Practically since we were in diapers," Jisoo would always tell her.

Rosie always thought it was because of the convenience of proximity because for as long as they both could remember, they had been next-door neighbours. Jisoo's front door was always just exactly thirty three steps away from Rosie's. Add another seventeen steps (four at the doorway, eight at the staircase, and five from the banister upstairs) and she would find herself at Jisoo's bedroom door.

In short, Jisoo was always just fifty steps away from her.

And it is because Jisoo is always fifty steps away from her that she gets dragged into a lot of things: there's that memory of Jisoo from when they were seven and they took their bikes out because they wanted to run away, not realizing that a crisp $20 bill wouldn't get them very far.

There's Jisoo convincing her, in her immaculately white dress, that they should go explore the nearby creek that all the kids in their school have visited. (Rosie did not go back home with a white dress that day, and she can still hear her mother's loud shriek ringing in her ears when she thinks back at it all)

And then there's Jisoo and all the times she has showed up unannounced at the Park's residence. Sometimes with an impatient tone in her voice asking Rosie to come out and have fun, most of the time with a mischievous grin on her face that honestly creeps Rosie out sometimes because she never knows what ever goes on in Jisoo's head.

(She's not sure she wants to know either)

To cut it short, Rosie and Jisoo had grown up next to each other their entire lives. They've gone to the same school, took up the same classes, and even finish each other's sentences sometimes (most of the time). Their similarities has led many people to believe that there is no Rosie without Jisoo, just as there is no Jisoo without Rosie.

And with the fact that they live fifty steps away from one another, it's not a far reach to say that they were joined by the hip.

-

Rosie was thirteen.

A newly-minted freshman in high school, a certain determination coursing through her veins that is only ever evident in people who don't know any better.

In other words, poor, little, innocent Rosie, who was wide-eyed and had big dreams, who thought that this is where life begins.

It didn't take long before she learned that high school is actually pretty shit, and pretty dumb, and seems to exist only to cater to those who were loud and flamboyant. In other words, someone who isn't her.

Rosie was in her own little world, minding her own business, nose buried deep inside a mystery novel she found at home. She was so close to getting to the climax, eyes scanning the words quickly and fingers impatiently tapping against the spine of the book, as if just waiting for her to turn the page to get to the next part.

She was close. So, so, close.

Until a door swung wide open, the doorknob hitting the wall with a loud thud, as if to announce an arrival. Rosie had to roll her eyes.

It didn't take a second before a loud voice filled the once serene space.

"I've been looking all over for you!"