Where We Belong

Here..

Jisoo’s filing her nails when Rosie’s voice booms a little louder than the usual. Which is really loud anyway.

"And then he was like… 'we are getting rid of this block.' That dude cannot just do that to me, I live here!” she raged via Facetime.

"Wait, what?”

"Apparently some millionaire bought it because he wants to build a mall or something there. Right there, exactly where my home is. I won’t be able to sleep in the H&M or Zara store!”

Jisoo’s response is nothing dramatic or scandalized. She looks deep in thought, maybe trying to work her secret superpowers to build a mansion for Rosie.

Rosie hears someone huffing, but the loud "fuck you” swimming through the air a second later is the giveaway that it’s Jennie. She waits for a reply, but she’s not sure whether the girl is still thinking or she is just spaced out. The second thud from whatever Jennie is doing brings her back to the call.

"Yeah, Jennie is moving. You know, for college…” it’s all in a tone that tells her Jisoo wants to get at something with it. Jennie travels across the country for college, but her sister chose the nearest institution, convenience being her priority.

"Yeah, I know,” and Rosie really knows. She keeps in touch with them, she knows.

"I’ll have problem affording this flat alone, so maybe you could move in with me. If that’s good for you?”

And so she asks about the price.

-/-/-/-

Leaving her own home feels worse than she thought it would.

Sure, she is excited for the new chapter of her life, sharing a home with someone else. But the flat that had always been filled with music, or some background noise from the TV is now silent even Rosie can hear a car’s engine getting started outside and it makes her feel uneasy, really out of place.

The walls are empty, her family photos and decorations are now neatly packed away in one of the boxes.

She can’t help but feel all her longing hit her full force in the moment she looks at her bedroom door, to the old, worn-out place that's never been "Home Beautiful cover" beautiful, but it was hers. It'd been hers when she was on the top of the world and when she felt the skies crushing on her. It'd been all hers, earned by working till she felt like dropping dead.

She thinks Jisoo is a good friend, but she thinks she will miss being the queen of her own castle too.

Maybe it's time for a fresh start. Maybe she’ll thank the heavens for this.

-/-/-/-

Jisoo picks her up around two in the afternoon with her car.

It’s clean, and the windows are all the way up, air barely coming in. Rosie pulls hers down, turning on the radio, Top 10 Weekly blasting in their faces. Jisoo grunts, because driving with the music so loud has never really been her thing.

The melody shifts her attention, and she’d like to live more than 23 years. She likes quiet, but she likes her friends being happy more, so she lets the girl belt out every single song that comes on.

It’s not new to her, they’ve done this before, years ago and it feels like decades to Jisoo, so the memory is a little faded, a little rusty. She lets it happen again, anyway.

They stop at a Starbucks at Rosie’s demand because she needs her mandatory latte. Jisoo rolls her eyes. She has a coffee machine that works just fine and she can make her own coffee with it. Jisoo's ex-girlfriend had an obsession with coffee and was a walking coffeepedia, adamant of teaching Jisoo how to make real coffee, she knows her shit.