you got me | chaennie

four

The sound of heavy, pounding rain is the first thing Chaeyoung registers. She blinks and swallows, her tongue feeling slightly too big for her mouth, teeth fuzzy as a result of failing to brush the night before. She shifts in bed, squints towards the windows where the lush green landscape outside has transformed into a dark grey mess, water streaming down the windows—visible, since she never did get around to closing the curtains last night.

Jennie has moved away from her while they slept, but her hand is still resting on Chaeyoung's bare hip. It's warm, so warm, and Chaeyoung can't help the full smile that takes over her face and the flush that races through her body as she thinks back to how they ended up like this.

She rolls over on her side, careful not to crush Jennie's hand, and props herself up on an elbow.

Jennie looks the same as she did the morning before, one arm crushed below her pillow, hair a wild mess and draped across her cheek and mouth. It flutters lightly when Jennie breathes out.

This morning, though, Chaeyoung doesn't stop herself from reaching out and brushing the hair off of Jennie's face. She lets her fingers linger on the slope Jennie's cheek, the curve of her ear. Jennie's nose twitches, but she doesn't stir.

Unbidden, a fragment of poetry flashes across Chaeyoung's mind: for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking/ is left in me.

It's followed, very quickly, by a tiny twinge of panic.

Holy crap, have her feelings for Jennie really hulked out so quickly? Chaeyoung rolls back and stares up at the ceiling. The past couple of days have been intense—she's shared more of herself with Jennie than many of her close friends know about her. Jennie has done the same, and Chaeyoung hasn't been completely blind to the fact that the more Jennie opens up, the more Chaeyoung wants to know about her.

She really needs to talk to Alice.

Chaeyoung flips on her other side and reaches to grab her phone off the bedside table where it's charging. The display reads just after seven, which makes it eleven the night before in Seoul right now. Shoot. Alice is probably asleep. Chaeyoung sends her a text anyway— sister night when I get back? urgent need advice!

Immediately after sending it, Chaeyoung realizes that Alice is going to panic when she reads it, so she sends a follow up.

AM FINE!!! love you❤️❤️❤️❤️❤.️

There, now Alice isn't likely to send an extraction team.

Setting the phone back down, Chaeyoung realizes that she's not going to be able to go back to sleep. Jennie is still clearly passed out, and, since they don't have to be down for the dance lesson until ten, Chaeyoung figures she should let Jennie rest.

Chaeyoung gets up and heads to the bathroom, brushes her teeth while she lets the water heat up, and then spends ages washing her hair, looking out through the glass shower door and the bathroom window, over the rain and the sopping green peat bogs surrounding the hotel.

When she's done, Chaeyoung is dismayed to see that it's only seven thirty.

She slips into a light green broadcloth button down and tan chinos. Rolls up her sleeves, then decides it's too chilly, and rolls them back down. She putters around the room for a minute, closes the curtains to dampen the sound of the rain.

Hands on her hips and wishing she'd thought to bring a book, Chaeyoung decides she might as well see about breakfast. Maybe she can bring food back to the room for Jennie—they were both fairly drunk last night and, while Chaeyoung doesn't have a hangover, she has no idea how Jennie is going to feel when she wakes up.