Love Galore (Chaennie)

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Jisoo hasn't stopped laughing for the past four minutes.

She's chortling so riotously, she's fallen over onto her side; she's lying on the sofa in Jennie's office, clutching Jennie's cellphone in her hand. Face red, tears coming to her eyes, her body shakes uncontrollably with maniacal mirth. On the other end of the couch sits Irene, who's chuckling along, but nowhere near the hysterical hyena stage that Jisoo is in. The remnants of their lunches sit on the coffee table, forgotten.

Jennie leans forward from her seat in the adjacent armchair and snatches her cellphone back. "Okay, it's not that funny."

"Yesss," Jisoo wheezes amidst peals of laughter. "Yes, it is. Those costumes! Ducks! Acapella! Fall Out Boy! This is the best thing I've ever seen. It's so bad."

Protectively (belatedly), Jennie tucks her cellphone away into the pocket of her suit jacket, muttering, "I really shouldn't have shown you two the video."

Jisoo quiets herself and with one last, long chuckle, pulls herself up back into a seated position. "No, no, thank you. That made my week."

With clear disbelief, Irene asks, "And you said that... Rosie liked it?"

Jennie nods, grimacing as she does. "She loved it."

Jisoo snickers. "She must be really hot if you're putting up with this kind of nonsense."

Jennie purses her lips, displeased. "You're missing the context to it. These are all things that she shares with Mark. It's sweet."

"And terrible!" Jisoo exclaims. "My god! And how seriously those guys took themselves. It's so corny."

"They were having fun," Jennie says, somewhat snappishly. "Not everything has to be wrapped in seven layers of cynicism."

"Says the queen of cynicism," Jisoo returns. "Admit it, Jennie. If Rosie wasn't into it, you'd be making fun of it too. I mean, what does that even say about you two?"

"I kind of agree with Jisoo," Irene says. "I mean, I didn't think the video was that bad, but I sit through grade school musicals on a regular basis. The fact that you don't think it's the worst thing ever is alarming. You find NPR sophomoric."

Jennie defends herself with an indignant, "Sometimes Ira Glass sacrifices rationality for mawkishness!"

Jisoo pats Jennie's leg, face full of mock sympathy. "There, there. Let's not get you all worked up about public radio programming again. It's okay if you decide that acapella covers of emo songs are suddenly cool because Rosie's into it. It's also okay to admit that you're whipped."

Scowling, Jennie plucks up Jisoo's hand, flinging it back to her. "I'm not whipped. Rosie and I aren't in a relationship. We have a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"Yeah, I totally meet my fuck buddy's friends and family and spend Valentine's Day with them," Jisoo says. Sarcastically. Obviously.

Still with that same scowl on her face, Jennie picks up the remnants of her salad and drags her fork through it. "We didn't spend it together. I left after Mark called."

"Yeah, can we go back to that for a sec?" Irene asks. "What was that like? What's he like?"

"It was... fine." Jennie shovels through the leafy greens until she unearths an olive and stabs her fork through it. "He seemed nice. We didn't really get to chatting."

"But he knew who you were?" Irene presses. "Like he knows about you and Rosie?"

Jennie pushes down harder with her fork, making sure that olive is good and dead. "Yes. He knew who I was. Rosie's said she's told him that she 'made a new friend.' Whatever that means, but it seemed like he knew. I don't know, it's not like we compared notes."