Apartment 34 // Jenlisa

Chapter 3

Jennie's really not the overthinking type. She never has been because she refused to get herself too hung up on things.

But somehow this whole moving and starting a new life procedure has taken its toll on her – the two weeks at the new company being fucking tiring and even though her new work mates being lovely, she still missed Jisoo and all her other friends back home.

She hadn't had a serious talk with someone in such a long time – apart from her occasional facetime sessions with her best friend – and she longed for someone to just hold her and tell her that she was doing okay.

And that's when it started. At first it was just sporadic – a bright, teethy smile crossing her mind now and then – for example when Kai laughed at his own joke and she was reminded that his laugh could never match hers.
Or when she got herself a Gatorade from the vending machine only because the tase made her daydream of that night a week ago.

And now she didn't even need any reminder to think about her and it freaked Jennie out beyond imagination.
She knew about the concept of crushes – sure – but Jennie Ruby Jane Kim did not get crushes. She simply refused to get them. Attractions? Sure. Crushes? Never.
At least not at times when she really didn't want them. And still – here she was.

"Which floor?"

Jennie refocuses and furrows her brow.

"I'm sorry?", she asks – her mind elsewhere. Again.

"Which floor do you need to get off.", the old man asks again – his shaky hand hovering over the buttons, ready to press whatever number she tells him.

"3.", she hears herself say instinctively, but then she corrects her error, before he's even able to reach forward.
"No, 4.", she stresses and somehow, that number just sounds so wrong in her mouth.

The man glances at her sideways while he moves his hand closer to the elevators-buttons.

"Are you sure?", he then asks and Jennie's really taken aback by that – even though it was just a normal question. He stares at her so intensely that she gets a strange, celestial vibe off of him and she swallows at his gaze.

"3.", she repeats. "Floor number 3, thank you."

His wrinkly hand moves up and soon enough, the button with the number 3 shines in a bright light on the indicator board.

Jennie sends him a tight-lipped smile and starts fidgeting with the hem of her coat – suddenly very aware of what she's planning to do and she almost wants to hit that red emergency button to stop the elevator. Stop everything. Oh, how she would love that button for her thoughts right now.

It's the voice of the old man that shakes her out of her trance once again and this time, he sounds pissed: "Young lady. Don't you wanna get out?"

Her head jerks up and she looks at him - how he holds one arm through the exit to prevent the doors from closing again before Jennie could hop out.

"3rd floor.", he adds, and Jennie starts sweating. Why did he have to emphasize? For the first time she's painfully aware where she is.

"Thank you.", she mumbles as she moves past him even though she's not really thankful at all that he didn't leave her any other chance but to do this. Any maybe it's a little exaggeration but she needs to put the blame on someone else right now in order to keep halfway sane.
She became junior assistant in one of Koreas biggest modeling agencies by the age of 20 and landed pitches with Mac and Maybelline, and yet she's never felt so nervous before.

Her steps are correspondingly slow and her thoughts are running wild with all the excuses she can come up with as to why she's here. Not one of them sounding even somehow believable.

When she finally walks up in front of apartment 34 her hands are shaking so bad, she wouldn't be able to hold a pen if her life depended on it.
She's even lucky if she can knock.

She raises her right hand as well as her direction of view and spots something wedged between door and frame exactly at her eye level.
It's a piece of folded up paper and it has her name on it.

Jennie (:

She frowns and looks over her shoulder because it feels like she's getting pranked. Wouldn't be the first time Jisoo pulls something from overseas. Or maybe she randomly confused the door again? She sure as hell wasn't the only Jennie on earth.

Still her curiosity gets the best of her and she pulls out the note - carefully unfolding it and reading it even more careful.

Jennie,

if somehow you find yourself in front of this apartment again, then I'm sorry but you mixed up the floors again.
If you deliberately came to see me though, then I have to tell you that I'm visiting my family and I actually locked my door for once. (So, you'd have to break in for real, I guess.)

I'm back next Friday (:

xoxo, Lisa

PS: if you're not Jennie and you're still reading, you're a creep and should really rethink your behavior!

Jennie only realizes the huge ass grin on her face, when her cheeks start hurting. This girl really was something else. Like, how could she have known? Intuition? Clairvoyance? Witchcraft? Stalking?
Somehow everything made more sense to her than the last thing and usually, that would've been Jennie's first guess. But not with Lisa. Someone with that kind of superhuman-smile could never...

Jennie puts the note into her jean-pocket and bites her lower lip. She's suddenly very tempted to check if Lisa was honest about the whole locking-the-door-thing – but she comes to her senses again when she hears a door opening behind her.

She hurriedly turns on the spot and marches straight towards the stairwell. A familiar feeling of shame creeping up her back that she can't quite classify.
Was it because Lisa's letter made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Or was it because her whole body tingled at the prospect of maybe seeing her again soon?
After all, she had especially mentioned that she would get back on Friday. And she had done so on purpose, right? Or had Jennie just gone freaking crazy and none of this really meant anything at all?

She groans and pulls out the note again – re-reading it approximately 10 times; even Lisa's clear handwriting somewhat affecting her.

She's fucked.