From Day One | JENSOO

Chapter 37

Our hearts will move with time.

Jisoo blinked open her eyes to a darkened room, empty and quiet. She tried to sit up but that felt like someone hit her ribs with a baseball bat. Her body immediately recoiled and sent her flat on her back. She put her hand to the bruise as if she could physically touch her sore muscles and damaged tissue and looked there.

Her eyes scrunched at what she saw, the squiggles and drawings, temporary tattoos spanning across her side and some of her stomach. Everything seemed to originate from a single point, starting at her belly button. Her belly button was the center of a flower, with petals around it and the stem a vine, circling her belly button and stretching to her side, sprouting leaves and more flowers along the way. In the spots where there was more purple and yellow were more flowers and the green was reserved for leaves. It was an intricate design and actually, quite beautiful.

"Jendeuk?" Jisoo called out.

In a few seconds Jennie appeared in the threshold, holding a notepad. "Hey, you're up."

Jisoo rubbed her side, asking, "How long did this take you?"

Jennie's mouth shifted toward her right cheek and she tried to remember time when all she could remember was how Jisoo kept swatting at Jennie's hands until Jennie had to grab it and squeeze every so often to keep it still. If it wasn't for that hand, it probably would have taken Jennie much less time, she knew that much.

"I don't know," Jennie answered as she went to the bed and kneeled in front of Jisoo, placing the notepad down.

Only few understood real need. Jennie understood it. She lived it daily, both fleeting and prolonged, intense and dull. However, it was almost always there and sometimes she thought it was in the air and she could even breathe it in. How else could she explain it? Because she'd never admit how much she needed Jisoo, especially in the physical sense, and what she felt couldn't be contained as simple attraction. She was embarrassed of it more often than not and forced to hide it, only able to steal lustful glances and covert touches.

What was it called when you stole what was rightfully yours?

Jennie leaned into Jisoo, indulging in the way she could visibly see Jisoo's throat work down a gulp when her hand drifted over her stomach and how Jisoo's eyelids did a quick flutter when her hand drifted even lower and Jennie felt maybe Jisoo understood need too. She moved closer and Jisoo tried to kiss her but Jennie stayed out of reach. Jisoo couldn't move too much because of her ribs but she was moments away from risking excruciating pain.

"I read some of the poems in your notebook while you were sleeping. I hope you don't mind," Jennie said, smiling, because Jisoo tried kissing her again but Jennie still wouldn't let her.

"Which one?"

Something stirred inside of Jennie at the breathless response and it was possibly crazy, how so little could do so much to her. She recited the small bit she remembered, her favorite part, while her nails scratched their way under Jisoo's shirt.

"Maps are never skin. I know that you're only a guide—"

Jisoo lunged this time, catching Jennie in the kiss she wanted and Jennie submitted without any of the previous evasion, because that need had a funny way of appearing when she least expected it. "I know that you're only a guide," Jennie said again against Jisoo's mouth, her hand close to completely lifting Jisoo's shirt, "but I prefer to pretend otherwise."

Jennie ducked down, kissing Jisoo's stomach, biting where she saw fit then running her tongue over the grooves her teeth left.

"Let me spread you open, let me undo the tangle of rivers, interstates and country roads," Jennie kissed upward, rising gradually until Jisoo was arching to her mouth, "until they spill out soft as hair across my lap."