Count Your Lucky Stars •CHAENNIE•

Chapter 6

"It's open!"

Jennie let herself inside Lisa and Jisoo's apartment for game night, leaving her boots at the door. No shoes inside was Lisa's rule, not Jisoo's, but one Jennie was happy to follow. As much as she enjoyed playfully ruffling Lisa's feathers, Jennie had zero desire to discover what Lisa would do if she were to track dirt on the impeccable-if not impractical-cream-colored carpet.

Sitting on the floor with her back to the door, Jisoo didn't so much as lift her head when Jennie entered the living room. "There's wine in the kitchen. Don't worry, it's the good stuff."

By good stuff, Jisoo meant of the boxed variety, as opposed to Lisa's favorite wine, the price as difficult to stomach as the name was to pronounce. Good was a bit of an overstatement in Jennie's book, but she'd take Franzia any day over a glass of wine so expensive she'd feel guilty drinking it.

"You do realize I could be anybody, right?" Jennie veered to the right, careful not to slip as she stepped from carpet onto the kitchen tile, her socks offering no grip. "I could've been a murderer for all you knew, and you invited me in."

"Murderers don't knock, Jennie," Jisoo said from the other room.

"You don't know that." Jennie searched the cabinet for something sturdier than Lisa's thin-stemmed wineglasses. Game night called for durability, not delicacy. "I'm sure that's what they want you to think. Lull you into a false sense of security all while hiding in plain sight."

"You've been watching too much true crime again, haven't you?" Jisoo sounded amused.

"It was a true-crime podcast, actually." Jennie grabbed a stemless glass from the back of the cabinet and filled it with rosé before returning to the living room.

"I thought I heard voices." Lisa stepped out from the hall. "Taehyung and Jungkook still aren't here?"

Jisoo shook her head. "Not yet. They had to stop by the nursery, remember?"

"Excuse me?" Jennie must've misheard her. "Did you just say nursery?"

Lisa snickered. "I'm going to finish this report. If I'm not out by the time they get here, come get me."

"Um, hello, can we please address what you just said about Taehyung and Jungkook stopping by a nursery?"

"A plant nursery, Jenduek." Jisoo giggled. "Oh my God. If you could see your face."

"Okay, color me confused. It's game night. What do we need plants for?"

Jisoo gestured to the coffee table, and for the first time, Jennie actually examined everything Jisoo had laid out, beyond the gel pens and Sharpies. A spool of twine rested beside a pair of scissors, two differently sized hole punches, and a stack of cobalt-colored card stock. Two boxes of flat-bottomed glass globes had been shoved beneath the coffee table beside a folded plastic tarp.

This didn't look like game night. This looked like Jennie was about to get suckered into her three least favourite letters-DIY.

Jennie groaned. "But it's game night."

And she'd been looking forward to this for weeks. Letting loose with a little wine and trouncing her friends at board games. It was supposed to be the highlight of her week.

"We'll totally have time for charades after," Jisoo promised. "Jungkook's swamped with work, and he asked if we could help him with the wedding favors."

"They couldn't, I don't know, hand out mini bottles of booze instead?"

Jisoo gestured to the spread atop the coffee table. "They're buying mini succulents so every guest can have their own little love fern."