Fire & Silk

16. Ice Cream

Still not used to Jihyo not being home almost the entire week, Jeongyeon would wake up still expecting to hear Jihyo banging around the kitchen making breakfast. When she realized that the woman wasn't there, she'd drag herself out of bed and go into the kitchen to pour herself a bowl of cereal. Jeongyeon sat down at the kitchen table, checking her emails and the news. She yawned, reading through the not so uplifting articles that made headlines that day. Now all she had to do was wait until noon when Jihyo was going to get in for her weekly visit back to their apartment.

The day dragged on and Jeongyeon wasn't sure what to do with herself. Usually, she'd be buried in paperwork, but since the Copy Cat case was almost on pause and the other cases she was working weren't that big, there wasn't a lot to do this weekend. She moved to the couch when she finished breakfast and ended up watching some drama she'd found on Netflix. She was so engrossed in it that she didn't hear the door open, signaling her roommate was home.

Jihyo laughed at the figure splayed out on the couch. She took her shoes off and crept over to stand behind the couch. Quietly, she leaned down, cupping her hands over her mouth to shout in her friend's ear, "Jeongyeon!"

"Holy shit!" Jeongyeon rolled off the couch, landing on her back with a loud thud. "Why would you do that?! I'm going to be deaf in this ear now." Jeongyeon glared up at Jihyo who was now standing over her, her hand outstretched to help the older woman up off the floor.

Jihyo just rolled her eyes, hauling her off the floor and back onto the couch. "Number one, you're dramatic. Number two, I came in but you were so into that show that you didn't hear me so really it's your fault I had to yell."

They had a long conversation, catching up on the week's events, eventually getting to Jeongyeon's ranting about Mina quickly going back to being a terrible person. As she said this, she could see the hesitant look in Jihyo's eyes. "I can tell you want to either ask me something, tell me something, or both."

"Yeah about Mina. She kind of came over to Sana's apartment yesterday asking a few favors." Jihyo gave Jeongyeon a sheepish smile and looked down at her hands. She explained the first question and the conversation she had with Sana, handing her the papers in her pocket and proceeded to carefully explain the next favor. "She also wanted me to ask you if you'd be willing to talk to her about what you overhead. I told her you probably wouldn't but it's obviously up to you."

Jeongyeon sighed and looked down at the paper, initially ignoring the second part of what Jihyo said. As she read through what Jihyo wrote down though, her expression softened a bit and she rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll only talk to her because this could actually help us and I'm sure that talking to Sana about this wasn't the easiest thing in the world."

1:00 pm | Mina: If you're willing to give me a chance to explain what you walked in on, meet me at the park by the ice cream place at 2

Mina tossed her phone on the couch beside her, not expecting Jeongyeon to respond to her. She just wanted to go over to the woman's apartment and tell her that she would never have bared her soul to her like that on their retreat if she was just going to turn around and talk shit about her, but she knew that would just make her even more mad. Instead, Mina tried to distract herself by playing with Ray until it was time for her to go to the spot they used to frequent. "Why can't I get this right, Ray? I wish you were Jeongyeon. I know how to make you not mad at me." Mina looked down at her furry friend who was gnawing on his rope toy. He looked up at her and tilted his head, not sure what in the world she was talking about.

The place that Mina had told Jeongyeon to meet her at was familiar to both of them. The first time they had a fight they went here, each by themselves but laughing and quickly getting over their argument once they saw each other. After that, it became a comfort spot for them. If one of them failed a test or had a hard day in class, they'd drag the other to get ice cream to feel better.