from which a garden grows / purinz

Chapter 4/01 : Rosa

Yunjin is last on the list of people Chaewon wants to see right now.

Currently, the order is as follows:

Her mom

Sakura

Kazuha

Any available assassin who has bloodlust for supervisors who groom their most loyal employees for a particular position and then end up succumbing to nepotism and giving said position to their idiot nephew 

Hyunjin

That punk who fixed her phone

Literally anyone else

Yunjin

Obviously Chaewon's mother is the top choice. Whether you're 9 or 29, your first instinct when someone has wronged you is to tell on them to your mommy.

But Chaewon's mom is on a cruise, daydrinking with Chaewon's dad in the Bahamas so she's not an option.

There's Chaewon's kind of weird but kind of sweet, same-aged mother figures in Sakura and Kazuha. Too bad this couple has been MIA lately.

Murder is illegal and Chaewon doesn't think she'd look good in orange (Yunjin begs to differ) so that's also a no.

Hyunjin is always on duty.

Hyeju is at school and a minor and Chaewon has no business hanging out with her, let alone ranting to her about her scum-of-the-earth boss.

That leaves the rest of the world's population and Yunjin whom she's probably going to end up having sex with and that can't happen right now.

So Chaewon gets in her car, turns on her radio, searches for the loudest station, blasts it, and drives with no fixed destination in mind.

Her hands are shaking on the steering wheel; she's never done anything like this before.

Chaewon, by nature, is a planner. She plans out every day of her life down to the nanosecond.

Her grocery trips are not complete without her spreadsheets and coupon binder.

She takes the "amusement" out of amusement parks because she's always on her phone tracking the ride wait times instead of enjoying the scenery and posing with Mickey and Minnie. (Kazuha and Sakura swore that was the last time they'd ever take Chaewon to Disneyland).

Maybe it's not the most thrilling way to live, but it's efficient.

Chaewon's scrupulous attention to detail is what got her student body president, debate team captain, and accepted into three Ivy League universities.

But it's also the simultaneous cause and effect of her crippling anxiety and the reason why she hasn't had fun in... god, when was the last time she allocated time for fun?

Sexy times with Yunjin don't count because most of those instances just happened, in the spur of the moment.

Come to think of it, Chaewon has never let herself have fun on her own.

That changes today.

As the beat picks up on whatever song is playing, Chaewon shifts gears from "Drive" to "Sport" and opens up her sunroof, letting the light in. The engine whirs to life as she accelerates through the backroads of town; every sight is unfamiliar and there isn't a vehicle to be seen for miles. She continues driving, passing the city limits and eventually neighbouring cities' limits.

After two hours, she stops at a cheap, isolated gas station and fills up her entire tank for just under $10. Then she's back on the road for another three.