Age of Death (Taennie)

4

Once we had our ice cream, we sat together at a picnic table outside a restaurant next to the movie theater. Jennie licked at her milk flavoured ice cream cone and i tried not to stare as she declared.

"You can totally tell alot about a person by the ice cream they like." She eyed the milk tea flavoured ice cream in my hand in judgement. "I have this theory that people who like milk tea ice cream are super safe and cautious."

I had no idea what to say to that. It was just my favourite flavour. As last, i settled on, "Oh. I'm sorry to disappoint you?"

"I forgive you. Would you ever go skydiving?"

"Well yes? That's one of my to-do-thung on my bucket list before I die...." I answered automatically, but cringe at the thought of my parachute if it ever failed. I'm being pessimistic again. She look at me in shock.

"Why, would you!" I asked.

She nodded. "Of course. In fact, my dad says he'll take me soon. I'm a total adrenaline junkie. My parents took me bungee-jumping once when I was ten and it was amazing. You should totally come with us!"

"Your parents trusted a springy cord with your life when you were ten?" I asked, appalled.

"I think the professional bungee-jumper that helped us might've taken some of the responsibility," she joked. "But yeah, my parents are pretty awesome. They're super into, like, the whole living your life to the fullest thing. They watch a lot of 'inspirational' documentaries, which is totally cheesy, but I can appreciate the sentiment. We've lived in six different states and two different countries since I was born. We've gone on vacations to Europe every summer up until this one, and my dad's got this long bucket list with every roller coaster he wants to ride before he died and-" She paused, cringing. "God, i sound really obnoxious and pretentious right now, don't i?"

"I'm just listening," I told her idly. I already knew they were rich beforehand, who wouldn't? The way she dressed up. Nobody would dare dress with such luxury...."it should interesting, actually. My life's pretty boring."

"I don't believe that. You live here."

"Seoul's not that exiting if you don't let it be," I told her. "My dad and I have a routine, and we follow it. There's not that much to share, I guess."

"What about your mom, where's she?" She asked me curiously. I stiffened, and, thankfully, she picked up on it. She immediately looked mortified.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry Taehyung. I wasn't thinking."

"It's okay," I said. There was long silence as we awkwardly finished our ice cream together. I wanted to live last it, but I didn't know what else to talk about. So i elaborated instead. "She, um...died in a car crash four years ago."

Jennie let out a deep sigh and but her lip. "That's awful, I'm so sorry. I need to think before i speak a little more often."

I knew that this particular topic of conversation wasn't exactly first hangout material, but Jennie as easy to talk to. She talked alot. She was all energy and earnest pseudo-rambling, at least around me, and for a moment I could only attribute to temporary insanity, I guess thought it'd be a good idea to open up to someone other than Haneul. Or maybe I just wanted to open up to her.

"We were really close. She went out to have dinner with a friend and just....never came back." I shook my head, gaining a sudden sense of clarity. This was way too much too soon. "Sorry. I shouldn't be talking about it."

"I wanted to be your friend," Jennie insisted. "You can talk about anything you want. Especially someone you love."

I offered her a weak smile, and then bent down to feed the remnants of my cone to Kuma. "Thanks. It's okay though. What's your favourite movie?"