Letterman

Chapter 3

Around an hour later, Jisoo is thoroughly coated in a thin layer of sweat and smells faintly of trash. Community service sucks ass.

Fuck the community. Jisoo would much rather be at home right now, snuggled under her sheets or in the backyard, working rigorously on her form. Anything but here, dealing with garbage. She is honestly surprised by all the things people leave around here. Empty soda cans, plastic grocery bags, random bits of paper, mud-soaked candy wrappers, etc. She's pretty sure she saw a used condom somewhere and that will forever haunt her nightmares. Come on, it's a park. It's public.

Why are people so disgusting?

She can't believe she got put on trash duty. Other people, like Mino, Seulgi, and Jennie are just washing off graffiti and splashing each other with soapy water. It looks fun. Better than this, anyways.

Jisoo grumbles audibly under her breath as she stabs a forgotten juice box off the ground. It leaks juice, dark purple and sticky, onto her boot. Jisoo scowls at the box like it personally attacked her.

"Do you know when we're done?" She asks Rosie in passing. Rosie shrugs.

Damn it. Jisoo just wants to go home. She hasn't thought of anything other than getting a break in a good while. Well. That's not totally true. Jisoo has thought of Rosie, only because Rosie is really all there is to think about when choosing between the scorching sun and piles of trash. She glances at Rosie one too many times, watching her quietly fuss over her collection of garbage, and is caught staring.

"You know, it's hard to concentrate with you over there, lurking." Rosie points out and huffs while dragging her bag around. It looks to be getting a bit heavy. They should empty them soon.

Jisoo decides to ignore her word choice. Lurking. She wasn't lurking, she was just doing her job.

"Concentrate?" She scoffs. "On trash?"

"Well, sorry." Jisoo bites out sarcastically, going in the other direction. She can't deal with Rosie right now. The girl is nothing but a thorn in her side.

Jisoo wanders off as far as she can without going out of bounds, which is apparently not very far at all. Mr. Park gives her a disapproving look and ushers her back in Rosie's direction, as if he thinks Jisoo is going to sprint away and ditch her or something. Whatever. Jisoo wouldn't do that.

She returns to her trash. The sun is blindingly hot and it isn't helping with the horrid smell. Ugh.

Jisoo wanders up to the oak tree in the middle of the park and props herself against it. The bark is cold and almost refreshing on her skin. It's not as nice as a fan or a bottle of water, but it's a hell of a lot better than the constant sunlight. She rests her forehead against the wood, feeling her warm skin cool. The heat that had been building under her skin dissipates and she is able to catch her breath.

Comforted by the shade of the tree, Jisoo grabs the hem of her shirt and lifts it up to her forehead. She lazily wipes the sweat off of her face.

When her shirt drops, she is surprised to notice that Rosie is closer than before and now glaring at her openly. Jisoo tries to make eye contact, but Rosie's eyes are cloudy, like fog, and it takes a second for her to realize Jisoo is staring back.

Rosie's lips snap down in a shadow of a frown and she immediately looks away, her cheeks flushed dark red with what Jisoo assumes to be anger.

"Hey, what crawled up your ass this morning, Park?" She calls out to Rosie.

"You!" Rosie exclaims, unexpectedly loudly. Jisoo sees her almost accidentally stab her own foot. What kind of idiot does that? Rosie quiets down, muttering furiously in a low tone, "I mean your team. If you guys hadn't started a fight, we would have won. None of us would have to be here."