Second Overtime | JENSOO & CHAELISA

Chapter XXXIX

Friday morning arrived too bright and too clean, as if the weather itself had conspired to lie about what kind of day it would be.

The sky stretched pale and cloudless when Jennie stepped out of her mother's car, the air cold enough to bite the tips of her ears. The school gates stood open ahead, swallowing students in gray uniforms and dark jackets. Somewhere near the entrance, someone was eating toast from a paper bag, the buttery smell cutting through the morning chill and mixing with the wet-earth scent of yesterday's rain still drying on the pavement.

Chaerin had driven her to school in silence. Not the sharp or punishing kind, the kind that came with clipped questions and colder answers. This was the smooth kind. The kind that felt almost normal, almost safe, which was exactly why it wasn't.

Her mother's hands had rested neatly on the steering wheel, nails pale and perfect, wedding ring flashing whenever sunlight touched it. She had asked about a quiz. Jennie had answered. She had asked if Jennie had slept. Jennie had lied. The car had smelled like leather and Chaerin's perfume, something floral and expensive, the kind of scent that lingered in rooms long after she'd left them.

Then the car stopped.

"Have a good day," Chaerin said.

Jennie looked at her. Her mother's smile was small, practiced, the same smile she wore at church functions and parent-teacher conferences. It didn't reach her eyes. It never did.

"You too," Jennie said.

She stepped out before her voice could shake, before the cold air could steal the breath from her lungs. The car door closed with a solid, expensive thunk behind her. She didn't look back as Chaerin pulled away from the curb.

The hallway was already alive when she got inside. Someone had sprayed too much vanilla body spray to cover up the smell of gym clothes, and the whole corridor had become a strange cocktail of artificial sweetness, floor polish, and teenage survival. A group of first-years clustered near the water fountain, arguing about something in voices too high and too fast. A teacher pushed past with a stack of papers threatening to topple.

Jennie found Nayeon waiting by her locker, two cups of coffee in her hands. Steam curled from both of them, disappearing into the fluorescent light.

"You look like you slept," Nayeon said, handing one over.

"I slept."

"Like, actually slept?"

"Define actually."

"That's a no."

Jennie took a sip. The coffee was too hot, slightly bitter, the way Nayeon always ordered it. It burned her tongue in a way that felt almost grounding. "I slept enough. No nightmares."

Nayeon's expression flickered between relief, worry and the constant negotiation between the two that had become her default setting whenever she looked at Jennie. "That's something."

"It's something," Jennie agreed.

They walked toward first period together, their shoulders brushing every few steps. The hallway pressed around them, loud and careless, and for once Jennie didn't feel the need to flinch at every shadow. Jihyo hadn't sent her a message. Jihyo hadn't appeared. The silence had stretched from one day into the next, and Jennie was beginning to cautiously believe that it might last.

Then she looked up and saw Jisoo at the end of the hallway.

Jisoo stood by the vending machines with Lisa and Rosé, one hand curled around the strap of her bag, her injured leg held carefully so no one would notice she was favoring it. Which, because she was Jisoo, meant everyone noticed. Her hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, tiny wisps escaping near her temples. She looked tired but brighter, as if the party at Lisa's house had left a little warmth under her skin.