Second Overtime | JENSOO & CHAELISA

Chapter XLIX

The drive back to Lisa's apartment passed in a haze of sunlight and muffled traffic noise. Marco didn't turn on the radio, but this time he did hum something tuneless and soft, barely audible over the engine's noise. It was the kind of sound someone made when they wanted to fill a silence without breaking it. Jisoo leaned her head against the window, the glass cool despite the heat outside, and watched the city scroll past in a blur of storefronts and pedestrians and bus stops crowded with people living ordinary lives, unaware that a girl in a hospital bed was fighting for her freedom.

Her phone buzzed. Lisa's name flashed on the screen, followed by a string of emojis that loosely translated to: Are you alive? Do I need to commit a crime?

Jisoo typed back with clumsy, exhausted fingers: Alive. Coming back. He listened. Kind of.

Lisa's response was immediate: Define "kind of."

He's going to fight. Really fight. I think.

The three dots pulsed for a long moment. Then: Good. Nayeon's been pacing a hole in my rug. She's going to need to hear it from you.

Jisoo's chest tightened. Nayeon, who'd held Jennie's secrets for so long they'd become a part of her own body and who'd watched her best friend shrink and fracture and had been able to do nothing but wait and hope and carry the weight of knowing. She deserved to hear that something had finally changed.

When they pulled up to Lisa's building, Marco killed the engine and turned to her. The shadows under his eyes had deepened, but his gaze was steady. "You did something hard today."

"I yelled at a man in a park."

"You told the truth to someone who'd spent seventeen years avoiding it. That's harder than most things." He reached over and squeezed her shoulder once, brief and warm. "Go inside. Eat something. Sleep. Jennie's going to need you at full strength, and right now you're running on spite and adrenaline."

Jisoo managed a weak, crooked smile. "Spite's gotten me pretty far."

"Spite is a fuel, not a foundation." He opened his door. "Come on. I'll walk you up."

The moment Jisoo limped through the door, Nayeon was there, not grabbing her, not smothering, just standing close with her hands clasped in front of her chest, her eyes red-rimmed and searching.

"Did you tell him?" Nayeon's voice was thin, frayed at the edges.

"Everything I could and more." Jisoo lowered herself onto the couch, letting the crutches clatter to the floor. Her knee sang with relief. "He's calling lawyers. Forensic accountants. He's freezing assets. He said he's going to fight."

Nayeon's breath left her in a shuddering rush. She sank onto the floor beside the couch, her back against the cushions, and pressed her palms to her eyes. "Okay. Okay. That's... that's something."

"It's more than something." Lisa emerged from the kitchen, a mug of tea in each hand. She passed one to Jisoo, it was too hot, the ceramic nearly scalding, but the warmth felt grounding. "You went toe to toe with Kim Jiyong and came out the other side. That's not nothing."

Jisoo wrapped her hands around the mug and let the heat seep into her palms. 

"He looked terrified," Jisoo said quietly. "At the end. He looked terrified, and he kept going anyway."

Lisa settled into the armchair across from her, tucking her feet up beneath her. "Good. Fear's not the problem. Paralysis is. If he's scared and moving, that's a hell of a lot better than calm and frozen."

Nayeon lowered her hands from her face. Her eyes were still wet, but something steadier had taken root there. "Do you think it'll be enough?"

Jisoo thought about it. About Chaerin's cold, calculating fury and the years of preparation, the network of allies, the legal machinery she'd built to protect herself. She also thought about all the ways this fight could still go wrong.