At the first convenience store Jennie comes to, she goes inside and buy a single cigar and a mini BIC lighter.
Her coat is damp from the snow so she hangs it at the rack by the entrance and make her way down the counter.
The place feels gloriously authentic, as if it's always been there. The 1950s era vibe isn't from the red-vinyl upholstering on the booths and stools or the framed photographs of regulars on the walls down through the decades.
It comes, Jennie think, from never changing. The smell of the place is all bacon grease and brewing coffee and the indelible remnants of a time when Jennie would've been moving through clouds of cigarette smoke en route to a table.
Aside from a few customers at the counter, Jennie spots two cops in one booth, three nurses just off-shift in another, and an old man in a black suit staring with a kind of bored intensity into his cup of coffee.
Jennie sits at the counter just to be near the heat radiating off the open grill.
An ancient waitress comes over.
Jennie knows she must look homeless and strung-out, but the waitress doesn't let on, doesn't judge, just takes her order with a worn-out korean courtesy.
It feels good to be indoors.
The windows are fogging up.
The cold is leaving your bones.
The all-night diner is only eight blocks from Jennie's house, but she'd never eaten there.
When the coffee arrives, Jennie wraps her dirty fingers around the ceramic mug and soak in the warmth.
She had to do the math in advance.
All she can afford is this cup of coffee, two eggs, and some toast.
Jennie tries to eat slowly, to make it last, but she's famished.
The waitress takes pity on her and brings more toast at no extra charge.
She's kind.
It makes Jennie feel even lousier about what's going to happen.
Jennie checks the time on her drug-dealer flip phone, the one she bought to call Lisa in another Seoul. It won't make calls in this world—Jennie guess minutes aren't transferable across the multiverse.
8:15 a.m.
Jennie2 probably left for work twenty minutes ago in order to catch the train to her 9:30 lecture.
Or maybe she hasn't left at all. Maybe she's sick, or staying home today for some reason Jennie have not anticipated. That would be a disaster, but it's too risky for her to go anywhere near her house to confirm that the other her is not there.
Jennie pulls the fee out of her pocket and set it on the counter.
It just barely covers her breakfast plus a cheap-ass tip.
Jennie takes one last sip of coffee.
Then she reaches into the patch pocket of my flannel button-down and pull out the cigar and the lighter.
Jennie glances around.
The diner is now packed.
The two cops who were there when she first arrived are gone, but there's another one sitting in the corner booth at the far end.
Jennie's hands shake imperceptibly as she tear open the packaging.
True to its name, the end of the cigar tastes faintly sweet.
YOU ARE READING
Infinity: A Jenlisa AU
Fanfiction"Will I see her again?" "I don't think so." Those are the last words Jennie Kim hears before the masked abductor knocks her unconscious then Jennie woke up in an entirely different world. Suddenly, her house is not her house, she's not married to L...
