lessons in love || chaennie

chapter eleven

"Listen up, students," Mr. Choi said from behind his desk.

Chaeyoung put her pen down diligently at the sound of her Biology teacher's voice, nudging Jennie do to the same.

"You always do what you're told?" Jennie whispered good-naturedly, putting her own pen down nonetheless.

"It's a teacher!" Chaeyoung whispered back, but the start of a grin on the corners of her mouth gave away her 'not-so-entirely-innocent' act.

The weeks had passed by in somewhat of a flurry, as the school term settled down, the teachers got much stricter and harder with homework. Chaeyoung and Jennie had made it a habit of studying together at least once a week and having one evening that was just for them, even if it was just watching a movie in one of their bedrooms. Jennie had also gotten to know Jisoo, Lisa and Seulgi a lot better and felt fully immersed within the group of friends. Almost every Saturday night was spent at the diner, the two couples and Jisoo, who after a disastrous date with Jinyoung, where he'd almost forced her back to his dorm room before she kicked him in the shins and ran away, had sworn off men.

The only hard time had been over Christmas when Jennie and her mother had gone to spend the holidays with her grandparents in Korea for a full week. Chaeyoung had been like a lost puppy, moping around the house. Jennie had felt a similar way but got to be distracted slightly by the fact that she hadn't seen her grandparents in six months and they had a lot to catch up on. Which happened to include many photos of Chaeyoung.

They'd spent hours on the phone one particular night a couple of days after Christmas, when Jennie had looked out her bedroom window and seen a steady falling of snow, glistening in the moonlight. The beautiful sight reminded her of her girlfriend, delicate and soft and definitely unique. She'd called up the blonde to specifically to tell her how beautiful she was and had bought matching snow globes for the two of them the next day, a couple standing in central park, the figures too small to be gender-definitive, with snow falling all over them.

She figured with them living in Southern California it was the best she could do to share the snow with her girlfriend. Chaeyoung had loved the globe and shaken it excitedly when she got it, putting it on her windowsill so she could think of the scene anytime she looked out. She had said that she wished they were the couple in the globe, smiles always plastered on their faces, together, and surrounded by snow, and Jennie had laughed, saying that the blonde was like a star catcher, making a wish like that, and that their faces would get sore from all the smiling.

Once Chaeyoung had understood that the brunette meant 'making a wish on a star' as oppose to the My Little Pony 'Star Catcher' (which she happened to have a toy of, still, from a brief obsession she had gone through in her pre-teen years), she had agreed a life in a plastic bubble might not be the best idea, but held firm that the hugging forever would be fun, which Jennie could do nothing but agree whole heartedly.

Now it was late January and Jennie was starting to wonder what to get Chaeyoung for her birthday, it was only a few weeks away and she was at a loss. She'd gotten her a scented candle set for the holidays and had received a super-cute hot chocolate set with a large mug and little teddy that said 'Best Girlfriend' across it's stomach. She kept the teddy on her bedside locker next to a framed picture of her and Chaeyoung in the park, arms wrapped around each other. She was pulled from her train of thought as Mr. Lee continued to speak.

"We're going on a two-day, two-night ecology field trip to Kingston National Park next week, it is not mandatory but I advise anyone who wants to get a good grade to go. We'd be leaving the 22nd, that's next Friday, after school and returning the 24th -"

"No!"

Chaeyoung's outburst startled both the teacher and the rest of the students, including Jennie who was looking at her strangely.