Bestfriends (First Time) || Jensoo

Past, Present and Future

As soon as the flight attendant announced that it was safe to turn on electronic equipment, Jisoo slipped on her expensive noise-cancelling headphones (a present from Jennie, naturally) and selected some classical music, hoping that the low strings would soothe her. In the end, she alternated between silently weeping and staring out of the window at the nothingness of the sky.

True to its reputation, it was raining in Seattle when she landed. It suited her mood, she supposed, but it wasn't ideal for location shooting. Unable to face speaking to Jennie directly, she sent a text message instead.

One of the perks of having a millionaire best friend was that she had allowed Jennie to take care of the hotel. The per diem that the job offered would have stretched to a decent motel (the kind with flat-screen TVs, free WiFi and hot and cold running drinks in the lobby, not the $27-plus-tax kind), but Jennie had insisted on paying for a little more luxury. Jisoo wasn't surprised at all to find that her room turned out to be a corner suite, bigger than her college apartment, with views over Elliott Bay. A basket of fruit was waiting for her, along with a card that said, Charge anything you like, I've got you covered. The gesture set her crying off again and she spent her first night in Seattle sitting on the king-sized bed in the dark, staring out over the water and wondering how she was going to cope with not seeing Jennie every day.

Thankfully, she had a full day of pre-interviews set up and throwing herself into her work helped take her mind off her sadness. She didn't even have to eat alone, as she had arranged to meet up with the sound tech, Ethan, for dinner. He was a nice guy, funny, with plenty of anecdotes from previous jobs to fill the gaps in conversation when Jisoo's concentration wandered. They sketched out a schedule for the week, based on both Jisoo's background research and the notes Ethan had brought from the producer and the director.

When it came time for them to go their separate ways, she felt shy about letting him know where she was staying, fearing that it would seem ostentatious, but he just gave a low, appreciative whistle. She laughed and told him she had friends in high places.

With plenty of footage to shoot and Ethan's company to distract her, she found that the week flew by. The late evenings were the most difficult time. With Jennie in New York with Kyla, they texted more than they spoke, but they still talked every day. Jennie was full of information about the wedding preparations and Jisoo told Jennie about Ethan and the documentary. They never spoke about anything beyond what had happened to each of them that day, but there were often silences that filled in the gaps in what they weren't saying. Afterwards, she felt the loss of Jennie's presence more keenly.

Ethan was heading back to Los Angeles the day before Jisoo, so she invited him to her hotel for dinner to mark his last night in town. She hadn't actually charged any of her meals to room service, so she didn't feel so guilty about booking a table in the steak house, despite the high prices she'd noted on its menu. When he tried to talk her into going elsewhere so that they could split the meal, she had insisted vehemently that Jennie could afford to treat them both. Ethan had heard enough about Jennie - couched in the broadest possible terms about Jisoo's oldest and closest friend, nothing more - to concede.

They were just finishing up coffees at the end of their lavish meal when the waiter approached with the check. Jisoo opened the leather wallet, expecting to sign it to room service, when she noticed that it actually contained a receipt, not a bill.

"Something wrong?" Ethan asked.

"Uh, I don't -" Her answer died on her lips as she noticed the founder of their feast, Jennie Kim herself, striding towards them.

Ethan looked over his shoulder in the direction of Jisoo's stare. A grin slowly spread over his face. "I take it that's your friend?" The emphasis he put on the word friend was unmistakable.