Circles and Circles || Jensoo

Chapter 7

It was bitingly cold when Jisoo stepped out of her house, wrapped in her favorite coat. By the time she was halfway to KJN Records, the sleet had set in and she rued her stupidity at not having brought an umbrella. When she finally wrenched open the door to the building, she looked something like a drowned rat.

She stood dripping on the large welcome mat just inside the door and watched as the receptionist stood up slightly in her chair, one eyebrow raised, to stare at Jisoo. Jisoo glared back and shrugged out of her coat, still pouring water onto the floor in little rivulets. Luckily, her clothes under her coat were mostly dry, but the water from the street had drenched her to the knees and her hair... Well, she was sure that it looked like a bird's nest.

As she moved to step forward off the mat, the doors to the office suite flew open and Ella jumped through, anticipation plastered all over her face.

"Joy, is Jisoo here... yet?" The end of the sentence trailed off as the young girl took in the sight before her.

"Yes," said Jisoo definitely. "Me and half the Pacific."

Ella stared at the large bruise on Jisoo's face. "What happened to your -"

"Do you have a towel I could borrow by any chance?" Jisoo interrupted. "I appear to be a bit wet."

Ella laughed. "Understatement of the year. Come on through. We'll find you something."

Jisoo squelched her way through and followed Ella into a room she hadn't been into before. It was long and relatively narrow, like the board room that Jisoo had gotten very angry in just the week before; this room, however, had a large window at the far end and was crowded with paraphernalia. Multiple instruments stood propped up against the walls and two desks were buried under a mountain of, well, everything under the sun.

The room was a god-awful mess: the walls were covered with loud posters of about half of all the bands Jisoo could name; bookshelves overflowed with folders, books, papers and mess; a pot plant somehow thrived in the corner near the window; and dotted around the room were photos, every frame holding the same two people, Ella and Jennie.

"This has got to be your room," Jisoo surmised.

"Uh, yeah. You can tell?" Ella sounded a little bashful.

"Yes," Jisoo replied with a laugh. "It's got you written all over it!" Somehow, it did.

Towards the end of the previous week, Jisoo had endeavored to spend a bit of time with the girl for whom she was going to be working. Jisoo chose to think of it in that way, given that she didn't want to work for Jennie, and she figured that Ella should be the one with final say over what Jisoo did anyway. The afternoon they had spent together - listening to some of Ella's music and talking about everything under the sun - had given Jisoo a strange attachment to the young musician. It probably would have been even stronger if every third word out of Ella's mouth had not been 'Jennie', but Jisoo couldn't really mind too much. It certainly seemed as if Jen had done a lot for the girl, and none of it seemed in the slightest bit selfish.

"I'll get you that towel!" Ella shot out of the door as Jisoo mused on the teenager's ridiculous level of energy.

Jisoo stood, slightly sodden, in the middle of the room, and watched the sleet continue to drive against the window under the background of a grey leaden sky. A vent in the ceiling blew soft warm air on her shoulders and Jisoo lost herself in the weather until she was pulled sharply out of her reverie.

"Rile, I'm just going to -" Jennie stopped abruptly as she caught sight of Jisoo, who turned around only to see Jennie's expression darken immediately.