Injury - Part I
Prompt: Everything changes when Jennie is faced with a possibly career-ending injury. Angst, fluff, and everything in between.
*****
The first time Jennie Rubyjane Kim fell, she was learning how to walk.
"Oh. Jennie Rubyjane!" The frantic voice did not belong to Jennie's mother, or father. It did not belong to Minzy, living across the city. It hardly belonged to someone she knew.
Of course, being nine months old, there weren't many people she knew to begin with.
In french: "Be careful! Let me just- oh. Did you just walk?"
Adeline was a french girl, barely twenty-four, hired as an Au pair for the Kim family after business had called Chaerin and Jiyong away from their child.
And of course, she only spoke French and broken English, though to the babbling child, it seemed that didn't matter.
Jennie glanced up at her with bright eyes, tugging on the railing of the bottom stair to hoist herself up.
She didn't know it then, but she'd form a habit of doing many things herself.
She fell, and before Adeline could get out another word, she was hungrily reaching for the next step, her little legs unstable, like a deer skidding across ice.
Her bright brown gaze took in the mountainous steps before her, hardly considering the consequences before she was off, a show of flailing limbs and little grunts from a very determined climber.
Jennie would fall countless times after that, with far greater heights to ascend.
*****
The Kim-Kim residence smelled like fresh coffee, and was already a bustling work zone before ten in the morning.
There wasn't time to notice the way the sun would flood in through the open windows, and shower the marble floors with a golden wash. There wasn't time to register the fact that the vines Jisoo and Jennie had planted together were spreading well along the walls just outside the window.
Nothing could be heard over the clipped, hurried voices in the kitchen, coupled with the sound of the news running on the TV, and the coffee machine brewing away.
Jennie was moving about the kitchen, grabbing a cup.
Each of her steps were closely followed by her manager, tight heels of her boots clicking against the shiny floors.
"And the reason we're pushing for the youth to be at the center of this organization is because..." The brunette woman paused, eyes narrowed, hands on her phone, illuminating the crease in her brows as she awaited her answer.
"Because the youth are important and adults are already corrupt and heartless." Jennie replied smugly, taking a sip of her coffee.
"Jennie." Her manager drawled, a hint of a smile on her face.
"Lena." Jennie replied evenly.
"Just say it once, so I know you've been paying attention to the speech I've been trying to drill into you for the past two weeks."
"Because the youth are the future and we...I...want to inspire them to do anything possible."
"Very touching." Lena smiled to herself, tapping something rapidly into her phone, following Jennie as she turned to grab her coat off the edge of the counter. "And your statement to People ?"
