Outline of You | Jensoo

Ch04.

"Are you sure? It's going to be for at least two months. Won't your boyfriend mind?"

"I guess not," Jisoo chuckles, "because I'm gay."

Funny how Jisoo is stunned by her own words but Jennie is not.

"Cool," Jennie smiles without missing a beat, "will your girlfriend mind, then?"

"I guess not," Jisoo repeats cheekily. "Because I don't have one."

That tickles Jennie into a laugh and Jisoo thinks that eye-smile is too adorable on a CEO.

"I guess that makes two of us."

And Jisoo's heart skips a beat.

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Jennie drags her feet into her apartment and flops onto the couch. It has been an exhausting Saturday morning but she isn't sure why -- it was just brunch with Nayeon and her boyfriend. What did he say his name was again?

Jennie sighs. Maybe all her energy has been sapped to plaster on her smiles and hold her breaking heart together throughout the touches and gazes she was forced to witness.

Closing her eyes, she takes in deep breaths and massages her temples, but her heart just won't steady. When she opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is the last thing she wants to see. It is a framed photo standing on the coffee table -- she and Nayeon are smiling brightly in front of rows and rows of colourful tulips in bloom.

Her hand moves on its own to pick the photo frame up, and her fingers glide achingly slowly across their happy faces. It feels like only yesterday that they were chasing each other around in the tulip field.

What has happened to those days when Nayeon used to look at her as though she was her world?

She places the photo frame face-down on the table with a heavy heart. But when she stands from the couch, she abruptly realizes that this is not the only memory of them around the house.

She shakes her head and decides to get out of this suffocation. I'll clear out these memories some other time.

Grabbing her camera, she exits the apartment.

---------

A lone dandelion growing amidst the grass catches Jennie's attention so she crouches down in front of it.

Snap.

She scrutinises the image on her camera screen and muses about how different an object can look from three perspectives: through the lens, in a photo, and in reality.

At the end of the day, however, reality is the only truth, no matter how ugly or different from expectations.

Jennie tears her eyes from the dandelion and walks along the path lining the huge lake in the middle of the park. She inhales the fresh air, feels the gravel crunching under her boots, and hears the merry laughter in the air, full of life from the weekend crowd of all ages.

Across the lake, a group of little children are learning how to roller skate. They're wobbling, stumbling and falling everywhere, but they always get back up on their wheels, giggling and squealing happily as they take another step forward. The adult coach is patient and animated, hovering over them like a mother duck yet at the same time giving her ducklings enough space to grow on their own.

The sight is so cute it tugs up a smile unknowingly on Jennie's lips, and she lines up the camera with her eye and captures the moment.

The coach seems vaguely familiar, prompting Jennie to zoom in on the image on her camera, but the lady's helmet makes it hard for recognition, not to mention her back is mostly turned to the camera too.