The Marrying Type || Jensoo & Chaelisa

Chapter 39

Returning to the courtroom was as agonizing as it had been entering it the first time; Jennie could feel all eyes on her, and hated every second of it. She walked with shaky legs, and wanted nothing more than to never let go of Jisoo's hand – but they had seats in different places, and so the moment came that the warmth that had thus far kept her composure for her slipped away.

Jennie breathed in then, and walked the remaining steps to her seat. The instant she sat down, Taeyeon turned to face her, and Jennie knew what she was going to say before she did.

Or she thought, anyway.

"You forgot about it, didn't you?"

Jennie gaped at her, having expected her to be mad about leaving such an important point out; she'd expected Taeyeon to demand an answer, to not understand – and so when she'd said the one thing Jennie had secretly hoped for, she found herself dumbfounded.

"Uh, yeah. I- I just...I pushed it out of my mind."

Taeyeon nodded. "Good. We'll play that to our advantage. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I guess. As much as I can be, right?"

And so the remaining minutes before the judge's return were spent in Jennie quietly recounting the night of September 29th, 2005, and Taeyeon scribbling notes, muttering some words here and there as she outlined the true story of what had happened. Right before the court reconvened, Taeyeon looked up from her notes and actually smiled.

"It's okay. This is good. I've got this."

Jennie trusted her enough to allow the sliver of hope in her heart to grow. Even in the face of her father rising up from his seat once again, her hope did not quiver; no, she had faith, she had hope, and she wasn't about to let that wreck her. Even if they lost, she'd still have Jisoo.

And Jisoo was all that she really wanted.

The defense's array of evidence and witnesses consisted mainly of various psychologists' reports on Jennie's mental status, of medical records proving Jennie's apparent drug addiction and overdose(which Taeyeon then shot down, thus severely shaking her parent's stance), and of a number of people whose statements basically all read the same: according to them, Jennie was and always had been a troublesome, rebellious child, and she had always been out to undermine her parents' and their career. There were old nannies and chauffeurs, a gardener who Jennie was sure had probably been well-paid to even appear, given the messy way her parents had fired him some years earlier. In any other case, this set of evidence would have been impressive and effective; but Taeyeon's evidence and witnesses had been better, and the woman turned out to be incredibly talented at tearing down witnesses and disproving evidence. One witness, a young maid Jennie recalled had been laid off when she'd just started middle school, Taeyeon tore down so effectively that she actually cried before admitting that she hadn't in reality seen anything other than a few spouts of angry words exchanged between Jennie and her parents, even adding that most of the angry words had come from her parents. Judging by the looks of the jury, Jennie saw that Taeyeon's tearing down of her parents' defense was effective; there were agreeable nods and attentive eyes, and that in turn made Jennie feel good.

In fact, she felt great. Taeyeon was ripping apart the defense so intricately constructed by her parents – the very same people who had once been dubbed the 'ever-victorious' in legal circles, because they never lost - and it was glorious to watch.

And now it was looking like they would indeed lose, and that was more than enough to make Jennie feel giddy. A glance behind her revealed to her that Jisoo was feeling the same; although her lips were tightly pursed shut, Jennie saw the same glimmer in her eyes, and the brief moment of eye contact told her just how much reassurance Jisoo was trying to communicate to her.