Outline of You | Jensoo

Ch12.

Wrapped in a silken robe and a wilful wave of memories, Jennie steps onto the balcony, leans out against the glass and invites the chill of the night. Her face, hands and chest are still warm from the alcohol, which magnifies the relief that the wind brushing past her skin brings. But alas, this relief does not extend beyond the physical.

She taps on her phone and opens her messages. It reminds her that she has not replied to Nayeon's text since evening.

Nayeon: Hi Jen! It's been a while since we hung out... :( Lunch tomorrow?

A pang of guilt jabs her as she checks her schedule and conjures a response.

Jennie: Sorry, been busy. Yeah, sure, lunch it is. :)

In case her exhaustion seeps through her words, she tags on a smiley for good measure. Shortly after, Nayeon replies.

Nayeon: Great! I can't wait. :) Rest well, Jen, I love you!

Typing out "Love you too" but eventually backspacing all of it, Jennie lets out a long, weary sigh at the continuous onslaught of the past.

Three years ago, Jennie met Nayeon for the first time at a large-scale international fashion show.

Jennie had accepted the invitation to be the guest-of-honour for this event, where Nayeon was slated to receive the highly coveted Fashion-Designer-of-the-Year award. Later, over drinks and loud music, she would congratulate the designer for her achievement, and they would get along like a house on fire, fast and furious.

Where they shared similarities, they also varied in intensity. Nayeon was always three-fold more passionate, more reckless, more immersed, and relatedly three-fold more curious, more dynamic, more exploratory. There was never a dull moment with her; she could make anyone feel special and everything exciting and electrifying, including love.

So dangerously bad and tantalizingly good, she had Jennie falling fast, and very, very hard.

But that was the problem: what made Nayeon so attractive was precisely what made her volatile too. With as much fervour as she loved Jennie with, she continued being the person she had always been -- dreamy, restless, and as fascinated as she was fascinating.

Jennie should have known that a mesmerizing free-spirited character like Nayeon was hardly likely to settle. It was not that Nayeon was insatiable, it was simply that although they were born only months apart, the two of them were in different phases of their lives and, therefore, seeking different wants.

However, one never sees quite clearly in murky waters, do they? And so, Jennie dove headlong into a fiery, all-consuming relationship with the girl she truly believed was everything she wanted.

Two years whizzed by, and just when Jennie thought she never felt happier, Nayeon wavered when the number of wedding invitations she received was on the rise.

"Let's get married," Jennie had said with a huge smile on her face. Teary from emotions, Nayeon had pounced her with a tight hug around her neck and kissed her for hours after. She was appeased, if only for a little while until the baby showers trickled in.

"We can adopt, and there's IVF too," Jennie had said with all the sincerity in the world. Unfortunately, it was not enough to quench the what-if's that grew too loud to be ignored in Nayeon's mind.

The goodbye was sorrowful, paralyzing even; it had driven them to their knees, reduced them to nothing but tears and desperate begging, because they had really given it everything they've got to try to make things work, but sometimes, tragically, the answer is not between them...