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Yeojin didn’t get along with the older girl who lived down the street very well.
She didn’t particularly expect to ever see the girl in question anywhere other than walking by on the sidewalk, or sitting on the front lawn doing her homework and playing music obnoxiously loud on a warm, sunny day. One time when she went to pull her bedroom curtains shut she happened to see the older girl scaling the side of her house clumsily and falling heavily onto the grass beneath her window, but she’s pretty certain she wasn’t supposed to see that. She still laughs whenever she thinks about it, even a whole 3 months on.
But she didn’t expect to see the Jung’s eldest daughter anywhere other than that, really.
She certainly didn’t expect to see her sitting prettily on her family’s old, worn out couch when her parents called her downstairs to talk.
Yeojin approaches warily, steps hesitant as she glances confusedly between her parents and the intruder in her home. Her mother is smiling warmly, and her father looks moderately indifferent to the sudden change in atmosphere, more interested in the football game playing on repeat for the third time on the small television in the corner. The bleach blonde older girl is smiling at her, a big white grin that stretches up into her eyes, but something about the girl’s face is unsettling.
“Yeojinnie,” her mother calls out, hand waving her daughter to step further into the room. Yeojin does so, one eye trained carefully on the threat to her side as she waits for her mother to continue. “You know that little conversation we had the other day, about getting you a new babysitter since the Jo family moved away?”
Something that felt a lot like dread spears the younger girl straight in the gut. There are police sirens shrieking in her mind, screaming at her to climb back up the stairs as fast as her little legs could take her and lock herself in her room. Instead she nods slowly, waiting for her mother to deliver the killing blow.
“Well, we asked around and dear Mr. Jung from three houses down said that Jinsol here would be more than happy to look after you during our date nights.”
The guillotine drops and Yeojin closes her eyes, waiting for the sweet release of death. It doesn’t come and she opens them again to see the same, unpleasant face smiling sweetly at her from the couch. Her hands are scrunched tightly in the back of her dungarees, and she forces herself to send a weak smile in response.
Her mother laughs, the shrill sound chastising, standing up from her seat to stand behind her daughter with a hand on her shoulder.
“Well aren’t you going to say hello?” She laughs again and Yeojin swallows thickly.
She gives a small, half-hearted wave in the other girls direction. She doesn’t miss the disinterested glint in her eyes when she waves her fingers back.
“Don’t give her too much trouble now Yeojinnie,” her mother teases, walking over to the table in the corner to grab her purse and handbag. Her father follows suit, passing the tv remote to Jinsol with a polite smile and heading out the door to start the car. “Jinsol knows what homework you have to do, and when you have to be in bed, so be a good girl and listen to her well.”
Yeojin watches helplessly as her mother and father climb into the car on the driveway, face pressed up against the glass pane of the window as they both wave goodbye enthusiastically. Fifteen years old and she’s already experienced heartbreak of the worst kind. The world was cruel after all.
She steps back from the window sullenly, lips pursed when she turns around to see the older girl staring at her apathetically.
“Don’t expect me to entertain you kid,” she pulls a stick of gum out of her pocket as she talks, unwrapping it and shoving it into her mouth, “go play in the yard or something.”
Yeojin watches in muted disbelief as the blonde girl kicks her legs up on the couch, sneakers dangling off the arm and flicking through the channels on the tv looking bored. She takes up the entire stretch of the couch, gangly arms folded loosely behind her head with her foot swinging small, lazy swipes in the air. Yeojin flinches when there’s a loud crack, a bubble of gum popping neatly in front of the older girls face before she chews it all back in, lips smacking loudly as she does so.
Somehow, Yeojin doesn’t think they’re going to get along very well.
It takes a few more baby sitting sessions for Yeojin to realise that Jung Jinsol was an utterly useless human being.
She would smile and act so helpful and kind before her parents left to go to whatever restaurant they decided to visit this week, even going as far as to fetch them their coats and remind them about their wallets as she ushers them out the front door, even standing in the window with a cheerful smile on her face as she waves them goodbye.
The act drops as soon as her mother’s sedan disappears around the corner, the older girl rolling her eyes dramatically and flopping back onto the couch to start flicking through channels again. She’d stay like that the entire evening, up until the sound of tire wheels crunching on the gravel outside made her jump up from whatever lax posture she had assumed, sitting up straight and acting surprised when Mr. and Mrs. Im walk through the front door. Sometimes she’d spend the entire time on the house phone to who Yeojin assumed was her boyfriend, finger tugging at the curled cable and giggling this stupid, high pitched wheeze that she probably thought was endearing really loudly. All the cutesy twists and turns and whiny ‘baby’s’ she’d speak into the receiver was enough to make the younger girl sick to her stomach.
One things for sure - she’d never be as embarrassingly shameless as her dumb neighbour when she started dating.
She still had a couple of years to go ‘til that sort of thing though, so for now she’d just watch the older girl with her nose scrunched in disgust.
The lanky loser almost always raids the snack cupboard though. Yeojin’s lost one too many bags of cheez-its at this point to even think about forgiving the older girl for her crimes, AND she always leaves the empty packets on the side for Yeojin’s parents to find when they come home and scold the younger girl for being greedy and eating them all in one go.
Yeah. Jung Jinsol was definitely going on a hit-list of some sort.
At least the older girl didn’t care enough to actually, y’know, give Yeojin any sort of attention. Which meant the girl could stay up way past her bedtime on her gameboy without getting told off for it. She was a pain in the neck, but Yeojin begrudgingly accepted that they could coexist relatively peacefully. She didn’t get in her way, and Yeojin would do her best to stay as far away from her as possible.
Except this time there was something a little more excitable about the older girl as she ushers her parents out the door. Yeojin peers from her spot sat at the top of the stairs in mild interest, sliding down a few steps to stick her head through the banister and watch as Jinsol skips all the way to the kitchen. She picks up the phone, hand tapping the wall impatiently as she dials a number and waits for them to pick up.
“Hey baby.”
Oh. It was the boyfriend again. She feels her eyes roll all the way back in her head and she stands up to go back into her room.
“Yeah they’re gone, you can come over now.”
Oh no.
Yeojin does a complete 180, feet completely rooted to the floor.
“See you soon babe. Love you!”
Oh hell no.
Yeojin practically flings herself down the stairs, three steps at a time and lands in an ungraceful heap at the bottom. She sees Jinsol’s mildly concerned face when she extracts herself from all the shoes that had fallen off of the shoe rack when she crashed into it, and that only serves to irritate the teen further. She flings a shoe down the hallway somewhere in Jinsol’s direction, relishing when the older girl barely side steps with a heavy frown set on her face.
“What the fuck?”
“You can’t have people over.” Yeojin huffs, scrambling to her feet and huffing her hair out of her face.
Jinsol arches an eyebrow in response, arms folding across her chest defiantly.
“Oh yeah?” She challenges, standing tall and imposing over Yeojin’s tiny frame. “Why don’t you just stay upstairs like you usually do and mind your own business?”
Her chest puffs out defiantly as she steps closer to the taller girl, neck craning to glare directly up at her face.
“This is my house!” A defiant jut of her chin towards the older girl, arms folded angrily in front of her.
“Aaaaaaaand I’m the one in charge right now, so why don’t you stay quiet and disappear?”
“Are you this rude to everyone or just to me?”
“You don’t need to know how I act to other people.” Jinsol huffs impatiently, eyes rolling to the side and smirking. “And why do you care? You should be glad I’m not crazy strict and actually make you go to bed at 9pm like a kid.”
“I’d be glad if you actually maybe fed me sometimes? What kind of an adult doesn’t even know how to turn a grill on!”
Jinsol glares at her.
“First of all,” she holds up her index finger, waving it in Yeojin’s face, “I’m not even an adult, I’m like, not even 18.”
Yeojin makes a noise to disagree, but the other girl cuts her off before she can open her mouth.
“Secondly, you should be grateful I’m not cooking for you. I can’t cook for shit and I’m sure you’d rather survive on doritos than eat something I cook, kid.”
“Don’t call me a kid!” Yeojin yells angrily, tiny fists balled at her sides. Jinsol looks her up and down a few times, mouth wavering like she wants to say something childish and petty to rile the younger girl up even further, but she settles on a scathing smirk instead. Yeojin isn’t sure which one she’d prefer.
Pent up frustration is begging to be released though, but just as she puffs her chest to hurl another insult at the older girl, there’s a resounding, heavy series of knocks on the front door. Jinsol practically throws the younger girl against the wall as she shoves past her, throwing back one last pointed glare and hissing at her to disappear as she checks herself out in the big mirror in the hallway. Yeojin gags at the sight and Jinsol throws one of the stray shoes on the floor at her.
She finally stops preening like a peacock after a few moments and puts the lamest, cheesiest smile on her face as she pulls open the door. Yeojin can’t see the person on the other side because Jinsol’s big head is in the way, but she hears the excited coos from her supposed babysitter as she begins to drag them into her home.
God damn it.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Jinsol completely took over her home when she was here - now Yeojin would have to deal with her lame boyfriend too.
“You must be Yeojin, right?”
The girl in question snaps back to the present, brain muddled with confusion because that was definitely a girls voice she heard. A little deeper than Jinsol’s, but still soft and feminine. Her eyes widen as she takes in the girl in front of her, catching sight of Jinsol’s panicked face standing behind her. She’s super pretty; way too pretty to be hanging out with someone like Jinsol, with a kind face and large, dark eyes that Yeojin stares a little too long at.
“My name is Jungeun.” The pretty girl says sweetly, head tilted slightly to the side as she does so. “I’m Jinsol’s girlfriend.”
Oh.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh .
“I, I’m - her, you,” Yeojin stutters unsurely, tongue suddenly far too large for her mouth and fitting awkwardly against her teeth. Heat creeps its way onto her cheeks but Jungeun is still looking at her with warm eyes and she’s not entirely sure she ever learned how to speak in the first place.
“Did Jinsol not tell you?”
Jungeun twists her head to glance back at her girlfriend, who shrinks back sheepishly with a guilty sort of expression on her face.
“She, she doesn’t really talk to me at all.”
The glare the pretty blonde levels at Jinsol has a metaphorical light bulb flashing over Yeojin’s head. She makes eye contact with the dumb babysitter over her girlfriends shoulder, catches the fleeting look of desperation that flashes across her face and has to hold back the maniacal cackle in her throat.
“Doesn’t she now?” Jungeun muses, turning her head back to smile sweetly at Yeojin.
Yeojin likes this girl a lot more than Jinsol.
“ Aaaaaaanyway ,” Jinsol laughs nervously, arm sneaking it’s way around her girlfriends waist as she steps forward to stand beside her, “seems like it’s time for you to head to bed Yeojin.”
“Jinnie it’s barely 6pm.”
Taut silence stretches between the two girls and Yeojin feels a genuine grin stretch across her face at the silent warfare. There must have been something particularly menacing in the way Jungeun stared at the other girl because Jinsol physically recoiled at the unspoken blow.
“Hey Yeojin, why don’t you come and watch TV with us?”
Jinsol opens her mouth to protest but all it takes is one, sharp glare from the girl at her side to close it swiftly.
Yeojin really likes her.
“I don’t know,” she says miserably, eyes downcast and foot dragging aimlessly around the carpet, “Jinsol never usually lets me watch TV with her.”
She glances up to see the effect of her strike, suppressing a pleased grin at the pure look of shock and indignation on the accused girls face. Her mouth gapes a few times as she tries to think of a way to wiggle her way out of this situation.
“I’m sure she won’t mind this time, will you Jinnie?” Jungeun coos sweetly, but there’s a venomous undertone that coats her words, and even Yeojin understand that there’s no room for disagreement.
“Sure.” The older girl mumbles sullenly, feet dragging as the other girl steps into the living room. There’s a brief, few moments where it’s just Yeojin and Jinsol standing in the hallway, and even those few, precious seconds are enough for Yeojin to realise that whatever game they were playing, she’s won. The older girl narrows her eyes dangerously as she follows her girlfriend into the living room, and Yeojin grins back pleasantly.
This would be fun.
As it turns out, things got really fun.
Jungeun sits on the one end of the couch, gesturing enthusiastically for Yeojin to sit next to her in the middle. The younger girl hops over excitedly, throwing herself on the centre cushion and leaning a little against the older girl as she begins flicking through the channels. Jinsol stares at her incredulously before sighing in defeat, traipsing over to the couch and slumping on the other side of Yeojin.
Yeojin smiles a little wider when Jinsol realises Jungeun is paying absolutely no attention to her kicked puppy expression, sitting back against the seat with a whiny huff.
“Wait, that one!” Yeojin yells when Jungeun flicks past the channel currently halfway through an episode of sailor moon, squealing when the older girl flicks back immediately.
“Who’s your favourite scout?” Jungeun asks, and Yeojin doesn’t think the older girl could get any cooler.
“Definitely Mars.”
Jungeun nods agreeably.
“Good choice. I like Jupiter the most.”
“I like sailor moon!” Jinsol pipes up, sitting up animatedly in her seat. Jungeun snorts.
“She’s the only one you know, babe.”
“And?” Jinsol retorts shamelessly, paying no mind to Yeojin sat between them as she stares goofily at her girlfriend. “I’d look good as sailor moon.”
“You’d look better as Rei’s grandad.” Yeojin takes a jab.
Jungeun snorts again and the younger girl preens in delight.
“I can see it.” She teases in tandem, looking at her girlfriend as though she’s considering the idea. Jinsol looks way out of her field here and Yeojin is relishing every. single. moment.
“Is that a good thing?”
“Shhh,” Jungeun shushes her softly, arm slinging casually across Yeojin’s shoulders as she settles more comfortably into the older couch, “it’s getting to a good bit.”
* * *
“That episode was so sweet!” Yeojin coos in muted awe, the end credits rolling by on the TV set and Jungeun grinning at her cooly.
“Totally,” the older girl agrees, “I can’t wait to see how they get out of trouble next week.”
Brows knit together fiercely in thought.
“Venus isn’t there so maybe she’ll show up.”
Jungeun sits back, eyes to the side as she ponders with a small hum.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Would be cool if Usagi just drop kicks the bad guy in the face though.”
Her hand flaps in excitement at the thought, thumping backwards against the couch. She fiddles with the clasp of her dungarees, clicking it in and out of place as Jungeun turns turns to face her better.
“It’s getting kinda late, have you eaten at all?”
Yeojin shakes her head in response, too busy fiddling with putting the clasp back into place to see Jungeun squint at Jinsol over her head. The older girl pushes herself up off of the couch, pulling down at her short shorts that had ridden up the further she’d sank into the old thing. Yeojin looks up to see a hand extended in front of her invitingly, attached to an angel smiling down at her.
“Come on, let’s see if we can find something. You too, Jinnie.”
The bleach blonde sighs in exasperation, arms folded like a scolded kid.
“I invited you over to watch TV and make out a little Jungeun, not play with the kid come oooooooooooon .”
The look she gets from both parties is incredibly unimpressed.
“Jung Jinsol, you are quite literally being paid to look after and play with ‘this kid’.” She air quotes the last two words, face contorted with dubiousness and the corner of her lips tugged downwards in disbelief. Yeojin feels a warm arm sling itself around her shoulder and begin herding her out of the door. “If you feel like not being a lazy brat for two seconds, we’ll be in the kitchen!”
She yells the last bit over her shoulder, leaning closer to the girl under her arm to whisper and ask where the kitchen is. She points her in the right direction, giggling when the older girl practically steers them both into the kitchen and leaving the dumbfounded blonde still in the living room.
“How does grilled cheese sound?”
“Great!” Jungeun is already rummaging through cupboards looking for the necessary components, emerging with a half-used loaf of bread and a handful of plates in the other hand. Yeojin hops up to help her but she’s waved away, the older girl gesturing for her to sit down at the table instead. She does so, jumping onto the high bar stool, face resting in her hand as she watches the older girl work about the grill.
Jinsol shuffles through the door when the smell of grilled cheese begins to waft through the air, sticking her tongue out at Yeojin before walking up behind her girlfriend and wrapping her long arms around her in a loose embrace.
“Are you cooking some for me too babe?”
Yeojin can’t really see what’s going on, Jinsol’s ridiculously long body blocking the smaller girl almost entirely from view, but she can hear some pretty gross sounds whenever the taller girl’s head dips down. She half expects Jungeun to push her away, but she hears a soft, light giggle in between the half-hearted protests for Jinsol to stop, both bodies twisting and turning as the smaller girl pretends to try and wiggle out of her girlfriend’s hold.
Even angels have flaws, Yeojin admits reluctantly. Jungeun’s was that she was dating a demon like Jinsol in the first place.
How on earth they got together to begin with is beyond her comprehension. Maybe Jinsol held her to ransom, or put her under some sort of spell? The older girl definitely looked like an evil witch in some angles, so that theories probably quite likely. Wait, she’d seen something on TV the other week about con artists hypnotising unsuspecting victims into doing whatever they wanted - maybe that was it?
She eyes the two girls carefully, scrutinizing every single movement while they were playing in front of the grill. She’ll save Jungeun if it’s the last thing she does.
They all sit around the table top with mouths full of crisp toast dripping with melted cheese. Yeojin observes quietly, taking small, neat bites of the food as the girls in front of her exchange secretive glances and small smiles. They’re constantly touching; Jungeun’s head on Jinsol’s shoulder, or Jinsol’s hand resting atop the other girls knee.
They look good together - really good. Yeojin attributes most of this to Jungeun.
The three of them sit together and talk for a while after, mindless chatter and stupid puns in between washing up and wiping down the sides. Jinsol snickers at Yeojin when she can’t quite reach the top shelf of the cupboard to get down some cookies, and Jungeun flicks her on the head scoldingly. Yeojin and Jungeun eagerly discuss the finer plot points of the sailor moon episode they just watched while Jinsol glances between them, a slightly lost expression on her face even though she hid it with a small smile. The smile widened with recognition whenever either of the two girls said “usagi” or “luna”, accompanied by a pleased, smug expression as the older girl nodded her head knowingly.
Mostly Yeojin thinks the small smile is more from listening to her girlfriend speak so passionately about the show, despite Jinsol having no idea what they were actually talking about. The older girl might be a lazy, pain in the neck, no good cheez-its stealing demon, but it was clear she loved the girl by her side a lot. At least she had one good thing going for her.
Car tires crunching on the gravel outside brings conversation to a dead stop, all 3 girls glancing between each other in disbelief. Yeojin cranes her neck to look at the clock on the kitchen wall - there’s no way they just spent 3 hours sat here talking about absolutely nothing. And yet the hour hand is sitting firmly on the little 10, indicating that they had in fact been talking about absolutely nothing for 3 hours.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” Jinsol whispers, despite there being no physical way for Yeojin’s parents to overhear her. It must be the fear of the situation, because Yeojin finds herself whispering back.
“I’m supposed to be in bed by 9.”
They look between each other for a few more moments before all 3 bodies burst into action, sliding off of the bar stools and running for the exit. Jinsol scrambles towards the living room, hand clasped tightly around her girlfriends wrist and Yeojin follows in close pursuit. The younger girl flings herself towards the staircase, scrambling desperately up the stairs just as the car engine outside cuts off.
“Wait, Yeojin!”
Jinsol shout whispers up the stairs to her. The smaller girl halts in her steps.
“Help me hide Jungeun!”
Footsteps crunch on the gravel outside. Yeojin looks down the unlit staircase to see Jungeun and Jinsol staring up at her desperately.
She flings herself back down the stairs, tiny fingers latching onto Jungeun’s arm and dragging the older girl with her back up the stairs. Loud thuds ensue, both girls running as fast as they can as the key turns in the lock, and Yeojin looks back down to see Jinsol practically throw herself through the living room door, presumably onto the couch.
“Hey Mr and Mrs Im! Was tonight’s date good?”
Yeojin doesn’t stop to hear the response, ushering Jungeun into her bedroom as quietly as possible. Both bodies slip inside and she inches the door close, slow enough that the hinges won’t whine and give away the fact that she was still awake. Jungeun’s eyes are wide with worry, but Yeojin just grabs both her hands.
“Don’t worry, they rarely come check on me.”
The stairs creak ominously.
“Alright, maybe they’re coming to check on me.”
It goes something like this:
Yeojin and Jungeun frantically dart around the room for a few seconds while looking for somewhere to hide. Not under the bed, because Yeojin has all of her junk stuffed under there that her dad had told her to put in the attic last summer but she had been too lazy to, and there’s no way there’s room for a body under there. Her closet is far too full of clothes to even think about cramming the older girl in there - she had to fight to get the door to close as it is. Jungeun runs to the curtains and hides herself behind them, but the stupid things don’t even touch the floor and Yeojin can clearly see the pair of ankles attached to a dirty white pair of converse sticking out.
Jinsol’s voice calls out and the footsteps stop for a moment, both girls making no waste of the extra time.
“What about the window?”
“Jungeun there’s no way you’re gonna-”
“Help me get this thing open!”
It’s hushed frantic shouts and desperate scrambling to pull open the catch, Yeojin trying to change her mind to little avail. It’s open, and as soon as it does Jungeun scrambles through it. Yeojin barely has time to throw herself under her bed covers before her door opens.
“You must have been hearing things darling, she’s fast asleep.”
Her heart’s racing a million miles a minute as she listens, body tensed as she hears her parents talk in low voices in the hallway.
“That’s strange.”
Their voices trickle out as her mother shuts the door quietly, footsteps sounding down the hallway. Something crashes outside and Yeojin throws back the covers and almost tumbles out the open window in her haste to make sure Jungeun hasn’t broken a leg. She almost screams when she sees Jungeun staring back at her with wide, strained eyes, still clinging to the window ledge with white fingers and feet scrambling down the side of her house for some sort of purchase.
She looks out to the unlit backyard and see’s Jinsol picking herself up out of a hedge, wincing as she picks a few leaves out of her hair and brushes any dirt off of her clothes. That explains the crashing at least, knowing that the tall idiot must have fallen over the fence.
The next few moments are far too tense for Yeojin’s liking, filled with hushed whisper-shouting as Jinsol stands underneath the window with outstretched arms and tries to convince her girlfriend that ‘yes babe, I’m totally gonna catch you don’t worry’, and Yeojin tries to convince Jungeun with every fibre of her being not to trust that blonde demon if she wanted to keep her ankles intact.
Gravity won out however, Jungeun’s upper arms only being able to hold herself up for so long, and she disappears from Yeojin’s sight with a sharp scream that had the younger girl fearing the worst. She needn’t have worried, seeing both older girls sprawled on the patio with Jungeun crumpled unceremoniously atop of her equally dazed girlfriend.
It’s mostly concern for Jungeun (and maybe a little for Jinsol) that has her calling down to them as softly as she could manage whilst being heard.
“ Are you guys okay?”
Jungeun picks herself up, dusting off her shorts and stretching her arms with a groan. Yeojin does get a small ‘okay’ sign in response, a brief pinch of Jungeun’s finger and thumb before she turns to start dragging Jinsol to her feet, ushering her out of the yard as fast as she could just in case somebody heard her scream moments before and came to investigate.
Yeojin watches them go, an uncontrollable smile stretching out her face at the sight of Jungeun practically hauling the older girl over the fence, grin stretching wider at the pained groan that accompanies the thump of a body on the other side. The younger blonde pauses before she climbs all the way over, straddling the wooden fence with an out of breath smile.
“I’ll see you next week, Yeojin!”
The whisper shout travels well enough across the yard for the younger girl to hear, and she waves goodbye a little too enthusiastically, mouthing goodbyes as Jungeun finally disappears behind the tall fence with a mischievous grin.
Yeojin isn’t sure how long she spends staring at the now empty space where the two girls had just been, only snapping out of her thoughts when one of the neighbours dogs barks urgently and a familiar scream follows suit a few houses away. She crawls into bed with a grin, far too many new emotions thrumming in her small body for her to even begin to make sense of them.
I’ll see you next week, Yeojin!
Her eyes snap open at the realisation of what the older girl implied, burrowing under her duvet in uncontrollable glee.
Thursdays with Jinsol were about to get way,
way
more fun.