『JenSoo Short Stories』

Strawberry

I looked down at my sneakers and waved my skirt around.

"This is so dumb", I kept telling myself. I'd been waiting for Jennie for at least 20 minutes now. She wasn't late, I just wanted to make sure I'd be really early. The time was 11:59 am. We'd arranged to meet at 12:00 pm, exactly outside the St James park.

She'd be here any moment now, and that really made me nervous. I could feel my heartbeat get faster and my palms getting slightly sweatier.

As my mind kept pondering on the fact that I would finally meet the person I'd been chatting with online for so long, a cheery voice called my name.

"Jisoo!"

Jennie jumped from behind me, with a radiating smile. It almost felt like one of those cartoons where one of the characters has a faint glow around them.

She threw her arms around me and something inside me changed.

I knew her for a few months now, yet she was the only friend that made me feel so warm with just a hug.

I took a step back and realized: she looked mesmerizing! Just like a fairy. Her long, dark hair were placed ever so gracefully over her shoulders, her bangs just barely touching her glasses. She was wearing an airy white summer dress Maybe not a fairy, but an angel, I thought to myself. She looked just like an angel.

I couldn't find the right words, and so I ended up unable to say a thing.

"You look so beautiful in person!", she exclaimed. I personally didn't think so, especially compared to her. She looked the way strawberries taste, the way good coffee smells.

"I weren't expecting you to be so... enchanting." I stuttered.

In my mind the compliment sounded a lot better. Perhaps my lack of confidence played an essential role at that poor execution, but either way, it was quite embarrassing.

She opened her eyes wide in surprise and smiled, but before she had the chance to respond I quickly changed the focus of the conversation.

"We should walk along the lake!" I suggested.

She chuckled softly and agreed.

It was silent at first. Neither of us knew what to say, but it didn't make us uncomfortable. We were content just walking next to each other.

Jennie broke the silence first. "Did you get a haircut? I swear you hair was longer the last time we video called!"

I felt really bad for a moment. Was that criticism? Did she just hint at the fact that I don't look as good as she was expecting me to look? She must have found my haircut weird. Besides, not all people are fans of short hair, maybe she just didn't like it. Maybe she doesn't want to be my friend anymore. I sighed.

"Is it that weird?"

She quickly placed her hand on her mouth.

"No, Jisoo, no, you have no idea. It looks so good! I really like it on you!"

It took a moment for me to realize what had just happened.

Gosh, I can be so stupid sometimes, I thought.

We kept talking about different things.

Well, technically, I mainly listened to Jennie talk about her day, how she got here from West Sussex, her funny experiences with the customers at her job...

"You know, you're my first and only friend from university." I told her. I felt sort of envious when I heard her talk about all the people she met. Did she go on walks like this with them as well?