Forbidden - chaennie

Chapter 1

Chaeyoung's lived through three step siblings and none of them were as annoyingly present as Jennie Kim. Probably due to the fact that none of them insisted on having unapologetically loud sex at six in the morning on a Wednesday. This girl baffles Chaeyoung as much as she annoys her. Jennie despises waking up for school, looks half-dead when she does show up to classes, and stares at Chaeyoung with accusation and muted resentment when she returns from her morning jogs. Yet she has no problem enthusiastically participating in such physically demanding activities. At six in the morning. On a Wednesday. Waking Chaeyoung ten precious minutes earlier than she has to be up. Jennie is lucky the semester has just started and there were no tests given yet. Jennie would probably kill her and her 'friend' in cold blood if she dared to wake her up this way on a quiz day.

(It's her senior year. She can't afford to screw it up. Nuisances like her almost step-sister won't deter her from her goals.)

Besides, if she's lucky her father will get bored with Jennie's mother long before he actually marries her and the Kims will move out the same way they moved in, arms full of boxes on a Saturday morning. Abby Kim will officially become Mrs. Park in six months. A lot of things can change in six months. She knows they won't, though, not really. Things usually start to fall apart after the ceremony is done and over with. She went through her father's routine precisely three times. If she were Abby, she'd be wary of becoming the fourth. It always goes the same way.

Except this time, Jennie Kim is brought into the equation, and she's already throwing Chaeyoung off balance. Two weeks of living - co-existing, really - with this girl, and she has come to a conclusion that her so-called step-sibling bond with Roan was much better than this. She may have landed him in a hospital that one time, but at least she's never had the displeasure of knowing what he sounds like when he comes.

(As infuriating as it is, she doubts he'd sound as good as Jennie)

The thought makes her shudder - she's not sure which one, and she has no desire to dwell on it - so it gets shaken off. Chaeyoung rises from the bed, cringing as Jennie happily lets her know how great her newest fucktoy is by releasing more obscene sounds. She has to admit that Jennie does sound gorgeous, though she'd rather not use that word to describe her step-sister's moans. Jennie isn't annoyingly high-pitched, isn't sweet or shy like Chaeyoung's occasional (rare) bed partners are. She's sinfully rich, or richly sinful, or both, really.

(Yet another thought that Chaeyoung forces out of her head.)

Something crashes in Jennie's room, and Chaeyoung half-hopes it was someone finally passing out, but Jennie's loud cry reassures her both parties are still very much awake and very much still going at it.

This is so unfair. Chaeyoung can't keep blasting her music on maximum through her headphones and foolishly hope it won't leave her with hearing impairment. Maybe she could try talking to her father about soundproofing either her room or Jennie's. As soon as - if ever, she thinks impassively - her father and Jennie's mother come back from yet another trip she'll approach the subject with him. Make something up about needing to concentrate on her studies. It isn't even really a lie. She does need to work harder in some of her AP classes. Or maybe she could persuade him and Jennie's mother to switch rooms with Jennie. All of the second-floor bedrooms are equally spacious and her father's room is further down the hall. It won't get rid of Jennie's sounds completely, but at least they will be somewhat muffled and won't be coming from right across the hall. It's not like they use their bedroom. Her father is almost always gone, and all of his wives are almost always with him, be it a business trip or a Caribbean cruise.

Her routine is familiar and calculated: brush teeth, get dressed, go for a run, shower, light breakfast, change, off to school. She goes through the steps in her head, throwing her hair up in a ponytail and hurriedly grabbing her phone from a nightstand, sighing with relief when she puts headphones in her ears and presses play. Chaeyoung hasn't listened to music this much in her entire life. She always found comfort in the silent emptiness of her house rather than in drowning her thoughts out with guitar riffs. She likes her thoughts. She likes being left alone with them. But, as Jennie's headboard starts rhythmically tapping against the wall in time with the song beat in Chaeyoung's ears, she's reminded once again that it's not an option anymore. Not as long as Jennie is in the house with her.