LOCKED WITH YOU | JENLISA FF

-1-

"Shit, I'm late!"

It was seven ten in the morning. The bus had already passed their neighborhood ten minutes ago and the first bell was going to ring in twenty minutes, which gave Jennie barely enough time to get ready and sprint to school. She was undeniably, hopelessly, absolutely tardy, and she had nobody to blame but herself.

She kicked back her covers hastily and swung both legs over the side of her bed, a string of profanities leaving her lips like a magazine of bullets. A rather loud "shit!" left her when her toes caught underneath some dead weight lying on the ground, and, losing her balance, Jennie teetered in awkward strides to stand on her two feet again. Then, she remembered. Lisa, her stepsister, was sleeping right beside her bed again, not in the spare room like she was told to.

It was inconvenient, to say the least. Jennie would always "forget" that Lisa had a habit of slipping into her room late at night on account of nightmares, and trip over her. Honestly, Jennie had more bruises on her knees from falling in her own bedroom than playing soccer.

Yet, no matter how much she wanted the dumb giant to stay out of her room, her mother never stood for her saying anything mean to Lisa. She was always on Lisa's side to the point where Jennie found herself questioning whose parent she really was, always defending her whenever she was clearly in the wrong. Sure, it was terrible that Lisa had just recently lost her dad and was being forced to move in with an asshole like her, but Jennie begged to differ. In this situation, she was the victim having to cope with a retard nipping at her heel.

Because, having a mentally disabled stepsister (who wasn't really related to her) was like the same thing as having a permanent zit growing on the middle of her forehead. Lisa wasn't something she could hide, after all.

"Mom! Lisa's sleeping in my room again!" she screamed, only to realize that her mom was gone; she had taken up a waitress job somewhere else to support all three of them now. Ugh.

Just one addition to their family had changed lots of things for Jennie. She didn't think having a stepsister would be so bad at first, until she found out that Lisa had the intelligence level of a child and needed constant supervision so she wouldn't stick a fork in an electrical outlet or drown herself somehow. However, their family wasn't financially stable enough to hire a nanny, nor did Jennie have the time to babysit some doofus while she had classes and soccer practice to attend. The entrance exams were coming up in mid-November, and it was September already.

If she couldn't study and get into a good college, it was all Lisa's fault.

By the time Jennie was downstairs and rummaging through the fridge for something to eat, she saw Lisa slipping out of her bedroom with her hair looking like an animal had made a nest of it. "Hey, Lisa, I don't have time to make you anything right now, so eat this, all right?" Jennie set an apple on the counter while she made herself a ham sandwich.

It wasn't like Lisa had the brain capacity to argue about whether she wanted an apple or a sandwich.

She was too busy gathering her school supplies to notice anything odd about Lisa, but when her stepsister started walking towards her and leaving behind a trail of liquid, Baekhyun mentally screamed. "You pissed your pants again?!" she groaned, "Those are my soccer training pants!" Now, she noticed that there was a dark patch of urine running down the gray (and expensive) piece of clothing. It was borderline cute when kids wet their pants, but a grown woman unable to control her own bladder? Disgusting!

Jennie could imagine it now. Her homeroom teacher would nag about how she needed to arrive early to class, and the only excuse she'd have would be that she was changing her stepsister's pants.

Lisa was clueless like always, staring down at her soiled pants and back up at Jennie with an expression that looked apologetic. "Sorry, Jennie, I didn't mean to... I didn't mean to..." she stuttered, while dropping her pants in the middle of the living room.

Jennie screeched and held one hand over her face, turning it away in mild disgust. "Jesus Christ, put some pants on!" she wailed, tossing Lisa a pink apron hung over the oven handle while she, like the mature, responsible stepsister she was, picked up her dripping pants and dumped it in the bathtub. While she was inside, she snatched up Lisa's glasses next to the toothbrushes and stood on her toes to slip the frames on the other girl's nose. On top of being stupid, Lisa had bad eyesight, too, and some nervous disease that caused twitching in both eyes. Lisa was just a mess.

Belatedly, Jennie tossed her stepsister a new pair of boxers and hung a lanyard over Lisa's neck like it was just one of her morning routines. At the end of the lanyard was an old cellphone, with nothing but calling and texting functions. The only contacts Lisa had on the phone were her and his mother. They had taken away Lisa's privilege of calling the police after she called one time, only to ask them where Jennie was.

"What's my number?" she thought it would be best to ask, just in case Lisa was too dumb to understand how speed dials worked.

"030-8729-3004" Lisa answered with a bright grin. It was the only thing she actually had memorized, since she didn't know their address, nor anything else that had more than three numbers in it.

"Good, if you need anything, just call. Don't call me during class, though." she said as she slipped her sneakers on, carrying another duffel bag that carried all of her sports equipment. It was five minutes past the first bell and she hadn't even started walking yet. Lisa had become more like a liability to her, but it wasn't like she could tell her teachers that he she a retarded stepsister she needed to take care of. It was embarrassing.

"Bye, Jennie!"

Jennie glanced up at the sight of Lisa, dumbly waving to her with an overly happy grin on her face. She only managed a fake smile and closed the door to hurry to school.

There weren't many streets or busy areas in a small city like Jeonju, since the area was known best for its countryside scenes and tiny towns. There were hardly any apartments either, just a collection of houses that were at least a billion years old. The drafty house Jennie lived in had been her grandparents' place, handed down to their generation when their family couldn't afford the fancy apartments in Seoul anymore. Jennie had transferred school at least four times now, but she actually liked the school she attended now. The uniforms were nice and they had a good soccer program.

It was why Jennie tried out and got picked as varsity team captain. So yes, she was one of the "popular" kids that enjoyed their title a bit too much. She was one of those kids everyone assumed was rich and had esteemed parents simply because she was from Seoul.

Arriving on campus thirty minutes past the bell, Jennie was nothing less than cheeky when she came through the back of the classroom. Most eyes turned to her, and the teacher, dismayed, marked her as tardy as she sat near the window behind a friend. The two exchanged low-fives, and it was obvious that some girls were gossiping, swooning, even, as Jennie took her seat, fashionably late.

"Sorry, ssaem," she raised a hand slightly, as if to pardon herself, "I overslept."

That was always Jennie's excuse because it was the most probable. It wasn't like she'd go into detail about how her stepsister tried making her toast and ended up burning half the kitchen, nor how she had to dress her because said stepsister peed in her own pants. Shrugging it off with a million-watt smile, Jennie was more relieved than she let off when the teacher turned back to the chalkboard and continued jotting down math problems.

"Hey, Jennie!" Rosé grinned, wrapping an arm around her friend's shoulders from behind, "Can I come over tonight? I need some help on my math homework, and I know you understand this stuff."

"Uh... I've got some things to do at night."

"Really? Bummer. So, when can I come over then?"

"Wait," Jennie held up a finger as she pulled out her cellphone from her bag. Unsurprisingly, she had thirty-two missed calls. She assumed at least an seven eighths of them were from Lisa, the other few from her mother asking about Lisa. Then, suddenly, she stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide. "Did I... leave the front door unlocked?"

"I don't know," Rosé rubbed the back of her neck, "Why are you asking me that?"

In her hurry to leave the house, Jennie couldn't remember if she had locked the door from the outside. Soccer practice was in half an hour, which wouldn't give her nearly enough time to check if Lisa hadn't wandered outside. Quickly, she thumbed in her Lisa's number (it was on speed dial) and hoped to hear some good news to her catastrophic day. 'Please be at home... please be at home...'