in every universe (one shot-s) | JENLISA

it's not living (if it's not with you)

happy valentine's day

It's something simple, inconsequential. They meet at a festival, headlining the main stage on different days. Lisa's band plays on Friday. Jennie's is Saturday. There isn't much else to do aside from drink and watch the other artists perform; it's a bad medley, if she's being honest.

Friday night is loud, frantic, pulsing. The beats synthesize like something born in a lab.

Jisoo's high notes on the keys and Seulgi's steady drumline combine into the reminiscence of a time none of them were alive for. It's like if the 80's aesthetic were drenched in apathetic millennial existentialism, Rosé always says with a grin; and, well, the lesbians love it.

Lisa sings; most of the crowd follows her. She can only see as far as directly in front of the stage when the lights are on. The ball of her tongue piercing presses against the roof of her mouth. There's only one face she recognizes.

Jennie Ruby is off to the side with her band's drummer, singing along. They're both bobbing their heads, pausing to talk and laugh occasionally. They must've used their passes for VIP access. Lisa's nerves flare underneath her skin, opening, touch-starved. Jennie stares directly at her with her lips curled. She knows every single word to every single song, though she sometimes seems distracted by Lisa's fingers on her guitar.

She stays until the end. The lights dim and drop; Lisa hands a stagehand her instrument, starts unwiring herself. The crowd thunders outside, cheering. She thinks of Jennie's mouth shaping into an o, whistling.

"What's the rush?" Jisoo asks, tightening her ponytail, hand slipping down to her industrial.

"Hot date," Seulgi supplies with a wink, ripping off her sweatband.

"Jennie Ruby," Lisa says shortly, ducking behind a stagetech and heading for the door.

The crowd's somewhat dispersed, idling. The patches of dirt stick out against the grass, littered with trash. Lisa glances around the pit. Jennie is gone.

--

She's only a little drunk by Saturday night. Jisoo a bit more so, and Rayla not at all. They're following a man with a shirt that says EVENT STAFF around the perimeter of the main stage.

"She's on in ten," Rayla says, checking her phone for the time. "Nice of her to watch us yesterday."

"She knew our songs," Lisa says distractedly, following their security escort through a roped-off area of the grass. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"I want to get a good look at her," Jisoo says, fiddling with her piercing again. "What if I'm her type?"

Lisa tosses an amused glance back, eyes her torn-up black tights, her high boots, her loose, long black dress, her necklace. "You aren't."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm her type."

Jisoo harrumphs under her breath. "You're conceited," she says, slipping through the front gate to the VIP area. "That's what you are."

"Maybe." Lisa looks at the others in the pit with them; a few people she recognizes by face only, from bands she can't name. "You thought I was your type for awhile."

"I was new at this," Jisoo says offhandedly. "You're hot and gay. Unfortunately, your personality--"

Lisa laughs, leaning against the bars as the lights dim. "Right."

--

Jennie Ruby looks exactly like the music she plays: heavy beats and low bass lines and a voice that sounds like a caution sign. Her brown hair's up in a ponytail, her ripped jeans disappearing into Doc Martens. Her piercings; there's the industrial bar, two or three on her lobes, an orbital, a helix. Her shirt's white, half-tucked into her jeans, with the word BOYS on it framed by the black outline of two hands raising the middle finger.