didn't know you were cold ('til you felt my fire) // JENLISA AU

Chapter 12

"Alright, you ready for this?"

Jennie nodded, despite her hands fisting at her sides, nervously tugging at her skirt as she stood in the parking lot of the mini mall that contained the arcade. "I've met them all before, meeting them again shouldn't be a worry."

Standing beside her, Lisa let out a light snort. "Yeah, but now you're going to actually have to hang out with them. My family can be... a lot sometimes." She scratched the shaved part of her head, shooting a questioning glance over at Jennie.

"I think you might be more nervous about this than me." Jennie smiled encouragingly to Lisa, giving her a slightly nudge with her shoulder. Lisa huffed and shrugged, but smiled in return.

Still, she wasn't completely immune to her own nerves. Jennie looked away and worried her bottom lip with her teeth at the concept of being stuck with Ella in a recreational setting, even with Lisa. They hadn't spoken much the past couple of weeks beyond Ella giving her a quick thanks for taking Lisa shopping, spending the rest of their classes ignoring Jennie's presence entirely. "Do you have any suggestions for this going smoothly? Topics to avoid, or to bring up?"

"What, like a cheat sheet?" Lisa laughed. "Heh, maybe avoid 'your mom' jokes." She shrugged. When Jennie shot her a glare, Lisa laughed and shook her head. "I know, I know, like you'd even use one, but I think that's all that's off limits with the guys. You'll be fine."

Shoving her hands in the pockets of her sleeveless hoody, Lisa gave Jennie a disarming smile. The split brow had healed over, leaving a scar in her eyebrow that made every grin of hers more mischievous, which Jennie found annoyingly endearing. "Come on, I promise I'll protect you." She gave Jennie a nudge with her shoulder and began to walk forward.

With an amused smile and a sigh and a muttered "That's actually less encouraging," Jennie followed after.

The inside of the arcade was about as Jennie expected, a dark room with bright screens and neon lights. Lisa held the door open for Jennie as she stepped in, and pointed her in one direction in the dark area. It was mildly busy, a few other groups of kids, and as they walked further in Jennie recognized Lisa's family grouped around the air hockey table as Lucas and Ella were engaged in a game. Bambam and a boy Jennie assumed from Lisa's stories was Woon stood on the side watching and cheering as Lucas scored a goal.

"Her royal highness!" Bambam greeted them as he looked up, tipping his soda can. "And Lisa." He added with much less enthusiasm, grinning toothily. Lisa flipped him off with her own grin and the rest of the table chorused greetings to Lisa and Jennie.

"How's the table?" Lisa asked, leaning on the edge and glancing up at the digital scorecard where the game was currently in a tie.

"Good." Lucas grunted as he hit the puck. Ella didn't reply, though Jennie caught her shooting a glance her way. It didn't look happy. Woon gave Jennie a curious look and a polite wave but otherwise said nothing.

The group stood there, watching the back and forth in silence as Lisa shifted on her feet beside Jennie, seemingly restless. Suddenly she turned, tapping Jennie's arm lightly and jerking her head in a direction when she got her attention.

"C'mon, I wanna show you my favourite game."

After a quick stop at the token machine, where Jennie insisted she would get all the tokens for the night because it was Lisa's birthday after all and Lisa had given up fighting her on it after the second 'no, I insist', Lisa had grabbed Jennie's wrist and pulled her over to a large arcade machine at the back corner of the room with multiple worn padded targets.

Jennie rubbed her wrist when Lisa let go, thinking she must've squeezed too hard to make the skin tingle the way it was, and looked the machine over.

"Is this a..."