Chapter 4

It was only the next day and Jennie was already setting her plans in motion. After the little confrontation between her and Lisa, she was set on getting the other girl to drop out of their tutoring arrangement.

She decided, for now, to not let Mrs. Kang know about their unsuccessful tutoring session. She would make it seem like they were alright in the beginning, but suddenly Lisa would stop showing up. Given Lisa's shady record, it wouldn't be difficult to play the disinterested student angle.

Hell, even most normal students would flake out of such an inconvenience.

Plus, even though the school faculty trusted her, there was only so much she could get away with before drawing suspicion to herself. One of the main reasons she had such a good reputation among the adults was because she's always been careful in her dealings.

———

The first order of business was getting Nayeon and Irene to slash Lisa's tires in the morning. It was

during first period and Lisa parked in the back lot of the school. so no one would know who did it. Luckily Irene knew which car was Lisa's, an old Toyota Corola, due to accidentally seeing her go to it after school last week.

During lunch period, one of Irene's friend's "accidentally" tripped her when she was carrying her lunch, causing a beautiful fall and a horrible mess that took some effort to clean up. And of course, Lisa would have to clean it up herself. It seems that the incident didn't look like so much of an accident to Lisa based on the way the tall blond girl was glaring at her as she used the mop.

Of course, all of these smaller "incidents" were only to supplement a much larger scheme. When Jennie heard Nayeon talk about Lisa's supposed expulsion from her previous school, she knew she had an in.

Luckily, Nayeon was the girl with all the connections and social circles, so Jennie got her working on digging up the dirt.

Once the right about of juicy information was acquired, Jennie would see to using it to make Lisa's life miserable. Maybe even get her to drop out or change schools again. Those results would almost seem too good to be true for Jennie - she'd endured humiliation and defiance in the face of this transfer student. In only a week she'd been the talk of the 11th grade for standing up to her.

Once the last bell rang, Jennie turned to Nayeon and Irene with a wicked smile. "Let's go 'bump into' the lesbo and see if she likes the little gift we left her."

The trio headed out to the back parking lot and, sure enough, Lisa was already out there checking out the damage on her car.

"What's the matter, stretch?" Jennie teased as they walked by. "Is something wrong with your car?"

"Maybe you should've bought something more reliable," Nayeon joined in. "Oh, but maybe you

couldn't afford it?"

"We'd give you a ride, but you might try to make a pass at us," Irene added.

Lisa slowly turned to look at the girls as she was crouched down to inspect the tires. There was a flash of true anger on her face, but the expression was gone in an instant. Instead, she just flashed Jennie a fake smile and said nothing.

A bit perturbed, Jennie and her posse continued on.

Well, Lisa can act tough for now, but sooner or later these things would start getting to her. Especially when Jennie found out about her dark secret from her

previous school.

Jennie continued with her "pranks" the next day as well, and when Thursday came she was convinced that Lisa wouldn't show up to the after school tutoring session. After all, some of her textbooks had unfortunately ended up in the dumpster or in a lake somewhere.

Regardless, Jennie still had to show up to the library herself so she could definitely tell Mrs. Kang that she had been present to tutor but was stood up by the transfer student. It was annoying have to waste her time at school, but Jennie figured she'd just be doing studying at home anyway, so she'd just get some work done for an hour or so.

For real, there was no way Lisa would show up. Even though she tried to play it cool like she wasn't bothered, she had to absolutely despise Jennie at this point. At their first tutor session the other day they got into a pretty bad argument, after all.

So, needless to say, Jennie was shocked when she opened the door to study room #2 and found a tall blonde sitting at the table in there.

"Come on in, take a seat," Lisa said, an annoying smile on her face.

Jennie shut the door behind her so no one would hear her going off on the other girl. "What are you doing here?"

"We have a tutoring session today, silly."

"I already told you I wouldn't help you even if you showed up," Jennie snapped.

Lisa let out a sigh and leaned back in her chair, her arms folded behind her head.

"I remember. But I figured you'd get lonely sitting in here all by yourself". Jennie boiled with rage. Lisa was obviously doing this to annoy her since she knew Jennie couldn't stand even being in the girl's presence. She'd probably bother her the entire hour that the "session" lasted.

Regardless, Jennie was stuck being here, so she'd have to manage. She threw her stuff on the table and sat in the chair across from Lisa . The transfer student already had her study materials out (whatever ones were salvaged from the little antics of Jennie's trio), so Jennie pulled her books out as well.

"Can I borrow your Calculus book?" Lisa asked. She leaned over the table with a smirk.

"I seemed to have...misplaced mine."

"Not my problem," Jennie responded flatly, not looking up from her notebook.

"Man, I just seem to be having a rough week," Lisa

continued. Unfazed.

"Some crazy person slashed the tires on my car yesterday. The school administration tells me there's no way to even figure out who did it."

"What a shame."

Lisa chuckled in response.

It's going to be a long few weeks.

Exhausted from being incessantly bothered by Lisa after school, Jennie sighed as she entered her house.

"Hey sis!" Jennie's little brothers, a couple of twins named Junhyun and Jhunyuk, called from the living room.

Jennie greeted them back at looked to see them playing video games. "Did you guys finish your

homework yet?"

The two gave their older sister a cheeky look. "We were going to do it after dinner!" Junhyun said.

Jennie sighed. "You two are nothing but trouble." She ruffled their hair before heading upstairs to her room. A wave of exhaustion suddenly overcame her and she sunk into her bed without even changing into more comfortable clothing.

This school year, although just beginning, has turned out to be ridiculously tiring. Between her studies and the drama she just couldn't seem to catch a break. You put that last one on yourself, she thought. Jennie turned to lay on her back and she peered over at the old family photo that was sitting on her nightstand. Jennie was only twelve and her brothers were six. Her father had his arm wrapped around her mother...her mother was the face that Jennie's eyes flickered to almost immediately every time she saw the picture. I wonder if she would still be proud of me now. The thought caused tears to prickle at Jennie's eyes.

Before Jennie could full on start crying, the sound of her phone ringing startled her. Is that dad? She thought.

She held the phone up to her gaze. It was definitely not her father.

As she saw the familiar number, her mouth went completely dry and her stomach seemed to get caught in her chest. She began to feel like she was suffocating.

"No...way..."