Chapter 46

Things hadn't been going well for the newly formed group.

Jennie had decided to throw a full-on temper tantrum by refusing to cooperate with the project, all in a prideful display of displeasement for Lisa being included in the group. Lisa recalled all the times that Jennie accused her of being childish or told her to grow up. She certainly didn't practice what she preached.

They had to come up with a topic and outline within two weeks of it being assigned, and it had already been one week of zero progress. Jennie didn't participate in making plans to meet up for the project, and she mostly flat-out ignored Lisa and Jisoo in class.

It was really starting to get on Lisa's nerves. It's not like she had a say in any of this either. She would've preferred to work just with Jisoo or even by herself, but she was looped into it. Now Jennie was treating it as if Lisa was at fault for the situation.

I mean, I want a good grade too, Lisa thought during another awkward sixth period where Jennie was ignoring her. But neither of us are going to get that if she keeps acting like this.

This was getting out of hand. A week of throwing a fit for something so trivial? Lisa just about had it. She decided she needed to do something about this situation now, so when Jennie hurried out of the classroom as the bell rang, she stood up and rushed after her. Lisa heard Jisoo say something like "What are you doing?" behind her, but the taller blonde didn't look back or respond.

She was basically running after Jennie now, but it didn't take long for her to catch up to the girl in one of the old hallways that made up the second floor of the east wing.

"Hey! Hold on!"

When she shouted, Jennie jumped a little and stopped in her tracks. But she didn't immediately turn around to face Lisa.

"What do you want?" the brunette asked brusquely.

"I'm sure you can guess," Lisa replied. "Don't you think you've been sulking long enough?"

Jennie whirled around. "Why do you care what I'm doing? Just go do the assignment with Jisoo."

Lisa raised an eyebrow. "You're not worried about the grade?"

Jennie's mouth opened to present an argument, but nothing came out, so she clamped it shut once more.

She fixed Lisa with a glare.

"Whatever. Just leave me alone."

Lisa sighed. Things couldn't keep going like this. They were going to be in a class together whether they liked it or not and bickering all the time and hating each other wasn't going to make the situation better.

Nothing was going to progress at this point.

"Look," she began. "I know we're on bad terms, but it's too late for us to switch to another group, and we're not being allowed to move classes. For the sake of our grades and our sanities, don't you think it's better to just try to tolerate each other? We don't have to become best friends or anything, but let's just, you know...cooperate?"

Jennie was silent for a couple of moments, thinking about it. Finally, she let out a sigh. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Thank you," Lisa said, actually a little surprised that Jennie gave in so quickly. Well, a whole week wasn't exactly quick, but the honour student actually listened when she was directly confronted.

"But I'm only doing this for my grades," Jennie added quickly, careful not to let her icy mask slip for even a moment.

"I know," Lisa replied. "So, tomorrow you'll help us plan when to meet up for the project?"

Jennie let out yet another sigh.

"Yes, I'll help."

---

The group decided to meet up for the first time outside of class that Friday after school. They reserved a study room in the library which caused Lisa to remember when her and Jennie did the same for the tutoring sessions.

We had no idea back then that we'd start dating, Lisa thought nostalgically. Or that we'd break up soon after.

And here they were again, sitting in a study room, with almost the same level of animosity between them as almost five months prior.

"Alright, let's start with a topic," Jisoo said once they were settled into their respective chairs around the study room table. Lisa opted to sit next to Jisoo while Jennie sat across from them.

"There's a list of ideas on the instructions sheet," Jennie said, holding up the sheet of paper to read it.

"Value consensus, social stratification, structural functionalism...how does he expect us to choose a topic when we haven't even gone over most of these yet?"

"Well, I think he figures that knowing the gist of them is enough." Lisa responded, looking over the instructions sheet herself and comparing the terms to the glossary in her textbook.'

"What about cultural pluralism? I feel like there'd be a lot of options on different groups to use as examples for that."

"Cultural what?" Jisoo asked, confused.

"A lot of options means that it might end up being more work," Jennie argued. "It's too broad."

Lisa was a bit put off, but she figured that she was already lucky enough that Jennie was willing to work with them in the first place. She bit back any signs of annoyance.

"Okay then, let's see what else," Lisa continued,

"Oh, victimless crimes might be interesting to cover." Jennie scoffed. "Sounds like it might get a little too philosophical. Seriously, how can social sciences call themselves 'sciences' if they're all completely subjective?"

Lisa bristled at that - after all, social studies was here favourite subject. "Well, gee, I'm sorry that the class you decided to take isn't scientific enough for your superior intelligence."

"You think I wanted to take this class?" Jennie fired back. "I was placed there at random. Were you even paying attention when we were at the counsellor's office?"

"Well, regardless, you're going to need to cooperate a little so we can at least get somewhere with this project!"

"I'm not going to half-ass this project when it's such a big part of our grade!" Jennie was standing up now, leaning over the table with her hands flat on its surface. "So, it's understandable to be a little picky about the topic of it!"

"Picky? You're not even willing to find out what any of the topics are about!"

"Because we haven't even learned them in class yet!"

"Who cares? Just look them up in the fucking glossary!"

Why was Jennie always like this? Difficult, abrasive, rude...she never seemed to care about other people's needs or motives.

Gosh, it just made Lisa want to kiss that stupid glare off of her face and-

Wait, what was that?

No, no. Lisa did not want to kiss Jennie. Especially not right now, in the middle of her favourite subject being insulted, while fighting over a topic for a project.

Only a crazy person would want to do that sort of thing with Jennie in the first place.

Well, you were that sort of crazy person a couple months ago, the logical part of Lisa's brain told her.

But even so, she'd surely been cured of her insanity since then.

"Hey, hey, ladies!" Jisoo said, standing up with the other two girls who had both made it to their feet at this point. She put a hand on both of their shoulders.

Jennie irritably brushed her off. "We're gonna get kicked out of the library if we start a shouting match. So, let's just sit down and cool off a little, yeah?"

Lisa and Jennie had a stare-off for a few moments before sighing and sitting back down in their seats.

"I'm surprised the librarian hasn't come to yell at us already," Jennie commented. "I'd die of embarrassment."

Lisa bit back a few snarky comments and folded her arms, calming herself down. She couldn't continue to let Jennie get to her - they'd be seeing a lot of each other from now on.

"We agreed to a truce, remember?" she said. "So, let's both try to get along."

Jennie nodded. "That would be...for the best."

The room went quiet after that, both girls catching their breath from their overdramatic argument.

Something in the air felt strangely thick, and strangely familiar. It was similar to how they argued during their tutoring sessions, where there was a strong, suffocating tension. But Lisa was convinced she was overthinking it and convinced that the sensation was one-sided anyway.

"What about the Thomas Theorem?" Jisoo said, suddenly breaking the silence as she looked over the instructions sheet and opened her sociology textbook.

"The what?" Jennie asked.

"The Thomas Theorem," Jisoo reiterated. "According to the textbook, it says 'situations that are defined as real become real in their consequences'. What does that mean though?"

"It sounds kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy," Lisa replied. "Like, if someone labels you a certain way, then you end up acting like that label and then the label becomes who you are."

"Oh, that makes more senses," Jisoo said, "There's a pretty good section in the textbook about this stuff. It's got this chart."

"It's not too broad, but there's also enough there to make a full project out of." Lisa scratched her chin thoughtfully. She looked up at Jennie who hadn't said anything yet. Surprisingly, the brunette had opened her textbook to the same page as Jisoo and was scanning over the section.

"What do you think, Jennie?"

Jennie paused for a moment, still reading, but she eventually nodded a little and looked up. "It might not be a bad idea, I guess."

Lisa couldn't help but crack a smile. She almost felt a sense of pride of being able to capture Jennie's interest with the subject, even just a tiny bit.

"Should we do it, then?" Jisoo asked.

"Well, it's probably better than any other dull subject on this list," Jennie replied.

Lisa took out a blank sheet of notebook paper, writing their names on the top.

"Then let's get this outline done, shall we?"