Jennie Kim Is Not Gay || jenlisa

Chapter Twenty

"Chipmunk I asked for self-raising flour, these cakes are not going to raise themselves without our help."

"Chill monkey, I'll go get the proper flour."

"Chaeng we have an hour to bake about a hundred cakes, I am not going to 'chill'."

Out of the corner of her eye Lisa can see Rosé and Jennie share an eye roll but she elects to ignore it because Lisa is stressed, and she feels that she is well within her rights to feel that way. She's not sure what it is, but there's something about the pressure of baking that gets to her, the fact that what she's making could all too easily turn out wrong and then what a waste of ingredients that would be.

"Seriously Lisa," Jennie says, "there's three of us involved; I think we've got this. And I think we're making a few less than a hundred."

"They do say that too many cooks spoil the broth though," Lisa points out.

"It's a good job we're not making soup then."

"Shut the fuck up Chaeng."

The kitchen falls silent after that and Lisa busies herself with making sure she has all the ingredients out on the surface and that she knows exactly what she has to do.

"Right," she says, "Chaeng you weigh out the butter and sugar, I'll start creaming them together. Jennie you're in charge of cracking the eggs and whisking them."

The three of them set to work and Lisa is glad to see that the other girls are actually agreeing to follow her instructions rather than mess about; it's not often that that actually happens. But the pair can obviously sense that Lisa is on edge and so they don't complain and just get on with it, Lisa is not sure she can quantify exactly how relieved she is about that.

She sets to work with a wooden spoon, mixing the ingredients until they look like a substance that might actually be edible.

"You know we could just eat the cake batter," Rosé mutters when Lisa hands her another bag of flour, "it tastes better uncooked anyway."

She soon shuts up when she notices Lisa's glare.

"Why are you making so many cupcakes?" Jennie asks after a while.

She's taken a break from singing along to the radio to talk to Lisa and Lisa doesn't miss the celebratory expression that crosses Rosé's face when Jennie does so. Jennie may be a great person but her singing skills could really do with some improvement.

"It's for a bake sale," Lisa replies, "I already told you that."

She tries not to let the exasperation slip into her tone but it's difficult; she's really not in the mood for repeating answers over and over again.

"Yeah but why are you making so many of them? Usually when there's a bake sale people just turn up with a batch of twelve and that's enough, we're making like sixty."

"Mum likes to help out," Lisa says shrugging.

"She's not even baking them," Jennie points out.

"It's just tradition for us to bake a lot okay Jennie."

Lisa doesn't mean to let the harshness come through but she can't help it. She doesn't know why it's there really, she's just sick of Jennie seemingly questioning everything. Perhaps it's because it seems like Lisa is the only one who cares about the stupid tradition anymore. It's not her mother's fault, and Lisa knows that, but she still can't help but wonder at which point traditions like these became less important than work. And when she started to forget that these traditions existed entirely. Lisa is pretty sure she couldn't ask for a better mother but that doesn't stop her from occasionally feeling like she's leaving her behind.